Healthy Skepticism Library item: 6890

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: news

Law J.
Who will be the new voice of patients?
Scrip Magazine 1999 Mar30-33
www.pjbpubs.co.uk/scrip/scrhome.html

Abstract:

Good patient information is more important now than it ever was. Pharmaceutical companies are in an excellent position to close the current gap in patient information. Groups working in the health information field are made up of representatives of industry and the voluntary health sector and one in Australia was funded by the subsidiary of Merck. Current patient information leaflets leave much to be desired. According to one report, although they purport to inform patients and facilitate choice they are in effect medicolegally defensive. One way to go is for companies to form partnerships with pateitn groups, although in the past there was a certain amount of tension in these relationships. These tensions have been recognized in recent reports from the United Kingdom branch of Pharmaceutical Partners for Better Healthcare and the Long-term Medical Conditions Alliance.

Keywords:
*analysis/United Kingdom/information from companies/patient groups/ patient education material/corporate funding/INFORMATION FROM INDUSTRY: PATIENTS AND CONSUMERS/SPONSORSHIP: PATIENT AND CONSUMER ORGANIZATIONS