Australian medical journal Emergency Medicine Australasia has reportedly stopped all drug advertising forthwith over concerns that it could unduly influence doctors. The journal has called on similar publications to do the same. Emergency Medicine Australasia is the journal of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine.
According to the writers of an editorial in the latest issue of Emergency
Medicine Australasia, the journal will no longer carry advertisements paid for by pharmaceutical companies. The authors maintain that marketing of drugs by the pharmaceutical industry, whose prime aim is to bias readers towards prescribing a particular product, is fundamentally at odds with the mission of medical journals, which is to provide evidence-based, objective data and to eliminate bias where possible, so that doctors and other health professionals can make sound judgements based on the best available evidence, when prescribing for their patients.
Emergency Medicine Australasia is one of the first journals worldwide to take this stand.
The move followed a discussion by Australasian emergency physicians on the detrimental effects of the drug industry in medicine.
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