Healthy Skepticism Library item: 11001

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: news

Benson K.
Diet drug back on the air
Sydney Morning Herald 2007 Jul 30
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/diet-drug-back-on-the-air/2007/07/29/1185647743431.html

Full text:

TELEVISION advertisements featuring the weight-loss drug Xenical were back on air last night eight months after they were cancelled for pushing inappropriate or excessive use of the medication.

But the move has angered some experts who say the drug is still being targeted at body conscious teenagers.

Roche, the maker of Xenical, booked airtime for the drug’s new ad campaign on Channel Nine and Channel Ten – the same night as this year’s penultimate episode of the reality show Big Brother, which attracts young viewers.

The consumer watchdog Choice complained last year that Xenical, known to have serious side-effects such as diarrhoea and incontinence, was being advertised extensively during Australian Idol on Channel Ten. Idol, according to Ten, captures more than 50 per cent of the 16- to 39-year-old audience. It will be screened in the same timeslot as Big Brother from next Sunday.

Choice had also complained that the advertisement failed to say that the drug was designed only for obese people with a body mass index of 30 or more, or for overweight people with a body mass index over 26 and other risk factors such as high cholesterol.

But Roche says the modified campaign “specifically highlights that Xenical is not suitable for everyone and that the pharmacist must assess consumers and their BMI to see if they qualify”. It says consumers are also told that to qualify for Xenical they must first have tried diet and exercise.

However, Greta Kretchmer from the Eating Disorders Foundation said: “We know from talking to people on our helpline that it is not just people who are overweight who are taking Xenical – it is people of normal weight, many of whom are struggling with eating disorders.”

Roche’s marketing campaign was “disgusting and inappropriate”, said Jenny O’Dea, the associate professor of nutrition at the University of Sydney.

Roche’s general manager, Fred Nadjarian, denied the ads had been booked to run during Big Brother.