How does pharmacovigilance work?

In France, pharmacovigilance relies mainly on spontaneous reporting of adverse effects of drugs and on pharmacoepidemiologic studies. The pharmacovigilance network is an official structure whose role is to inform physicians and pharmacists, to evaluate causality using standardized methods, and to establish a register of drug-related adverse events. Some of the data generated by the pharmacovigilance system are presented based on a review of the literature. Pharmacovigilance is a key source of information that should serve to guide the development of medical technologies and drugs with the goal of improving the safety of treatments. The pharmacovigilance system should become an indispensable tool for all those who work in the field of health.