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Guidance on drug safety from regulatory agencies must be sensibly communicated and based on strong, clear evidence
Doctors learn early in their careers about the central importance of communication in medicine. Discussion of the relative risks and benefits of various treatment options, while considering the wider evidence and an individual patient’s circumstances and views, is challenging. The same challenge applies to guidance delivered from central bodies: it must be sensibly communicated, clear, based on published evidence, and applicable to a wide range of individual situations.
However, when the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) posted a drug safety update on fluoroquinolones in January 2024, stating that with immediate effect systemic fluoroquinolones “must only be administered when no other antibiotics are appropriate for use,”1 many clinicians were blindsided. Some heard it on the national news before the official email notifi ....