Please click on the red tag in box below to sign the petition:
The Petition runs as follows:
We the undersigned call upon the BBC to instigate an urgent
change to its editorial policy for BBC News Online. We want this change to
ensure that all BBC Health Editors cite clearly whenever a writer on mental
health issues has received money from pharmaceutical companies. We ask that
making these disclosures explicit at the foot of the article be a matter of
common policy for the BBC, as it is for all respectable academic journals. At
present we think it regrettable that someone receiving money from pharmaceutical
companies can extol the virtues of antidepressants on the BBC, without the
reader being fully informed as to the writer’s potential conflict of interest.
When such financial links are not declared such reporting can constitute, at
worst, a form of surreptitious pharmaceutical advertising that belies the BBC’s
mission statement to offer impartial reporting free of commercial bias.
What Highlighted Us to this Problem?
Some months ago an article appeared on the BBC News website
extolling the virtues of antidepressants: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12716742 This
article was heavily biased in favor of antidepressants, advocating their wider
consumption. At the end of the article the citation stated that the author has
“given lectures on behalf of a number of pharmaceutical companies”. Upon
further researching these company ties we found that the BBC citation had omitted
that the author had actually received consultancy fees and honoraria from many
pharmaceutical companies including Janssen-Cilag, Eli Lilly, AstraZeneca,
BristolMyers Squibb/Otsuka and Wyeth. The thousands of people who read this
article were not told this.
After many months of pressing the BBC, the Health Editor
finally conceded to change the citation to reflect this potential conflict of
interest. The new citation now reads: “[the author has]… received fees and
honoraria for providing consultancy and giving lectures on behalf of Jannsen
Cilag, Eli Lilly, AstraZeneca, BMS and Otsuka Pharmaceuticals”.
By changing the author’s citation we welcome the BBC’s
implied admission that full disclosure is the proper course of action. We, the
undersigned, therefore urge the BBC to enshrine the obligation for full
disclosures in editorial policy to ensure no such mistakes occur again. We
believe that if the BBC takes the lead on this matter, then other media outlets
are more likely to follow.
Sign Petition here: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/antidepressants/
Read Current
Editorial Policy here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/guidelines/editorialguidelines/page/guidelines-impartiality-personal-view/
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