Aussie doctors ‘less likely’ to get international drug safety warnings
The TGA issues fewer alerts on drug risks than its overseas counterparts, say researchers
Australian doctors are less likely to receive official warnings about international drug safety concerns than their peers in key comparable countries, research suggests.
Researchers looked at 680 drug-related issues that prompted warnings from medicine watchdogs in at least one of four jurisdictions — Australia, the US, Canada or the UK — over a nine-year period.
According to a research letter published in JAMA Internal Medicine, they found that 619 of the risks were related to drugs available in Australia, but the TGA had issued warnings for only 183 of them.
In 70% of cases where a drug was subject to at least one warning, the TGA did not issue any advisories.
