A product list gathers several related drugs into a single table or chart so that healthcare professionals can tell them apart and choose among them more easily. It is a convenient tool, but a structurally risky one. Because it pulls only "part" of the information from multiple products (often including competitors' products) and lines them up, the way the extraction is done can distort the whole picture and make a particular product look superior — unintentionally, or by design. This is why one of Part III's three guiding lines, "no arbitrary omission in lists and comparisons," bears most heavily on this chapter.
The greatest trap of a list is that it "looks neutral." A table wears the appearance of objectivity. Yet which columns to show, which rows to drop, and which unit to align on are all choices made by the author. Where there is choice, there is room for manipulation. The more the reader believes "they're lined up, so it must be fair," the greater the harm a biased list can do.
01Why a List Demands Discipline — Connecting to the Spirit of the Foreword
The foreword places two duties on companies: the duty not to lie, and the duty not to mislead. These are distinct. A table can lead the reader to a false impression through the way its cells are combined, even when each cell is correct on its own. In other words, it can become a textbook stage for "true but misleading." That is why the prohibitions in this chapter concentrate not merely on forbidding falsehood, but on shutting down the steering effect of presentation.
A second point of connection is the positioning of product information summaries as a "complement" to the package insert. When a list deals with approved matters, it must transcribe the approved content exactly — not exceeding it by a single word, and not trimming it. Blurring the contours of an approval through summarization or symbols is a departure from the approved content, which is the original.
02The Permitted Forms of List — The Four That Are Allowed
You cannot build lists without limit. Creation is permitted only in the following forms, where both the purpose and the method are clear. Each is tied to the function of "aiding identification and selection," and each carries its own brake.
| Type of list | Condition for creating it | What you must not do |
|---|---|---|
| Indication / dosage list | Only when approved matters are stated accurately and in full | Simplification; expressing presence/absence with marks such as ○/× |
| List by drug class / dosage form | Organized by class or formulation | Highlighting a specific product under the pretext of classification |
| NHI drug-price list | Unit drug price only | Computing and posting daily drug cost or patient out-of-pocket cost |
| Generation-classification list | Only with scientific grounds such as guidelines, and the grounds stated alongside | An in-house generation scheme with no basis |
Indication / Dosage List — What "In Full" Means as a Condition
The heaviest constraint on this form is the rule that it is allowed only "when written accurately and in full." Indications and dosages carry meaning only once their limiting conditions and restricted wording are included. The pressure of making a list pushes toward extracting only the gist to save space. But a gist-only excerpt can make the scope of an indication look wider than it is, or erase the conditions on a dose. That is why, in this column, simplification itself is forbidden.
Expressing presence or absence with "○," "×," or "●" is prohibited. For example, listing indications and putting a ○ against each drug looks clear at a glance, yet it erases the fine conditions of approval (target patients, concomitant-use conditions, restricted wording). A ○ can only say "present / absent," flattening the contours of approval. Two drugs both marked "indicated" may carry entirely different conditions — and crushing that difference is precisely the manufacture of a misunderstanding.
NHI Drug-Price List — Why "Only Up to Unit Price"
A price list is limited to the unit drug price (the price listed on the NHI price standard); you cannot calculate and post a daily drug cost or a patient's out-of-pocket cost. There are two reasons. First, daily drug cost varies greatly with assumptions about dosing and frequency, and depending on how those assumptions are set, it is easy to make your own product look cheaper. Second, out-of-pocket cost depends on insurance category and each patient's circumstances; presenting it in the format of a list creates the false impression of a uniform fact. By limiting the list to the unit price — an "immovable single point" — the rules prevent price comparison from becoming a tool of persuasion.
Generation-Classification List — A Classification Is a Claim
A generation classification such as "first generation / second generation" is convenient, but it is a framework that carries an evaluation. It tends to imply that later generations are superior. That is why this list may be made only when it is backed by external scientific grounds such as a guideline, and the grounds must always be stated alongside it. The act of showing the grounds is the very thought of the evidence hierarchy and verifiability — if you assert a classification, you must keep the reader able to check whose standard, and which one, you relied on.
