Briefs

[Jul 03, 2007] The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday examined prescription drug data mining, a process by which sophisticated software enables health officials to search through large databases looking for possible drug dangers. Data mining software allows health authorities to identify "rare side effects that didn't show up in clinical trials," the Journal reports. However, "it can also raise false alarms and force regulators to divert time and money from more pressing dangers," according to the Journal.

The Journal profiled the experience of World Health Organization Drug Monitoring Center Director Ralph Edwards. Edwards and his team in the mid-1990s developed software to mine drug data, and national drug agencies, including FDA, in 2002 allowed the center to publish and share data mining findings without permission. Edwards, who receives about 200,000 adverse-event reports and identifies about 60 serious signals annually, last year discovered a possible link between cholesterol-lowering statins and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease.

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