Should Pfizer Pay For Media To Learn About Cancer?
29 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // August 26th, 2010 // 8:12 am
We spend a fair amount of time on this site tracking the controversy over continuing medical education and the extent to which industry may unduly influence the physician mindset. For the second year running, though, a drugmaker - it happens to be Pfizer - is underwriting an extensive seminar on cancer issues for journalists that is organized by the National Press Foundation.
Here are the basics: the NPF is awarding 15 fellowships to journalists who will attend a four-day session in October on cancer issues that will be presented by several experts (you can read more here). The idea, says Bob Meyers, the NPF prez and a former editor and reporter for The Washington Post, is to give journalists a chance to learn needed info about complex subjects, especially at a time when media resources are scarce. “Where else would they go?” he asks.
How is it funded? Pfizer provided an unrestricted grant of $80,000, but has no involvement in conceiving, organizing or executing the program, in keeping with NPF rules. “They don’t select the topics. They don’t select the speakers or the journalists who attend. And they don’t get the authority to change any of that retrospectively,” Meyers tells us. He acknowledges perception may be an issue, but says the reality is different, and notes that, unlike docs who must attend CME for credits, no journalist is required to apply. Nor is there any expectation that journalists will make specific use of what they learn. “Look at the agenda,” he adds. “No one is pushing a point of view or product.”
The arrangement is generating a bit of heat in some circles, though, given sensitivities over perceptions of conflicts of interest, not just real conflicts. So is this, essentially, continuing journalism education? Gary Schwitzer, a former University of Minnesota journalism professor who writes the HealthNewsReview blog, says it is. “Journalists need to look in the mirror because this is another case in which their credibility and trustworthiness is at stake. If journalism can dish it out to medicine about pharma funding of CME, journalism better be ready to take the brickbats if they choose to take those same pharma dollars.” he writes us.
“Here’s my beef,” he continues. “Pfizer is dangling money, NPF bites, and then NPF promotes it to journalists whose newsrooms today might be too cheap or truly unable to pay for on-the-job training themselves. In the end, no matter what the content is or who controls it, Pfizer pays for journalists to come and learn about a field in which they have a huge interest. Is this something a journalist would be proud of on his/her cv?” He then posits that Pfizer would be unlikely to sponsor a seminar on a topic unrelated to medicines. “Does NPF stand for Naivete and Pharma Funding?” Schwitzer asks.
As for Pfizer, spokesman Ray Kerins tells us that “this is something you and I have discussed before. With the 24/7 news cycle now, my concern continues to be the ability of journalists to have enough time to understand the material and have the knowledge to do the analytic work they need to do. I can complain or be part of the solution. We believe we’re doing this the right way.” What do you think?
Is The Pfizer/NPF Seminar Appropriate?
- Yes (63%, 92 Votes)
- No (37%, 55 Votes)
Total Voters: 147
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pharmavet
Ed, why would any scientific journalist want to risk his or credibility by accepting this award? If any of the 15 Pfizer Journalist Fellows were to later write a piece based on what they had learned in this forum, they would be obliged to reveal their funding source in the interest of full disclosure. I would therefore discount whatever the journalist reported, accuracy or bias notwithstanding.
bob meyers
Ed, basically a fair article. One personal correction: I was a reporter at The Washington Post and an Assistant City Editor of the San Diego Union. Regarding pharmavet’s comment, we obviously don’t hide any funder’s names, for a journalist the funding source is NPF, through a program funded by Pfizer. A subtle distinction but subtlety counts. I suspect our fellows in this program will be general assignment or medical reporters, not scientific people. As for Gary Switzer, who has objected to our operations before, respectfully, he has it backwards: we developed an agent before Pfizer was a gleam in anyone’s eye; Pfizer agreed to fund an existing agenda. We didn’t bite, they did. For more information on this year’s NPF cancer program, and resources from last year’s event, visit http://nationalpress.org/programs-and-resources/program/cancer-issues-2010/.
Linda Streitfeld
For more information on this year’s NPF cancer program, and resources from last year’s event, visit http://nationalpress.org/programs-and-resources/program/cancer-issues-2010/.