03The Ban on Arbitrary Omission — How to Define the Population
The fairness of a list is decided not by what you put in, but by "what you left out." The Creation Guide requires fixing the range covered to one of two options: either listing "all" of the related drugs, or listing a group of products selected according to a "clear selection criterion." Dropping inconvenient products arbitrarily is not permitted.
This is the discipline of statistical selective reporting carried into the design of a resource. By the same logic that forbids carving out only the favorable results of a clinical trial, a list is forbidden from lining up only the favorable products. If you narrow the population arbitrarily, the remaining picture can be manipulated at will. So there are only two choices: "everything," or "everything according to a stated criterion."
If you set a selection criterion, the criterion must be shown in a form the reader can see, and every product meeting it must be picked up without omission. The requirement is that the criterion itself be neutral — such as "dosage forms including our own product" or "a specific drug class" — and that it not have been tuned after the fact to favor your own product. Shifting the criterion later to match an effect is the same fraud as a post-hoc analysis dressed up as a pre-specified one.
04The Ban on Emphasis — A List Arranges, It Does Not Argue
The role of a list is to aid identification and selection, not to assert superiority. Accordingly, any treatment that sets off the differences from competitors' products, or makes a particular product stand out, is forbidden. Drawing the eye to a particular row through manipulation of color, bold, frames, placement, or arrows also counts as emphasis. The same principle by which Chapter 1 warns against emphasis in figures and tables runs through the format of a list as well.
"Arranging" and "arguing" are different acts. A list is permitted only the former. Interpreting the meaning of differences, evaluating superiority, explaining the reason one should choose — these all overstep the bounds of a list, and lead straight to disparaging competitors or promoting oneself. If you want to discuss a comparison, that is not work the list format should take on.
05The List You Must Not Make — A List of Warnings and Contraindications
You cannot make a list that extracts only the warnings and contraindications and lines up products by them. Safety information is conveyed correctly only as a whole with its context — target patients, conditions, degree. Flattening this into a list easily breeds the short circuit of "fewer contraindications = safer." The number of contraindications is not a measure of relative safety — if a drug's mechanism of action or target population differs, its set of contraindications naturally differs too. A format that turns safety into a tool of comparison runs squarely against the spirit the foreword expresses as "the asymmetric duty to disclose safety even when it is unfavorable."
Safety information must be neither emphasized nor guaranteed, yet conveyed accurately without being trimmed — and this asymmetric treatment is fundamentally a poor fit for the excerpting format of a list. That is why this domain is excluded from being made into a list.
06Leaving a Version — Date of Preparation and Updating
A list should state its date of preparation and be updated as appropriate when its content becomes outdated. Approved matters, drug prices, and the grounds for generation classification all change over time. If an old list remains without being updated, it becomes a source of false information in itself. Stating the date of preparation reflects the same thought by which the sixteen items of Chapter 2 close with "date of preparation or revision" — making clear as of when the information stands, and keeping it in a state that can later be verified and recalled. It is unglamorous, but the foundation of trust lies here.
The discipline of a product list comes down, in a word, to preserving the "honesty of extraction." More than what you include, it is about what you refuse to drop. If you align, align on an immovable single point (unit price, the full text of the approval, stated grounds), and do not blur the contours of approval with symbols or summaries.
A table feigns objectivity. So as not to betray the reader who trusts that appearance, do not narrow the population by whim, do not steer the eye through emphasis, and do not make safety an instrument of comparison. What a list accomplishes is only "lining things up to aid distinction" — not the work of arguing superiority. Leave a date of preparation and update it as things change. The accumulation of this plainness is the brake that keeps a convenient tool from becoming a tool of misdirection.