A Possible Index of Fatal Drug Toxicity in Humans

Abstract

The ratio of the number of deaths associated with a given drug to the number of prescriptions for that drug provides a measure of fatal toxicity in humans. This index (T) has been obtained for 47 drugs commonly encountered in fatalities in England and Wales. It is shown that T is often closely related to the corresponding fatal toxicity in animals (LD50), and to physico-chemical factors which are known to be correlated with other measures of human drug toxicity. In general, T is a measure of the probability of a fatal outcome following the use of a particular drug.