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The recent article by Lautenbach et al¹ has raised concerns regarding the emerging problem of fluoroquinolone antibiotic resistance, and most important, demonstrates the potential gravity of fluoroquinolone overuse. We concur that strategies to reduce inappropriate fluoroquinolone utilization are clearly important. However, little is known whether the recent rise in fluoroquinolone resistance is related to increasing prescription rate as influenced by the industrial advertisements.

Given the fact that primary care physicians receive medical journals with the most advertisements,² we evaluated the patterns of pharmaceutical advertisements for antibiotics in 4 major journals targeted for family practitioners (American Family Physician, Canadian Family Physician, Journal of Family Practice, and Postgraduate Medicine). We confined our survey of pharmaceutical advertisements to antibacterial agents. To account for monthly variations in advertising budgets, we randomly selected 4 months (January, April, July, and October) for each journal between calendar years 1984 and 2002. Among . . . [Full Text of this Article]