Regular folks can report drugs and doctors

I was talking with the mother of an individual who died recently. As she mentioned, neither of them are young, but she reminded me of a statement I often reiterate, “Kids (no matter the age) shouldn’t die before their parents”.

Her son died of medication-related death, in that the prescribed medications he was taking likely complicated his underlying medical conditions (sleep apnea and heart disease) and the combination of those things led to his death. She wants to make sure it doesn’t happen to some other mother’s son. She has concerns about both the medications and her son’s doctor. In addition to our working with the Illinois Department of Professional Regulation on cases we feel are egregious on the doctors’ part and with the DEA on drug (medication)-related deaths, I told her she too can file report/complaints.

She was unaware of this, despite some research on her own, so I thought I’d throw the information up here so that more folks would be aware:

Consumers (i.e. regular folks) can file reports on medications (problems and concerns) with the FDA MedWatch Program. The forms and instructions are available online.

Concerns about individual physician’s can be filed with the Illinois Department of Professional Regulation (for some bizarre political reason actually the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. (Every state has their own variation of our state regulatory agency)