Healthy Skepticism Library item: 2957

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Medical journals and advertising
N Z Med J. 1978 Feb 22; 87:(606):139

Abstract:

The financial support of the drug companies is necessary for the survival of medical journals. Advertisements in journals do have a place in continuing medical education. It would be absurd to imagine that the editor of any reputable medical journal would be influenced by a drug company in the selection of material of the journal. The union between the learned journals and the drug industry has become less of convenience and more one of mutual respect and need. Each has a stake in the other’s destiny.

Keywords:
*editorial/New Zealand/ ad revenue/ journal advertisements/ editorial freedom/ value of promotion/ATTITUDES REGARDING PROMOTION: MEDICAL JOURNALS/PROMOTION AS A SOURCE OF INFORMATION: DOCTORS Advertising* Drug Industry* Periodicals*

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Cases of wilful misrepresentation are a rarity in medical advertising. For every advertisement in which nonexistent doctors are called on to testify or deliberately irrelevant references are bunched up in [fine print], you will find a hundred or more whose greatest offenses are unquestioning enthusiasm and the skill to communicate it.

The best defence the physician can muster against this kind of advertising is a healthy skepticism and a willingness, not always apparent in the past, to do his homework. He must cultivate a flair for spotting the logical loophole, the invalid clinical trial, the unreliable or meaningless testimonial, the unneeded improvement and the unlikely claim. Above all, he must develop greater resistance to the lure of the fashionable and the new.
- Pierre R. Garai (advertising executive) 1963