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“Inverse benefit law” explains how drug marketing undermines patient safety

BMJ 2011; 342 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.d598 (Published 28 January 2011) Cite this as: BMJ 2011;342:d598
  1. Janice Hopkins Tanne
  1. 1New York

Drug companies show a clear, repeated pattern in which “drugs discovered with good science for a specific set of patients are marketed to a larger population” for whom they are less appropriate and less safe, says Howard Brody, professor and director of the Institute for the Medical Humanities at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.

The “inverse benefit law” was published online in the American Journal of Public Health (doi:10.2105/AJPH.2010.199844).

Dr Brody told the BMJ, “You have to be really sceptical and careful not be seduced by research findings that are …

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