Citation, extracts and comment from me below.
CITATION: The right medicines for the right reasons
The Lancet Editorial, Volume 408, Issue 10551 p187 July 18, 2026
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(26)01419-4/fulltext
EXTRACTS
'US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F Kennedy Jr has suggested that antidepressants are more addictive than heroin and may contribute to school shootings—allegations repeatedly rejected as false. Given this history, the announcement in May, 2026 of a new Make America Healthy Again Action Plan to Curb Psychiatric Overprescribing was met with alarm in many health circles. HHS officials have stressed that they aim to address “overmedicalization”, not ban certain antidepressants altogether, with a focus on reducing long-term medication use when no longer beneficial in improving patient outcomes. But harmful rhetoric aside, the broader issue of deprescribing is an important problem in modern clinical practice that deserves more attention...
'The guiding aim should be that individual patients receive the right treatment for the right reasons, and understand the benefits and risks, and that health practitioners have the capacities and support to create a safe plan for starting, continuing, stopping, or restarting treatment as needed. Better care—not simply less or more—is the measure of success in medicine.'
COMMENT (NPW): A systematic review by HIFA found 'a lack of up-to-date and relevant medicine information in low and lower middle income settings'. The review 'indicates a great need for high-quality studies to understand the prescribing information needs of primary healthcare workers.' CITATION: Smith C, van Velthoven MH, Truong ND, Nam NH, Anh VP, AL-Ahdal TMA, et al. How primary healthcare workers obtain information during consultations to aid safe prescribing in low-income and lower middle-income countries: a systematic review. BMJ Global Health. 2020;5:e002094. https://gh.bmj.com/content/5/4/e002094
If individual patients are to 'understand the benefits and risks', then it is critical that their information needs are met as well as those of prescribers.
The HIFA Project on Prescribers and Users of Medicines envisages 'A world where every prescriber and user of medicines will have access to independent, reliable, understandable information on the full range of commonly prescribed medicines – and will know where to find it'. https://www.hifa.org/projects/prescribers-and-users-medicines
The only way to meet those needs is to stregthen the global evidence ecosystem: www.hifa.org/ecosystem
Following on the success of our first Spotlight (www.hifa.org/gbs), a new Spotlight on information needs for better use of medicines would be welcome: www.hifa.org/partners
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org