Reasons for stopping drugs are monitored in New Zealand

EDITOR,—The New Zealand intensive medicines monitoring programme is a system for monitoring adverse events in the early postmarketing period of selected new drugs. Each drug is monitored for four to five years usually, and cohorts of identifiable patients are established from prescription information sent in from virtually all pharmacies throughout the country, with a population base of 3.6 million. The average size of each cohort is 10 228. Each dispensing episode is recorded throughout the monitoring period; the data include date, daily …