Nine pharmaceuticals and six additives were used as search terms for searching four data bases, Excerpta Medica (EM), RlNGDOG (RD), TOXLlNE (TOX) and BIOSIS (BA). The number of responses, the unique numbers, and the coverage were compared among the above data bases. The numbers of responses regarding both pharmaceuticals and additives were found to be in the order, EM>RD>TOX>BA. The response numbers of pharmaceuticals were much larger than those of additives. The further analysis showed that the order of response numbers regarding only pharmaceuticals was EM>RD>TOX>BA, while the order regarding only additives was BA>TOX>EM>RD. The study on the coverage indicated that EM and RD should be preferable in searching safety information of pharmaceuticals, and TOX and BA should be preferable in searching information of additives.
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