Healthy Skepticism Library item: 20172

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Magazine

Hansen K
S4 advertising in mainstream press
Australian Medicine 1999 July 53
http://ama.com.au/node/3634

Full text:

Proposals to lift bans on advertising of prescription medicines to the public are being discussed as part of a major review of the Therapeutic Goods Advertising Code.

A small task force within the review’s Code Council is drawing up a framework which, if endorsed by the Council, would cover direct-to-consumer advertising of all therapeutic goods, including prescription medicines.

Advertising Schedule 4 items (prescription drugs) direct to the public is prohibited in Australia.

Pharmaceutical Guild of Australia executive pharmacist, Libby Breden, is concerned that while manufacturing groups such as the Australian Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (APMA) and the Proprietary Medicines Association of Australia are on the task of force, there are no medical representatives.

“There has to be considerable consultation with industry bodies”, she said.

APMA chief executive officer, Pat Clear, said the Association would support moves that allowed prescription drugs to be advertised. “Consumers deserve to have the information before them”, he said.

AMA Federal Treasurer, Dr Stephen Phillips, disagreed.

He said direct-to-consumer advertising ‘didn’t achieve anything for patient welfare’.

The public ‘shouldn’t be bombarded with sales messages that take no account of the individual and their particular clinical circumstance’.

APMA representative observing the review, Fiona Woodard, stressed that recommendations for driect-to-consumer advertising of S4 drugs went beyond the scope of the review. However, she said what they were trying to do was establish an appropriate advertising framework ‘just in case’ the law was ever changed. Ms Woodard said the review provided an opportunity to devise a framework that would ensure a level playing field for all medicines.

RACGP representative on the Code Council, Associate Professor Andrea Mant, said she did not like direct-to-consumer advertising but it was important to be prepared for it.

“We can’t live in a dream world and expect it will never happen… We shouldn’t be waiting until it hits us”.