Drug Facts Box

A consumer looking for a healthy breakfast cereal can easily compare different products by examining the ingredients and nutritional contents that appear on every box. But when it comes to comparing prescription drugs or understanding their risks and benefits, that information can be hard to find. Even if a consumer reads through the fine print of an advertising message or package insert, they find only partial information. These mandated messages tell you the purpose of the drug, and what side effects you might experience. What it doesn’t tell you is how effective it is and what its comparative
benefit is.

Researchers at the Center for Medicine and the Media are working with the FDA to require pharmaceutical companies to print this information on the drug box, much as it now appears on the food products we buy.

For more information about the Drug Facts Box, read the article in Dartmouth Medicine magazine: Inside the Drug Facts Box

Drug facts box example
Lunesta drug facts box

Research about the drug facts box:
Schwartz LM, Woloshin S, Welch HG. The Drug Facts Box: Providing Consumers with Simple Tabular Data on Drug Benefit and Harm. Med Decis Making, September 14, 2007; 27; 655.

Woloshin S, Schwartz LM. What's Needed on Prescription Drug Labels. The Boston Globe, Wednesday, April 20, 2005, page A23.

Woloshin S, Schwartz LM, Welch HG. The Value Of Benefit Data In Direct-To-Consumer Drug Ads. Health Affairs, April 28, 2004; DOI 10.1377/hlthaff.W4.234.