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Doctors Slam Deceptive Drug Ads
A report in the "Money&Business" section of The New York Times on June 7th focused on televison ads for pharmaceuticals that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration found to be "misleading." Last August, the FDA relaxed its restrictions on television ads, allowing pharmaceutucal companies to identify their products by name and describe their purposes. Since then, drug makers have rolled out a record number of print and television campaigns, spending $350 million for television ads this year.
And, according to the Times, while the FDA has taken a "wait-and-see" approach, doctors and consumer advocates fear that the commercials will mislead the public, offer hope that the proffered drugs work on all people in every case, persuade the public to demand prescriptions for drugs they know almost nothing about, don't encourage patients to get back to their doctors, and make doctors see themselves as nothing more than highly paid prescription writers.
The Times reports that drug companies aren't required to submit their ads to the FDA for prior approval. And, when violators of the FDA's ground rules are caught, the penalties are almost nonexistent. Companies pay no fines and rarely have to issue corrective ads. The FDA, doctors, and consumer advocates are all wary of advertisers making claims about rivals' products in the future. The report was written by David J. Morrow. A related report in the "Money&Business" section was written by Constance Hays.
Sacramento Test Census: New Methods, Classic Problems
According to an article in the June 7th issue of The New York Times, the U.S. Census Bureau is encountering classic problems of apathy and non-response in conducting this year's test census of Sacramento, the state capital of California. Since the beginning of April, temporary Census Bureau employees have been interviewing residents in households that didn't return the questionaires mailed to them in early March. Sacramento (population about 374,000) is being used as large scale test site for statistical sampling, which the Clinton Administration and the Census Bureau want to implement for the 2000 Census.
As the Census Bureau has done in previous censuses, and will do in 2000, it mailed forms to households in the Sacramento test area. Unlike previous decennial censuses and test censuses where census enumerators were sent repeatedly, if necessary, to each residence that failed to mail back a questionnaire, enumerators in the Sacramento test census were sent to only a randomly selected sample of households in each neighborhood. The Census Bureau hopes the new method will reduce the cost of the next census, and will improve the accuracy of the 2000 Census results.
Unfortunately, the Bureau appears to be experiencing the usual problems vis a vis what the Bureau's statisticians want to accomplish and what those who involved in field data collection are able to accomplish. One important problem involves who will be doing the sampling for Census 2000, and how well they will do it. If the Census Bureau can't take an excellent census, nor an excellent sample, what can the Census Bureau do? The article was written by Steven Holmes, and appears on page 22.
Direct Marketers Quietly Sell Customer Data
A report by Bruce Horovitz in the June 11th issue of USA Today discusses the implications of telemarketers and direct mail companies amassing and selling consumer information. According to a survey of Direct Marketing Association member companies, fewer than 40% of DMA's 3600 companies tell consumers they gather information on them, about a third ask customers' permission to use the information in their databases for marketing, and about 25% inform consumers how the information is used. USA Today depicts DMA's survey as "little solace to consumers who worry about private information for sale." The article didn't discuss the quality of the DMA's survey data. The article appears on page 1B.
Reporter's 'Stories': Grounds for Dismissal
According to a front page article in The New York Times on June 12th, a writer for the magazine The New Republic was dismissed for fabricating part or all of at least 27 articles he wrote over the past three years. After a monthlong internal investigation, the magazine offered an account that described the extent and degree of the fabrications. It is an account that, according to the Times, would place the case among journalism's notorious scandals. [Editor's note: fabrication was commonly used by journalists in the past to enliven and sell newspapers. For examples of the wholesale fabrication that existed in journalism a century ago, read H.L. Mencken's autobiographical works.]
The New Republic inquiry found the reporter had fabricated six articles and had manufactured material in parts of 21 other articles. Portions of articles written for other magazines were also fabricated. The magazine repeatedly allowed the reporter to use anonymous sources because he was hardworking and trustworthy. He had also once headed the magazine's fact-checking department. The letters The New Republic received about the reporter's articles were typical of letters written about other reporters' provocative articles. The Times report was written by Robin Pogrebin.
A related article about fact-checking at several other magazines was written by Doreen Carjaval and appears on page A18. It appears that there are significant differences in the time, effort, and resources dedicated to fact-checking among the magazines.