Personal Injury Law

Beware The Potential Dangers Of Free Drug Samples

By Tom Lamb

Some Ways That Free Drug Samples Can Harm Patients

(Posted by Tom Lamb at DrugInjuryWatch.com)

PLoS Medicine-- which is a peer-reviewed open-access journal published by the Public Library of Science -- published an essay by Susan Chimonas and Jerome P. Kassirer in May 2009 called "No More Free Drug Samples?" which provides a fresh perspective on a well-established practice in doctors office across the U.S.

This essay starts with the ideas that many of us may have about this practice:

Everybody likes something free, and free prescription drug samples are no exception. Patients love to receive them, and doctors feel good about handing them out. The practice of providing free drug samples is based on the tacit assumption that ?sampling? does much more good than harm.

Chimonas and Kassirer go on from there to deconstruct these preconceptions, working at various levels:

In this essay, we question the assumption that good trumps harm when prescription drugs are provided free to practicing doctors. We argue that ?sampling? is not effective in improving drug access for the indigent, does not promote rational drug use, and raises the cost of care.

I want to focus on the drug-safety aspect of this free drug samples issue. 

In their May 2009 PLos Medicine essay, Chimonas and Kassirer make these points in support of their contention that samples can have "negative consequences" when it comes to patient-health:

• In drugstores, pharmacists often identify potentially harmful drug interactions, intercept inadvertent medication errors, and offer a patient-friendly printout of instructions. In doctors' offices, however, detailed patient education regarding sample use rarely occurs, and when it does, it usually lacks information about drug interactions or instructions on how the drug should be taken. [footnote omitted]

• Moreover, if distribution is inadequately documented in patients' records, some people who receive samples in doctors' offices may not be notified or told to discontinue the medication in the event of a product recall or the emergence of new drug complications.

• The samples that drug representatives offer are almost never time-worn and well-tested drugs, nearly never generics, and usually comprise the newest agents on the market. As such, they expose patients to risks not yet identified in clinical trials. The experience with Vioxx is a case in point.

Chimonas and Kassirer discuss in this insightful essay, also, several other concerns they have with the seemingly "generous" practice of doctors dispensing free drug samples to patients.  It total, the authors conclude that:

The tradition of physicians dispensing samples has many serious disadvantages and is as anachronistic as bloodletting and high colonic irrigations. As the profession begins to slowly extract itself from the influential grip of industry, it must also deal with the undue influence of free samples.

If this topic interests you, "No More Free Drug Samples?" is a relatively short essay that is worth reading when you have an opportunity.

Full post as published by Drug Injury Watch on May 15, 2009 (boomark / email).