News Media Lax on Disclosing Funding of Drug Trials

Of course, they are.

They make money from advertising drugs and are smart/smarmy enough not to bite the hands that feed them.

"The news media often fail to report the fact that drug trials are funded by pharmaceutical companies, researchers here found.

Of 306 news stories about company-funded drug trials, 42% did not identify the funding source, Michael Hochman, M.D., of Cambridge Health Alliance and Harvard, and colleagues reported in the Oct. 1 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

In addition, 67% of the articles used the brand names of medications in at least half of the references.

'For patients and physicians to evaluate new research findings, it is important that they know how the research was funded so they can assess whether commercial biases may have affected the results,' the researchers said.

'Additionally,' they continued, 'the use of generic medication names by the news media is preferable so that physicians and patients learn to refer to medications by their generic names, a practice that is likely to reduce medication errors and may decrease unnecessary healthcare costs.'"

If you want to see some really flagrant IMHO scum in action, pick up a copy of Prevention magazine, a Rodale publication, while you are in line at the grocery store.

DO NOT BUY IT. Just peruse it.

There are more drug ads per page than just about any other publication you will find.

Prevention?

Then why so many drug ads?

To prevent you from saving your money and to prevent them from being out of a job - which they deserve.