Drug Safety Matters

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For all its ease and speed, disproportionality analysis can be distorted by many biases, making it easy to misuse and misinterpret. Michele Fusaroli from Uppsala Monitoring Centre and Eugene van Puijenbroek from the Netherlands pharmacovigilance centre Lareb explain why we shouldn’t abuse this powerful but fragile tool.
Tune in to find out:
Why we should never treat disproportionality signals as verdicts
How poorly performed analyses affect scientists, regulators and patients
How to avoid the most common sources of bias 
Want to know more?
Michele and Eugene’s paper in Drug Safety is a concrete guide to charting and sidestepping the pitfalls of disproportionality analysis.
In another Drug Safety paper, Michele and colleagues show how directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) can help map and address biases in disproportionality analysis.
Michele also reviewed the method’s limitations in Uppsala Reports, where he argues that ‘pharmacovigilance must move past crude disproportionality’.
Last year, Retraction Watch covered the spike in pharmacovigilance studies in the literature and why some journals decided to ban drug safety database papers.
Previously on Drug Safety Matters, Michele and Daniele Sartori discussed the READUS-PV guidelines for reporting disproportionality analyses.
In 2016, the IMI PROTECT project published recommendations to improve signal detection practices, especially for quantitative methods like disproportionality analysis.
UMC’s guidebook on signal detection in small datasets offers step-by-step advice for qualitative methods and manual case review.

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About UMC
Uppsala Monitoring Centre promotes safer use of medicines and vaccines for everyone everywhere. Follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, X, and Bluesky.

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Medical device pharmacovigilance is complicated. Alongside clinical safety, there are technology risks, from cybersecurity threats to outdated software, that can put patients at risk. 
In this two-part episode, Omar Aimer, President of ISoP and former co-lead of the Medical Device Safety Special Interest Group, discusses the challenges with medical device safety monitoring and what needs to change to keep patients safe.
Tune in to find out:
How reporting for medical devices differs from medicines and vaccines
How AI may be used for predictive safety monitoring
Why regulatory and data harmonisation remains the key to improving medical device safety
Want to know more?
Listen to the first part of the interview here.
If you would like to learn more about the status and suggestions for future improvements in medical device safety monitoring, Omar has recently published a paper on the topic in the journal Drug Safety, as well as an article for Uppsala Reports.
Much like any other market, AI/ML are fast infiltrating the medical device field, and may require tailored frameworks for effective safety monitoring, as discussed by Babic et al. in their Nature paper.
Founded in 2018, ISoP’s Medical Device Safety Special Interest Group works to develop “best practices and policy in the field of medical device performance monitoring and safety surveillance”.
Got a story to share?
We’re always looking for new topics and interesting voices. If you have an idea or any other feedback for the show, get in touch!

About UMC
Uppsala Monitoring Centre promotes safer use of medicines and vaccines for everyone everywhere. Follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, X, and Bluesky.

Send a text message to the show!
Disproportionality analysis is the go-to method for signal detection in pharmacovigilance, but it is also easy to misuse and misinterpret.
For our next episode, we will be chatting to pharmacovigilance scientists Michele Fusaroli from Uppsala Monitoring Centre and Eugene van Puijenbroek from the Netherlands Pharmacovigilance Centre Lareb about the method’s pitfalls, including:
how to recognise common sources of error
how to mitigate bias
best practices for careful design and interpretation of disproportionality analyses
So here’s your chance to ask us anything! Text us your questions for Michele and Eugene by Wednesday 4 March for a chance to feature on the show.
We look forward to hearing from you!
Got a story to share?
We’re always looking for new topics and interesting voices. If you have an idea or any other feedback for the show, get in touch!

About UMC
Uppsala Monitoring Centre promotes safer use of medicines and vaccines for everyone everywhere. Follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, X, and Bluesky.

Send a text message to the show!
Medical device pharmacovigilance is complicated. Alongside clinical safety, there are technology risks, from cybersecurity threats to outdated software, that can leave patients vulnerable.  
In this two-part episode, Omar Aimer, president of ISoP and former co-lead of the Medical Device Safety Special Interest Group, discusses the challenges with medical device safety monitoring and what needs to change to keep patients safe. 
Tune in to find out:
What defines a medical device and how prevalent they are in our society
Why device safety monitoring is different from medicines and vaccines, and where current surveillance still falls short
How global initiatives aim to strengthen safety monitoring standards
Want to know more?
Listen to the second part of the interview here. 
If you would like to learn more on the status and suggestions for future improvements in medical device safety monitoring, Omar has recently published a paper on the topic in the journal Drug Safety, as well as an article for Uppsala Reports.
Much like any other market, AI/ML are fast infiltrating the medical device field, and may require tailored frameworks for effective safety monitoring, as discussed by Babic et al. in their Nature paper.
Founded in 2018, ISoP’s Medical Device Safety Special Interest Group works to develop “best practices and policy in the field of medical device performance monitoring and safety surveillance”.
Got a story to share?
We’re always looking for new topics and interesting voices. If you have an idea or any other feedback for the show, get in touch!

About UMC
Uppsala Monitoring Centre promotes safer use of medicines and vaccines for everyone everywhere. Follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, X, and Bluesky.

Send a text message to the show!
This special episode was recorded just before the 43rd Annual Meeting of the WHO Programme for International Drug Monitoring wrapped up in Cairo, Egypt. Held from 27 to 29 October 2025, the meeting brought together representatives from more than 80 member states, along with senior experts and regulatory leaders from WHO headquarters and regional offices. Discussions focused on strengthening pharmacovigilance for women of childbearing age and children, in light of WHO’s newly finalised Global Smart Pharmacovigilance Strategy. 
In this episode, you’ll hear an abridged interview with Shanthi Pal, WHO Pharmacovigilance Team Lead, as she unpacks the new strategy and what it means for countries.
Want to know more?
Read WHO’s “Global smart pharmacovigilance strategy” (Geneva: World Health Organization; 2025). 
Explore WHO’s work on pharmacovigilance through the Programme for International Drug Monitoring (PIDM) and the WHO Pharmacovigilance Team.
Learn more about regulatory systems strengthening and the WHO Global Benchmarking Tool (GBT) for medicines and vaccines.
Discover the WHO network for regulatory systems strengthening – the Coalition of Interested Parties (CIP), of which UMC is a member.
Visit the UMC website to find out more about the WHO PIDM and UMC’s role in it.
Got a story to share?
We’re always looking for new topics and interesting voices. If you have an idea or any other feedback for the show, get in touch!

About UMC
Uppsala Monitoring Centre promotes safer use of medicines and vaccines for everyone everywhere. Follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, X, and Bluesky.