I have referred quite often over the years to Public Citizen, an organization that works extremely hard on behalf of consumers, and I hope the information we have supplied has been helpful. Dr. Sidney Wolfe, who serves as Director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, deserves a tremendous amount of credit for helping to keep dangerous drugs off the market. It’s well known that the United States is one of the biggest drug-consuming countries in the world. Of course, I am referring to prescription drugs and over-the-counter drugs – all “legal” drugs. Most folks expect those drugs to be safe for them to use.

Unfortunately, many of the drugs allowed by the FDA to be put on the market are extremely dangerous and have been approved by the regulatory agency. Dr. Wolfe and his co-workers at Public Citizen have fought hard for years attempting to keep bad drugs from being approved by the FDA and to get bad drugs that are approved off the market. While they have been most successful, there is much more for them to do. I only wish Congress would provide the FDA with sufficient funds and laws so that Public Citizen wouldn’t have to do the job for them.

I recommend that any person who wants to learn what drugs to avoid should subscribe to Worst Pills, Best Pills. As mentioned in another part of this issue, this is a publication put out by Public Citizen and it should be required reading for every U.S. consumer. You can go to either Citizen.org or Worstpills.org for more information.