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Doctor’s Main Drug Manual (PDR) Contains Outdated Information, Can Cost Lives

The Physicians Desk Reference (PDR), the book doctors use to identify drug effects and reactions, has been labeled incomplete and as a result, dangerous by a study published in the February, 1997 issues of Annals of Emergency Medicine.

The study found that advice on drug overdose treatments for 20 of the most common drugs that patients overdose on was up to 25 years out of date as well as inadequate. It was also found that many times the PDR gave harmful advice and failed to mention treatments that could save lives.

Relying on outdated drug information can be and is dangerous. However, the researchers also found that more than half the doctors surveyed had not consulted the drug manual at all in the past year.