Drug promotion — A source of information about drugs?

In this paper we attempt to assess whether, or not, drug promotion is an acceptable source of drug information. Both National Health Service hospital doctors and general practi tioners are exposed to an average of $ 1000 of pharmaceuti cal prbmotion (per doctor) each year. Representatives account for 44% of this cost, and the average general practi tioner sees at least one representative per week. Very little is known about the information that representatives provide to doctors, although there are guidelines concerning conduct in the Medicines Act of 1968, and in the Voluntary Code of Practice of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI). Surveys show that doctors consider inform ation provided by representatives to be important for learn ing about both product existence and efficacy. Surveys also suggest that journal advertisements are a poor source of information, and are not used extensively to learn about product efficacy.

The importance of drug promotion as a source of drug information can be attributed to its easy availability. However, there is a lack of any alternative source which pro vides all the drug information that doctors would like to have easily available. Drug promotion does not appear to fulfil the information needs of the prescribing doctor.