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http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/326/7402/1286-a
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BMJ 2003;326:1286 (14 June)
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 Collections under
which this article appears: Regulation
Patients' views
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Drug companies should not be excluded from giving information to patients, argued Trevor Jones, chief executive of the Association of British Pharmaceutical Industries.
"Patients want high quality information. They want independent and various sources of information so they can make informed judgments. To my mind, if you have got a condition, particularly a long term condition, you need to go in with the best information you can to get involved in a rational debate.
"Sometimes the patient is actually much more informed than the general practitioner that he is talking to. My feeling, from the pharmaceutical industry, is because we are the providers of medicines that people get from the health service, we should not be excluded from [giving information to patients], provided we do it in an objective way."
He denied suggestions that this might stoke demand for certain drugs.
"That would be true if we were to adopt the system that you see in America of direct advertising, but that is not an issue that we are addressing in the United Kingdom or Europe.
"The issue is, given that a patient is going to receive a medication of some kind, on what basis do they know what is available, and on what basis will they be able to have a rational discussion which is appropriate to them?"
They should be armed with enough information to ask why they were not getting a particular medicine or treatment, he said. (See p 1302.)
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Patients' views
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© 2003 BMJ Publishing Group Ltd
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