english.prescrire.org > Spotlight > Archives : 2020 > Prescrire: independence and transparency, in the name of better patient care

Spotlight: Archives

Every month, the subjects in Prescrire’s Spotlight.

2020 : 1 | 30 | 60

Prescrire: independence and transparency, in the name of better patient care

The independent French medical journal Prescrire is produced by healthcare professionals who strive to protect medical information and continuing education from the contradictory influences at play in the medico-pharmaceutical arena.

The criminal trial over France's Mediator° disaster demonstrates the negative consequences for patients when healthcare professionals place too much trust in pharmaceutical companies and in regulatory authorities.

La Revue Prescrire was created by and for healthcare professionals, in order to provide them with trustworthy sources of information and continuing education, first and foremost in the interest of patients. Had most healthcare professionals and regulators been reading Prescrire regularly, a large part of the Mediator° disaster might well have been avoided altogether.

Association Mieux Prescrire, a non-profit organisation under the French law of 1901, publishes all of Prescrire's products. The Association's accounts have been made public every year since 1992, and the latest financial information is available > HERE.

Prescrire's editorial staff, composed of over 100 members, most of them doctors and pharmacists, as well as Prescrire's managers all sign the "Non merci... " charter every year, along with an annual declaration of absence of conflicts of interest, ruling out any ties to health products companies.

Prescrire's editorial methods are outlined > HERE. The names of the dozens of individuals who have contributed to the articles published in each issue are published in issue's masthead, as described > HERE. For each review published, the literature search strategy is defined, often with dozens of references selected for inclusion. This transparency, highly unusual in publishing, and especially in the medical press, demonstrates the Prescrire team's commitment to the reliability and credibility of its content.

©Prescrire 1 June 2020

Source: "The finances of Association Mieux Prescrire: 2019 annual report" Prescrire International 2020; 29 (216): 166-167. Free.

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For more information:

"The Mediator° disaster.
Creating awareness around
conflicts of interest"
(April 2020)
Free

"Wholly self-financed through
subscriptions, Prescrire makes
its accounts public every year"
(June 2020)
Free

"Prescrire's complex, collective
editing process has been
fine-tuned over the years"
(November 2016)
Free

"Prescrire's masthead"
(November 2016)
Free


See also:
"Independent information
does exist, but deserves
more attention and visibility"
(February 2020)
Free


Read more:

All the subjects in
Prescrire's Spotlight
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