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Article: Deadly drug-name confusion avoidable, researcher says
- Article from:
- Drug Topics
- Article date:
- January 4, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright Medical Economics Inc. Jan 4, 1999. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Carboplatin, cisplatin. Isordil, clinoril. Flomax, Fosamax. Mixing up similar drug names is no isolated problem. Grabbing the wrong look-alike, sound-alike drug happens so often that it has coined its own term: cognitive toxicity. Drugname confusion even has its own body count, one per day in the United States, according to the Food & Drug Administration. But if University of Illinois researcher Bruce Lambert is right, most of the morbidity and mortality associated with drug-name confusion could be eliminated by screening potential drug names for similarities.
The more similar drug names are, the more frequently pharmacists confuse them, Lambert told an audience at the American ...