Conservative Prescribing Meets Medication Marketing Realities

In the past decade, patients and prescribers of drugs have been stunned by a series of studies showing that broad use of many new and frequently-prescribed medications was, on balance either harmful or not beneficial. We have developed 24 Principles of Conservative Prescribing that harvest the lessons from these experiences and outlines 24 principles in six domains for prescribers to learn and practice to avoid many of the pitfalls leading to excessive and harmful prescribing. We will discuss external influences that may affect physicians prescribing including those intentionally designed to promote medication use beyond areas where evidence can support its use via misleading marketing, and conflicts of interest