Dear friends,
"E-Drug" was set up to support the concept of essential drugs by
improving and speeding up communication between health professionals
in the field of essential drugs. It was conceived as a useful tool
for discussion of drug policy issues, and a means to share expertise
and improve access to INDEPENDENT drug information.
An unexpected side effect of "E-Drug" appears to be to alert
the industry to questions posed by drug activists about their
products. Recently, I sent a question about cyproterone acetate
to the E-drug network after receiving a request for information
from the Thai Drug Study group. Several people from E-drug sent
extremely useful information to them as a result -- thank
you very much for your help. However, the information about the
request also went to the industry.
This is a useful reminder that should any of us wish to speedily
inform the industry of particular products or issues we are
especially concerned about, we now know how to do it!
Others are probably asking this same near-rhetorical question.....:
Is
rapidly
informing the industry of issues of concern to the rest of us a good
thing or a bad thing? I hope over the longterm that some sort of
dialogue, even if only by e-mail, would prove to be a useful endeavor.
Organizations such as MaLAM might watch to see if concerns expressed lead
to any change in advertising, for example.
cheers, anne
I think there are positive and negative sides to sharing/seeking info
through the E-Drug list. If you send a query you may get info from all the
concerned parties including the drug company whose product you are
talking about (if they wish to respond). I think this is a good
practice in the long run. I think nobody will argue on the importance of
info from all sources to evaluate the safety and efficacy of a product.
I think leading independent publications like the Drug and Therapeutics
Bulletin in the U.K. and the Medical Letter in the U.S. send out draft
copy of their newsletters to the manufacturers of the products that are
discussed for their possible input.
On the other hand, one should be careful to talk about any upcoming
campaigns against a particular drug to the general E-Drug list. It would
be wise to network with a few key people on campaign matters. At the
same time, I think it maybe a good idea to enlist members of the industry
to the E-Drug list, if they wish. I think a majority of drug companies
now communicate with the email.
It was good to read in Scrip (Nov 7, 1995 p.18) that industry and
consumers "worked constructively together" at the last month's Asia
Pacific conference on national drug policies in Australia. And Dr.
Graham Dukes, a senior World Bank consultant called for a "broad
partnership between the industry, the public, and health professions."
Thank you Barbara, Anne and Richard for your contribution on this
subject. It would be interesting to hear from the industry too.
Kind regards
Syed Rizwanuddin Ahmad
Researcher
Drug Safety, Education and Information
3831 Beecher Street, NW
Washington, DC 20007-1802, USA
Phone/Fax:1-202-965-1518