Advertising in medical journals

The main customer remains the physician. GPs gain information about new products from a variety of sources including their peers and hospital colleagues. Although advertisements in medical journals are an important element in building awareness among prescribers they are not usually the basis on which physicians will start prescribing a new compound. 

Product marketing presents other ethical issues as well. In addition to direct product advertising in medical journals and direct to consumer advertising in the popular media, pharmaceutical company sales representatives frequently visit physicians. Although the... 

Member companies shall fully realise that brochures, advertisements in medical journals, internet web pages for the medical profession, audiovisual materials and other promotional materials are important... 

Member companies shall fully realise that brochures, advertisements in medical journals, internet web pages for the medical profession, audiovisual materials such as slides and video tape-recording, and other promotional materials are important media in dissemination of drug information, and they must produce and use those materials in compliance with the Pharmaceutical Affairs Law and relevant selfregulations. The statements contained in these materials must be correct, fair and objective, based on scientific data. 

Villanueva P, Peiro S, Librero J, et al. 2003. Accuracy of pharmaceutical advertisements in medical journals. Lancet 361 27-232. 

Mention was made previously to advertisements in medical journals as a means of communication between the drug industry and the clinical physician. This mechanism must rate high on the value scale of effectiveness in postgraduate education, and the observant doctor recognizes a double contribution in this source. First, he has the opportunity to scan quickly for names he does not recognize and which he may wish to pursue further secondly, he has available the benefits of the scientific articles in a journal made economically possible by the advertising. 

Advertisements in medical and pharmaceutical journals and other print media, as well as on objects... 

The dissemination of information to the scientific commimity is essential for the progress of research. Publications in scientific journals provide a key source of information. In the case of medical research, patients lives may be at stake. There are other reasons for publication. Publication will provide prestige to the investigator, to the sponsor and to the institutions involved in the research. In addition, in some circumstances the published paper will be quoted in reference dictionaries and pharmacopoeia, in advertisements and other promotions. The pharmaceutical physician should take every opportunity to publish high-quality scientific papers, even if the findings are not sensational but provide useful additional information. 

With these caveats in mind, 1 now briefly examine various ratios (Table 9.2). Rosenthal et al. (2002) report that while DTCA increased from 1.2% of total revenues in 1996 to 2.2% in 2000, over this same time period, hospital-based promotion and medical journal advertising decreased from 1.6% to 1.1 % of total revenues. Although the DTCA-to-sales ratio fell slightly in 2001 and 2002, by 2003, at 2.2%, its value is the same as in 2000. These numbers. 

The industry also helped to disseminate and reinforce the view that the new drugs were disease-specific treatments. Advertisements for antidepressants in the British Medical Journal and the American Journal of Psychiatry stress their specificity. Illustration 4.1 shows an early advertisement for Tofranil (imipramine), for example, asserting that it is a "specific" treatment for depression. 

Heroin enjoyed brief popularity as a cough suppressant immediately after its invention. This advertisement appeared in a 1903 medical journal. ( 1903 by the New York Times Company. Reprinted by permission)... 

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