My Letter to the USA Today Journalists

Posted by The *Angriest* Pharmacist as Errors, Update

I decided to send a letter to the guys that wrote the recent string of USA Today Articles concerning misfills (with more to come) directing them to my recent post analyzing the numbers behind misfills - and showing that they are not as common as USA Today would like its readers to believe. Here’s what I sent:

To: Kevin McCoy (Journalist), Erik Brady (Journalist), and Brent Jones (Reader Editor)

Dear Mr. McCoy, Mr. Brady, and Mr. Jones,
I applaud your recent article in exposing the high-volume/low-staff environment many of our pharmacies nationwide are exposed to by their corporate counterparts. However, I think the problem presented may be drastically overstated. While even 1 error is drastic and 1 death is too many, the human element cannot be removed from pharmacy and therefore errors can never be eliminated…merely minimized.

Please take a look at a recent article I’ve written crunching the numbers on prescription drug misfills. The numbers in the article do an excellent job of putting the entire issue into perspective, and if presented this way, would relieve people that their pharmacies are, in fact, safe and not dangerous cesspools of misfills, incompetent workers, and careless pharmacists.

http://www.theangriestpharmacist.com/2008/02/26/the-real-numbers/
Thank you,
The *Angriest* Pharmacist
webmaster@theangriestpharmacist.com
http://www.theangriestpharmacist.com

Anyone else out there - feel free to forward the post URL to any news outlet you see fit. Direct them to “http://www.theangriestpharmacist.com/2008/02/26/the-real-numbers/” and give them my email address for further contact (webmaster@theangriestpharmacist.com). Let them know that we aren’t a bunch of misfits misfilling prescriptions and killing 5-year olds at will! The numbers don’t lie — only lawyers (and apparantly journalists) do.