TAGline - Volume 11 Issue 11 - December 2004

[Self-test: Inquire for yourself from those resources on which you most rely. Ask to see their business model. Looking for amusement on a cold, wet winter's day? Match top billing conference summary headlines to the sites' major sponsors. Answer key to come in 2005. TAGline will also try to get an interview or two with some of these sites' overlords.]

Medscape.com
Bangkok (and ICAAC 44) conference coverage paid for by Bristol-Myers Squibb, GSK, Gilead and Pfizer.

Medscape's recent scrolling banner had one multi-PI resistant activist type misty eyed with nostalgia: "A drug you've trusted for years... deserves a second look." The lucky recipient of this extreme makeover was, alas, Invirase. And an 11th hour email 'blast' to Medscape subscribers (World AIDS Day eve) pitched an interview with DHHS guidelines panel chair John G. Bartlett on the October '04 updates. The breathless summary mentions tenofovir ELEVEN TIMES within a single page of text, squeezes in an argument for earlier treatment initiation and somehow glosses over the panel's lifting of the block against the use of hydroxyurea.

TheBody.com
Bangkok (and ICAAC 44) conference coverage paid for by Abbott, Boehringer Ingelheim, Gilead, GSK, and Roche/Trimeris.

ClinicalOptions.com (and its imedoptions.com sister site)
Bangkok (and IDSA and ICAAC 44) reporting and CME sponsored by BMS, Pfizer, Roche/Trimeris, Boehringer Ingelheim

hivandhepatitis.com
Grants from Abbott, Gilead, Advanced Biological Labs, Ortho, Boehringer Ingelheim, Roche Diagnostics, BMS, Roche, GSK, Serono, Schering-Plough, Tibotec/Virco.

Of interest, the top story on their site in November was the Havlir et al. review article from the December 1, 2004 issue of Clinical Infectious Disease: "The Case for Earlier Treatment of HIV Infection." But they were in good company; most of the HIV websites gave this convoluted opinion piece top billing.

aidsmap.com
Link from home page directs users to complete list of funding sources: http://www.aidsmap.com/en/about/funders.asp. Conflict-of-interest concerns are acknowledged up front, and a brief paragraph explains that the service tries to diversify its funding as much as possible. Among its many underwriters, however, figure the usual pharma companies: Abbott, BMS, Boehringer, Gilead, GSK, Merck, Roche, Shire. Pharma currently makes up 22' of its funding—still a hefty chunk (smaller, I'm told, than that of the Treatment Action Group), but the aidsmap team is the most transparent of all the treatment information resources surveyed.

HIVinsite.com
Grants from BMS, Boehringer Ingelheim, Gilead, GSK, Ortho, Pfizer/Agouron, Roche, Schering Plough—and Sun Microsystems and The Stempel Foundation.

Poz magazine (Poz.com)
General magazine content, while bursting with HIV drug and nutraceutical ads (and for several years now, those premium drug company wrap around outside covers—and a blazing BMS scrolling banner at its web site: "Ask your doctor about Reyataz.") is said to be uninfluenced by its sole reliance on pharma (and nutritional company) funds for operating revenue. Content of Poz "special supplements," however, is generally planned and written under close supervision of the pharma sponsor of that supplement's topic. (The magazine was recently sold and the HIV+ activist publisher forced out.)

PRN.com (Physicians Research Network)
Grants from Abbott, Bristol-Myers Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline, Roche/Trimeris

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Copyright © 2004 - Treatment Action Group. TAGLine is published monthly by the Treatment Action Group (TAG), a 501(c)(3) non-profit treatment advocacy organization in New York City. email: , 611 Broadway, Ste. 612 · New York, NY 10012, phone: (212) 253-7922 · fax: (212) 253-7923.

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