In correspondence earlier this month, Kim Klausner, of the University of California, San Francisco Library and Center for Knowledge Management, suggested that reporters should be aware of the Drug Industry Document Archive.
Klausner, the industry documents digital library manager, sent a complete guide to what’s available, the history of DIDA and lots of examples of how reporters and others have used DIDA that is available on HealthJournalism.org.
The archive, available to anyone with access to the Internet, contains about 2,500 pharmaceutical industry documents submitted by “lawyers representing people who file law suits against drug companies and Congressional committees investigating the pharmaceutical industry,” according to Klausner.
William Heisel of the Antidote blog is doing a series of posts that show how the archive can be used to research stories. Heisel’s example uses depositions from a case against Wyeth over side effects of its hormone replacement therapy drugs.
