Author: Vasiliy Vlassov
Position: physician
Institution: Russian Branch of the Nordic Cochrane Centre
E-mail: vlassov@cochrane.ru
Submitted Date: August 11, 2005
Published Date: August 12, 2005
This comment was originally posted as a “Reader Response” on the publication date indicated above. All Reader Responses are now available as comments.

Recently, I finished a comparison of the content of the journals' issues with commercials with issues without these specific commercials. Only journals listed in MEDLINE were used. This matched case-control study showed that in some journals content is manipulated to support the message of advertisement.

This finding show that journals' editors not only publish reports, but manipulate them and arrange them to please the advertiser. It is difficult to prove (but it appears very convincing when you consider specific examples) that the 'research' accompanying advertisements are specifically produced and their publication was arranged by editors.

Medical journals are not sufferers, but are participants in the dirty game. Efforts are needed to press journals to change their practice according to the WAME guidelines. The most effective measure may be to erase from MEDLINE journals with content biased to advertisements' content