The archive contains documents about pharmaceutical industry clinical trials, publication of study results, pricing, marketing, relations with physicians and drug company involvement in continuing medical education.
Most of the documents on DIDA were made public as a result of lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies Parke-Davis, Warner-Lambert, Pfizer, Merck & Co., Wyeth and Abbott Labs, among others.
DIDA was founded in 2005 with the support of a gift by Thomas Greene, the attorney for David Franklin, whistleblower in United States ex rel.
[1] Researchers as well as students, journalists, and the general public, use the archive to investigate the ways pharmaceutical companies market their products.
The UCSF_Library created this digital archive in an attempt to facilitate further research into the drug industry's practice of establishing close links with the medical community which has been shown to influence scientific research, drug approval, prescription practices, and ultimately, consumer health.