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The Journal
Was the news story planted by industry?
From Mr J. P. M. Pratt, MRPharmS
On my return from attending this year’s American Psychiatric Association
congress in New York as a guest of Janssen-Cilag, I was surprised to
read your news item entitled “Quetiapine shows promise for depression” (PJ,
8 May, p561). The APA congress is a large conference attracting thousands
of psychiatrists and others from all over the world. It includes hundreds
of different courses, presentations, workshops and posters, and generally
runs from 7am to 10pm. It is challenging to plan which ones are worth
attending, having only the abstracts and congress programme to guide
choice.
As a general rule of thumb I am less inclined to attend those sessions
included under the heading of “industry sponsored symposia” because
of the obvious potential for a particular perspective to be highlighted
which may or may not represent a balanced perspective on the use of a
particular drug.
When I read your news item on quetiapine, I was initially impressed that
the PJ had sufficient interest in pharmacological treatments in mental
health to attend the APA. However, I then began to think about the logistics
of how you managed to get the report back to the UK in time for the PJ to be both printed and circulated so that I received it only a few hours
before I landed back in the UK. Perhaps the reporter felt this study
was so important that they e-mailed their report live from the congress?
At this point I began to wonder why, out of the hundreds of studies that
had been presented at the congress, did the PJ choose to report only
on this one issue? It struck me that perhaps this was not a report by
someone from the PJ attending the congress, perhaps it was a ghost-written
piece planted in the PJ by either the sponsors of the drug, or even a
third party marketing company.
A search on the internet revealed a press release from AstraZeneca which
strongly suggests that your news story was produced by AstraZeneca. If
an article printed in the PJ is taken from a press release by a pharmaceutical
company then that must be made clear and transparent so that the reader
is able to make a judgement on the claim. Stating that this was “a
sponsored trial” leaves the reader with a different perception
than if the news item stated “according to a press release from
AstraZeneca ...”.
Peter Pratt
Chief Pharmacist
Sheffield Care Trust and Doncaster and South Humber NHS Trust
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PJ staff have attended several large American congresses and, like Peter
Pratt, our attendance is generally made possible through sponsorship from
industry. We always acknowledge the sponsoring company involved. We are
aware of the difficulties in choosing topics to report on and tend to
be guided by the organising body (in this instance the American Psychiatric
Association), which usually arranges press briefings for what it considers
the most important studies presented. The PJ news editor also spends time
examining the programme and may also contact specialist pharmacists to
get advice on which presentations will be of most interest to their UK
colleagues.
Like Mr Pratt, PJ staff are also less inclined to attend industry-sponsored
symposia. However, conference presentations of important trial data
are often accompanied
by industry-sponsored symposia. These may provide additional background material
and an opportunity to interview key investigators or company personnel. We
are well aware that the purpose of these symposia is to put the best
light on the
company’s trial results.
The report to which Mr Pratt refers was written by a well-respected freelance
journalist and was based on a poster presentation and an interview with the lead
researcher. It was indeed e-mailed to the PJ office from the congress. The journalist
was sponsored by AstraZeneca to attend the meeting. As is usual practice, she
contacted the PJ while at the conference with a list of possible news stories
that might be of interest to UK pharmacists, not all of which were based on AstraZeneca
funded research. The PJ news editor then asked her to provide a news story on
the quetiapine data because we believed this was an important and interesting
study. The journalist was paid by the PJ, not by AstraZeneca, to write the news
item and the item was not taken from an AstraZeneca press release.
I can assure Mr Pratt that it is our policy not to accept ghost-written articles.
— EDITOR
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The
Pharmaceutical Journal