E-drug: Re: BMJ starts drug advertising on website (contd)
----------------------------------------------------------
To Ellen t'Hoen's letter:
Basically Ellen is right. However, if you want your independent
information to be read by as much health professionals as possible, then
free distribution of a drug bulletin would be the only option. How many
health professionals are there in France, certainly more then 23000!
Of course there should be an awareness that independent drug
information costs money. But unless governments force their health
professionals to spend a certain amount of their money on independent drug
information, there is no chance that they subscribe freely.
The (also independent) drug bulletin 'Pharma Selecta' in the
Netherlands is now being delivered to all Dutch pharmacists,
thanks to the income from (generic) advertisements.
There are two ways such advertisments could be handled for paper
information:
- First, all ads need to be screened on their content and rejected if
they advertise specific drugs in an irresponsible way
- Ads should be placed in a journal in such a way that they can
be removed without removing the content of the journal.
As on internet the last option is not possible, the emphasis on the
screening of the ads should be heavy.
Foppe