BODY WATCH : Improper Drug Use a Cause for Concern : Health: Worry over prescription misuse and interaction has the Food and Drug Administration pushing for more consumer education.

Drug experts estimate that almost 13% of the U.S. population--those people over the age of 65--take more than one-third of the medications prescribed every year.

And with the baby boomers about to hit 50, that percentage is expected to increase steadily.

Despite the benefits that these drugs bring to many senior citizens, public health experts are increasingly concerned about a growing problem: people not using medications as they are prescribed.

Hoping to improve patients’ understanding of their medication, the Food and Drug Administration more than 20 years ago tried to require that all prescriptions be accompanied by an easy-to-understand consumer guide that explained the effects of the drug and any hazards. Drug companies objected; the plan was killed in 1981.

Now, however, FDA chief David Kessler is taking a new look at the problem and was reported to have brought up the issue again in remarks at a closed-door meeting recently with the U.S. Pharmacopeia, an industry group that includes manufacturers, pharmacists, physicians and researchers that helps the FDA set dispensing standards for drugs.

An FDA official said a recent study by economists determined that “drug misadventures”--including failure to follow directions and failure to use proper doses--cost an estimated $20 billion a year in unnecessary hospitalizations. The survey has not yet been released.

FDA officials are working with pharmacists, drug companies, medical groups and consumer groups to find a simple “user-friendly” way to communicate information about drugs. However, the agency has not yet determined if it will require that this information be provided.

For their part, patients are getting better information about their drugs. In the past half decade, books that were once found only on doctors’ shelves have become hot sellers to the public, including “Physicians’ Desk Reference.”

Sidney M. Wolfe, who has headed the Public Citizen Health Research Group for 24 years, believes the books would not be needed if the FDA required that patients receive full information when they have a prescription filled.

“Now,” says Wolfe, the FDA is moving toward a voluntary “and therefore way too weak” regulation that “is dancing around the issue about why people are not regularly informed about the drugs they are taking without having to go out and buy a book.”