Attorney Generals' Prescriber and Consumer Education Grant

Background

The Attorney General Consumer and Prescriber Education Grant Program (CPGP) was created to educate health care professionals about pharmaceutical industry marketing practices and to provide tools for accessing unbiased sources of information about prescription drugs. The program is funded through the 2004 Attorneys General settlement resolving allegations that Warner Lambert violated state consumer protection laws when promoting Neurontin, an epilepsy drug, for off-label uses.

The Office of Oregon Health Policy and Research is one of 24 first-round grant recipients, and has collaborated with the Oregon State University College of Pharmacy to develop a curriculum to educate healthcare professionals to critically view pharmaceutical marketing strategies and to access unbiased evidence-based drug comparisons to encourage quality and cost–effective prescribing.

For more information about the CPGP, go to the Oregon Health Policy and Research web site.

CME Modules

These online courses are available free of charge to licensed medical prescribers in the nation and may be taken for continuing medical education credit.* To view the modules of other grant participants, please visit the Online Prescriber Education Network (OPEN) website at the Federation of State Medical Boards.

Online modules		PowerPoint version
Using Evidence to Guide Drug Therapy Decisions		Slides
Critical Appraisal: Randomized-Controlled Trials for Drug Therapy		Slides
Critical Appraisal: Systematic Reviews and Clinical Practice Guidelines for Drug Therapy		Slides
Pharmaceutical Industry Marketing and Influence		Slides
Recognizing Pharmaceutical Industry Conflicts of Interest		Slides

*This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the Essential Areas & Policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education through the joint sponsorship of The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and the Federation of State Medical Boards Research and Education Foundation. The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

Lecture Presentations

Show Me the Evidence! The Truth about Rx Drugs    (PowerPoint version)
Produced by:
David Pollack, MD
John Muench, MD
Richard Wopat, MD

Academic Detailing

These materials are related to a series of academic detailing sessions conducted at mental health clinics in Oregon in 2007-2008. A report of this activity is forthcoming.

Academic Detailing presentation (PowerPoint)
Sample profiling form (PDF)

Consumer Outreach

In addition, a portion of the grant was earmarked for an Oregon Association of Broadcasters (OAB) Public Education Partnership (PEP) through radio and television broadcasting. We developed a consumer-centered communication program that delivers the message of evidence-based research to promote public confidence in lower cost generic drugs and encourage smarter prescription drug purchasing. The Honorable John Kitzhaber, M.D. is the spokesperson for the PSAs, and each spot is designed to appeal to a certain demographic group. There are three television spots and three radio spots, all close-captioned (TV) and translated into Spanish.

The following are Quicktime .mov files of the ads themselves:
Brand Name vs. Generic Drugs (TV spot #1)
Generic Drugs (TV spot #2)
Designer Drugs (TV spot #3)

This work was made possible by a grant from the state Attorney General Consumer and Prescriber Education Program which is funded by the multi-state settlement of consumer fraud claims regarding the marketing of the prescription drug Neurontin.