Advertising A Survey on Publication Standards of Medical Drug and Device Advertisements Published in Core Medical Journals in China

Objective Medical drugs and devices are the most widely used products to provide medical service in any country. Strict preand postmarketing assessments are needed during their whole lifespan. More than 6,000 manufacturers exist in China due to the huge market and large profits. Most of them produce the same products but publish numerous different advertisements for their limited products. There are more than 1,000 medical journals in China, and most of them will publish advertisements. Presumably, advertisements in core medical journals have far more influence than ones in other media due to the journal’s academic reputation, but they often lack standards or evidence to judge the quality of the advertised products. The Standards for the Examination and Publication of Drug and Device Advertisements were implemented in 1995 and updated in 2007 and 2009. The 2 standards stated that only advertisements with both advertisement license and production license numbers could be published. This study aims to learn the current status, publication standards, formats, and contents of medical advertisements published in journals in China and to discuss the possibility of evidence-based evaluation and standards.