Healthy Skepticism Library item: 2842

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

Bell W
The Compendium of Pharmaceuticals and Specialties
1975 May 30-31;

Abstract:

The Compendium of Pharmaceuticals and Specialties is distributed free to all Canadian doctors. The cost of production is about $300000 annually and about 50% of those costs comes from drug companies’ subsidies. One criticism of the CPS is that the preponderance of drugs are listed by brand name. The book also lacks information on the relative and comparative usefulness and effectiveness of the listed drugs. The biases in the funding of the book are evident in certain sections. In one which lists drugs by therapeutic headings only those companies that pay to support the book have their drugs listed and they are allowed to choose which drugs to list.

Keywords:
*analysis/Canada/Compendium of Pharmaceuticals and Specialties/commercial compendia/quality of information/EVALUATION OF PROMOTION: COMMERCIAL DRUG COMPENDIA