Medical journalism: doctors warn of conflicting interests

The Brit­ish Med­ical Journal has a piece out — Who’s Watch­ing The Watch­dogs?* — about con­flicts of interest between med­ical journ­al­ists and big pharma.

Yes, med­ical journ­al­ism is not travel journ­al­ism. The art­icle begins:

Doc­tors should be wary of the increas­ing entan­gle­ment of med­ical journ­al­ists and the drug industry, warn Lisa Schwartz, Steven Woloshin, and Ray Moynihan.

Journ­al­ists tend to spot inter­est­ing con­flicts quicker than con­flict­ing interests. Still the trio have three sug­ges­tions for us:

Three ways to dis­en­tangle fin­an­cial ties between med­ical journ­al­ists and health­care industries

Edu­ca­tion of journ­al­ists
Train­ing and fur­ther edu­ca­tion of med­ical journ­al­ists should not be fun­ded by the health­care indus­tries that the journ­al­ists cover, whether the edu­ca­tion is delivered by uni­ver­sit­ies or pro­fes­sional associations.

Journ­al­ists’ awards
To avoid real or per­ceived con­flicts of interest med­ical journ­al­ists should not accept from the health­care indus­tries they cover any awards, schol­ar­ships, gifts, travel, spe­cial treat­ment, or any­thing that could be seen as affect­ing what or how news is reported.

The prac­tice of journ­al­ism
Just as med­ical journ­als require dis­clos­ure of con­flicts of interest, med­ical journ­al­ists should dis­close any fin­an­cial or non-financial assist­ance from the industry in research­ing or writ­ing their stor­ies, includ­ing identi­fy­ing quoted patients and experts with ties to the industry. Con­flicts of interests of sources should routinely be disclosed.

Any­one rush­ing to take them up?

*That’s Quis cus­todiet ipsos cus­todes? for all you Latin-educated, med­ical types.

Tagged as: conflict of interest, healthcare industries, Journalism, medical