Survey Sees UK Doctors Rejecting Direct Drug Promotion

A new survey of family doctors in the UK indicates that a majority oppose direct contact with pharmaceutical marketers. The report, which outlines the concerns of UK general practitioners (GPs) on the issue, claims that 70% of those interviewed would prefer not to have any telephone contact with drugmakers.

The survey also claims that 42% of GPs believe promotional publications are "unhelpful," while 22% see such material as potentially leading to "dangerous" levels of misprescribing. The survey's sponsors added that contacts between UK doctors and drugmakers tend to increase time pressures on the profession, and that "innovative" approaches to distributing product information were needed instead.

Drug firms are not free to contact UK doctors for promotional purposes as they are in the US. Revised guidelines for prescription drug promotion in the UK were published in February 2005. These include tougher measures against poor practice and "naming and shaming" companies that regularly breach guidelines. These new guidelines are not expected to have a negative impact on sales, however.