Naming names: is there an (unbiased) doctor in the house?

doi:10.1136/bmj.a930

Published 23 July 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a930
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a930

Observations

Medicine and the Media

Naming names: is there an (unbiased) doctor in the house?

Jeanne Lenzer, medical investigative journalist, New York, Shannon Brownlee, senior fellow, New America Foundation, Washington, DC

Correspondence to: J Lenzer jeanne.lenzer@gmail.com

Journalists often forget that conflicts of interest may biasthe opinions of their expert sources. Jeanne Lenzer and ShannonBrownlee explain how, in an attempt to disentangle commercialmessages from science, they have compiled a list of nearly 100independent medical experts to whom reporters can turn

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Ho hum, another medical scandal in the news. Earlier this monthUS Senator Chuck Grassley announced his intention to investigateAlan Schatzberg, chairman of the psychiatry department at StanfordUniversity and the incoming president of the American PsychiatricAssociation, about his multimillion dollar interest in CorceptTherapeutics, a company that is seeking to market a drug thatDr Schatzberg is researching with federal funding, and the extentto which he disclosed and was required to disclose that interestto Stanford.¹ In June the New York Times broke a front pagestory about the alleged failure of three top research psychiatristsat Harvard, each of them a proponent of drug treatment for psychiatricconditions in children, to report that since 2000 they had collectivelyreceived more than $4.2m (£2.1m; ${euro}$ 2.6m) from various drugcompanies.²

After ignoring the growing controversy over conflict of interestfor years, journalists now seem only too happy . . . [Full text of this article]

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Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

Corrections: Jeanne Lenzer, et al.
bmj.com, 24 Jul 2008 [Full text]
Biased medical experts: David J R Hutchon
bmj.com, 25 Jul 2008 [Full text]
Hurrah for tunnel vision - the wrong message: Tom Jefferson
bmj.com, 27 Jul 2008 [Full text]
Independent of what?: Tammy L Boyce, et al.
bmj.com, 31 Jul 2008 [Full text]
Authors' response: Jeanne Lenzer, et al.
bmj.com, 5 Aug 2008 [Full text]