[Adverse effects of drugs. Compiled and evaluated by the Committee on Drugs]

Adverse drug reactions reflect neither malice on the part of the drug manufacturer, nor negligence on the part of the physician, but are simply the unavoidable price we have to pay to secure the largely positive effects of drug treatment. Our objective can only be to achieve the highest level of safety while keeping the risk as small as possible in comparison with the benefit obtained. Drug evaluation requires a knowledge both of the efficacy and any attendant possible risks of a given drug. With this in mind, since 1961, the Committee on the Safety of Medicines has been collecting and assessing reports on adverse drug reactions. The experience thus gained serves as a basis for the views of the medical profession on problems of drug safety, as also for the individual counselling of the practising physician. "Physicians counsel physicians on the prescribing of drugs" thus does not mean that some of us are wiser than others, but that we are engaged in a mutually beneficial exchange of individual experience.