Healthy Skepticism Library item: 4106

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

Schonhofer PS.
Ginkgo biloba extracts.
Lancet 1990 Mar 31; 335:(8692):788

Abstract:

The criticisms of the author’s work on ginkgo biloba consists more of personal disparagement rather than scientific comment. The company tries to suppress publication by suing. In addition, Klinge Pharma producer of a horse-chestnut extract (Venostatin) used for chronic venous insufficiency is attempting to sue authors of books or articles who have published negative verdicts on the drug.

Keywords:
*letter to the editor/Germany/Klinge Pharma/Venostatin/ ginkgo biloba/ intimidation/ reaction to critics/ Willmar Schwabe/PROMOTION DISGUISED: DISINFORMATION AND HARASSMENT Humans Plant Extracts/adverse effects* Product Surveillance, Postmarketing/standards* Trees*

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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