The responsibility of medical journals for the continued existence of at least a part of the “great American fraud,” has been referred to in these pages many times. Within the past few weeks The Journal has called attention to the inconsistency of reputable physicians of high ideals lending their moral, and often financial, support to those medical journals whose advertising pages are a disgrace to the profession. Specifically, the Medical Times—originally a homeopathic medical journal—has been referred to, among others, as an example of this type of journalism. It must, however, be regarded simply as a type, for it is no better and no worse than many other medical journals. Several letters have been received on the subject, some of which we reproduce. The first one is from Dr. George G. Ross of Philadelphia:
“I was very much jarred on receiving the last issue of The Journal to find under the Propaganda for Reform an article concerning the Medical Times, among the list of whose contributing editors my name appears. I enclose you herewith a copy of my letter of resignation to the Medical Times. I have a very dim recollection of what occurred at the time that I was asked to give my name as a contributing editor. As I recollect it, however, at that time the journal was a respectable and ethical publication. I had been asked by a friend of mine to write an article giving my opinion of the effects of college athletics on undergraduates. This was at the time that Dr. Stokes had issued his order about athletics at Annapolis. I want personally to thank you and the committee for the exposure of this journal and for having drawn my attention to the fact that I was unwittingly aiding and abetting such a journal. I trust that if you have space in some future number of The Journal, you will do me the justice to publish all or part of this letter.”
Because he feels that he has “unwittingly been put in an unfavorable light,” Dr. James A. Babbitt, also of Philadelphia, sends The Journal a copy of a letter written by him to the editor of the Medical Times. Here it is:
“For reasons of which you are probably cognizant, I deem it advisable to resign from the board of contributing editors of the Medical Times, and desire that this resignation be accepted at once and my name not appear in further issues.”
What shall be done, asks Dr. Sidney Thompson of Humboldt, Tennessee, in such cases as the following? Says Dr. Thompson:
“In the Propaganda for Reform, in The Journal, October 18, 1913, in closing your article on ‘Medical Journals and the Great American Fraud,’ you say: ‘The physician who permits such journals to come to his office must share with the paid subscribers the responsibility for the low standard of medical journalism.’ Now I agree with you in everything you have said about the Medical Times, but what I want to know is how to keep such journals from coming into your office. The Medical Times has been coming to me for a number of years with repeated duns for the subscription price. I have written to them several times that I did not want the journal and never expected to pay for it, but still it comes. I have a vague recollection that I bit at an offer to send it three or four months free, not knowing what it was, but I never authorized them to enter my name as a regular subscriber.”
The simplest course in such a case as that described by Dr. Thompson, is to write on the unwelcome publication the word “refused” and either drop it in the nearest mail-box or hand it back to the postman. The courts have held that a person who continues to accept publications is legally liable for the payment of such publications. The postoffice department, however, has ruled that a magazine—either monthly or weekly—may not be sent at second-class rates for more than one year after the expiration of a bona fide subscription. At the expiration of that time, stamps must be affixed and the publications sent at third-class postal rates.—(From The Journal A. M. A., Nov. 1, 1913.)
Medical Journals and Sanatogen[AR]
We have frequently referred to the inquiries that are received by this office from newspaper and magazine editors asking for information about products whose advertisements they have been offered. One of the greatest difficulties in the way of accomplishing the good that such inquiries otherwise might lead to is the lack of uniform action on the part of the medical press of the country. A specific instance may be given. A layman wrote to a high-glass{sic} weekly magazine published in New York City protesting against an advertisement of Sanatogen which the magazine was carrying, and sending a reprint of The Journal’s article on this product. The advertising manager of the magazine in question wrote back that he had seen The Journal’s article, but had sought further information regarding the preparation from the editor of a medical journal in his city. The medical editor recommended that the magazine accept the Sanatogen advertisement, so the advertising manager said, and in view of this, the manager suggested that possibly the article published by the American Medical Association in its journal was inspired by some “personal prejudice.” Giving weight to the probability that the advertising manager went for his information to a source that he knew would be favorable to the acceptance of the advertisement, the fact remains that it is a disgraceful state of affairs when editors of medical journals will give vicious advice in matters on which they are supposedly competent to pass. The probability is, of course, that the medical journal whose editor was questioned contained the self-same advertisement that the lay magazine was carrying. And the advertising manager of the magazine was willing to accept—because such information coincided with his wishes—information that on its face must be biased, and rejected advice—that did not meet his approval—because of a purely supposititious “personal prejudice.” It is probably asking too much to expect advertising managers not to go to sources that are likely to be favorable for information about products whose advertisements are offered to them. But we have a right to expect that physicians, editors of medical journals, should no longer be participes criminis in the furtherance of the great American fraud. If our strictures on Sanatogen are unfair, if the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry rejected the product in mere pique, if the opinions of such men as Billings, Cabot, Hektoen and Lusk are to be brushed aside as “personal prejudice,” if this mixture of cottage cheese and glycerophosphates really is the marvelous product which its exploiters claim—then indeed not only have the editors of medical journals a right to praise it, but it is also their duty to proclaim these wonders in their editorial pages. If, on the other hand, this much-vaunted preparation is a very ordinary mixture sold at an extraordinary price, if indigent consumptives and others are being inveigled into spending dollars for a preparation whose food value could be duplicated for a few cents—then in the name of humanity and common decency let the editors of medical journals proclaim these facts, and not let their scientific judgment be blinded by the glitter of advertising contracts.—(Modified from The Journal A. M. A., Jan. 18, 1913.)