[e-drug] UK DOH ends contract with drugs bulletin

E-DRUG: UK DOH ends contract with drugs bulletin
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Dear E-druggers,

The UK Dept of Health has cut its funding to the Drug & Therapeutics Bulletin (see below's BMJ piece on it). How short sighted!
What about an international campaign to restore funding?

Cheers

Ken
Dr. Ken Harvey
Adjunct Senior Research Fellow
School of Public Health, La Trobe University
Australia
http://www.medreach.com.au
VOIP: +61 (03) 9029 0634;
Mobile +61 (04) 1918 1910
k.harvey@medreach.com.au

[Have a look at the DTB website at http://www.dtb.org.uk/idtb/portal/
WB]

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U.K. Department of Health ends contract with drugs bulletin

http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/332/7550/1109-a

Madeleine Brettingham

London

The Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin, a journal that has provided doctors
across England with advice about medical treatments for over 40 years,
has had its funding stopped by the Department of Health in the latest
round of cost cutting in the NHS.

The last minute decision, which came only two hours before the
bulletin's previous contract ended in March, leaves the publication's
future uncertain and threatens to increase yet further the influence of
the drug industry in doctors' prescribing, said its editor, Ike Iheanacho.

"In April last year the [parliamentary] health select committee pointed
to us as an invaluable source of independent advice. So it seems strange
that they have done this. The fear is that now doctors will be reliant

E-DRUG: UK DOH ends contract with drugs bulletin (2)
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Ken Harvey asked: What about an international campaign to restore funding
for the UK Drugs and Therapeutics Bulletin (DTB)?

I am in discussions with DTB about whether an international campaign could
be useful or not.

Rather than flood DTB's email inbox with offers of help, please wait and I
will let all E-druggers know what is decided.

regards,

Peter

Dr Peter R Mansfield
GP
Director, Healthy Skepticism Inc. Countering misleading drug promotion.
www.healthyskepticism.org
peter@healthyskepticism.org
Research Fellow, Discipline of General Practice, University of Adelaide.
www.adelaide.edu.au/directory/peter.mansfield
peter.mansfield@adelaide.edu.au