Millions of Americans are dependent on their pharmaceutical prescriptions and this dependence extends to the professionals preparing their medications. Pharmacist technicians operate under tremendous pressure to fill large amounts of prescriptions quickly so that overhead costs are kept down and can easily make simple errors that have devastating consequences. Negligence on the part of pharmacists can include switching orders, putting the wrong medication in incorrectly labeled bottles or failing to give adequate warnings regarding safe dosages or dangerous drug interactions can mean the difference between good health and poor, life and death.

Even an accuracy rate of over 95% equals a 5% rate of pharmaceutical errors, and the numbers of those affected increase as the volume of customers at the pharmacy goes up. Over 100,000 people die annually due to negative drug reactions; professionals hypothesize that overworked pharmacists are the most likely to cause prescription mistakes. Working 12-hour shifts, day in and day out, under pressures to fill 30 prescriptions or more per hour means that the average pharmacy technician has just a couple of minutes to review and fill the order, check for hazards interactions and advise the customer on proper dosage. Pharmaceutical error in hospitals are even more common, where patients have even less control over which drugs they do or do not take.

Patients who are children have been documented in a University of London School of Pharmacy study to be at a higher risk for prescription error caused by everything from doctors writing incorrect prescriptions to prescriptions wrongly filled by pharmacists and nurses administering medications improperly. Children's bodies are frequently not yet able to handle the toxicity of the adverse drug interactions and incorrect medication meaning that the increase and mistakes may also lead to an increase in fatalities. Some doses have not even been tested on children and yet are given in standard adult doses instead of basing the amount of medication given by the child's weight.

The best way to protect yourself from accidents as a result of pharmaceutical error is to be proactive and ask many questions of both your physician and your pharmacy technician in order to catch any mistakes before it is too late. Doctors often remark that the patients who are the most difficult have the highest rate of recovery so keep that in mind if you feel hesitant about discussing things with your doctor.

Once you are satisfied with the prescription you have been given and arrived to pick up your medication at the pharmacy take your time, open and examine the prescription right then and there can ask any questions you are concerned about. If nothing you see prompts a question, be sure to ask the pharmacist if there any dangerous interactions or side effects to the medication you are taking, at the very least. When you arrive home before you take your medication check online to compare the information you've been given with what is readily available from reputable sites, above all avoid passivity regarding your own health. Contact a personal injury lawyer familiar with medical malpractice and prescription error cases if you have any concerns about your medication or ill-effects that you have suffered.