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Originally Posted by olsen
(my area newspaper has a new "health" section which comprises 2 to 4 pages of "health" advice, often highly recommending diagnostic testing and using fear to persuade readers to "see their doctors", coupled with a BIG push for vaccinations. This "new, expanded " section added in the face of greatly diminished newsprint otherwise. I wondered if the pharma industry was behind this "new" journalism. The following article is only about Murdoch's Australian media; are we being primed for the "ask your doctor about this new drug"?)
http://www.bmj.com/content/343/bmj.d6978
Is journalism the drug industry’s new dance partner?
BMJ 2011; 343 doi: 10.1136/bmj.d6978 (Published 2 November 2011)
Cite this as: BMJ 2011;343:d6978
Ray Moynihan, author, journalist, and conjoint lecturer, University of Newcastle, Australia
Ray.Moynihan@newcastle.edu.au
Exploring the new frontier in influence peddling
Just as many doctors contemplate an end to their dance with drug company marketers, a fresh new crew is stepping lively onto the floor: journalists and media organisations looking for easy ways to fund their reporting, travel, and education.
The BMJ reported last week that the Murdoch empire’s flagship newspaper in Australia has accepted an undisclosed amount of sponsorship money from the drug industry for a series of articles on health policy—and that the idea arose from a meeting between advertising agents.1
Defending the deal, the Australian’s editor said that independence and integrity were maintained; but as others pointed out, this new form of financial closeness between journalists and the companies they scrutinise raises real concerns.
A few years ago the industry body Medicines Australia started sponsoring annual journalism awards, with the prize for the health journalist of the year award including $A1000 cash (£660; €760; $US1060) and an international study tour. Presumably all recipients will swear that the award and the world trip had no undesirable effects on their future coverage, and they may well be right. But what we’re witnessing … |
If you have been paying attention to the scores of drug ads in almost every magazine for years now, and on TV, this is simply the next step. The huge push for vaccines is the worst, to me, as they are now targeting people like myself who already were vaccinated as a child but, now lo and behold, they inform us the vaccines are not life-long but rather dissipate and thus we are unprotected. BS. I thought all those horrible diseases we get vaccinated as babies for are "childhood diseases", hence the push on new, terrfied-to-make-a-mistake-parents, to vaccinate the most vulnerable of us all. Now that they think they can double-dip and get babies AND grown-ups, they make this claim. Good luck.
I've also noticed I cannot go into any store, Walgreen's, CVS, grocery, Wal-Mart, it's everywhere, without someone offering to give me a flu and shingles shot. Pulllleeze. I've even been offered 10% off my grocery bill if I'll roll up my sleeve! It's scary.
At least one huge state college has apparently gotten in with the vaccine maker's camp...a few years ago, the University of Texas required all incoming freshman who were going to live in dormitory to get vacccinated with the meningitis vaccine. This year, the rule was changed to require ALL incoming freshman to have this vaccine, regardless of where they would be living. This is thousands of people. I wonder how in the world this came to pass....
I personally see drug maker's as becoming increasingly desperate as their patents on the blockbusters expire and no new promising drugs are on the horizon. The more generics that come out, the less they make, and the more reliance that will be placed on the stand-by money-maker: vaccines.
I realize R&D is horribly expensive, and some of the diseases out there incredibly complex (or are they?...if you keep insisting PD is onlyabout dopamine and nothing else...) but it's not like pharma has not been raking in mind-bogglingly obscene amounts of money over the years. Add to this the increased general awareness of a healthy lifestyle and people's desire to try to self-heal and that poses a heck of a problem to the bottom line. I'm watching for more vaccine pushing in the future, and fully expect one day to open my mail to find a bunch of ads for drugs mixed in there with all the other junk mail.