Experts criticise industry sponsorship of articles on health policy in Australian newspaper
BMJ 2011; 343 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.d6903 (Published 25 October 2011) Cite this as: BMJ 2011;343:d6903
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Medicines Australia has now confirmed that as part of the arrangement
with News Ltd, they have 20,000 copies of the Health of the Nation
magazine to distribute. A spokesman said: "We are distributing them among
our 50 member companies, and have given about 750 to the Consumers Health
Forum".
Competing interests: Declared on story already
When I wrote this article for the BMJ, I had only seen a number of
newspaper articles and video reports from the Medicines Australia
sponsored series. Now I realise there is also a glossy 24-page colour
magazine which brings together some of the newspaper articles, the results
of a Newspoll survey of peoples' attitudes about their health and health
services, as well as advertorials featuring various aspects of the
medicines industry, and advertisements for The Australian Medicines
Industry.
Competing interests: Declared on the article already.
Re:Addition to article
The last thing that Australian Consumers need is Industry sponsored
articles or pseudo "Research Papers" Sponsored by Companies. We have
already seen the results of this in USA, where we have so called research
published and paid for by Industry "Bigs" Heaven forbid that Australia
should follow in the footsteps of the USA.
There is already far too much distorted information out there for the
unsuspecting consumers to decipher. Unfortunately it comes across as
being genuine when in fact the head of these articles should carry the
Headline "Advertisement".
Sure, the tabloids will grab the advertising money and run. That's
what they are in the business for - sell advertising space.
Competing interests: No competing interests