The pharmaceutical industry uses a variety of techniques to promote its products to clinicians, including gifts and free food, advertisements, and detailing by company representatives. Although manufacturers might argue that drug promotion supports physician education, which in turn leads to more informed prescribing, studies have shown that greater contact with drug sales representatives is as...

Lurie and colleagues’ comparison of FDA letters not approving applications for new drugs and associated public announcements from sponsors provides a valuable but rare peek behind the Food andDrugAdministration’s “iron curtain.” The discussion section begins, “our analysis found that the FDA’s reasons for not approving marketing applications for new molecular entities are not being fully convey...

David Resnik begins his paper with the claim that `Providing people with affordable prescription drugs is probably the most important health care issue for the developing world as we begin the 21st century.' I believe he is correct. He goes on to argue that drug companies have social responsibilities, including moral obligations based in beneficence and justice, to help meet this need by such p...

BACKGROUND Many patients' and consumers' organizations accept drug industry funding to support their activities. As drug companies and patient groups move closer, disclosure become essential for transparency, and the internet could be a useful means of making sponsorship information accessible to the public. This survey aims to assess the transparency of a large group of Italian patient and con...

by approved drugs is funded by the manufacturers — a situation that can lead to problems with the collection, analysis, and reporting of safety data.4 Finally, this alternative approach would be in keeping with a stronger, better-managed role for the FDA in monitoring drug side effects. A similar approach could also be used to create a fund for compensating patients injured by adverse events th...