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Lancet withdraws its support of document on collaboration between doctors and drug industry

BMJ 2013; 346 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.f770 (Published 05 February 2013) Cite this as: BMJ 2013;346:f770
  1. Nigel Hawkes
  1. 1London

The Lancet has withdrawn its support from a document outlining how healthcare professionals could collaborate with the drug industry.

In an editorial titled “Falling out with pharma,”1 the journal’s editor, Richard Horton, said that the statements the document made did not match the latest evidence on the behaviour of drug companies today and that this evidence undermined the principles to which he originally signed up in an attempt “to forge a new and more constructive partnership between medicine and the pharmaceutical industry.”

The four page document was published in 2012 by the Ethical Standards in Health and Life Sciences Group,2 which is co-chaired by the president of the Royal College of Physicians, Richard Thompson, and the president of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, Deepak Khanna. The group’s members include several royal colleges, the BMA, the Department of Health for England, and the Lancet. The document is available on the websites of the RCP and the ABPI.3

Horton …

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