Consumers Union is pressing U.S. regulators to require that television commercials for medicines include a toll-free number to report harmful side effects.
The group, the publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, said today it collected about 56,000 signatures on a petition calling for the Food and Drug Administration to require the inclusion of the agency's phone number. Consumers Union also released results from a telephone poll it conducted showing that only 35 percent of respondents knew they could report side effects to the FDA.
Legislation signed in September by President George W. Bush requires the FDA's phone number to be listed in print ads for drugs. The measure called on the Health and Human Services Department, the FDA's parent agency, to study by the end of March whether to include the number in TV commercials as well. A study hasn't been completed.
``You can't turn on a TV today without seeing a drug ad, but those ads never mention that consumers should be reporting serious drug side effects to the FDA,'' said Liz Foley, a campaign coordinator with Yonkers, New York-based Consumers Union, in a statement today.
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