Curbing Abuse of Prescription Drugs

This article was originally published in Parade, on Sunday, Oct. 4, 2009.

By Katherine Reynolds Lewis

More than 15 million Americans abused prescription drugs such as OxyContin, Ritalin, and Valium last year, and thousands died from overdoses. “Drug poisoning has become the second leading cause of death from unintentional injury, exceeded only by motor-vehicle crashes,” said Dr. Leonard Paulozzi, a medical epidemiologist with the Injury Center at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

But while the deaths are accidental, the behavior that causes them is not: Many people who are addicted to painkillers engage in “doctor-shopping,” convincing multiple physicians to write them prescriptions. A CDC study in West Virginia found that 21% of people who died from prescription-drug overdoses had seen five or more different health-care providers for controlled substances in the prior year. Most states have drug-tracking databases aimed at preventing such abuse, but many are in need of improvement.

Currently, in some states, it can take as long as two weeks before a new prescription shows up in a database, according to Sherry Green, CEO of the National Alliance for Model State Drug Laws. Last month, the federal government distributed $2 million for states to upgrade their databases in a program to test whether access to prescription data can reduce drug abuse. “The ultimate goal would be to give doctors real-time, online access to prescribing data,” said Robert Lubran of the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which is overseeing the program.

Can You Believe What You Read on the Web?

This article was originally published by Parade on Sunday, June 21, 2009.

Recently, a man identifying himself as a representative of Belkin, a major technology company, offered to pay people to post five-star reviews of its products on Amazon.com. When the incident was discovered, Belkin President Mark Reynoso expressed "surprise and dismay" over "unethical practices like this," and the company took steps to have any tainted reviews removed from the site. Yet businesses do spend about $1.6 billion a year on "word-of-mouth" advertising, promoting their goods to bloggers and to people who use social-media websites like Facebook, according to the research firm PQ Media.

Now the U.S. government is considering requiring people who write about products or services on the Internet to inform readers if they received compensation.

The Federal Trade Commission expects to vote on new marketing rules this summer, which would be the first revision to its endorsement guidelines since 1980. "When you're being paid to promote a product, you usually have to disclose the relationship between you and the advertiser," says Richard Cleland, an FTC assistant director.

But even if the FTC tightens its rules, experts encourage people to remain skeptical when reading opinions posted on the Web. "Go and talk to other people you trust," says Paul Rand, president-elect of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association. “Google the authors and see what else they’ve written." If you discover that a writer only posts glowing reviews about one company's products, look for other sources of advice.

— Katherine Reynolds Lewis