import packege insert citation information from dailymed

ojganesh

I was wondering if there was an automated way to import drug package insert citation information quickly from dailymed.nlm.nih.gov into zotero?? I looked through the forums for a way to do this and all I came up with was a 2008 request to automate this that did not make mention of dailymed.nlm.nih.gov ...

adamsmith

not currently.
it would be possible - they have an API -
http://dailymed.nlm.nih.gov/dailymed/help.cfm#webservices
but I wouldn't even know where to start putting information. Are these ever cited? How?

ojganesh

I usually use a style similar to this:
Name_of_company. Product_name [package insert]. City, ABBREV_STATE: Abbrev_month year_of_publication.

As an example:
AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP. CRESTOR (rosuvastatin calcium) tablet, film coated [package insert]. Wilmington, DE: Feb 2012.

All of this information is usually in the structured listing in DailyMed. I was looking at some of the examples listed in www.zotero.org and I settled on the 'Report' format since it included the 'place' field. I've started using this by manually entering the information I want into the 'Report' fields. This may not be the best format, and it's definitely not automated... It would be nice if I could 'one click' this info into Zotero...

adamsmith

OK, won't happen any time soon, but I bookmarked it and will eventually take a look - but more likely than not we're talking several months at least.

ojganesh

Thanks. I'll check on this from time to time, as well as let other drug info, pharmacy, and hospital folks know.

hokoro2

Has this been addressed yet? Looking for some way to automate the medication package insert citation process

adamsmith

no, sorry, never got to this I'm afraid

hokoro2

Is this something that could be looked into? Or at least adding a "package insert" section to the new item tab using a template/format similar to this to save some time manually entering the information? Thanks!

Name_of_company. Product_name [package insert]. City, ABBREV_STATE: Abbrev_month year_of_publication.

adamsmith

It's very unlikely that there'll be a package insert item type in the foreseeable future, sorry -- that's too niche to make sense as an item type for all users, so won't happen until some sort of custom item types are feasible.

bwiernik

But that cite format can be well accommodated using Report and entering “Package insert” into the Report type field.

NMCurry

I was also looking for a Package Insert or Professional Information field. All our marketing information for international pharmaceuticals involves citing this document for the drug concerned. Will use Report, as previously suggested, instead.

kelliemwang

I am also hoping for a package insert field. I am a clinical pharmacist and package inserts for medications are something that medical professionals frequently need to cite for publication in medical journals.

DKAlwar

Its very weird you can't do this in zotero and even in endnote you do it manually still as a "journal article " citation. It is very common across pharmacological and medical subjects to cite medication labels, and they have a different format for FDA vs EMA vs other countries.
I think its more that writers make-do with whatever features as opposed to this being a niche requeirment for just a few people, as users dont realise they can contact citation software people and ask for a necessary feature

dstillman

@DKAlwar: We understand this is important for you, but Zotero is used by millions of people across an extremely diverse range of fields. Tens of thousands of people have posted here over the last decade and a half, and we've read every post. When we say something is niche and not a common problem Zotero users face, you should believe us.

bwiernik suggests a way to do this above. If that's insufficient for your needs, you would need to explain why.

m_calabresi

"Tens of thousands of people have posted here over the last decade and a half, and we've read every post. When we say something is niche and not a common problem Zotero users face, you should believe us."

Hey @dstillman, this being Zotero -have you got a reference for that? Because if you don't, then may be you can reread the thread, your contribution and its tone and maybe consider that the userbase could be expanded or perhaps that current users in the industry may be less likely to contribute to Zotero forums. I can easily think of other reasons why the request for "labels" as standard items in Zotero is being made less frequently than others which may with good reason a higher priority and no, I see no compelling reason why we should believe you.

Labels are use and cited in industrial R&D and regulatory contexts. It would be nice for Zotero to provide an ad-hoc format for these citations.

dstillman

@m_calabresi: There's absolutely no reason to think that this one professional use case is somehow drastically underrepresented in posts here — which number in the hundreds of thousands over the years — relative to the demand. So yes, when we say that, by the standards of Zotero usage, which spans essentially all fields of study, this is fairly niche, we have a pretty good sense of that. Again, we understand this is important for your field, but we can't create an item type for every concept that exists in every field.

We try to make sure there are always at least general solutions for more niche problems, though, and bwiernik explains above how to get proper citations here. Someone could certainly update translators for popular web sources of this information to automatically populate the necessary fields for correct citations, which is the standard solution in Zotero for these types of things. As far as I know no one has gotten to that in this case, but we'd be happy to take a patch for it. If you have example URLs where the data is available that you'd like to be able to save from, you can share them here.