Let the Patients Prescribe

To the Editor:—  I do not recall whether you title letters you publish. If you do, you might wish to call this "Why Not Ask the Patient?"Today, everyone seems to appreciate the difficulty we physicians have keeping up to date on information about drugs. The pharmaceutical companies, for example, show their concern by spending large sums of hard-earned money buying advertisements. This expenditure is their earnest attempt to keep us educated.All governments are interested in the problem, too. But your government has taken a special role of leadership. Their concern has been emphasized recently by their vigorous objection to the wording of some drug advertisements. We physicians, the government seems to imply, have great difficulty separating fact from fiction. Certainly the general public needs help in this regard; what medical man wants to face a future counselling laymen who are convinced that their heads are full of frayed