E-drug: Advertising in online journals (cont)
---------------------------------------------
In response to Leo Offerhaus suggestion that what I described was an
advertorial:
As I understand the term advertorial, it is an advertisement designed
to resemble editorial content. The doctors that are invited to write
reviews at the site I mentioned (April 2) do not set out to promote
any specific product, nor do they know what company (if any) will
eventually place an ad by their text. A majority of reviews do not
have any accompanying advertisements. But the authors have an
interest in attracting the attention of companies, and may therefore
be tempted to give positively biased information about specific drugs
or about drug use in general.
If there is an informal agreement between an author and the industry,
it would result in an advertorial. If not, the authors are blind as
to what product they could benefit from promoting, and are probably
more likely to give a fair account of the therapy options. Therefore,
it seems to me that the texts at the site are somewhere between
unbiased reviews and advertorials.
Staffan Svensson
Dept of Clinical Pharmacology
Sahlgrenska Univ Hospital, Gothenburg, Sweden
staffan.svensson@pharm.gu.se
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