I made a major error this morning in claiming that the Sanjay Gupta on the American Psychiatric Association disclosure website from 2007 was the Sanjay Gupta of CNN. Different people. My apologies to CNN's Sanjay Gupta for making the earlier post, which is now withdrawn.

That said, those interested in the Gupta potential appointment as Surgeon General may want to check out this Health News blog item by Gary Schwitzer, a journalism professor at the University of Minnesota, last November 20. It discusses a new show launched by CNN for broadcast in hospital and physician waiting rooms:

A powerful contemporary example of entanglement involves a television network called Accent Health (whose logo includes the words "Your target is waiting"), said to be watched monthly by more than 10 million viewers in US medical waiting rooms. The network, which is produced by CNN, overtly offers sponsors, including drug companies, the chance to boost sales of their products, by, for example, putting "your brand in front of the valuable Baby Boomer population just before they discuss their health conditions with their doctor." One of the hosts is Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s chief medical correspondent and host of at least one other CNN health programme that is funded partly through drug company advertising. ...

As researchers and writers acting to improve medical journalism, we encourage journalists, educators, and professional associations to scrutinise their own relations with the industry as intensely as they do those between doctors and drug companies and to develop workable solutions. And, if they are to be good watchdogs, journalists need to mark their territory and clearly establish boundaries between themselves and the industry to avoid unhealthy entanglements.

Marcia Angell just wrote a scathing condemnation of the corruption of medicine in the latest New York Review of Books. If Dr. Gupta (the one being considered for Surgeon General), has ties to industry, including lucrative fees from making speaking engagement to trade association or company forums, he should make them public immediately so the public can judge that information along with his other qualifications for that high-profile post.