The Food and Drug Administration’s communications to physicians and patients about the newly discovered dangers of approved medications often miss the mark, said a systematic review of 49 studies covering 16 medicines.

Researchers examined cases from 1990 to 2010 in which the FDA added warnings to labels, issued public health advisories or wrote letters to physicians and other prescribers to inform them of unanticipated drug risks. But these actions often did not achieve their aim or resulted in unintended consequences, said the review published online in January in the journal Medical Care.

My latest. Read the whole shebang.