Healthy Skepticism Library item: 3948

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Heery PJ.
What influences prescribing--scientific articles or promotional pressure?
Med J Aust 1989 Mar 6; 150:(5):282,

Abstract:

The attack by Harvey on the safety of co-trimoxazole is unwarranted and he selectively quotes from studies on the topic. Except for one, all the complaints about its promotion have come from Harvey and contrary to what he said, promotion for the product has not been large.

Keywords:
*letter to the editor/Australia/Burroughs Wellcome/industry perspective/co-trimoxazole/safety & risk information/INFLUENCE OF PROMOTION: PRESCRIBING, DRUG USE Advertising/standards* Drug Combinations/adverse effects Humans Prescriptions, Drug* Sulfamethoxazole/adverse effects* Trimethoprim/adverse effects* Trimethoprim-Sulfamethoxazole Combination

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Cases of wilful misrepresentation are a rarity in medical advertising. For every advertisement in which nonexistent doctors are called on to testify or deliberately irrelevant references are bunched up in [fine print], you will find a hundred or more whose greatest offenses are unquestioning enthusiasm and the skill to communicate it.

The best defence the physician can muster against this kind of advertising is a healthy skepticism and a willingness, not always apparent in the past, to do his homework. He must cultivate a flair for spotting the logical loophole, the invalid clinical trial, the unreliable or meaningless testimonial, the unneeded improvement and the unlikely claim. Above all, he must develop greater resistance to the lure of the fashionable and the new.
- Pierre R. Garai (advertising executive) 1963