By Anne Harding NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Distributing free drug samples doesn't help poor and uninsured children get the medications they need and the practice may not be safe, a new study published this month in Pediatrics shows. Four of the 15 drugs most frequently given out free by pediatricians in 2004 carried serious safety warnings, Dr. Sarah L. Cutrona of Cambridge Health Alliance and Harvard Medical School in Cambridge, Massachusetts and her colleagues found. "Free samples encourage the casual use of medications in our children before enough is known about potential harm," Cutrona told Reuters Health in an interview. "We have to seriously question whether they belong in our offices at all." Many physicians say they hand out free samples of drugs to help their needy patients, Cutrona and her team note in their...
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