Healthy Skepticism Library item: 14214

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

Jenkins J.
Doc Q scrubs website: Advised to remove drug ads
The Toronto Sun 2008 Aug 31
http://www.torontosun.com/News/TorontoAndGTA/2008/08/31/6620431-sun.html

Full text:

Unplug the drug plugs, Dr. Qaadri.

That’s the message Liberal MPP Dr. Shafiq Qaadri got from the province’s medical authorities after a Toronto Sun story pointed out much of the content on his medical clinic website violated doctor advertising rules.

Qaadri has been scrubbing the website of nearly 60 separate plugs for brand name pharmaceuticals ever since.

“As soon as concerns were raised, I contacted the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario and they gave me advice that I should remove them, and I did,” said Qaadri, a family physician and Liberal MPP for Etobicoke North.

College rules prohibit doctors from mentioning drugs by name, using any superlatives to describe them or from associating themselves with any products or services.

The Canadian Medical Association also discourages doctors from mentioning drugs by name and in its guidelines on ads says doctors should make sure they detail the cost, contra-indications and any side effects of drugs if they do refer to them.

SLICK, POLISHED

That was not the practice on doctorq.ca, Qaadri’s slick and polished website for his Roncesvalles Ave. medical clinic, where drugs for everything from high blood pressure to depression to asthma were all touted, many with Qaadri’s personal recommendation.

Most of that content is now gone from the site but a few references remain.

What was once a section devoted to the hypertension drug Micardis is now about Telmisartan, the generic name for that family of drugs.

But as of Friday, anyone who clicked on the Telmisartan tab would still see a video pop up with Qaadri extolling the virtues of Micardis, saying it’s “one of the tried and true blood pressure medications we as doctors have great experience with.”

The Quitting Smoking section still contains a reference to Champix, a prescription drug Health Canada recently issued a warning about over its potential side effects.

‘WORK IN PROGRESS’

“We’re attempting to remove all the ones that we can access,” Qaadri said. “It’s a work in progress. I’m getting my tech guys on it.

“It’s a private medical website. I wish, obviously, I had the resources of CNN to react instantaneously but like any kind of medical information, especially for the health of Ontarians, they are of course meant to consult with their own physicians and their own health care providers.”

Qaadri said he does accept money from drug companies for some speaking engagements but wouldn’t say how many he does a year. “It varies.”

He is also still listed on the site as a “key opinion leader” — a term used in the pharmaceutical marketing industry to describe a doctor who works with drug companies to promote products to peers.

“I consider myself partly as a medical educator, helping to bring best information and practices to the attention of Ontarians, to help people,” Qaadri said.

“Ultimately, my mandate is to help people have fewer heart attacks, or treat their asthma better, or for example quit smoking or not live their lives depressed.”

Earlier this summer, Qaadri removed from his medical website a link to his MPP website after a Sun story about his part-time practice.