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Dr. Joel Lexchin, professor in the Atkinson School Health Policy & Management, was recently given the annual SWAB Award in Utrecht, Holland, in recognition of his work in the field of antibiotics. SWAB is the Dutch acronym for a group that translates as Working Party on Antibiotic Policy.
Right and below: Dr. Joel Lexchin
SWAB was founded in 1996 by several professional associations out of concern for the development of resistance in pathogenic micro-organisms. The group develops national guidelines for the use of antibiotics, aimed at the adult patient.
Lexchin was first author on a paper presented at the International Conference on Improving Use of Medicines (ICIUM) held March 30 to April 2, in Chiang Mai, Thailand. His paper is "How Commercialization Promotion Affects the Use of Medicines: From Evidence to Action", which was presented by a second author, Andrew Heuxhelm. Lexchin was unable to attend the ICIUM conference, as he was in Holland as a keynote speaker at the conference at which he was given the SWAB award.
More about Joel Lexchin
Lexchin, who also works as an emergency room physician at the University Health Network, is co-author of a study published in the September 2003 issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal. The study showed that drug advertising leads to more patient requests for advertised medicines, and more prescriptions of those medicines by doctors.
Earlier in the year, findings from another one of his studies appeared in the May issue of the British Medical Journal. That study showed that drug testing sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry is more likely to produce results favouring the sponsor’s product than testing funded by other sources.