CBS Praises Wonder Drug, Leaves Out Who Makes It

Photo of Julia A. Seymour.
By Julia A. Seymour (Bio | Archive)
May 3, 2007 - 15:21 ET

A “promising” new drug could save lives of people fighting osteoporosis, but neither ABC “World News with Charles Gibson,” nor CBS “Evening News” even mentioned the drug’s manufacturer - Novartis Pharmaceuticals (NYSE: NVS) - in May 2 broadcasts.

Zoledronic acid “may be just what the doctor ordered,” according to Katie Couric. The broadcasts cited a new study that found a 70-percent decline in spine fractures and a 41-percent decline in hip fractures among the patients studied.

“Experts say reducing fractures can save lives,” said “Evening News” medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook.

While both programs showed plenty of love to the new wonder drug, there was no love for Novartis and no mention of the millions of dollars they spent developing the product which is marketed as Reclast and Zometa. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of American estimates the cost of an approved new drug to more than $800 million.

This lines up with previous Business & Media research that found only 22 percent of network stories named the drug company in question and only 2 percent of stories included cost.


Comments Policy

All comments are owned by whoever posted them and are subject to our terms of use. They should not be assumed to represent the views of NewsBusters.

Viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

Could it be that the network

May 3, 2007 - 15:44 ET by Galvanic

Could it be that the network broadcasts are (or occasionbally are) sponsored by a pharmeceutical competitor?

I doubt it. In all the storie

May 3, 2007 - 20:04 ET by zf

I doubt it. In all the stories about new drugs that I have seen recently the companies are never mentioned, no matter who they are.

Of course, if Novartis were

May 3, 2007 - 15:48 ET by Tom1969ca

Of course, if Novartis were to begin showing a profit from the sale of zoledronic acid, then we could expect to see Chuck and Katie leading with shrill stories about how this cold, heartless corporation is profiting by playing on the fears of women and seniors.

This would immediately be followed by Hillary Clinton saying that Novartis' patent on the drug should be revoked so that a generic alternative can be made available - oh, and by the way, we're also going to take all of Novartis' profits and redirect them into a national healthcare scheme.

~~~
If Hillary is the answer, it must've been a stupid question...

So you're saying that Fox New

May 3, 2007 - 21:03 ET by balboa

So you're saying that Fox News would mention the name of the manufacturer?

I'm saying that neither Fox

May 4, 2007 - 07:41 ET by sarcasmo


I'm saying that neither Fox News nor anyone else mentioned the name of the drug, the prescribing doctor, the dosage, or the manufacturer when it came to the antidepressant I correctly-predicted would be involved in the VA school shooting...Still. So this is hardly the first example this year of mediabias involving prescription drugs made by their big ad buyers. I still want to know which erectile disfunction drug financed this particular bit of mediabias, so I've kinda pit-bulled onto the issue when it comes to the name of this antidepressant, as y'all can see, and the issue is NOT going-away anytime soon because I'm so-obviously right about the bias I've busted.
JMR

About five years ago I was at

May 4, 2007 - 07:55 ET by Jimbo

About five years ago I was at an awards dinner being MC’d by Peter Jennings.  Awards were given to a 3 business executives who have performed exceptional charitable work for a variety of causes.  It turns out that Jenning’s comments were scripted before hand, and he had not had an opportunity to review them before he arrived at the event.  While his comments were aimed almost entirely at the type of charitable work performed, there was brief mention of the companies that the honorees worked for.  He gave glowing introductions to the first two – an executive from Microsoft, and an executive from Coca-Cola.  The third person was an executive from Merck, a pharmaceutical company.  At the last minute, Jennings refused to introduce him.  It was the most awkward thing I have ever seen.  Instead of making comments and omitting the reference to his company, he simple refused to say anything.  I heard later that Jennings said it was against ABC policy to indicate support for any pharmaceutical company, but declined to give an explanation as to why.

Jimbo says - "There is a fine line between freedom of speech and treason"