Reduced Opioid Marketing Could Limit Prescribing Information for Physicians—Reply

In Reply In response to the letter from Ippolito and Veuger, our Research Letter¹ provides support for an association between pharmaceutical industry marketing and opioid prescribing by physicians.²

First, to establish temporality between exposure and outcome, we lagged physician opioid prescribing from marketing by 1 year.¹ This allowed us to ensure that prescribing changes occurred after marketing was received, thus reducing the likelihood of reverse causality. Analyses also adjusted for prior prescribing behaviors, which likely confound the relationship between marketing and subsequent opioid prescribing.