Assessment of Adverse Reactions Within a Drug Surveillance Program

As part of a comprehensive drug surveillance program, we devised a system for identifying and characterizing adverse reactions to drugs. The overall program includes measurements of drug efficacy and a description of the patient population being studied. The data collected thus far suggest that drug reactions represent a major health hazard. Adverse reaction information on any drug must be evaluated for careful consideration of total drug usage, the reasons for prescribing the drug, and its overall efficacy.