E-DRUG: Free drug samples may endanger children
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[Crossposted from Afro-Nets. HH]
Study Says Drug Samples May Endanger Children
By Gardiner Harris
A new study suggests that free drug samples, an effective marketing
tool for the drug industry, do little to help the poor and may put
children's health at risk.
The study, being published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, analyzed
an in-depth survey conducted in 2004 by the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention
<Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - The New York Times;
that asked people how they got health care. As part of the survey,
respondents were asked if they received free drug samples. It was
found that children in the lowest income group were no more likely to
receive the samples than were those in the highest income group, in
part because the poor are less likely to see doctors.
Once in a doctor's office, children who lack health insurance
<Health Insurance and Managed Care - The New York Times
are more likely to receive free drug samples than their
well-insured counterparts, the study reported.
But of greater concern, the authors wrote, are the kinds of drug
samples that physicians provide. In 2004, the year of the CDC survey,
more than 500,000 children received samples of four medicines that
were later the subject of serious safety warnings required by the Food
and Drug
Administration<Food and Drug Administration - The New York Times; .
The drug's label often have a strong warning and a reminder that it
was not approved for use in children under 2.
Meghana Bahar
HAI-Asia Pacific
Level 2, Apartment 4
37 Sagara Road
Colombo 00400
Sri Lanka
Web:www.haiap.org
E-mail: meghana@haiap.org