Doctors advised to avoid information from pharmaceutical companies

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Doctors Advised to Avoid Information from Pharmaceutical CompaniesThese are the findings of a systematic

review by Dr Geoffrey Spurling from The University of Queensland’s School of

Medicine, and colleagues from 8 other intuitions to be published in this week’s

PLoS Medicine “We found no benefit for doctors from

pharmaceutical promotion. So doctors need to recognise these tactics and should

instead use information sources that are independent of pharmaceutical

companies,” says Dr Geoffrey Spurling. The researchers reviewed all the

available literature that has looked at information from pharmaceutical

companies and how it influences doctors. They found that in almost all cases

studied, information from pharmaceutical companies could be associated with

higher prescribing frequency, higher costs, and lower prescribing quality.For example, one study found that doctors

with low prescribing costs were more likely to have rarely or never read

promotional mail or journal advertisements from pharmaceutical companies than doctors

with high prescribing costs. However, because most of the studies included in

the review were observational studies - the doctors in the studies were not

randomly selected to receive or not receive drug company information - it is

not possible to conclude that exposure to pharmaceutical information actually

causes any changes in physician behaviour.The study focused on 58 studies and is

the first article to exhaustively evaluate all the available literature on this

topic. Pharmaceutical expenditure on promotion totalled $57 billion in the US

in 2004. Pharmaceutical promotion is a controversial topic amongst doctors and

this issue is gaining a higher profile in the general public because of the

potential conflict of interest it presents to doctors.As a result of this review Dr Spurling

suggests that drug companies should do what they do best - take basic

scientific discoveries and turn them into medications. “If companies want to

contribute to medical education then they should put their money into a common

pool that would be administered by an independent organisation,” says Dr

Spurling.Dr Spurling adds that policy makers

should devise payment systems that reward companies for improving appropriate

use of their products rather than for increasing sales. Regulation of promotion

should be overseen by an independent organisation established through

legislation. Finally, policy makers should put significant resources into

independent sources of information for prescribers.Link to the article: http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000352Media: Dr Geoffrey Spurling

on 0417 626 253 or 07 3275 5388 or email g.spurling@...