Laird Kelly
And in the absence of a program like this, where would a newly-assigned science and medicine reporter turn for backgrounding on the topic of cancer?
Assuming proper disclosure I think Pfizer is doing the public a great service to help journalists report with knowledge and insight.
Wendy
The NPF is supported by many corporations and it is unlikely that Pfizer “dangled” any money, but that the NPF submitted a grant proposal for the funds.
After viewing last year’s program, I thought it was valuable for the most part, and certainly wouldn’t leave any journalist attending beholden to Pfizer. I for one think journalists need to know of which they report. There is a derth of quality science reporting in this country.
BUCAPOPS
NO MATTER THE MEDIA OUTLET, WRITTEN OR ORAL, NATIONAL OR LOCAL, THE RECEIVING AUDIENCE IS INFLUENCED BY THE CONTENT REGARDLESS OF THE FIDELITY OF THE INFORMATION PRESENTED.
PHARMA COMPANIES ARE RELENTLESSLY PILLORIED FOR MISINFORMATION AND NEED TO DO BETTER.
A COMPANY THAT JUST MIGHT SUCCEED IN EDUCATING JOURNALISTS TO IMPROVE ACCURACY IN REPORTING AND HOPEFULLY BALANCED IN TONE IS WELCOMED.
Mike Wokasch
If journalists need education about medical issues and disease states there are plenty of textbooks and non-industry sponsored conferences and CME accredited programs available for them to attend.
For the journalists who do decide to attend and subsequently write about Pfizer or oncology, I hope they will abide by their own expectations and include a disclosure that they “received indirect financial assistance by attending the conference sponsored by Pfizer”.
To argue there is no financial benefit to the journalist is ridiculous because they wouldn’t need to have Pfizer fund the program if they just pay a conference fee themselves. mike@pharmareform.com
M. Black
Regardless of who pays, the quality and accuracy, we find out way too late, is way off. A bit unrelated, but not, I know of a company that BY LAW is REQUIRED to provide to it’s manufacturing, QC and QA BASIC GMP
TRAINING. The FDA apparently has their heads up their @$$ (and not only for that matter at that company ….. very strange) because the relevant GMP training given was THIRTY YEARS OLD. They had a good twenty five years to catch that and recommend truly up to date material. I think they are given lines to snort upon entering the facility to audit. Drug test those clods.! What the F&$& does the FDA audit and why the hell are we paying these imbeciles?
Education is not a top priority because more times than not it impacts immediate profits, but as for down the road ….. Oh well, they just find another company to eff up.
Move over bacon… Retire or something.
~ M. Black
Bill Cooney
The only bias that’s observable in this issue a liberal bias against corporations. Clearly the press is lacking in both education and resources, so I’m sure the left would prefer that this sort of education were funded by the government. However, the press also needs to report critically about government, another big stakeholder in oncology medicine. So why would government funding be any less likely to skew press perceptions? The answer lies in the simplistic equation of the left: government = good, corporations = bad. Let’s end the thoughtless stereotyping of corporations as sinister, especially in cases of clear good-doing by corporate America.
pharmavet
There are plenty of other non-controversial medical publications that drug companies can sponsor. For instance when I was in medical school we studied gross anatomy from the wonderful series of illustrations by Dr. Frank Netter. It was arguably the best illustrated volume of its kind. Dr. Netter’s books were funded by what was at that time The Ciba-Geigy Corporation. This is just one example where the industry could support medical education in a non-commercial way.
Former Pharma Marketing Director
Sponsoring education for journalists is not Pfizer’s core competency.
They do research and make drugs - no?
Bill Gleason
Pfizer is making drugs in the area in which they are trying to stir up interest. If journos attend, aren’t they likely to write articles about the topic of the conference and the possibility of new therapies? Isn’t this Pfizer’s intent? They aren’t doing this for charitable reasons, they are trying to make money. How is this fundamentally any different than taking a doc on a nice trip to encourage him - directly or indirectly - to push a drug? Journos are one of the few groups of people in this whole sordid mess who currently have clean hands. Please don’t pick up the tar ball.
cliffintokyo
A sense of proportion - in all things, at all times - is needed.
