快猫短视频

Prague

DON鈥橳 always believe what you read鈥攅specially if you鈥檙e a doctor
leafing through advertisements for prescription drugs.

Drug companies routinely advertise in doctors鈥� trade magazines. Many of the
advertisements make claims about a product鈥檚 efficacy鈥攂ut many also fail
to detail the source of the data supporting the claims. So Andrew Herxheimer of
the UK Cochrane Centre in London, which collects and disseminates information on
clinical trials, decided to investigate.

Herxheimer asked for further information about the 鈥渄ata on file鈥� mentioned
in 26 advertisements carried in the magazines Hospital Doctor and Prescriber.
Most of the data he received were incomplete, and did not allow a 鈥渃ritical
evaluation鈥� of the claims made in the adverts, Herxheimer told the International
Congress on Biomedical Peer Review and Global Communications held in Prague last
week.

Three companies maintained that the information was confidential. And a
headline claiming that an ulcer treatment had helped millions turned out to be
based on sales figures, rather than clinical evidence.

Richard Smith, editor of the British Medical Journal, argues that doctors are
not strongly influenced by advertising. 鈥淭hey may read it, but they don鈥檛
believe it,鈥� he says.

But Hamish Cameron, head of medical communications at the drug company
Zeneca, says there is a problem. 鈥淭he advertisements cited are clearly in breach
of the industry鈥檚 code of conduct,鈥� he says.