FATAL MED ERRORS PEAK AT START OF MONTH

Deaths related to medication errors appear to rise sharply during
the first few days of each month, suggesting that hectic pharmacies
may be at least partly to blame, according to researchers. Their
study of U.S. death certificates for the years 1979 through 2000
found that deaths attributed to prescription-drug errors showed a 25
percent spike in the first week of each month compared with the last
week of the month. No other major cause of death showed such a
large calendar-related shift, according the report in the January
issue of Pharmacotherapy.