Public education site lets you study up on medications

Add comment June 18th, 2008

If you’re looking for a place to do research on medications, Consumer Reports Best Buy Drugs lets you study up on dozens of them by name or by condition  — from Ambien to Zyrtec, and ADHD to ulcers. The Web site is a public education project of an independent, nonprofit organization called Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports.

The mission of the Consumer Reports Best Buy Drugs project, according to the site, is to give consumers enough information to talk with their doctors about which drugs may best meet their medical needs and give them the most value for their money. When you click on links to various medications or conditions, you can get overviews on drugs’ effectiveness, track records, safety, prices and generic recommendations.

You can look at short summaries on each drug or condition, or download full reports in pdf format. Summaries are available in English and Spanish.

Consumers Union accepts no outside advertising, and the Consumer Reports Best Buy Drugs project is funded mostly by educational grants, according to the Web site. Each analysis on the site is based on reviews done by teams of physicians and researchers at several medical schools under the Drug Effectiveness Review Project (DERP), a 13–state effort. The states use the information to help guide their Medicaid drug coverage policies, according to the site. Researchers at the Oregon Health & Science University coordinate the project.