Review of the 'the dawn of drug safety'.

摘要

The reviewer of my book, The Dawn of Drug Safety, correctly criticizes the mistake concerning the 1938 Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act, where five antibiotics are incorrectly included. His comments that the galley proofs were not reviewed, copy editing deficient, and that the index was inadequate are fair and truthful comments.However, there are numerous errors in the remainder of his review that I wish to address:"Why six marker drugs were selected is not given." The Preface of the book clearly states that "Six marker drugs have been chosen to follow" and that these drugs were selected because they were felt to be representative of the pharmacopoeias over time."The next page includes a figure never referred to in the text leaving the reader at a loss to understand a major theme in the book." Immediately below the figure is text specifically referring to the figure "(Figure 1)." Figure 2 is self-explanatory and refers to the post thalidomide era and, therefore, is not a 'major theme' in the book. It is there for contrast to figure 1.Absence of evidence is inferred to mean evidence of absence (e.g. pp.16 and 38)." There is nothing relevant on either page.