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Healthy Skepticism Library item: 5781

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

Foote M.
Guidelines and policies for medical writers in the biotech industry: an update on the controversy.
Biotechnol Annu Rev 2004; 10:259-64:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B7CTS-4DN8YX3-7&_coverDate=12%2F31%2F2004&_alid=431466823&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_qd=1&_cdi=18058&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=867f3a71a0241a0bf5b894eb3c7bdec4


Abstract:

Papers reporting the results of clinical trials written by medical writers employed by the biotech and pharmaceutical industries have been criticized for possible bias in presentation and failure to adhere to authorship guidelines. Several groups have attempted to address the concerns of journal editors, academics, regulators, and the general public by issuing guidelines and policies for the preparation of such material.

Keywords:
Biotechnology/standards* Clinical Trials/standards* Documentation/standards* Drug Industry/standards* Guidelines* Internationality Organizational Policy* Periodicals/standards*

 

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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