Critical analysis of drug promotional literature available to the medical practitioners

Background: To ascertain whether the pharmaceutical companies are following the WHO criteria for “Ethical medicinal drug promotion 1988” and “OPPI Code of pharmaceutical marketing practices, 2012” and to what extent. Also, to evaluate the therapeutic claims made by them in their drug promotional literature and other aspects.Methods: Drug Promotional Literature (DPL) from different pharmaceutical companies was collected from various Medical practitioners and analysed to see if they achieved objectives. Therapeutic claims made by them were classified as authentic, exaggerated, controversial, false, and misinterpreted.Results: Total 250 DPLs were collected and critically analysed for information content. Out of the 11 WHO criteria for ethical medicinal drug promotion (1988), Majority (30%)  followed only 54.54% of the criteria while only 4% followed 100% of the criteria. The total number of claims in the 250 DPL were 354 of which 52.8% were authentic and 47.2% were misleading. From the misleading claims: 28.7% were exaggerated, 34.7% were controversial, 22.8% were false, 23% were ambiguous.Conclusions: This study enabled us to find out to what extent the pharmaceutical industries follow the standard criteria for DPL and evaluate the claims made by them. DPL is one of the important sources of drug information. Some of the pharmaceutical companies failed to follow the WHO criteria while advertising their products in order to make them look more lucrative having an underlying commercial motive. As they influence prescribing patterns of the clinicians, misleading promotional literature would result in irrational prescribing of drugs. To avoid this, DPL has to be critically evaluated

Can idiosyncratic drug reactions occur in quick succession? a case of cross sensitivity between levetiracetam and phenytoin

The occurrence of adverse drug reactions (ADRs) to more than one drug in quick succession can cause diagnostic dilemma to the doctor and increased burden of suffering to the patient. We present a single case report of a 23 year old female who developed rash and agranulocytosis in quick succession as ADRs to phenytoin and levetiracetam respectively. These antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) were prescribed as prophylaxis against post traumatic seizures (PTS). Hence a proper rationale for the prophylactic treatment of PTS and pharmacovigilance for early detection of adverse drug reactions is the need of the hour