This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Related article  • Similar articles in JAMA

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

To the Editor: Dr Kaufman and colleagues¹ examined trends in medication use in nonhospitalized US adults between 1998 and 1999. The large numbers of individuals (81%) taking at least 1 medication in any previous week was surprising, but Kaufman et al did not provide any explanation for this high percentage. One plausible reason may be increased direct-to-consumer (DTC) pharmaceutical advertising. Direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical spending increased by 41% from 1997 to 1998, when it reached more than $1.2 billion.² It is also interesting that in 1998, 44% more was spent advertising to consumers than to physicians by top DTC pharmaceutical companies.²

Kaufman et al found that the overall prevalence of medication use was 84% in whites and 76% in African Americans. Again, they did not suggest an explanation for this difference. A possible reason may be that African Americans are not being exposed to DTC pharmaceutical advertising. For instance, I previously reported . . . [Full Text of this Article]

RELATED ARTICLE

Recent Patterns of Medication Use in the Ambulatory Adult Population of the United States: The Slone Survey
, , , , and
JAMA. ;287():337-344.
FULL TEXT  

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES

Ethnicity and Use of Alternative Products in Psychiatric Patients
Ng et al.
Psychosomatics 2006;47:408-413.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

US Suicide Rates by Age Group, 1970-2002: An Examination of Recent Trends
McKeown et al.
Am. J. Public Health 2006;96:1744-1751.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Chromium as Adjunctive Treatment for Type 2 Diabetes
Ryan et al.
The Annals of Pharmacotherapy 2003;37:876-885.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT