Patient Package Inserts

To the Editor.—  In a recent letter, Gross (240:1240, 1978) raised some objections to the Food and Drug Administration's survey regarding oral contraceptive patient information¹ (238:2504, 1977), which he thinks "cast real doubt on the validity of the entire study." By its very nature, any survey will possess some forms of bias that will influence study results, and the FDA survey is no exception. However, it is our belief that the approach taken by the FDA in enlisting respondents' help without deceiving them as to the purpose or sponsor of the survey yielded valid data on which to base policy decisions. Other approaches may not have given more accurate data but only that influenced by other, perhaps more serious forms of bias.The ultimate validity of the FDA survey will not be determined by arguments about specific procedures used to solicit responses in this study, but more appropriately by additional