Funding of medical journals through advertising. Pharmaceutical companies use medical journals to advertise their products, and frequently advertising revenue is the only source of funding of these journals, which are often sent free to doctors. Smith (2003), the editor of the British Medical Journal, writes thus of advertising by Big Pharma “To attract advertising these publications have to be read by the doctors whom the advertisers want to reach. So the free publications work hard at making themselves attractive, relevant, interesting, and easy to read – in contrast to journals, which are often delivering complex, difficult to read material of.
