Intended for healthcare professionals

Rapid response to:

Education And Debate

Cochrane at crossroads over drug company sponsorship

BMJ 2003; 327 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.327.7420.924 (Published 16 October 2003) Cite this as: BMJ 2003;327:924

Rapid Response:

Drug companies could help improve access to reviews

As a first step, and perhaps as an alternative to funding the production of reviews, pharmaceutical companies could help improve access to reviews.

The Web is a vital source of information, and search engines are a popular means of finding information on the Web - a recent survey of British students found that 45% used Google as their first port of call when looking for information. Until Cochrane Reviews are visible in search engines such as Google the impact of Cochrane Reviews will always be less than the funding agencies and review authors would wish.
The easiest way to do this would be for pharmaceutical companies to work with the Cochrane Collaboration and Wiley Interscience to remove the barriers to Cochrane Reviews.

Competing interests:
None declared

Competing interests: No competing interests

19 October 2003
Ben Toth
Head of Knowledge Management
NHS Information Authority