Half of all health care meds are wrongly prescribed, purchased and ingested, says report

Half of all health care drugs are prescribed, dispensed or sold inappropriately, and half of all patients who receive drugs do not take them correctly, according to a new report by the World Health Organization. This "irrational" use of medicines leads to complications of health care conditions, a waste of precious resources - especially in developing countries - and the exacerbation of the very health conditions the drugs were designed to treat. Chief among the problems: bacterial resistance driven by overuse of antibiotics, including by people who buy them inappropriately and then self-medicate.

From cheap and easy, over-the-counter access to prescribed drugs like the antibiotics, to the pressure exerted on health care providers to provide more expensive drugs than the health care condition in question requires, misuse of drugs is widespread and growing, according to the WHO. That international health organization lists as the most common problems:

* polypharmacy (use of too many medicines);
* overuse of antibiotics and injections;
* failure to prescribe in accordance with clinical guidelines;
* inappropriate self-medication.

These problems result in severe health care consequences. Among those include bacterial resistance to milder, cheaper antibiotics, adverse patient reactions to taking inappropriate medications, strain on national public health budgets (especially in the developing world), and an eroding of patient confidence in medical systems and infrastructure.

The causes are equally troubling. The WHO lists the causes as lack of skills among health care providers, unethical promotion by drug companies, drug profits, widespread availability of medicines, overworked health care providers, and lack of a coordinated, national policy on pharmaceutical controls in too many countries.

Of those reasons, there is one in particular that stands out. It is interesting because it is also a factor in drug misuse and overuse in the developed world, as well: pressure by pharmaceutical companies to sell their product. In the United States, as well as in many parts of the developing world, drug companies are allowed to market their products directly to consumers. Yet they spend even more on marketing to health care providers. All this advertising results in increasing demand for drugs, even when their use is neither rational nor appropriate. How do we control this in the developed world? Let us know your thoughts.

Photo Credit: Zaldylmg