Your independent, respected source for information about medications and natural therapies.
Medication side effects are the #4 leading cause of death in the U.S. annually (JAMA 1998). Yet, few people receive adequate information when medication is prescribed. This website is dedicated to providing information to help you and your doctor make informed, intelligent choices about medications and natural alternatives to maximize the benefits and minimize the risks of treatment. Note: This website is free of drug company or government influence. Jay S. Cohen M.D.
When To Use Prilosec OTC and What the Product Label Doesn’t Tell You. Special Risks for Seniors, Asians, Slow Metabolizers, and the Medication-Sensitive? Prilosec, one of the first prescription drugs to top a billion in sales, is now available over-the-counter. A breakthrough drug introduced in 1990 for ulcers, esophagitis, and gastric reflux disease, prescription Prilosec […]
While New Studies Encourage the Aggressive Use of Statins, Patients Continue to Balk. Why? Is Lipitor Really Better Than Pravachol — and for Whom? Recently, the New York Times published an article on the new trend toward using cholesterol-lowering drugs even more aggressively. This trend has gained momentum following the publication of studies suggesting that […]
How the System Discounts Patients, Especially Women The news just keeps getting worse for the millions of women taking Premarin, Prempro, or other forms of hormone replacement therapy (HRT). Last summer, the Women’s Health Initiative bombshell linked Prempro with an increased risk of cancer and debunked the medical dogma of half a century that these […]
Underlying Causes That Continue to Be Ignored by Mainstream Medicine and the Media From almost the day that they were introduced in the late 1980s and early 1990s, sudden, unexpected suicides and homicides have been reported in patients taking serotonin-enhancing antidepressants such as Prozac, Paxil, and Zoloft. I’m not surprised this problem hasn’t disappeared, nor […]
The Sudden Deaths of Sports Heroes John Unitas, Dave DeBusschere, and Darryl Kyle Should Have Raised Awareness That Most of the 250,000 Sudden Cardiac Deaths Annually Can Be Prevented with Fish Oils . Why We Keep Missing the Message. On June 22, 2002, Darryl Kile, All-Star pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, suffered a […]
How Medication Marketing Overrides Medical Science Celebrex, the powerful, top-selling anti-inflammatory drug, symbolizes the good and bad of medication therapy today. On the one hand, Celebrex helps millions of people. On the other, it’s one-size-fits-all dosage for degenerative arthritis (osteoarthritis) is unnecessarily strong for many people, placing them at extra risk of major side effects […]
I found myself in some heady company in Boston last March at a meeting of 450 drug company marketers. Speaking to this group was a challenge, considering the title of my recent book, Over Dose: The Case Against The Drug Companies (for reviews, click icon). But I was invited by Bob Ehrlich, a former drug […]
Since last summer, reports linking the hormones in Premarin and Prempro, the top-selling hormone replacement therapies (HRT) for menopausal symptoms, to increased risks of cancer, cardiac problems, strokes, pulmonary emboli, and dementia,1-2 continue to raise disturbing questions about drug safety not only for the 14 million women who were taking these hormones and for as […]
Since the December, 2001, publication of my article in the Annals of Pharmacotherapy,1 I’ve received hundreds of e-mails from people suffering from devastating, long-lasting side effects associated with Cipro, Levaquin, Floxin, and other fluoroquinolone antibiotics. Most of these people are young and had been healthy and active. These antibiotics have legitimate uses in treating infectious […]
I’m a chocolaholic. I’ve been a lover of chocolate in its myriad forms from before I can remember. As a kid, it didn’t get any better than a box of chocolate chip cookies and a glass of milk. So I was intrigued by recent articles about chocolate’s newly discovered health benefits. I’d certainly like to […]