Although it’s hard to tell exactly what good this will do yet, but the FDA is implementing a prescription drug surveillance program to look into problems with drugs. According to a recent news article, this move is in response to Vioxx being pulled off the market in 2004 when it was linked to heart attacks and strokes. My hope is that something like this will also help curtail the rampant prescription drug addiction epidemic that is exponentially increasing the need for drug rehab. 

This new surveillance program is supposed to allow the FDA access to information that was previously considered trade secrets or protected by privacy laws. I’m not sure which privacy laws are being referred to - I would hope it doesn’t involve the protection of an individual’s privacy - but trade secrets are another story, especially if this refers to the trade secrets of big pharma. Really, should an industry that controls the life and death of each individual and probably should be subject to the hippocratic oath be allowed to have trade secrets?

It’s more of an issue now than ever - I couldn’t even fathom a guess at how many people are suffering from prescription drug addiction or how many would need a drug rehab program to end it, but it’s clearly many millions more than reflected in the statistics put out by SAMHSA and other agencies.

Still, with the drug industry so intricately woven into the fabric of American society, it’s not likely much will change regardless of FDA monitoring. Our best chance of surviving this epidemic is to discourage the use of prescription drugs for non-life threatening situations, and to get anyone we know who is battling prescription drug addiction or dependency into a drug rehab program so they can be drug-free, and safe.

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