[Dutch Journal of Medicine stops with advertisements from pharmaceutical companies]

On January 1st 2022, the Dutch Journal of Medicine (NTvG) stopped publishing advertisements for drugs, medical devices and continuous medical education sponsored by pharmaceutical industry. In this article we describe how the thinking about pharma-related advertising by the readers, the editorial board and the NTvG-Society, the independent non-commercial owner of the Journal evolved since its start in 1857. It is not a systematic historical article but a concise perspective based on what was published and is still available in the journal. From the very beginning in 1869 the advertisement policy was repeatedly discussed based on changing financial, medical, ethical, and societal arguments. The debate on how to differentiate between quackery and medical drug-advertisements dominated the first decades. From 1950 onwards an increasing tension was felt between evidence based drug information in the journal and the non-objective advertisements. The last decades NTvG increasingly published papers about the financial sustainability of health care and the role of pharmaceutical companies in this. The generally acknowledged importance of aiming for affordable health care ultimately gave the final push for NTvG to discontinue ads sponsored by pharmaceutical companies.