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1. Staa T-P v., Goldacre B, Gulliford M, Cassell J, Pirmohamed M, Taweel A, et al. Pragmatic randomised trials using routine electronic health records: putting them to the test. BMJ. 2012 Feb 7;344(feb07 1):e55-e55.
2. Edwards P, Arango M, Balica L, Cottingham R, El-Sayed H, Farrell B, et al. Final results of MRC CRASH, a randomised placebo-controlled trial of intravenous corticosteroid in adults with head injury-outcomes at 6 months. Lancet. 2005 Jun 4;365(9475):1957-9.
3. Dresden GM, Levitt MA. Modifying a Standard Industry Clinical Trial Consent Form Improves Patient Information Retention as Part of the Informed Consent Process. Academic Emergency Medicine. 2001;8(3):246-52.
1. Alper BS, Hand JA, Elliott SG, Kinkade S, Hauan MJ, Onion DK, et al. How much effort is needed to keep up with the literature relevant for primary care? J Med Libr Assoc 2004;92:429-37.
2. Moon JC, Flett AS, Godman BB, Grosso AM, Wierzbicki AS. Getting better value from the NHS drug budget. BMJ. 2010 Dec 17;341(dec17 1):c6449-c6449.
3. Marketing spend is a contested area, as the industry is keen to play it down. I recommend the following paper as it’s open access and offers a summary figure, methods from which it was derived, and a critical discussion of other estimates: Gagnon M¬A, Lexchin J. The Cost of Pushing Pills: A New Estimate of Pharmaceutical Promotion Expenditures in the United States. PLoS Med. 2008 Jan 3;5(1):e1.
4. Gilbody S, Wilson P, Watt I. Benefits and harms of direct to consumer advertising: a systematic review. Quality and Safety in Health Care. 2005;14(4):246-50.
5. Kravitz RL, Epstein RM, Feldman MD, Franz CE, Azari R, Wilkes MS, et al. Influence of patients’ requests for direct-toconsumer advertised antidepressants: a randomized controlled trial. JAMA. 2005 Apr 27;293(16):1995–2002.
6. Iizuka T. What Explains the Use of Direct-to-Consumer Advertising of Prescription Drugs? The Journal of Industrial Economics. 2004;52(3):349-79.
7. NICE. CG17 Dyspepsia: full guideline [Internet]. [cited 2011 Jan 4]. Available from: http://guidance.nice.org.uk/CG17/Guidance/pdf/English.
8. Law MR, Soumerai SB, Adams AS, Majumdar SR. Costs and Consequences of Direct-to-Consumer Advertising for Clopidogrel in Medicaid. Arch Intern Med. 2009 Nov 23;169(21): 1969-74.
9. I first saw the Reynolds, Bacall, Lowe and Serial Mom examples in: Petersen M, p32: Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs. Picador; 2009.
10. Eisenberg D. It’s an Ad, Ad, Ad World. Time [Internet]. 2002 Aug 26 [cited 2012 Mar 25]; Available from: http://www.time. com/ time/magazine/article/0,9171,344045,00.html
11. Stars Profit From Covert Drug Pitches CBS News [Internet]. [cited 2012 Mar 25]. Available from: http://www.cbsnews.com/ 2100-207_162-520196.html
12. Ibid.
13. Alzheimer’s Campaign Piques Public and Media Interest:: PR News May 21, 2001. Available from: http://www.prnewsonline. com/news/4782.html
14. Keidan J. Sucked into the Herceptin maelstrom. BMJ. 2007 Jan 6;334(7583):18.
15. Wilson PM, Booth AM, Eastwood A, Watt IS. Deconstructing Media Coverage of Trastuzumab (Herceptin): An Analysis of National Newspaper Coverage. J R Soc Med. 2008 Mar 1;101(3):125-32.
16. The selling of a wonder drug Science The Guardian [Internet]. [cited 2012 Mar 26]. Available from: http://www. guardian.co.uk/ science/2006/mar/29/medicineandhealth.health
17. Ibid.
18. To be absolutely clear, there is no evidence that a company was involved in promoting Barbara Moss to the media. This case simply illustrates the melodramatic ineptitude of coverage for new cancer drugs.
19. Castren E. Is mood chemistry? Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 2005 Mar 1;6(3):241-6.