Emergency Medicine Australasia announced that they will stop accepting pharmaceutical advertisement. They say that the move is a response to growing evidence about the effects of the drug industry in medicine and claims that industry distorts research findings.
BMJ 2011 342 d884
An interesting letter in the BMJ highlights the incredible level of penetration that the pharmaceutical industry has in the mainstream media. This time they’re encouraging doctors to speak disparagingly about the safety of generic medicines.
The doctor interviewed in the original article is described as a prominent cardiologist, but the reporter fails to mention the numerous financial conflicts of interest that he has, including receiving financial donations from GlaxoSmithKline, the manufacturer of two drugs mentioned in the article. Bad reporting? I’ll leave it to the reader to judge.
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