The Lacuna Project

lacuna (n.) a gap in a record where something should be

Independent research. Not affiliated with any government, agency, or company.

Exhibit 993

Pharmaceutical advertising biases media reports on drug safety (manuscript)

Exhibit 993 · Research paper (not peer reviewed)

Pharmaceutical advertising biases media reports on drug safety (manuscript)

Newspapers are less likely to mention side effects of drugs produced by their advertising clients or to report on US Food and Drug Administration alerts regarding these drugs.

Combines Kantar Stradegy daily newspaper advertising by each drug’s manufacturer with 81,656 LexisNexis newspaper articles on drugs, 1999-2012, with drug-month and newspaper fixed effects. Reports that a newspaper receiving an additional $100,000 in advertising from a drug’s maker in the prior 14 days was 9% to 20% less likely to mention that drug’s side effects (baseline 10%), and 23% to 33% less likely to cover an FDA safety alert (baseline 62%); articles were less negative in tone. Journal of publication not found.

Source
Focke F, Niessen-Ruenzi A, Ruenzi S, University of Mannheim
Date
undated (file name DTCA-2019)
Quoted from
Abstract, p. 2
Grade
Primary record
Document
https://www.bwl.uni-mannheim.de/media/Lehrstuehle/bwl/Ruenzi/Forschung/Papers/DTCA-2019.pdf
Accessed
2026-11-10
Cited by
Findings citing this exhibit
Note
Manuscript as hosted by the authors’ department; publication venue and peer-review status unverified. Replace with the published article if one exists.

Cited by

Finding INF-1.12
Primary record A manuscript matching Kantar newspaper advertising by drug manufacturers to 81,656 newspaper articles on drugs from 1999 to 2012 reports that a newspaper receiving an additional $100,000 from a drug's maker in the prior 14 days was 9 to 20 percent less likely to mention that drug's side effects and 23 to 33 percent less likely to report an FDA safety alert about it. The manuscript's publication venue and peer-review status are unverified.