Healthy Skepticism Library item: 3433
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
Hancher L.
Regulating drug promotion: the UK experience
Journal of Consumer Policy 1987; 10:383-407
Abstract:
This article examines the nature of control over the promotional activities of the pharmaceutical industry in the UK. It focuses on the variety of methods which companies use to promote their products to the medical profession and considers the special problems this raises, for the government who seeks to secure the supply of safe products at reasonable prices, for the doctor who has often little but the company’s own promotional literature to guide him/her in selecting a new drug, and for the consumer/patient who is supplied with a minimum of information about the product and who is consequently dependent on the doctor’s judgement. It assesses the amount of molney currently expended by the industry on promotional material and examines the adequacy and efficacy of the complex interaction of the current statutory, non-statutory and self-regulatory controls.
Keywords:
*nonsystematic review/United Kingdom/regulation of promotion/promotion costs and volume/Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry/ABPI