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Healthy Skepticism International News

The Healthy Skepticism Mangement Group decided in March 2011 to discontinue Healthy Skepticism International News. It had been published nearly once a month since 2000. It was a continuation of MaLAM News and MaLAM letters that commenced in 1983.

The last Int News issue was:

Public information as a marketing tool: Promotion of diseases and medicines
November 2010
Sandra van Nuland and Zamire Damen work for Gezonde scepsis (Healthy Skepticism in The Netherlands). They have produced a report on pharmaceutical promotion via"information" for the general public. As part of this research, they examined campaigns around restless legs syndrome (RLS), overactive bladder (OAB) and heartburn. These three case studies demonstrate that elements of the public information are not in accordance with the guidelines set by the Dutch General Practitioners Society (NHG). For example, information about side effects and information about when medicinal intervention is warranted.

In collaboration with the Dutch critical consumer programme Tros Radar, a fake public information campaign around the issue of flatulence was designed, in order to demonstrate the mechanisms typically used in these campaigns and their effects on the public. They established a fictitious company with its own website (www.hetluchtop.nl, itclearstheair.nl), and commissioned TNS NIPO to carry out research into the disease burden. Promotional materials were prepared and distributed to GP surgeries, pharmacies and through the website. Based on the research conducted by TNS NIPO, they sent out a press release and quickly obtained the desired results: flatulence got a lot of attention in the media.
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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