The Center for The Prevention of Medication Side Effects

The Center for the Prevention of Medication Side Effects is a new nonprofit organization established to promote consumer and healthcare professional education in order to establish new models and effective strategies for markedly reducing the frequency and severity of medication side effects, a perennial leading cause of death and disability in America and worldwide.
The Center intends to provide free, objective information that is not available through current sources such as medication package inserts, pharmacy information sheets, the Physicians’ Desk Reference (PDR), or medical or consumer drug references. Such information will provide patients, families, doctors and other healthcare professions with practical strategies for maximizing the benefits while minimizing the risks of medication treatment, currently the #4 leading cause of death in America. These activities will also help reduce the huge costs of handling adverse medication reactions to healthcare systems, insurers, businesses, and government, as well as the costs of health insurance premiums paid by individuals and businesses.
A main goal of the Center is to ensure that patients receive proper informed consent when prescribed medications and that doctors receive sufficient, objective information in order to provide proper informed consent. Such information will facilitate decisions that allow the matching of drugs and doses to each person’s needs and tolerances, so that decisions are made on basic medical principles, not drug company advertising. Such information will also include alternative methods backed by sound scientific research.
The Center espouses a preventive approach. We do not believe that medication side effects are inevitable or unavoidable. A medically-sound, individual-based approach to medication therapy can not only produce greater success and satisfaction, but also allow people to remain in treatment in contrast to the high discontinuance rates seen today.
These initiatives are based on the published work of Jay S. Cohen, M.D. The Center is seeking funding to enable the continuation of this work and to allow it to be made freely available via the MedicationSense website and newsletter. Dr. Cohen has been conducting such research since 1988, when he was one of the first to make public the failure of Prozac’s manufacturer to inform doctors and patients that a 1/4 dose (5 mg) was proven effective for 54% of patients receiving Prozac, in contrast to the 400%-higher 20-mg recommended dose that was then the lowest dose made available. Since that time, Dr. Cohen has published more than 15 articles in major medical journals and 2 widely acclaimed books on better, safer methods with scores of top-selling drugs (see: “About Dr. Cohen” and “Published Articles”).
The Center also hopes to make public hundreds of pages of information on medications and on how to prevent side effects from Dr. Cohen’s book, Make Your Medicine Safe. In addition, with adequate funding, the Center intends to post current information about adverse effects associated with top-selling drugs, including summaries from the FDA’s Medwatch program. As these documents are published, a search engine will be added to the website to enable quick location of the information you need.
The Center has filed for tax-exempt status, which should be approved in early 2004. Once approval is received, we would appreciate your support. If you are interested in supporting the Center, please contact us at:

E-mail: MedicationSense@san.rr.com

Letter: 2658 Del Mar Heights Road #120, Del Mar, CA 92014

Thank you for in your interest in the Center for the Prevention of Medication Side Effects.

Jay S. Cohen, M.D.
Founder and Executive Director

Board Members
Chairman: Anthony J. Weisenberger, M.D.
Consulting Psychiatrist and Psychopharmacologist, Mission St. Joseph Hospital, Asheville, NC
Former Medical Director, Charter Behavioral Health Services, Charter Hospital, Asheville, NC

Secretary: Daniel Gardner, MD
Assistant Professor (voluntary), Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego
Medical Director, Hidden Valley Rehabilitation Services
Former Associate Editor, Brain Injury Update
Former Editor, Brain Injury Medication Update
Faculty, San Diego Psychoanalytic Society and Institute

Jay S. Cohen, M.D.
Associate Professor (voluntary) of Family and Preventive Medicine and of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego.
Author: Over Dose, The Case Against The Drug Companies
Author: Make Your Medicine Safe
Chairman, Medical Advisory Board, The Erythromelalgia Association

Roger W. Jelliffe, M.D. Professor of Medicine,
Division of Geriatric Medicine,
Laboratory of Applied Pharmacokinetics,
University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine
Editorial Board, Computers in Biology and Medicine, 1993-Present
Editorial Board, Therapeutic Drug Monitoring, 1995-Present
Editorial Board, Clinical Pharmacokinetics 1997-Present
Chairman, Pharmacometrics Section, American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, 1995-1998
Award for Research Achievement in Clinical Medicine, American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists, 1997.

Michael A. Paul, J.D.
Associate, Lundy Law, Media, PA
Judge Pro Tem, Delaware County, PA
Former member of the Board of Governors of the Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers Association (1993-1999)
Fellow of the Academy of Advocacy

Category: Articles and Reports