Marketing in the lay media and prescriptions of terbinafine in primary care: Dutch cohort study

In May 2000 in the Netherlands, the manufacturer of terbinafine, Novartis, started a nationwide “information campaign” which included television advertisements advising people with onychomycosis to visit their general practitioner. The Dutch Society of General Practitioners objected to this campaign as an unnecessary focus on an unimportant health problem.1 In the Netherlands, terbinafine and itraconazole are available as oral treatments for onychomycosis, but the Society's guidelines recommend terbinafine.2 3 In May 2002, a Dutch court decided that Novartis's campaign did not violate laws prohibiting advertising of prescription drugs as neither Novartis nor terbinafine were specifically named1; however, Novartis stopped the campaign in July 2002. We studied the changes in rates of prescriptions of oral terbinafine and itraconazole and the consultation rate before and after the start of the campaign. We retrieved all …