Healthy Skepticism Library item: 1180

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

Tsai AC.
Conflicts between commercial and scientific interests in pharmaceutical advertising for medical journals.
Int J Health Serv 2003; 33:(4):751-68

Abstract:

In 1992, researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, published a study on the scientific merit and validity of pharmaceutical advertisements in medical journals. Their results led them to conclude, provocatively, that many pharmaceutical advertisements contained deficiencies in areas in which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had established explicit standards of quality. This article provides a detailed account of third-party reactions to the study following its publication in the Annals of Internal Medicine, as well as the implications for those involved, including the authors, editors, and publisher. The increasingly diverging interests between medical journal editors and publishers are also discussed and highlighted by two recent cases of editors’ departures from prominent general-interest medical journals.

Keywords:
Advertising/standards* Conflict of Interest* Drug Industry/economics Drug Industry/standards* Editorial Policies* Government Regulation Humans Los Angeles Periodicals/economics Periodicals/standards* Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S. United States United States Food and Drug Administration