Pharmacoepidemiology and drug safety
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Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Saf · Nov 2008
Comparative StudyThe impact of co-payment increases on dispensings of government-subsidised medicines in Australia.
Patient co-payments for medicines subsidised under the Australian Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) increased by 24% in January 2005. We investigated whether this increase and two related co-payment changes were associated with changes in dispensings of selected subsidised medicines in Australia. ⋯ The study findings suggest that recent increase in Australian PBS co-payments have had a significant effect on dispensings of prescription medicines. The results suggest large increase in co-payments impact on patients' ability to afford essential medicines. Of major concern is that, despite special subsidies for social security beneficiaries in the Australian system, the recent co-payment increase has particularly impacted on utilisation for this group.
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Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Saf · Nov 2008
An evaluation of a data mining signal for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and statins detected in FDA's spontaneous adverse event reporting system.
We detected disproportionate reporting of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) with HMG-CoA-reductase inhibitors (statins) in the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) spontaneous adverse event (AE) reporting system (AERS). ⋯ Although we observed a data mining signal for ALS with statins in FDA's AERS, retrospective analyses of 41 statin clinical trials did not reveal an increased incidence of ALS in subjects treated with a statin compared with placebo.