Study: Your Medicine May Be Doing You Harm

Nothing seemed to slow down Beth Hollister until she got an ear infection 18 months ago. She ended up in the hospital, but not because of the infection, CBS News medical correspondent Jon LaPook reports. The antibiotic she was prescribed to treat the infection actually made her sick — a rare side effect of Augmentin caused her liver to fail.

"When I looked into the mirror and I saw my eyes were yellow, I was very scared," Hollister says.

In a report issued Tuesday, the Journal of the American Medical Association estimates that 700,000 people a year, especially the elderly, experience adverse drug events that lead to emergency room visits. In patients 65 years and older, one-third of the drug reactions were caused by three medicines: Coumadin, a blood thinner; insulin and Digoxin, a heart medication.

"The three drugs that were most commonly implicated in these bad effects are known to be very potent. They are drugs where the physician should monitor the patient closely, and obviously in these cases, they were not monitored close enough," Dr. Paul Watkins says.

Hollister, now recovered, says patients should also be vigilant.

"Ask the doctor or the nurse in the office to explain the side effects, explain the drug interactions very clearly," Hollister says. She also advises that when patients get prescriptions filled, "actually speak to the pharmacist and really listen."