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Previous Volume 350:302-303 January 15, 2004 Number 3 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

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To the Editor: The article by Strom et al. (Oct. 23 issue)¹ suffers from the classic shortcomings of retrospective studies of adverse drug reactions and particularly from the use of the term "allergic" to describe a myriad of outcomes grouped together as allergic drug reactions. The authors' broad definition of hypersensitivity or allergic reactions (in Supplementary Appendix 1) includes an "unspecified adverse effect of a drug, medicinal agent, or biologic substance" and introduces so much noise that the results are essentially useless clinically. Even their "narrow definition" includes highly diverse immunologic and nonimmunologic outcomes. True immunologic reactions will be swamped . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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