Conflicts of interest in health care journalism. Who’s watching the watchdogs?

Credit

Many journalists are aware of the drug industry’s attempts to gain positive attention by buying placement within the nation’s health care news.  A few occasionally write or talk about it, as Harder and Rosenthal did publicly. But, writes Gary Schwitzer in Health News Review, we don’t talk often enough about why it matters if health care industry entities are allowed to advertise within, or sponsor, health care journalism content.  Americans spend more than $3 trillion on health care. Conflicts of interest in health care and research are rampant. But who talks about conflicts of interest in health care journalism? There is a great potential harm in journalists – and the audience they serve – becoming numb to the presence of and influence of drug companies and other industry entities in the news and information disseminated to the public.  In a three part series, Health News Review examines this problem. Read Part 1.  Read Part 2.