The International journal of risk & safety in medicine
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Drug companies aggressively market their products to increase sales and economic rewards. Different countries have different regulatory regimes for controlling promotion. In the United States control rests directly with the Food and Drug Administration whereas Canada relies on a mixture of voluntary self-regulation and an autonomous agency. ⋯ We examine these weaknesses by analyzing the promotion of OxyContin (the time release version of the opioid oxycodone) by Purdue in Canada and the United States. We then look at the association between promotion and the misuse and abuse of OxyContin in both countries. Finally, we advance specific recommendations for regulating promotion for drugs that may have a high abuse potential.
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Vaccination of health-care workers (HCWs) against seasonal influenza has been consistently recommended worldwide in order to prevent nosocomial transmission and ensure delivery of health-care services during outbreaks. Overall, immunization rates were low across all nation, including among HCWs. Little is known about the acceptability and compliance with seasonal influenza vaccine among HCWs after the A(H1N1) 2009 pandemic. ⋯ The post pandemic seasonal influenza vaccination coverage among the HCWs in our institution was very low. The role of media, specific attitudinal barriers and misconceptions about immunization in a global pandemic scenario is clear. The nearly constant media coverage of the A (H1N1) 2009 pandemic, reported with varying degrees of accuracy, and sometimes portraying dramatic scenarios caused some to question whether unnecessary alarm and public panic resulted. We suggest that international or national health authorities have a clear speech over looked media and to own these institutions, which will air fair and real time information about the disease.
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The present thesis, which is based on a review and 12 published articles, concerns clinical epidemiological methods [176-187]. The Nordic countries have for many years established numerous registries. The establishment in Denmark of the National Population Registry in 1924 and the personal registration number (the CPR number) in 1968 allowed person-identification of remarkable quality, and made it possible to gather information on the same person in several registries. ⋯ This allows for comparison with respect to the completeness and validity of the data. The use of discharge diagnoses from hospital registries involves considerable data quality problems, while data from the health service registries, and from the public health officers' surveillance system for strong analgesics and notifiable diseases are of satisfactory quality. Misclassification of data exists, however, in all data sources; this can only be revealed by comprehensive studies of the validity of the data quality.