Confusion Over Drug Names a Prescription for Danger

Confusion Over Drug Names a Prescription for Danger

Associated Press September 3, 2008

I got this from the associated press and feel it is important to share just as i have it in order to get the word out.

"Do you take the generic drug clonidine for high blood pressure? Double-check that you didn’t leave the drugstore with Klonopin for seizures, or the gout medicine colchicine.

Mixing up drug names because they look or sound alike, like this trio, is among the most common types of medical mistakes, and it can be deadly. Now, new efforts are aiming to stem the confusion and make patients more aware of the risk.

Nearly 1,500 commonly used drugs have names so similar to at least one other medication that they’ve already caused mix-ups, says a major study by the U.S. Pharmacopeia, which helps set drug standards and promote patient safety.

Last week, the influential group opened a web-based tool to let consumers and doctors easily check if they’re using or prescribing any of these error-prone drugs, and what they might confuse it with. Try to spell or pronounce a few on the site (www.usp.org), and it’s easy to see how mistakes can happen. Did you mean the painkiller Celebrex or the antidepressant Celexa?

Due out later this fall is a more patient-oriented website, a partnership of the nonprofit Institute for Safe Medication Practices and online health service iGuard.org, that will send users e-mail alerts about drug-name confusion.
And the Food and Drug Administration, which currently rejects more than a third of proposed names for new drugs because they’re too similar to old ones, is preparing a pilot program that would shift more responsibility to manufacturers to guard against name confusion. The goal is to spell out how to better test for potential mix-ups before companies seek approval to sell their products.
“There are so many new drugs approved each year, this problem can only get worse,” warns USP vice president Diane Cousins. An estimated 1.5 million Americans are harmed each year from a variety of medication errors, and name mix-ups are blamed for a quarter of them.

Rarely does a company change a drug’s name after it hits the market, although it’s happened twice since 2005. The Alzheimer’s drug Reminyl now is named Razadyne, after mix-ups with the old diabetes drug Amaryl, including two reported deaths. The cholesterol pill Omacor is now named Lovaza, after mix-ups with blood-clotting Amicar.

Doctors’ notoriously bad handwriting isn’t the only culprit. A hurried pharmacist faced with alphabetized bottles on a shelf might grab the wrong one. And computerized prescriptions aren’t a panacea.

A doctor who e-prescribes still can click the wrong row on the alphabetized screen, picking the bone drug Actonel instead of the diabetes drug Actos. Phone or fax a prescription, and static or smudged ink can turn the epilepsy drug Lamictal into the antifungal pill Lamisil.

Harder to measure but perhaps more common: A doctor means to prescribe a new drug but spells out a similar-sounding old one out of habit. Or the patient misspells or mispronounces one of his drugs, and a health worker assumes it’s the schizophrenia drug Zyprexa, not the antihistamine Zyrtec.

Enter the new web tool. Cousins advises consumers to check it against their current medications, so they know to pay more attention to confusing ones at refill time."

Save money on Prescription drugs!

A year or so ago I received a prescription that I took to my regular drug store pharmacy. They indicated that they would be checking with my insurance company on my co-pay. After a couple days I heard back from them – no co-pay, it would cost me $95 for a 30 day supply!!

As luck would have it, the day I was at the doctor, I was reading a local weekly newspaper whose front page headline spoke of the high prices of prescription drugs. I had read the article which did a cost comparison of various drug stores, pharmacies, and Costco. Costco was cheaper on every drug they compared – sometimes by a large margin. I moved my prescription to Costco (you don’t have to be a Costco member to use their pharmacy) and got my prescription for $64.

Just this week Wal-Mart announced expansion of their low-cost prescription drug program. They expanded their $4 discounted prescription drug program to offer 90-day supplies for $10 and to add several women's medications at a discount. They are also lowering the price of more than 1,000 over-the-counter drugs.

This is the third phase of the Wal-Mart plan. They have been offering $4 monthly supply prescriptions for a couple years now.

”More and more people find health care, and particularly prescribed medicines, difficult to afford. This is one of the reasons we continually work to take our $4 Prescription Program to the next level,” said Dr. John Agwunobi, Wal-Mart senior vice president and president, health and wellness. “We’re succeeding in our efforts to deliver simple, affordable, quality pharmacy solutions for families struggling with the rising costs of health care. And, our customers – and their budgets – are seeing a dramatic difference.”

Beginning today (5/5/2008), Wal-Mart, Neighborhood Market and Sam’s Club pharmacies will fill prescriptions for up to 350 generic medications at $10 for a 90-day supply. This option will give customers an additional choice and save them time and money without the hassle of purchasing or signing-up for a pharmacy discount card.

Expanding on the women’s medicines added to Wal-Mart’s prescription program in September 2007, Alendronate, the recently introduced generic version of Fosamax® used to treat osteoporosis, is now available at Wal-Mart, Neighborhood Market and Sam’s Club pharmacies for $9 for up to a 30-day supply or $24 for a 90-day supply. Compared to the $54 that women previously paid for the same generic supply or $102 for the same branded supply, Wal-Mart could save osteoporosis patients between $45 and $93 per month or up to $1,116 per year. In addition, medications to treat breast cancer (tamoxifen), menopause and hormone deficiency (combination estrogen/methyltestosterone tablets) were also added to the growing list of $9 women’s medications. Combined, Wal-Mart estimates that this expansion alone will save women more than $100 million annually.

Wal-Mart Stores and Neighborhood Markets today began a new $4 OTC program, offering customers more than 1,000 Over The Counter items priced at $4 or less without a prescription. Wal-Mart has rolled back prices on key OTC items to ensure that almost one-third of its OTC medicines are now $4 or lower. Now, many commonly used OTC medicines such as the Equate-brand versions of popular drugs like Zantac®, Pepcid® and Claritin® are priced at $4, approximately 50 percent lower than many national chain drugstores and grocers based on Wal-Mart’s internal research.

In California, Colorado, Hawaii, Minnesota, Montana, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Wisconsin and Wyoming certain drugs are priced higher than the $4 and $10 prices
For further information on the program, customers can call 1-800-WAL-MART, visit their website at www.walmart.com/pharmacy or discuss the program with their local Wal-Mart, Neighborhood Market or Sam’s Club pharmacist.

A complete listing of the drugs in the program is available at: http://i.walmart.com/i/if/hmp/fusion/four_dollar_drug_list.pdf