According to an article in today’s edition of The New York Times, psychiatrists say they have been getting panicked phone calls from patients worried by an FDA advisory panel’s recommendation this month that drugs for attention-deficit disorder carry a prominent warning about heart risks.
Can you say “unintended consequences?”
The calls are coming not just from parents of children who take the drugs but from adult users, who the panel warned might be at the highest risk for heart problems.
Can you say, “irresponsible advisory committee causing increased non-compliance?”
“Every single adult patient I saw today, the first thing out of their mouth was, ‘Am I going to drop dead on this?’ Every single one of them,” said Dr. Timothy Wilens, a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
Can you say “fear replacing caution?”
Can you say “Precautionary Principle?”
Because if you can’t say it, you can’t fight against it.
And fight against it we must.