A REVIEW OF: PRESCRIPTION FOR DISASTER

The Hidden Dangers in Your Medicine Cabinet.

By Thomas J. Moore. Simon & Schuster, $25.

"With 100,000 annual deaths, one million severely injured and another two
million harmed during hospitalization, adverse reactions to drugs rank as
one of the greatest man-made dangers in modern society," Thomas J. Moore
writes in "Prescription for Disaster." Moore, a senior fellow in health
policy at the George Washington University Medical Center, offers readers a
riveting and relentlessly horrific account of the "inevitable, inherently
unpredictable, amazingly varied" adverse effects associated with the
nation's most commonly used medications ---perforated ulcers, brain damage,
addiction, cancer and cardiac arrest.

He presents ample and alarming evidence of an often "unforgivably sloppy
system" of drug safety controls, characterized by inadequate drug testing
and monitoring, inappropriate and erroneous prescribing, and dismaying
levels of both ignorance and denial among physicians, pharmaceutical
companies and Federal regulators about the potential dangers of drugs.

He is also quick to caution that "mindless fear" about the hazards of drugs
is a reaction every bit as ill-advised as succumbing to "blind faith" in
their benefits.

He reviews what actions can be taken to enhance drug safety, and also
outlines steps readers can take both to minimize common drug hazards and to
exert influence to aid reform of a "fatally-flawed" monitoring system.

Checked-by: "Rolf Ernst"