Drug chiefs ponder how to improve industry's reputation

doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7502.1229-a

BMJ 2005;330:1229 (28 May), doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7502.1229-a

News roundup

Drug chiefs ponder how to improve industry's reputation

Canberra Bob Burton

Drug industry executives and advisers told a conference in Sydney last week that the poor public standing of the industry was hindering its ability to sell its products at higher prices to government agencies as well as its attempts to address public criticism.

Introducing a panel discussion on reputation management, Kristin Austin, director of the public relations company Ruder Finn, said that a review of coverage of the industry in the Sydney print media showed 30 positive stories in the preceding year but 40 critical stories.

"Each negative story requires six or seven positive stories to negate people�s misgivings," she told the third annual pharmaceutical marketing congress.

As an example of a "negative" media story she played a segment from a television current affairs programme on "disease mongering" that featured interviews with the freelance journalist Ray Moynihan and the health academic David Henry, a professor at the . . . [Full text of this article]

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