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Value and Need for Pharmaceutical Promotion Disputed
Robert L. Deamer, PharmD, BCPS
Ventura County Medical Center Ventura, Calif
Arch Fam Med. 1994;3(12):1033.
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| Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings. |
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Wind1 and Levy2 make compelling arguments in their attempt to justify current pharmaceutical company advertising and marketing practices. The essence of their assertions is that the pharmaceutical industry's promotional activities provide drug and therapeutic information superior to other means of physician education, including professional society-sponsored continuing medical education, peerreviewed medical literature, and other nonbiased sources of drug information.
There exists little doubt as to the effectiveness of the promo-education (or "promeducation") efforts of the industry. Avorn et al3 demonstrated that the prescribing habits of physicians are more closely allied with the promeducation literature from industry than with the findings from the medical literature regarding certain ineffective drug therapies for pain and senile dementia.
But doubt exists in the assertion made by Levy2 that market pressures and the FDA effectively force manufacturers to provide accurate promeducation. Wilkes et al4 found, in a critical review of
. . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]
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