Medicine
Adverse Drug Reactions and Pharmacovigilance
Quick fact
An estimated 5% of all serious adverse drug reactions are ever reported to national pharmacovigilance systems, which is why so many hidden harms take years to surface.
Why this is interesting
You trust a drug you take because it passed clinical trials—but those trials can miss life-threatening dangers for the very first time. How do we catch a medication's hidden harms after it is already in pharmacy shelves?