Drug Information


While your best resource for patient opinion about drug performance is AskaPatient.com, here are some sites to look at for other kinds of information about prescription drugs. The sites reviewed were chosen for their quality of information and ease of use. To suggest another site, contact us.

Basic Drug Reference Sources

MedlinePlus Drug Information
This is the best site for finding much of what you might need to know about a drug, especially if you don't have the patient insert. Provides information on why medicine is prescribed, how it should be used, special precautions, special dietary instructions, what to do if you miss a dose, side effects, storage conditions, brand names, and more. Information provided by resources from the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists and United States Pharmacopoeia (USP). Also includes directory of natural and dietary supplements and herbal medicines.

Medication Guides for Common Drugs
Medication Guides are paper handouts that come with many prescription medicines. The guides address issues that are specific to particular drugs and drug classes, and they contain FDA-approved information that can help patients avoid serious adverse events. 

Drugs@FDA
This site contains details about a drug's application history, and in many cases has links to the drug's official LABEL information from the manufacturer. It contains prescription and over-the-counter drugs. It will also tell you if a drug has been discontinued from the market within the last five years. For drugs withdrawn for safety reasons more than 5 years ago, you won't find any record of it in the drug database at the FDA. .

DailyMed
The official site for the most up-to-date drug labels. Jointly produced by the National Library of Medicine and the Food and Drug Administration.

Health Canada - Drug Products
This site also has the Canada Vigilance Adverse Reaction Online Database.

List of Approved Gene Therapy Products
List of Approved Gene Therapy Products from the U.S. FDA

National Center for Integrative and Complementary Health
This center, part of the National Institutes of Health, has information on alternative medicines such as acupuncture.

Over the Counter Medicine Recommendations by Pharmacists
https://health.usnews.com/drugs/rankings

Drug Interactions with other Drugs, Foods, and Herbal Medicines

Drug Interactions Checker from University of Liverpool. Includes Cancer, Hepatitis, HIV, and Covid-19, drugs and drug interactions.

Drug Interactions Checker from Drugs.com

Reporting Adverse Events from Drugs

Medwatch:The FDA’s medical product safety reporting program for health professionals, patients and consumers. Go to this FDA site to report adverse events experienced while taking a drug, or ask your doctor to place the report with the FDA. MedWatch receives reports from the public and when appropriate, publishes safety alerts for FDA-regulated products such as:prescription and over-the-counter medicines, biologics, medical devices, cosmetics, and food.
For vaccine adverse events, use the FDA's Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System.

Drug Shortages

FDA Drug Shortage Database
Use the FDA's drug shortage database to find out if your drug is on shortage or has been discontinued by the manufacturer. Companies report the shortages. Search by generic name or active ingredient.

ASHP Current Drug Shortages Database
The American Society of Health Systems Pharmacists is the exlcusive distributor of the University of Utah's Drug Information Service drug shortage database. It is more comprehensive than the FDA's. This database includes shortages reported by a variety of sources. Hospitals, practitioners, and even patients may report drug shortages. Search by generic drug name.

Drug News & Articles

Food & Drug Administration (FDA) news feed at AskaPatient.
News releases from the FDA in real time.

Feature News Articles at Ask a Patient. Review our feature articles and news feeds.

Prescription Drug Price Web Sites

These are examples of state-sponsored drug price lookup databases, usually available through your state's attorney general office--
Some include Medicaid pharmacy claims data, which often contain usual and customary price information, and others contain
a variety of data sources.

New Jersey https://www20.state.nj.us/LPSCA_DRUG/index.jsp This database contains drug pricess for the most frequently prescribed 150 drugs.

Ohio: https://medlist.ohio.gov/main_domain/home.jsf

Michigan: https://www.michigandrugprices.com

Florida: https://www.myfloridarx.com/

Prescription Drug Prices in New York State:
New York: https://apps.health.ny.gov/pdpw/SearchDrugs/Home.action

Price and Product Comparison Service: (compiles price data from state and other sources) GoodRx.com

Online Pharmacies:

FDA's Buying Prescription Medicine Online: FDA's Consumer Safety Guide  

Online Pharmacies - Find an online pharmacy that is accredited by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacies (NABP), List of NABP-certified online pharmacies .
Scroll down to the link for "View the .Pharmacy Verified Websites List" (a downloadable spreadsheet) to view all the accredited online pharmacies.
The page also lists rogue pharmacies that you might want to avoid using. NABP has reviewed 10,000 sites and found 97% of them to be out of compliance with state and/or federal law for patient safety and pharmacy practice standards.

Assistance with Drug and Health Care Costs
Needymeds.org
NeedyMeds is a resource for advocates and others who need assistance. Provides information, coupons, on programs for free or low cost prescriptions from manufacturers and other sources. Look up information by drug name and also by disease name. This is a 501c3 organization. Has information on more than 500 assistance programs. Includes complete contact information, including phone numbers, for each company program.

Medicine Assistance Tool
Sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry (PhRMA), and formerly called the "Partnership for Prescription Assistance" (PPARX)  this organization maintains a call center and the web site provides information on public and private assistance programs for free or low cost prescriptions for low income patients.

Patients for Affordable Drugs: Patients For Affordable Drugs is an independent national patient organization focused exclusively on achieving policy changes to lower the price of prescription drugs.

Drug Addiction:
Help.org: Drug and Alcohol Rehab Advice Center
Site with articles about various kinds of addiction and links to substance abuse treatment centers.

For any drug overdose, call your local poison control center at 1-800-222-1222.