This seems to be an honest effort for the greater good.
Even altruists need funds to take care of the basics (venue, reasonable recompense for speakers….)
PB
Prizer is not teaching the session people. Follow the link and review the agenda. It’s well balanced, which is more than can be said about the media’s account of most healthcare related topics. Thank goodness journalists are getting educated!!!!
Paul
I find this a perfectly valid program
As much as many of you would like to see, there is no such thing as a government-paid, current, state-of-the-art, training program on current epidemiology or science of cancer or other diseases.
I’d rather see Pfizer and others support these and other programs like it that are independently run but made possible by their money, rather than the what they used to do, i.e. buy pens and pads.
I remember some you you, in this same blog, saying that companies should stop pens and pads and instead put that money towards education…well?!?!
Amazing, even in a sunny day some of will only see dark clouds.
Nathan
It’s in Pfizer’s interest (and Pharma’s interest) to have a scientifically literate population. One of the greatest long-term threats to the industry is that the public looses trust the scientific process of discovering drugs. This is why the pharma industry (all pharma — not just Pfizer) spends significant amounts of money on a variety of educational outreach opportunities — from local science fairs, awareness events (races, marches, festivals), scholarships/grants, and sponsorship of scientific education events — such as the one in question here.
All major corporations do this sort of “goodwill” stuff. It’s good for everyone. It’s ashame people are complaining. I will be very happy to read news articles written by journalists who have a reasonable understanding of a complex disease. There are way too many articles out there that over-hype some new discovery as a potential “cure” for cancer. The reality is that most discoveries are at least 10-15 years (usually more) away from clinical validation.
Shannon Brownlee
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Another great threat is a co-opted press. There’s a reason Pfizer isn’t sponsoring the seminar themselves — it would be too obvious they were trying to bias the press. This is a case of information laundering, and the NPF is kidding themselves if they think there’s nothing wrong with taking money from industry to fund topic-specific seminars.
Another commenter wrote: <>
That’s incorrect, there is in fact government-funded programs. The CDC runs a yearly week-long seminar for journalists on epidemiology. There’s also an annual course called Medicine & the Media, run by NIH, which is probably the best short course in epidemiology in the country. We need about 100 more those.
The cure for hyperbolic, poorly reported, unscientifically sound stories in the news is not to accept funding for training courses from industries that have a vested in shaping the news. Haven’t we learned anything from the problem of conflict of interest in medicine?
DenisLondon
Ed,
So, in your opinion, would should pay for such educational workshops? Media? Governments? Hmm…
Media and others spend their time slashing pharmaceutical companies in their continuous efforts to educate both HCPs and patients.
Of course, they have interest in the topic… It is the nature of the business: Selling drug (and save lives too at the same time). Let’s not forget that!
People hide their face or try to be politically correct. I believe journalists have the right and duty to be fully informed about what is available to doctors (and patients within the pharma regulation of course).
I am myself working in the PR business and specialise in healthcare field and I personally do not understand what’s the problem to educate people about disease and treatments, as long as education helps your audience to better understand things.. and is not restricted to one product or does not promote one company, it is fine.
Denis
Shannon Brownlee
Sorry about that, I managed to delete the two comments I wanted to quote. QUOTE NO. 1: “One of the greatest long-term threats to the industry is that the public looses trust the scientific process of discovering drugs. ”
QUOTE NO. 2: “there is no such thing as a government-paid, current, state-of-the-art, training program on current epidemiology or science of cancer or other diseases.”
Ed Silverman
Hi Denis,
Thanks for the note and one reason I posted this item is because I can appreciate both points of view.
Ideally, it would be best to avoid situations where perceptions can create an unwanted impression. I would hesitate before jumping in for that reason. At the same time, the NPF program certainly has value and offers an opportunity not easily found elsewhere.
But if you’re wondering whether I will apply, the answer is no, simply because I’m too busy with this site and other responsibilities.
Hope this helps,
ed
Charles Ornstein
Hi Ed, this has been an enlightening discussion. Journalists, and particularly health journalists, routinely report about both actual conflicts of interest and the appearance of conflict. For this reason, the Association of Health Care Journalists (which has more than 1,000 members) does not accept money from commercial entities with a financial stake in healthcare. Anyone can view our policy here: http://www.healthjournalism.org/center-fundraisingPolicy.php. This policy works for us and, more importantly, it works for our members.
