Healthy Skepticism Library item: 5169

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

Massam D.
Unpublished data in drug advertisements.
BMJ 1993 Apr 24; 306:(6885):1127

Abstract:

As of the beginning of 1993 the Code of Practice of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry is administered by the Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority. The essential requirement for an advertisement is that the claims made should be capable of substantiation and that the substantiation should be provided on request to any doctor. “Data on fileâ€ have to judged on their merits.

Keywords:
*letter to the editor/United Kingdom/Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority/ ABPI/ Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry/ Code of Practice (UK)/journal advertisements/quality of information/references/PROMOTIONAL TECHNIQUES: USE OF REFERENCES /REGULATION, CODES, GUIDELINES: COMPLIANCE, SANCTIONS, STANDARDS/REGULATION, CODES, GUIDELINES: INDUSTRY SELF-REGULATION

Notes:

Reply to: Richard Harrington, BMJ 1993;306:721.
Conflict of interest: David Massam works for the Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority.

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Far too large a section of the treatment of disease is to-day controlled by the big manufacturing pharmacists, who have enslaved us in a plausible pseudo-science...
The blind faith which some men have in medicines illustrates too often the greatest of all human capacities - the capacity for self deception...
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we need a stern, iconoclastic spirit which leads, not to nihilism, but to an active skepticism - not the passive skepticism, born of despair, but the active skepticism born of a knowledge that recognizes its limitations and knows full well that only in this attitude of mind can true progress be made.
- William Osler 1909