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Healthy Skepticism Library item: 5517

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

Thompson DF.
Understanding financial conflicts of interest.
N Engl J Med 1993 Aug 19; 329:(8):573-6
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/extract/329/8/573


Abstract:

The problem of conflicts of interest in medicine is more complex than is often recognized. A more systematic framework is desirable for specifying and applying rules to regulate conflicts. A better understanding of the nature of conflicts of interest and a clearer formulation of standards could increase confidence in the medical profession. Physicians and scholars could then concentrate more fully on their main missions-treating patients, teaching students, and conducting research.

Keywords:
*analysis/drug company sponsored research/conflict of interest/SPONSORSHIP: RESEARCH Conflict of Interest*/legislation & jurisprudence Economics, Medical/standards Ethics, Medical Physicians/economics* Physicians/standards Referral and Consultation/economics Referral and Consultation/standards Research/economics United States

 

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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