Healthy Skepticism Library item: 7421

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

The PLoS Medicine Editors.
PLoS Medicine and the pharmaceutical industry.
PLoS Med 2006 Jul; 3:(7):e329
http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0030329

Abstract:

PLoS Medicine’s launch issue in 2004, we declared that we would not be part of “the cycle of dependency that has formed between journals and the pharmaceutical industry” (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0010022). We set out three policies aimed at breaking this cycle. First, we would not publish adverts for drugs and devices. Second, we would not benefit from exclusive reprint sales to drug companies, since our open access license would let readers make unlimited copies themselves. Third, we would decline to publish studies aimed purely at increasing a drug’s market share.

We adopted these policies out of a concern that medical journals have allowed their interests to become too closely aligned with those of the marketing departments of drug companies. The public response to our position has, for the most part, been very positive-PLoS Medicine was even cited as a “hopeful example” of how the medical profession can disentangle from industry (Lancet 367: 202). And in a recent policy paper in PLoS Medicine, Fugh-Berman and colleagues argued that other medical journals should follow our example and ban adverts for drugs and devices (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0030130)…

Notes:

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