David Healy in Toronto on promotional tour for new website

Thanks to Chris for spotting this article.

From The Globe and Mail
Drug-risk website aimed at consumers

anne mcilroy Published Wednesday, Mar. 14, 2012 4:05PM EDT

Julie and Peter Wood say they wish they had known more about the stimulant a doctor prescribed for their son to help him concentrate.

John David Wood, a student at the University of Toronto, became addicted to the medication and developed serious mental health problems after he abruptly went off it. He committed suicide in 2008, at the age of 26.

In an effort to help other families learn more about the potential downside of prescription drugs, his parents are working with David Healy, a high-profile critic of the pharmaceutical industry, on a new website – RxISK.org.

They hope the website will make it easy for people to research any drug that is approved for use in Canada or the United States, both brand names and generics. But they also want to build a grassroots database on side effects of these medications. For now, patients can search the new website, at no cost, for information about the adverse impact of drugs collected by the Food and Drug Administration in the U.S. But if all goes according to plan, in a few weeks the new website will ask patients to report side effects and allow them to see whether other people have experienced the same symptoms.

Read the rest here