Years ago I had lunch with the clinical director of a global pharma. Earlier that day, the world learned that his company had been writing academic research articles for publication in medical journals and ‘inviting’ leading researchers to sign their names to them in return for a hefty fee. Of course, the articles promoted molecules that the pharma’s researchers were developing into drugs.
It would be impossible at lunch not to bring up this shocking scandal.
My lunch-mate took the long view, saying that all pharma scandals involve ‘cheating’ because the cost to get something approved was eye watering, and delays can cost billions. What’s more, the revenues to be earned were even vaster. So cheating was more a feature than a bug of the industry.
A result of this and many other pharma scandals is that whenever doctors now speak to a medical or public group, they must disclose what funding they received, what for and from whom, on the subject they’re speaking about. Not just their fees for speaking, but any money for anything to do with their area of expertise. And not just fees, but board and advisory positions on any company involved with their work.
I was reminded of this rule when I read last week about Economist Impact, the events and sponsored content division of The Economist Group. They run 136 events a year, including the World Cancer Conference in Brussels at the end of this month.
But that conference won’t happen because three of Economist Impact’s biggest sponsors are Philip Morris International (PMI), Japan Tobacco International (JTI) and British American Tobacco (BAT).
Economist Impact neglected to tell the dozens of expert speakers and hundreds of delegates that the companies making the cancer conference possible make a product whose normal use gives you cancer. The Economist Magazine (which calls itself a newspaper) quickly said: “Not us” the way you would when your six-fingered cousin is brought up on morals charges.
Part of Economist Impact’s sponsorship deal lets the tobacco firms provide ‘sponsored content’.
As The Guardian, who broke the cancer story, noted: “One online piece sympathetically positions PMI as akin to a car manufacturer moving from polluting combustion engines to cleaner alternatives for consumers. Another piece, by JTI, argues that governments should stop increasing taxes on cigarettes to keep them affordable and increase excise duties to help “limit budget deficits.”
Back in 2003, Ottawa forbade tobacco companies from sponsoring arts and sporting events in Canada. But at least we knew tobacco was sponsoring them. Indeed, that was why they sponsored them. So we could connect “tobacco companies” with “good citizens” and forget about that connection when we were told we had cancer.
The Economist Impact scandal, like the pharma companies enlisting and paying doctors to put their names on pre-written articles, is different. The goal in both cases was that no one should know. No one need ever know.
How do we keep this from happening again? One first step is to demand that the sponsors of sponsored content, as well as the media that publishes this content, not only make the words “sponsored content” much larger – the way health warnings now appear in individual cigarettes — but say in those big bold words who the sponsor is.
Like this:
“The World Cancer Conference, sponsored by Philip Morris International, Japan Tobacco International and British American Tobacco”.
Meanwhile…
1. As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods. If you still think climate change is a hoax, see this…and this…and this…and this primer on Hurricane Categories.
2. Predicting Nobels. I met Geoffrey Hinton at a party before Christmas. He came up to me and said: “I’m Geoffrey Hinton; I’m in AI.” This felt a bit like Cate Blanchett saying: “Hi, I’m in movies.”
But if you want to tap into the best predictor of Nobel Prizes, the best source is The Gairdner Awards. One in four Gairdner awardees goes on to win the Nobel Prize, including this year’s Nobel winners in Medicine, Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkin, who won Gairdners in 2008, and in Chemistry, John Jumper and Demis Hassabis, who won Gairdners last year.
3. Want to visit 560 art museums tonight? Get the (free) Bloomberg Connects App, which gets you into the collections of museums and events the world over. Speaking of art, here’s that weird guy you always see in the museum and what he’s really up to.
4. Big new use for very old tech. Traditional shipping burns vast amounts of fuel. What’s more, 40% of all global shipping consists of transporting fossil fuels to other places that want to burn them. What’s the answer? Electric ships? Nuclear power? How about old fashioned wind power? The largest wind-powered ship just made its first delivery across the Atlantic. It’s via a French startup called TOWT.
5. Worthy and upcoming. The third annual Zeidler Evans Lecture on the Architecture of Health is on Oct. 17 from 6:30 – 8:00 p.m. at the University of Toronto.
Also, Gairdner Science Week, Oct. 23-25, is a series of public and academic talks, symposia and screenings on the greatest medical challenges and discoveries of our age.
Also, if you’re looking for true adventure travel next summer, Jean and I highly recommend karibu adventures who we went kayaking with off Vancouver Island and then hiking in the Alta Valsesia in the Italian Alps. They also offer trips to Dominica and Newfoundland. Five thumbs up! Jean and I are also hosting an information webinar with karibu’s Andrea Mandel-Campbell from 6:00-6:45 p.m. on October 30th. Register here to attend the webinar.
All these events are free.
6. Ear-witness testimony. The BBC’s 10-minute Witness History podcasts reveal forgotten and obscure turning points in history. Also, the worst movie of all time. Even though John Travolta accounts for seven of the worst Rotten Tomatoes ratings ever, Ballistic stars the gifted actor Antonio Banderas.
7. It’s time to change orchestra auditions. Why were orchestras nearly always made up of white males? Because their players were chosen for their race and gender, not just their skill. So for years now, auditions have been ‘blind’. But it seems the screw has turned and orchestras are demanding demographic data from candidates before they audition.
8. A problem redefined is a problem half solved. Decluttering your life, an impossible task until now, may yield anew to how you view it.
9. Why are left-handers so rare? I’m a left-hander, which makes me special to me. But rare?
10. Do people age in bursts or slowly over time? Dr. Peter Attia finds some surprising results, but they’re only ‘big picture’ valid, not ‘little old you or me.’
11. Lessons from last week. I wrote a piece about the absurdities of activism. Stephen Marche wrote deeply on the same ‘slash activists’.
12. What I’m liking. I just came back from a wonderful festival. It was my third time at the Kardamyli Festival, held in a fishing village in Greece. This year’s edition had the fewest ‘name’ speakers, but it was the best one ever, and it reminded me why festivals exist and how we should attend them: not just to celebrate the ne plus ultras, but to discover the unknowns, the quirky ones like Merlin Sheldrake, whose book on mycelium called Entangled Life has sold over a million copies; or Tom Mustill, author of How to Speak Whale, is another huge hit from a different world. We go to festivals to discover the unfamiliar.
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THIS TUESDAY HEAR ALI VELSHI LIVE AT KOERNER HALL ON AMERICA IN THE NEXT FOUR YEARS.
Every day from his anchor desk in New York, Ali Velshi analyses not just the race, but the consequences of whether Harris or Trump will win on November 5.
So please join us on October 15 as MSNBC’s Chief Correspondent offers his take on the most important election for Canada in decades – and discusses his new book, Small Acts of Courage, his own Indian-Kenyan-Canadian-American family’s story.
Ali will also be interviewed by Susan Ormiston, CBC senior correspondent
and former Washington correspondent. Here he is now about this event.
Date: Tuesday, October 15, 2024
Time: 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. (Doors open at 6:30 p.m.) ET
Place: Koerner Hall, 273 Bloor St. West, Toronto, just west of the ROM.
Tickets: $55, $65, $75, or $90 (Premium*) and includes your copy of Small Acts of Courage. * Limited quantities of Premium tickets include an exclusive pre-event reception with the author and a signed copy of Small Acts of Courage, along with a complimentary drink.
TICKETS HERE
Please pass this invitation on to like-minded friends and family.
Cheers,
Bob Ramsay
In partnership with
