http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_28211.html

United Press International

Monday, November 21, 2005

BOSTON, Nov 21, 2005 (UPI via COMTEX) -- A Harvard University survey finds 42 percent of about 930,000 ambulatory care Massachusetts patients were prescribed medicines with black box warnings.

Black box warnings appear on the label of certain drugs, highlighting special problems, especially serious ones. The warnings -- the Federal Food and Drug Administration's strongest label for high-risk medicines -- provide physicians with information concerning potential medical complications associated with a specific pharmaceutical.

Researchers from the Harvard Medical School, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and colleagues found physicians' compliance with such recommendations is highly variable, suggesting better methods are needed for ensuring the safe use of medications.

In the categories studied, physicians' non-compliance with the warnings ranged from 0.3 percent to 49.6 percent.

The results of the study are reported online at the Web site of the journal Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety.