Saturday, November 18, 2006

"Sponsored Editorials?"

The blog Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry: A Closer Look just noticed a new pheonomenon, the "sponsored editorial." Apparently, these have appeared in the July and November issues of the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry's paper edition (although not on the web). A jpeg reproduction appears in this Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry post.

The "sponsored editorial" itself features clinical bullet points on akasthisia, and two pull quotes, in a large type face, from suffering patients. On the bottom appears the AstraZeneca logo. No authors are listed.

I want to second Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry's blogger's motion that by printing this as an editorial, albeit "sponsored," the journal appears to be endorsing a marketing message as if it were substantive content. This appears to be the latest addition to our catalog of deceptive marketing practices, and the latest story about how medical and health care journals seem to be supporting the vested interests of their commercial sponsors at the expense of their independence. Misleading physicians by disguising advertising, in this case, as editorial content in a peer-reviewed journal, is liable to distort their medical decision making, and hence is bad for both them and their patients.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

My issue is Zyprexa which is only FDA approved for schizophrenia (.5-1% of pop) and some bipolar (2% pop) and then an even smaller percentage of theses two groups.
So how does Zyprexa get to be the 7th largest drug sale in the world?

Eli Lilly is in deep trouble for using their drug reps to 'encourage' doctors to write zyprexa for non-FDA approved 'off label' uses.

The drug causes increased diabetes risk,and medicare picks up all the expensive fallout.There are now 7 states (and counting) going after Lilly for fraud and restitution.

--
Daniel Haszard

Anonymous said...

Such sponsored editorials are not limited to Big Pharma; even our politicians are using medical journals for political editorials as well: witness Hillary Clinton's and Barrack Obama's piece in the New England Journal of Medicine.