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Dr. Salvador Peiro of the Valencia School for Health Studies in Spain says some companies make false claims in medical journals. His study is published in the journal The Lancet.
Peiro examined all ads for anti-hypertensive and lipid (fat)-lowering drugs in six medical journals.
The drugs are used to treat patients with high blood pressure and high cholesterol.
Each of the ads had at least one reference to a study, implying the claims were backed up by research.
Peiro found claims made in 44 per cent of the 102 ads were not backed up by evidence. He says doctors should be careful about prescribing drugs on the basis of ads.
An accompanying editorial from Robert Fletcher of the Harvard Medical School urged doctors to take "personal responsibility" for their prescribing decisions.
"Regulation of advertising claims is not strong or consistent enough to protect readers from misinformation," wrote Fletcher.
The European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries (EFPI) says companies are required to comply with a code of practice when advertising drugs. Brian Ager of EFPI says people should report abuses of the code to health authorities.
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