Journalists Need to Come Clean About Payments They Receive From Big Pharma

The Medical Journalists Association (MJA) is about to dish out its annual awards. The ceremony on September 17th is sponsored by a number of organisations including several pharmaceutical companies, their UK trade body the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI), and also a number of medical communications and advertising agencies, whose clients often include pharmaceutical companies. The MJA also lists amongst its current and previous sponsors numerous other pharmaceutical companies and other organisations active within the pharmaceutical industry.

Now, I am not against celebrating excellence in journalism and I am sure all award winners on the night will be well deserving of their trophies. However, I do think the list of sponsors of this glittering occasion is striking, as is the fact that none of the 77 articles listed for the final are directly critical of any pharmaceutical company. Such occasions are not cheap to arrange and someone has to pay for them, so I do not blame the MJA for tapping into the generosity of the pharmaceutical industry. 

However, in the current environment of suspicion about relationships between the industry and the media – an environment where, rather than transparency, we have translucency at best – one surely cannot be blamed for raising an eyebrow at such close ties. Or perhaps they are not so surprising? Individual journalists, frequently medical journalists, often provide services to pharmaceutical companies, either directly or via service providers such as communications or advertising agencies. Services include speaking engagements, writing articles, participating in advisory boards or assisting with training. The pharmaceutical industry is definitely aware that a well-followed medical journalist may have more direct influence over the opinions of the general public than most clinicians or scientists, no matter how eminent, experienced or well-qualified.

Under the ABPI Code of Practice, essentially a code of conduct for the industry, pharmaceutical companies are required to disclose publicly all payments made to journalists providing contracted services. However, unlike payments to healthcare professionals (HCPs), whose names and payments are now publicly posted on the ABPI’s Disclosure UK database, disclosure of pharma payments to journalists is made in aggregate form only and not by individual name. Furthermore:

• Companies only need to publish the total amount paid to all journalists in a calendar year

• They also only need to disclose the total number of journalists paid and the types of services provided

Such aggregated payments are typically published on the pharmaceutical company’s own website rather than on Disclosure UK, which usually just contains a link to the company website. Tracing individual payments for specific services by a named journalist is therefore nigh on impossible.

The ABPI Code of Practice also requires pharmaceutical companies, in their written contracts with any HCPs and journalists, to include provisions regarding the obligation of the contracted individual to:

…declare that they are a contracted individual to the company whenever they write or speak in public about a matter that is the subject of the agreement or any other issue relating to that company.

This is all very laudable, but as we recently found out with media ‘celebrity’ doctors during the Covid era, such contractual requirements are rarely, if ever, fulfilled by the contractors when addressing the public via the media. Even less frequently are they actually enforced by pharmaceutical companies.

Similarly, medical journalists may well still think that such high standards of disclosure and transparency regarding any potential conflicts of interest are unnecessary and that their opinions and work would never be tainted by biases resulting from such payments. However, I am reminded that similar arguments were put forward by HCPs prior to, and in the early days of, their own disclosure requirements. Nowadays, very few HCPs would publicly proffer such a defence for non-disclosure, even if many clearly still think that such requirements really only apply when addressing their peers via professional journals and in conference halls rather than when opining to the general public on TV.

So, I hope the MJA has a lovely evening on the 17th and congratulations in advance to all the eventual award winners. But if they and their colleagues want their work and achievements in the field of medical reporting to be viewed untainted by suspicion, then full transparency and disclosure, by journalists at an individual level, regarding any and all of the payments they receive from pharmaceutical companies, is going to be required.

Dr Alan Black is a retired pharmaceutical physician, having worked in and for the pharmaceutical industry for around 30 years. Prior to that he spent a number of years in laboratory and clinical medicine.