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Healthy Skepticism Library item: 2926

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

Hemminki E.
Content analysis of drug-detailing by pharmaceutical representatives.
Med Educ 1977 May; 11:(3):210-5
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/865343


Abstract:

Drug detailing is important in drug prescribing. This report describes a study made on drug presentations to groups of doctors in Helsinki. The method was silent observation of presentations given by medical representatives. Analysis of the content of the presentations revealed that side-effects and contraindications were often neglected; the drug presented was always recommended as the drug of choice; other forms of treatment were seldom mentioned. References to Finnish doctors doing clinical trials with the drugs were often made. Even though this study was restricted, its results show that drug detailing and its significance in post-graduate education call for more attention.

Keywords:
*content analysis/Finland/doctors/students/sales representatives/quality of information/EVALUATION OF PROMOTION: DETAILING Advertising* Communication Drug Industry* Education, Medical, Continuing Evaluation Studies Finland Pharmaceutical Preparations*

 

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Cases of wilful misrepresentation are a rarity in medical advertising. For every advertisement in which nonexistent doctors are called on to testify or deliberately irrelevant references are bunched up in [fine print], you will find a hundred or more whose greatest offenses are unquestioning enthusiasm and the skill to communicate it.

The best defence the physician can muster against this kind of advertising is a healthy skepticism and a willingness, not always apparent in the past, to do his homework. He must cultivate a flair for spotting the logical loophole, the invalid clinical trial, the unreliable or meaningless testimonial, the unneeded improvement and the unlikely claim. Above all, he must develop greater resistance to the lure of the fashionable and the new.
- Pierre R. Garai (advertising executive) 1963