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When President-elect Barack Obama tapped Sanjay Gupta last week to be his surgeon general, everyone, it seemed, was pleased. As CNN's chief medical correspondent, Gupta has performed brain surgery under combat conditions in Iraq while simultaneously maintaining his sex-symbol status on the home front. Smooth-talking and accessible-seeming, the classy Gupta looked just the man to get the messages of the administration out to patients and doctors alike. But, as is always the case, once the celebration subsided a bit, critics began holding up penalty cards. Gary Schwitzer, a prof at the University of Minnesota School of Journalism and Mass Communications and the brain behind "Schwitzer health news blog," said he was "shocked" by Obama's choice. Schwitzer, who was doing a rush job of a blog while on vacation, didn't elaborate, but a hunt through his previous entries reveals this gem from November 20, 2008 on the danger of entanglements between news programs and pharmaceutical companies. Among those entanglements are journalism awards funded by Big Pharma with the possible intent of rewarding favorable coverage of new drugs, as well as the television network "Accent Health" sold to doctor's offices and played constantly in their waiting rooms. Accent Health is sponsored by drug companies. One of its hosts is Sanjay Gupta. Here's what Schwitzer has to say: "A powerful contemporary example of entanglement involves a television network called Accent Health (whose logo includes the words "Your target is waiting"), said to be watched monthly by more than 10 million viewers in US medical waiting rooms. The network, which is produced by CNN, overtly offers sponsors, including drug companies, the chance to boost sales of their products, by, for example, putting "your brand in front of the valuable Baby Boomer population just before they discuss their health conditions with their doctor." One of the hosts is Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent and host of at least one other CNN health programme that is funded partly through drug company advertising. ...
As researchers and writers acting to improve medical journalism, we encourage journalists, educators, and professional associations to scrutinise their own relations with the industry as intensely as they do those between doctors and drug companies and to develop workable solutions. And, if they are to be good watchdogs, journalists need to mark their territory and clearly establish boundaries between themselves and the industry to avoid unhealthy entanglements."
On the blog "Furious Seasons," whose author describes himself as both a journalist and a mental health patient, Philip Dawdy raises concerns about Gupta's coverage of anti-depressant usage and the suicidality that's associated with it.
He writes, "If Gupta was referring to the oft-used argument by SSRI-suicidality deniers that there were no recorded suicides in clinical FDA approval trials of SSRIs and other modern anti-depressants, then he'd be correct. But Gupta doesn't cite his evidence base, clearly doesn't care about other anecdotal evidence, doesn't care about studies like the infamous Paxil Study 329 (which was in children, and included instances of profound suicidality that Brown University psychiatrist Martin Keller, the study's lead author, worked to cover up) which was published in 2001 and had a storm of controversy around it not long after (someone vaguely attentive to the medical press should've been semi-aware), and simply handled the story in a pharma-friendly, journalistically-lazy manner. I dislike lazy journalists, especially when they are making big TV money and have reams of producers and interns working under them who can do the digging someone like Gupta doesn't have the time for."
He continues, "If Gupta's going to handle such complex, tricky issues in such a careless manner, then how's he going to handle other public health matters? With 30 million people a day in America taking an anti-depressant of some kind for some reason, the issue of suicide, suicidality and anti-depressants is an actual public health issue."
COMMENTS
The fact is that most medical journalists are outraged at the fact that someone who has no know declaration of conflicts of interests and who maked infomercials to be played in doctors offices got this nomination.
http://www.beforeyoutakethatpill.com/2009/1/SG.html
As Jerome Kassirer wrote in his book "On the Take" it is scandalous that doctors are not held to the same standard of disclosure and avoidance of conflict of interest as journalists and attorneys.
but to quote another book I am reading now on the relationship between pharma and doctors called 'Hooked' by Howard Brody, these are not conflicts of interest. They are pharma money and influence biasing doctors against the interest of their patients, so it is more appropriate to designate them as money buying out duty to patients.
I would be ashamed to do a show like "Accent Health"
Dr. Gupta is nothing short of a medical prodigy – the guy has published acclaimed research highlighting new surgical techniques for incredibly sensitive operations, he has served as the chief medical correspondent for CNN for almost a decade, and he even participated in surgery on head trauma victims on the front lines in Iraq while he was covering a US Marines medical unit. He's debated Michael Moore, worked in the Clinton White House, and managed to graduate with an undergraduate degree and an MD from the University of Michigan, one of the nation's premier graduate and professional schools, completing his residency in neurosurgery, without using a payday loan. This is a guy who is in the upper echelons of the medical field of the United States, which is exactly why he has been approached by Back Obama to be the next Surgeon General of the United States. Surgeon Generals are typically people of renown and authority as medical professionals, and Dr. Gupta will be no exception. To see just how he operates click <strong><a title="READ A Certain TV Doctor won’t need Payday Loans for awhile" rev="vote-for" href="http://personalmoneystore.com/moneyblog/2009/01/07/a-certain-tv-doctor-wont-need-payday-loans-for-awhile/">payday loans</a><strong>, if you've got Dr. Gupta on the brain. You must be logged in to post a comment. You can log in here. |