Educating Health Professionals about Drug and Device Promotion: Advocates' Recommendations

摘要

In the promotion of rofecoxib (Vioxx), “drug marketing got well ahead of the science” [1]. The successful hormone-replacement-therapy marketing campaign “convinced physicians that so called HRT [hormone-replacement therapy] prevented cardiovascular disease before one single clinical trial with cardiovascular disease end points had ever been done” [2]. These are just two examples of how misleading promotion can be a major threat to health [1,2].