I appreciate that pharmaceutical TV commercials have a number of disclaimers which warn the consumer of drug interactions or when a certain drug is not indicated, ie. do not take if pregnant or nursing, have a history of depression or anxiety, etc… But why does every pharma commercial say “Do not take X if you’re allergic to X or any of its ingredients”?
It seems like common sense that one wouldn’t take a certain medication if allergic to it. It’s obvious, like “do not place pill in eyeball, crush up and snort, or give to dog”. Are pharma companies at legal risk if they don’t list the subject disclaimer?
Like anyone who sells to the public they are at risk of being sued - but drug companies more so because of possible grave health concerns and their very deep pockets. People will take the stuff anyway. Why not CYA?
How many people do you think even know what ingredients are in the OTC drugs they’re taking?
I’d assume that it’s just a simpler way of saying “check the ingredients before you take it to ensure that you’re not allergic to anything on that list”, as I can guarantee you that even some people with all the common sense in the world wouldn’t actually think to do that.
If you read that huge folded sheet of paper that comes inside a package of any prescription med you’ll see it says the same thing, accompanied by a list of ingredients. It’s pharma industry boilerplate.
Although how exactly one could determine one was allergic to 2-4-trimethyl-whatever is a mystery to me. Even given a prior bad reaction to a similar med one wouldn’t know which ingredient was responsible or whether the problem was ingredient-level or even if it *was *an allergy.
It seems like after all the CYA legal blather, it all just boils down to this: If you’ve ever dropped dead after taking this drug in the past, don’t take it again.
benefit (to your health, NOT the co’s profits) vs cost (death , sickness and financial) .
Thats already been decided by approvals process. It has to be shown to be medically safe and beneficial .
That is, when you take the chance on this new product you are doing yourself a favour and not doing yourself harm. When you get a vaccination against ,say,chicken pox, you are reducing your expected illness from it… Its like a negative lottery - most people benefit, a very very few suffer a side effect or reaction.
But OP’s concern is kinda valid … "Take our aspirin, it dissolves in water faster and makes bigger bubbles ! Do not use if you are allergic to aspirin ,water or bubbles "
And, what logically follows from this: Any time you are prescribed a drug that you haven’t used before, shouldn’t the doctor insist that you take your first dose (or even first few doses) there in the clinic, where you can be observed for a few hours to see if anything nasty is going to happen? And where you can get emergency treatment immediately if so?
You see in a lot of those drug data sheets (those “package inserts”) that they suggest the drug use should be carefully monitored, or that the patient’s blood electrolytes, or kidney function, or whatever, should be watched closely. Who has ever seen this actually be done? Even with some of those industrial-strength drugs that are known to actually produce grievous adverse results on occasion – they just give you the Rx, you go home and take the med, and sometimes the ambulance comes to collect your broken body afterward.
(ETA: To be sure, sometimes the adverse effects may take hours or days or weeks to happen. If so, sucks to be you, I guess.)
Not all ingredients in a drug are active ingredients. There are binders, dyes, coatings etc which a person may know they have an allergy to. Also, some drugs are combinations, and you may know you are allergic to one active ingredient that you took a previous time.
That’s the point of the “or any of its ingredients”. You may not know that you’re allergic to Removesitall, but if you know that you’re allergic to aspirin, and Removesitall contains aspirin, then maybe you ought to consider that before taking it.
I’m allergic to lanolin, which is not in itself a drug, but is an ingredient in some. It’s worth it for me to check carefully to see that a medication does not contain lanolin before trying it. An optometrist once handed me some eyedrops to use, without giving me any kind of warning. Fortunately I checked the package information, since they did contain lanolin.
Well I understand if those ingredients are substances that the patient recognizes but in a new drug, there will likely be ingredients that the patient isn’t familiar with. How are they supposed to know if they are allergic to parts of a new drug?
raises hand I have. Granted, not often, and not for all the things you see that say you should.
But Harvoni requires, and gets, frequent testing, every time I’ve seen it prescribed. As does Isoniazid. And warfarin, of course, but that’s not testing for damage, but effective dose.
What I never see routine testing for that makes me nervous is epilepsy drugs. I’m constantly calling doctors asking if maybe they don’t want follow up labs perhaps? And they usually act like I’m annoying them…and then they order the labs.
I’m on a cocktail of 3 medications in order to prevent migraine. I am seen by a doctor who is part of a clinic that specializes in migraine and neurological issues and has patients from all over the country. I’ve gone to this clinic for the past 8 years and just like clockwork, every 6 months I have a complete blood work up and give a urinal sample.
I’d consider this a real problem if there were TV ads saying:
"INJURED!!?!? Thousands of people have experienced serious injuries from allergies to hidden components of prescription drugs that Big Pharma didn’t warn them about. If you have taken any medication listed in the PDR and suffered from flushing, sweating, rash, shortness of breath, constipation, diarrhea, weight gain, anxiety, loss of self-esteem or any other symptom within 30 days of taking any medication, you may be entitled to lavish compensation. Contact the law offices of Hacking, Meth and Graft at 1-800-GOT CASH for a free consultation.*
*Advice may not be valid in all 50 states. Claims will be handled by outside attorneys who might actually know what they’re doing.
“Do not take X if allergic to X or any of its ingredients” is a polite way of saying “Even if the side effects don’t get you, an allergic reaction might get you.” They are trying to plant the seed in your mind that allergies to medicines are a real thing and you never know if it might happen to you. So, if you’ve ever had an allergy to one medication, be extra careful when taking something new.
They couldn’t just come right out and say “Some people have allergic reactions to this drug and you might be one of those people”. They had to turn it around and imply that if it happens to you it’s your own fault.
What scares me the most, perhaps, is certain drug warnings that seem to say that instant death is a possible reaction upon taking the first dose of the drug. A lot of inhalers seem to come with a warning like this.
I am reminded of Tom Lehrer’s song:
ISTM I’ve read horror stories that occasionally, people have been known to drop dead on the spot after taking a first huff, with the inhaler still in their hand.
You’d think that, if that’s true, doctors would insist that the first dose, at least, be taken in the doctor’s presence.
One of the first inhalers I ever used – Advair – had such a warning. At my place of work, I wondered out loud if I should take my first dose at home or at the office. My colleague sagely advised:
Some drugs are just a different brand name of an existing drug, but drug Y can’t use the name of drug X in it’s commercial.
So, even if drug Y is pretty much exactly the same thing as drug X, save for maybe a different binder, or one has aspartame, and one has sucralose, but they both have active ingredient A, in the same dose, the commercial for Y would love to say “Don’t take Y if you are allergic to X,” but can’t, if the names are owned by different companies. So when you ask your doctor about Y, the hope is that your doctor will catch that you are allergic to X, but maybe if you ask “BTW, how can I know if I’m allergic to Y without taking it?” and you doctor says “Well, anyone allergic to X-- oh!”
Additionally, some of the new drugs advertised are slow-release, or other kinds of souped-up versions of drugs that have been around for a while. In that case “Don’t take X if you are allergic to X” means that “Extended release X still contains the same active ingredient as the ordinary X.”
My guess is the warning grows from the cautions given to physicians on prescribing the drug. That is, do not prescribe this drug if the patient is allergic to either it or its ingredients. Kind of a CYA for the pharma companies to the doctors, as well as a suggestion to the prescribing doctor to make sure the patient is not allergic to either the drug or its ingredients.
When pharma is allowed to advertise to the general public, they have to make sure they tell the public the same things they tell the doctors, otherwise they are not telling their intended audiences the same cautions, which obviously can lead to, to put it mildly, confusions. Lawyers tend to attack confusions.