Charlie Ornstein
President, Association of Health Care Journalists
Gary Schwitzer
Just today, the National Press Foundation invited me to speak at this year’s Pfizer-funded session. From NPF: “You may speak on any topic you like related to journalism or cancer coverage, including matters relating to the current online discussion of this program.”
That was a gracious, proactive and open-minded move by NPF and I thank them for it and applaud them for it.
Unfortunately I cannot attend because of a longstanding prior commitment. I have communicated this to NPF and also stated my desire to meet with them to discuss these issues in the future.
The debate on this issue has been healthy, although, at times a bit acrid. I regret if any of my comments contributed to that tone or were interpreted in the wrong way. My passion runs deep on this issue, as I know it does in those who have voiced differing opinions.
I’ve devoted my entire career to the improvement of health journalism. I wrote the Statement of Principles of the Association of Health Care Journalists and just wrote an AHCJ guide on how to report on research. I’m traveling >70K miles/yr. - all devoted to health journalism improvement.
I look forward to exchanging ideas with NPF.
Gary Schwitzer
Publisher, http://www.HealthNewsReview.org
PB
Nathan’s comments are interesting. I should hope it would be in everyone’s interest to have a scientifically literate population. Most people believe everything they hear on TV and the news. So it seems that not only big bad pharma would have a vested interest to have educated journalists, eg physicians.
pharmavet
When we graduate from medical school we go from being medical students to students of medicine. Notwithstanding the interesting dicussion on this thread, virtually everything that I learn these days is self-taught becuse I think that I’m pretty good at figuring out what I need to know. Actually most of us are self-teachers. A good, scientifically based physician would never put into clinical practice something that was based on a single publication or set of publications, whether industry subsidized or not. Practicing evidence-based medicine required distilling your clinical approach from many different sources.
marcy stone
Pfizer isn’t doing this or anything else for no return on the dollar -as a journalist the last place I’d go for an ‘education’ on cancer or anything else is Pfizer.
There are very good textbooks, the National Cancer Institute has an excellent site and local cancer research centers have wonderful and usually free lectures. In NYC, Memorial SKI hosts very, very good cancer lectures at the Rockefeller Research Laboratories. They’re free and the attending oncologists are generally happy to talk with journalists.
It’s as wrong for journalists to get cancer information from Pfizer as it is for physicians to get CMEs from pharmaceutical companies. And these programs are never not monitored by the sponsoring company –I’ve been asked to write some and the outlines given to me by marketing people; I’ve declined.
I suspect some of these journalists might be interested in covering meetings for industry, that’s fine and it pays well; but the information given by Pfizer should be used to write news articles. It will be biased.
Nathan
marcy stone,
If you took the time to read Ed’s article you would have read that Pfizer “has no involvement in conceiving, organizing or executing the program…They don’t select the topics. They don’t select the speakers or the journalists” It appears that you failed one of your primary duties as a journalist! You are more concerned with getting mis-facts from Pfizer than you are getting your facts strait!
pharmavet
We need more unbiased healthcare journalists like Ed Silverman, when he was the best healthcare reporter the Star-Ledger ever employed, and beholden to no one. We don’t need “healthcare journalists” who shill for and against pharma. Today, the only healcare reporters that interest me are the ones that say “Buy, Hold, or Sell”, and at the end of the day I have to read about a dozen of them in order to form my own opinion.
mike
When I was in college (chemistry) we had the Merck Lecture series where we were able to listen to top researchers talk about their work. The thing is these events cost money and with out the meetings people miss out on an educational opportunity. Go to the seminars, listen, evaluate and talk with others but do not miss out becasue the event is sponsored by a drug company. We are intelligent humans and we can make intelligent decisions based on information and the source.
DenisLondon
We do need indeed to hear both sides to form our own opinions (that’s probably what people lack the most though)!
Agree with pharmavet (related to unbiased healthcare journalists)! Keep on the good work Ed! :)
Denis