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To the Editor.—In today's somewhat hostile drug climate, pharmaceutical companies are "fair game" for many critics in academic, private practice, and governmental medical environments.
Whenever responsible medical personnel of a pharmaceutical company draw attention to a lack of value of one of its own drugs in a certain syndrome, special note should be taken. The notice should be made by not only all in the medical profession and those in government, but especially by those in command of policy within pharmaceutical industry.
"Corticosteroid Treatment in Bronchiolitis" (Amer J Dis Child117:495-503 [May] 1969) deserves special recognition. It reports a doubly-blinded, controlled, prospective and collaborative study whose senior author is a pediatrician employed by a drug company. Although there are opportunities to find "value" in the company's drug over placebo, instead, the summary states that the company's particular drug offers "little, if any, benefit in the general or routine