The Lown List of Industry-Independent Health Experts
The Lown List of Industry-Independent Health Experts is a resource for journalists to find sources without financial conflicts for stories, facilitating more balanced health care journalism.
Financial conflicts of interest are pervasive in health care, with more than 80% of doctors and researchers reporting financial relationships with industry. Journalists strive to provide balanced reporting on medical research and new treatments, but finding unbiased expert sources without conflicts can be a challenge. Imagine if there were a database of vetted sources with no conflicts of interest that health reporters could easily tap into. The Lown List of Independent Health Experts is an online resource for journalists to find independent sources for stories, facilitating more balanced health care journalism.
In 2007, journalists Jeanne Lenzer and Shannon Brownlee dug into their own Rolodexes and created a list of independent expert sources who did not have financial ties to the drug or device industries. These were sources the two had cultivated over years of reporting, yet they made that list available to fellow journalists. Journalist Gary Schwitzer and public health researcher Adriane Fugh-Berman soon came on board the coordinating committee. Investigative journalists Catherine Riva and Serena Tinari also joined the committee in 2020.
In the years since Lenzer and Brownlee created it, the Lown List of Industry-Independent Health Experts has grown to about 150 members across 17 countries, covering more than 20 areas of expertise ranging from family medicine and public health to more specialized areas such as epidemiology, orthopedics, and gynecology. The list has been sent to dozens of reporters around the world.
Request access to the Full List
Journalists may request access to the List with member contact information, through this form. Only journalists currently employed at a news outlet or freelancing will be allowed access. You may be asked to provide links to authored articles.
List membership
Are you a clinician or researcher with no financial ties to the pharmaceutical or medical device industries? Are you comfortable conveying complex topics in health and medicine to the media? Apply to be a member of the List of Industry-Independent Health Experts. Decisions about List member inclusion are at sole discretion of the coordinating committee.
If you are a current member and you would like to nominate a new member to the list, please email Jgarber@lowninstitute.org with your nomination.
The List Coordinating Committee
Jeanne Lenzer, medical investigative journalist, contributor, The BMJ, and author, The Danger Within Us: America’s Untested, Unregulated Medical Device Industry and One Man’s Battle to Survive It.
Shannon Brownlee, M.S., former journalist and current Senior Vice President of the Lown Institute, and author of Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine is Making Us Sicker and Poorer.
Gary Schwitzer, Publisher, HealthNewsReview.org, Adjunct Associate Professor in the University of Minnesota School of Public Health and former tenured professor of journalism at the University of Minnesota
Adriane Fugh-Berman, M.D., Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Physiology and in the Department of Family Medicine at Georgetown University Medical Center and Director of PharmedOut.
Catherine Riva, independent investigative journalist and trainer, specialized in public health, study design and pharmaceuticals, Re-Check co-founder and co-chair.
Serena Tinari, medical investigative journalist and trainer, specialized in public health and drug safety, co-founder and co-chair of Re-Check, Investigating and Mapping Health Affairs.