The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 279 No 7468 p248
8 September 2007

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Will we carry inserts again?

In January 2007, The Pharmaceutical Journal carried an insert that had been sponsored by AstraZeneca. A number of readers later complained that it was disguising the promotion of a proprietary product as educational material. We published seven of these letters (3 February 2007, p127).

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency ruled in March that the insert was not in breach of the Medicines (Advertising) Regulations. The Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority, which administers a voluntary code on behalf of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, published its own findings last week and concluded that it had broken many of the code’s principles. (Details can be seen in the advertisement from the PMCPA published opposite p255, in a News story on p253 and in an Article p263.)

The Journal takes seriously its responsibilities relating to the material we carry: advertising and editorial material within its pages, supplements (ie, written or endorsed by either us or the Society) and inserts (ie, material generated elsewhere but distributed within the same wrapper as The Journal).

We ensure to the best of our abilities that advertisements do not make unsubstantiated claims, that editorial material published under our aegis is accurate and comes from reputable authors, and that nothing we publish is illegal or indecent. Indeed, much of what we wrote in a Leading article “We call this free speech” (3 February 2007, p120) still stands.

Faced again with an insert that is produced independently — like the AstraZeneca one — we would treat it in roughly the way we did in January. We would take heed of the MHRA advice about authors’ declarations of interest and that the involvement of a pharmaceutical company (or any other sponsoring organisation) should be clearly stated.

However, we would not make the decision whether the insert constituted “sponsored educational material” or whether it was “promotional”. We do not have the resources to review the contents in that light. Moreover, it is not our role to filter material and make decisions that are properly the responsibility of the PMCPA.

We have tried hard to be transparent about our decision-making and explained our rationale for accepting inserts of this nature and we accept that some pharmacists will disagree with our stance. We wish that those pharmacists who complained to The Journal had been equally transparent.

We subsequently discovered that at least five of the seven correspondents have close professional links with the National Prescribing Centre — a body tasked with supporting activities that, inter alia, keep the NHS drugs bill under control. It has as much of an agenda as any pharmaceutical company and we were disappointed that only one of the correspondents declared his association with the NPC.

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