Product names, proper claims? More ethical issues in the marketing of drugs

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Objectives: To analyse the explicit or implicit claims embodied in the proprietary names of pharmaceutical products. Design: Linguistic and ethical analysis of proprietary names of pharmaceutical products marketed in the UK and in Denmark. Results and conclusions: A number of drugs have names that allude to their indication or actions. Such names may be problematic, however, because they often promise more than the drug can deliver. Taking into account, firstly, the type of allusion and its degree of sophistication, and, secondly, the seriousness of the indication may help in identifying the most problematic drug names. Good ethical reasons exist to question names that imply actions far beyond the known pharmacological actions of a given product