Scientific Evidence and the Abandonment of Medical Technology : A Study of Eight Drugs : Research Policy

Researchers and decision-makers have shown considerable interest in the determinants of adoption of technological innovation in medicine by doctors and other health professionals. At the same time, comparatively little attention has been paid to the abandonment of technology. Our approach was to study the pattern of decline of drugs introduced to market following the 1962 amendments to the federal Food and Drug Act. On a sample of eight pharmaceuticals that met the criteria, we considered whether or not the pattern of abandonment observed in available time series data suggested support for a chain-reaction type of diffusion process via opinion leaders, and failed to find such support. We believe that abandonment behavior by physicians must sometimes be affected directly by external information stimuli without the need for processing by an intermediary opinion leader.

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