Medicine, the media and monetary interests: the need for transparency and professionalism

Emerging evidence suggests that media coverage of medicine is increasingly promotional in nature. Recent Australian examples include misleading newspaper articles on an expe rimental cancer vaccine and a high profile television current affairs segme nt on a new influenza drug, which failed to disclose the industry ties of a key expert featured in the report. There are widening concerns that this problem in medical journalism may be exacerbated by the growing commercialisation of medical and scientific rese arch, and the increasing ties between researchers, doctors and pharmaceutic al or biotechnology companies. Closer links between industry and medicine are being explicitly encouraged both in academia and the health care sector for the mutual benefits they br ing. However, these partnerships are the cause of growing unease within med icine. In the United States, rigorous legislation governing research protocols is being proposed, and in Australia new ethical guidelines covering industry-p rofession relationships are being promulgated. If one of the media's roles is informing the community about the business o f health and medicine in a fair and accurate way, a cultural change in medi cal journalism is required.