Healthy Skepticism Library item: 14407

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: news

Hochman M, McCormick D.
The media's role in healthcare
Boston.com 2008 Oct 1
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/10/01/the_medias_role_in_healthcare/

Full text:

WHILE THE pharmaceutical industry plays a vital role in the healthcare system, company profit motives can corrupt medical decision-making. In particular, company-funded research may be biased in favor of products made by the sponsors, making it difficult for doctors to accurately interpret new findings. Additionally, aggressive company advertising may lead to the overuse of expensive brand name medications, driving up costs and exposing patients to the risks of newer, less studied drugs.

The media can help counter these commercial influences by identifying bias in medical research and by presenting information in an even-handed manner. In this week’s issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, however, we report the results of a study suggesting this does not always happen.

We reviewed 300 recent news articles about medication studies – all funded by pharmaceutical companies – and found that 42 percent neglected to indicate the funding source. As a result, readers were left in the dark about an important source of study bias. Additionally, 67 percent of the articles referred to medications by their proprietary brand names – rather than the generic names – unnecessarily commercializing the scientific findings and perhaps promoting the use of costly brand name drugs when older and better-tested generics would be as good. Our study is not the first to raise concerns about news coverage of medical therapies. Previous research has suggested that news reports commonly overemphasize the benefits of treatments, fail to discuss their side effects, and exaggerate their uses.

Many factors may explain these shortcomings. For example, there may be a desire of journalists to make their stories upbeat and absorbable. A more concerning possibility, however, is that journalists are influenced by pharmaceutical promotions. We were reassured to discover that just 4 percent of 100 newspaper editors we surveyed had accepted a gift from a company representative within the past year. Still, pharmaceutical representatives frequently send journalists favorable press releases and other materials that are not balanced by alternative views. Journalists also interact with pharmaceutical representatives at medical conventionsJournalists may also promote commercial interests at the expense of scientific and social ones by failing to serve their watchdog function. They may neglect to indicate when a study has received company funding because they are not aware of the funding source or do not think it is important. Similarly, they may refer to medications by their brand names because they do not know which names are which or do not realize that the use of brand names can lead to irrational use of costlier drugs.

In response to concerns about growing commercial influences in medicine, the Association of Health Care Journalists recently published a Statement of Principles that calls on medical journalists to “investigate and report possible links between sources of information and those who promote a new idea or therapy.” The Principles also exhort journalists to “report the complete risks and benefits of any treatment, along with the possible outcomes of alternative approaches.”

News organizations should implement and enforce these guidelines, ideally with two additional stipulations:

All articles concerning medical research should indicate the funding source and should note whether quoted experts have financial ties that might influence their opinions.
All articles concerning medical research should refer to medications by their nonproprietary generic names.
The medical community has a responsibility to help journalists comply with these stipulations by ensuring that medical journal articles and press releases about research emphasize commercial influences that may have biased the findings. Journal articles and press releases must also refer to medications predominantly by their generic names, and emphasize the limitations of new therapies. If doctors and journalists work together to reduce commercial influences in medicine, it will result in better informed clinical decision making.