Science & technology | Overprescribing drugs

Too many people take too many pills

Medical systems are set up to put people on drugs, not take them off

As a pharmacist in a big hospital in Adelaide, Emily Reeve would often see patients overwhelmed by the number of drugs they took each day. “They’d say ‘I take so many medicines that I rattle when I walk’,” she recalls. And she worried that some of the medications these patients were on seemed useless, or even harmful.

This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “An ill for every pill”

From the April 29th 2023 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition

More from Science & technology

A person sleeping. The frame is split between night and day.

Does melatonin work for jet lag?

It can help. But it depends where you’re going

A network of pixelated hearts

Training AI models might not need enormous data centres

Eventually, models could be trained without any dedicated hardware at all


Workers harnessed unto the facade of the Museum of the Future, United Arab Emirates.

How the Gulf’s rulers want to harness the power of science

A stronger R&D base, they hope, will transform their countries’ economies. Will their plan work?


Cancer vaccines are showing promise at last

Trials are under way against skin, brain and lung tumours

New firefighting tech is being trialled in Sardinia’s ancient forests

It could sniff out blazes long before they spread out of control

Can Jeff Bezos match Elon Musk in space?

After 25 years, Blue Origin finally heads to orbit, and hopes to become a contender in the private space race