Hypertension Journal Cuts Ties to "Academic Businessmen"

The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that the editor of the American Journal of Hypertension severed the journal’s ties to its parent medical society because of the group's increasingly incestuous ties to the pharmaceutical industry.

The American Society of Hypertension is made up of 3,000 researchers and clinicians, mainly academics, who investigate new treatments for this widespread condition. One of its other main activities is running continuing medical education seminars for the nation’s practicing physicians. But those seminars have become “unacceptably dominated” by researchers who earn big fees for helping Big Pharma market its products, according to Journal of Hypertension editor John H. Laragh.

This stance may carry a hefty pricetag for Laragh. A prominent researcher at Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City, Laragh earns $229,000 as editor. The journal gets most of its revenue through drug industry advertising and purchases of its supplements, which are often filled with reports on industry-funded clinical trials that are thinly-disguised marketing campaigns.

But apparently there are some things that even well paid editors can't abide. Since Thomas G. Giles took over as president of the American Society of Hypertension in 2004, the report claims, the Society has been trying to exert more control over the Journal’s content. In an editorial, Laragh lambasted the rise of “academic businessmen.” He also said he could no longer “live under the environment” created by Giles, who teaches at Louisiana State University School of Medicine.

The most immediate impact will be on the Journal's subscription revenue, which is generated in part from memberships in the Society. But the more interesting question will be whether Big Pharma begins pulling its ads, which represent the bulk of medical journal revenues.