Healthy Skepticism Library item: 2562

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

Hoey J.
A drug by any other name (response)
Canadian Medical Association Journal 2001 Feb 20; 164:(4):464

Abstract:

We agree that most physicians are more familiar with the brand names of the drugs they prescribe than with the generic names; their patients and colleagues often refer to drugs by their brand name. For a medical journal, however, identifying drugs by their brand name is problematic. First, a given drug may have several brand names. Second, readers of CMAJ in other countries might not know the brand names used in Canada, as drugs are often marketrd under different names in different countries. Thus, unless the brand name is critical to the manuscript (for example, a case report in which a particular brand of a drug is implicated), we prefer to use only the generic name.

Keywords:
*letter to the editor Canada ETHICAL ISSUES IN PROMOTION: DRUG NAME PROMOTIONAL TECHNIQUES: DRUG NAME