Medical journal stops all drug ads

An Australian medical journal has "stopped all drug advertising forthwith" over concerns it could unduly influence doctors, and has called on similar publications to do the same.

The journal of Emergency Medicine Australasia, which publishes the latest research and unique patient cases in the field of emergency medicine, has announced it will no longer carry advertisements paid for by pharmaceutical companies.

Such advertising could "change the prescribing practices of doctors", said professors George Jelinek and Anthony Brown in a joint statement today.

"It is time to show leadership and make a stand, and medical journals have a critical role to play in this," they said. "At Emergency Medicine Australasia we have, therefore, drawn a line in the sand, and have stopped all drug advertising forthwith. We invite other journals to show their support and follow suit by declaring their hand and doing the same."

Jelinek is medical director and professorial fellow in the emergency practice innovation centre at St Vincent's Hospital and the faculty of medicine at the University of Melbourne. Brown is from the department of emergency medicine at Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital, and the school of medicine at the University of Queensland.

They said the ban followed discussions with fellow emergency medicine specialists, who had aired concerns such as:

• Advertised drugs were supported by evidence that was neither "of reasonable quality, nor independent".
• There were cases of "dubious and unethical" research practices by the industry, including "ghost authorship" where scientific papers do not disclose all of their authors.
• Academics could also face industry pressure to withhold negative research, and together this could "inflate views of the efficacy" of heavily promoted drugs.