Evaluating the reliability and accuracy of the promotional brochures for the generic pharmaceutical companies in Iraq using World Health Organization guidelines

Abstract

Background:Pharmaceutical industries worldwide are heavily involved in aggressive drug promotions. Physician targeted promotion through medical representatives is one of the most common tactic for drug promotion by pharmaceutical drug companies. WHO states that medical representatives to work in an ethical way should make available to prescribers and dispensers complete and unbiased information for each product discussed; therefore this study aimed to evaluate the ethics in the medical brochures of generic pharmaceutical companies that are given through medical representatives to physicians in Iraq.Materials and Methods:An observational, cross-sectional study was conducted in Iraq – Baghdad from February to April 2014. Promotional drug brochures were collected mainly from pharmaceutical exhibition during attendance of medical conferences that were sponsored by generic pharmaceutical companies. Evaluation of each brochure was based primarily on WHO criteria for ethical medicinal drug promotion. The availability of emotional pictures in each brochure was also examined. Furthermore, references were checked to find their retrievability, source, and authenticity of presentations.Results:Most medical brochures were for antibiotics, and drugs for cardiovascular diseases. All brochures mention drug name, with its active ingredient and indication, but there is a significant absence for drug interaction, while drug side effects and contraindications if present were written in a small font. Emotional picture presented in 70% of brochures. Reference citation was present in 72% of brochures, however only 75% of references in these brochures were correct.Conclusions:The information that is provided in medical brochures is biased and mainly persuasive since it is mainly focusing on the positive aspect of drug therapy.

Critical appraisal of drug promotional literature using World Health Organisation guidelines

“…In our study we assess the type of pictures presented in the collected DPLs and our findings suggest that 66.3% of the brochures contain various pictures to promote their products which are in line with the findings of a similar study. 22 Pictures of medicinal products were forming the largest category in varied types of pictures presented in the evaluated brochures as shown in figure 4. Similar observation was reported from a study conducted by Ganashree P et al 23 A total of 208 DPLs contained 14 (6.7%) Figures and 4 (1.9%) to depict the data on the promotional drugs.…”

Aggressive Medicine Promotional Activity of Pharmaceutical Industry All Over the Globe: Who Will Do the Highly Risky Job to Defy the Monstrous Financial Tyrant?

“…Additionally, multiple studies around the globe violate the World Health Organization's (WHO) guidelines regarding the manufacturer's drug promotional literature. [41][42][43][44][45][46] Pharmaceutical manufacturing companies are the most powerful industrial and financial transnational group around the planet. 47,48 The worldwide proceeds for pharma-company were over 1.2 trillion U.S. dollars in 2018, and it goes up to $100 billion from 2017.…”

Snapshot of the pharmaceutical promotional literature of Bangladesh: A critical review

“…Printed promotional materials are the most commonly used promotion tool (Ijoma et al, 2010; and are designed to introduce product to prescriber as well as to increase knowledge about that promoted product by reinforcing the verbal message provided by the medical representatives . Several studies shows that provision of information on medicine usually contaminated with the intentional manipulation and misinterpretation as well as claims, which are often inaccurate, exaggerated, ambiguous, controversial, oversimplified, irrelevant and false (Norris et al, 2005;Rohra et al, 2006;Othman et al, 2009;Murthy and Krishnamurthy, 2010;Jaykaran et al, 2011;Mikhael, 2015;Randhawa et al, 2015). In addition, essential information like contraindications, warnings and side effects are sometimes absent (Mali et al, 2009;Khakhkhar et al, 2013;Mikhael, 2015).…”