The other side of high drug costs

By Judith Garber | April 2, 2019

High drug prices have been a hot topic in politics recently, but there’s another reason that our country spends so much on drug costs: we’re taking too many medications. As Shannon Brownlee and Judith Garber write in an op-ed in STAT, the pharmaceutical industry doesn’t just raise prices to maximize profits, but also works to increase Americans’ consumption of medications. And it’s not just increasing drug costs, it’s causing physical harm to millions of people.

As the Lown Institute reports in the new paper, Medication Overload: America’s Other Drug Problem, older adults in the U.S. are taking far more medications now than in past decades. At the same time, the number of adverse drug events in this age group has skyrocketed. Medication overload has reached epidemic proportions, affecting ten million older Americans each year.

How does the pharmaceutical industry drive medication overload? It goes far beyond direct-to-consumer advertisements, write Brownlee and Garber. Read the full op-ed at STAT here!

To eliminate medication overload, serious cultural, educational, and policy changes are needed. This action plan offers recommendations for policymakers, health care institutions, clinicians, and patients across five key categories to reduce harm from multiple medication use. Suggested Citation: Eliminating medication overload: A national action plan. Working Group on Medication Overload. Brookline, MA: The Lown Institute, 2020. DOI: https://doi.org/10.46241/LI.YLBW4885

Pharmaceutical marketing is a significant factor in the growing public health crisis of medication overload, which puts millions of older adults at risk of preventable harm and premature death. This issue brief provides recommendations to reduce pharmaceutical industry influence by limiting pharma sales rep visits to clinicians and direct-to-consumer advertising.

This issue brief provides recommendations for clinical practice guidelines and electronic health records that would give clinicians the information they need to appropriately prescribe and deprescribe.