The practicing physician as generator and user of adverse reaction data.

Information about adverse drug reactions (ADR) helps the practicing physician to optimize his pharmacotherapy, however, he also generates most of the original observations and thus he is largely responsible for the quality of ADR data. As direct communication from physician to physician is limited other means had to be developed such as scientific papers, communication from health authorities and from the pharmaceutical industry. The paper discusses the characteristics of the elements involved in the process of generating assessing and disseminating ADR data and of their interplay.