Someone prescribed a medicine is given given direction by the doctor, a consult from their pharmacist, and printed material explaining how to take their medication and what to be careful of while taking it. More information is available to them online and in popular home reference books for drugs.
Perhaps because of a life too inundated by data, or because they’re busy, or for whatever reason, they ignore all of these opportunities to understand the medicine they’ve been asked to take.
I can’t judge a person for doing that, as I’m sure I’ve done the same thing, but I certainly wouldn’t expect a new label on a jug of grapefruit juice that they barely glance at to finally make it across the finish line!
There are problems in the world that are just going to exist, and efforts to eradicate them can become costly and fruitless nuisances rather than further solutions. This feels like one of those to me.
> Someone prescribed a medicine is given given direction by the doctor, a consult from their pharmacist, and printed material explaining how to take their medication and what to be careful of while taking it.
I don’t know what the healthcare system is like where you live but based on my experience in the UK, the only reliable one of these three sources that I’ve experienced is the printed material. Doctors and pharmacists, for whatever reason, have not proved to be a good source for anything but the most basic of information (if any) about prescribed medicine.
And that printed material is so broad that they list every possible side effect and contraindication under the sun. Presumably for sufficient legal cover for the pharmaceutical company.
And you think a warning on a grapefruit juice bottle that you buy everyday would do better? Especially one that, by force of space, says "ask your pharmacist if any medicine you take may interact with this"?
Perhaps because of a life too inundated by data, or because they’re busy, or for whatever reason, they ignore all of these opportunities to understand the medicine they’ve been asked to take.
I can’t judge a person for doing that, as I’m sure I’ve done the same thing, but I certainly wouldn’t expect a new label on a jug of grapefruit juice that they barely glance at to finally make it across the finish line!
There are problems in the world that are just going to exist, and efforts to eradicate them can become costly and fruitless nuisances rather than further solutions. This feels like one of those to me.