A new study suggests that free drug samples, an effective marketing tool for the drug industry, do little to help the poor and may put children’s health at risk.
The study, being published today in the journal Pediatrics, analyzed an in-depth survey conducted in 2004 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that asked people how they got health care. As part of the survey, respondents were asked if they received free drug samples. It found that children in the lowest income group were no more likely to receive the samples than were those in the highest income group, in part because the poor are less likely to see doctors.
Once in a doctor’s office, children who lack health insurance are more likely to receive free drug samples than their well-insured counterparts, the study reported.
But of greater concern, the authors wrote, are the kinds of drug samples that physicians provide. In 2004, the year of the CDC survey, more than 500,000 children received samples of four medicines that were later the subject of serious safety warnings required by the Food and Drug Administration: Advair, for asthma; Adderall and Strattera, both for attention deficit disorder; and Elidel, for eczema.
The study’s lead author, Dr. Sarah L. Cutrona, an instructor at Harvard Medical School, said in an interview that the medicines provided as free samples tended to be the newest, so their safety had often not been thoroughly vetted. Samples also often lack instructions for children or information about what parents should do in the event of an overdose.
Cutrona said more research was needed on the risks and benefits of samples. “We need to discuss it more,” she said, “and maybe consider stopping the use of free samples entirely, if there are such potential harms.”
