A new study claims that drug advertisements in medical journals often fail miserably at providing enough information for doctors to make informed prescribing decisions.Researchers found that about a third of 438 ads studied didn’t refer to any studies or statistics about the drugs they were promoting. Another 20 percent referred to “data on file” at pharmaceutical companies, but the wide majority of those drug makers didn’t provide it upon request."All that information needs to be out there, and it currently isn’t,” said study co-author Dr. David Schriger, a professor of emergency medicine at the University of California at Los Angeles. “In this area, the cards just aren’t on the table."However, the editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine doesn’t seem worried. “‘Advertising is advertising and nothing more.’ This study proves it,” Dr. Jeffrey Drazen said in a statement, saying he was quoting a former editor of the journal, Dr. Franz Ingelfinger. “Our readers have no trouble distinguishing advertising from editorial content -- it is physically separate and has a different look and feel."There are hundreds of medical journals, tackling subjects from cancer and heart disease to alcoholism and sports medicine. Like any other trade publications, they often rely on advertising for funding, but there are few rules about how drug companies can promote their products to doctors.Schriger and his colleagues examined 438 advertisements from 10 American medical journals, including two that may be the most influential -- the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association. (The latter journal declined to respond to the study, saying the ads -- which all appeared in 1999 -- were too old.)The researchers looked for references to data about the effectiveness of the drugs -- studies, journal articles and “data on file.” In other words, proof to support claims made in the ads."To maximize the public’s health, anybody who’s taking care of patients should have access to all this information,” Schriger said.The findings appear in the Feb. 15 issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
