Ben Goldacre, a London-based doctor and writer, was a little "surprised" by a recent offer posted in an email on a science writers' mailing list: "It was from the Aspirin Foundation, a group funded by the drug industry, and it was offering -- on behalf of Bayer Healthcare -- to pay expenses for journalists to attend the European Society of Cardiology's conference in Vienna."
On contacting some of his peers, Goldacre discovered that it is "extremely common for journalists to take money from drug companies" some of whom dismissed the suggestion that it could affect how they reported an event. Drug companies, he noted, "wouldn't pay for journalists to attend their events if they didn't think it would affect media coverage of their product.
After all, a journalist's article is far more credible than a paid advertisement, for anybody's money, and more likely to be read by potential consumers."
Source
Insider's view: This was probably the story that was being pushed.
If they write about the junket they should declare who paid for them to go.
It might be worth someone looking to see who wrote what and if they did declare any conflicts of interest!
1 comment:
Sure they've been offering journalists paid conferences for some time. Most of the health stories, 99 per cent of them, in the daily media are press-release journalism, quotes names contact information provided for the spokesdocs who are on pharma payroll. Some journalists re-write and some just rearrange the press release. None can refuse to do it, or someone else will be warming their seat. There are very, very few journalists who don't do this; Shannon Brownlee is one.
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