Pharmacovigilance aims to detect, assess, understand, and prevent adverse effects from medicines and medical interventions in order to improve patient care, public health, and safety. It works to evaluate the benefits, risks, and effectiveness of medicines and promote understanding among health professionals and the public. Pharmacovigilance is needed due to incidents like the thalidomide tragedy in the 1950s where off-label use of a drug by pregnant women caused birth defects. Integrating pharmacovigilance methods allows adverse events to be more efficiently identified, monitored, and addressed to minimize safety issues with treatments.