Free lunches are not the answer

doi:10.1136/bmj.39568.498125.80

BMJ 2008;336:1034 (10 May), doi:10.1136/bmj.39568.498125.80

Letters

Why I love a free lunch

Free lunches are not the answer

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

I share Dr Patel’s concerns about doctors’ continuingeducation and the quality of hospital food.¹ However, I disagreethat "free" lunches are the best solution to either of theseproblems.

No clinician can be expected to follow the progress of experimentaldrugs in hundreds of journals. That is why we have independentsources of information about drugs—such as the Drug andTherapeutics Bulletin, NPS Radar, and Prescrire International—whichaim to distil a complex evidence base into accessible guidancefor busy clinicians. Prescrire International published a reviewof ivabradine last year, which deemed it "best avoided."² Accordingto the abstract, concerns include a lack of evidence of superiorityto standard antianginal drugs and evidence of increased adversecardiac events in patients taking ivabradine compared with thosetaking atenolol or amlodipine.² Did Dr Patel hear these messagesfrom his smiling drug representative? I found this informationvia a PubMed . . . [Full text of this article]

Brett D Montgomery, clinical senior lecturer

¹ Discipline of General Practice, School of Primary, Aboriginal and Rural Health Care (SPARHC) University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia

brett@multiline.com.au