Healthy Skepticism Library item: 18364

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

Standardised code welcome
Pharmacy Daily 2010 July 2
www.pharmacydaily.com.au

Full text:

THE Australian Self-Medication Industry has welcomed the Federal Government’s calls for the pharmaceutical and
therapeutic industries to strengthen and standardise the self-regulation of advertising guidelines (PD 01 Jul).

“ASMI has been a strong advocate of self-regulation, and its members are bound by a Code of Conduct which has been
authorised by the ACCC,” said ASMI executive director, Juliet Seifert.

“We are particularly pleased that the parliamentary secretary is advocating stronger selfregulation,” she added.

Sierfert agreed with the government’s stance that in order for there to be a “level playing field” all sponsors need to
adhere to a common set of principles.

“We will be working with government, consumers, healthcare professionals and industry colleagues to implement
arrangements that will enhance consumer confidence in the scheme and provide greater certainty and clarity for
industry,” she added.

MEANWHILE La Trobe University’s School of Public Health Senior Lecturer, Dr Ken Harvey, responded to the announcement
saying that whilst it was welcome, the government’s position paper ignored the fact that both consumers and healthcare
professionals, “are the recipients of therapeutic goods promotion and as such should be involved in formulating the
principles to which industry-wide Codes should adhere”.

“Industry formulated selfregulatory codes often lag behind consumer and health professional views due to the absence of
external stakeholders in their formulation,” Harvey said.

Another criticism levelled at the government’s proposal was that it only addressed advertising pertaining to high-risk
therapeutic goods.

“Ironically, the major concern about the current co-regulatory system for the control promotion of therapeutic goods in
Australia is the promotion of so-called lower-risk medicines and devices to consumers, not the promotion of higher-risk
products to professionals who could also be expected to have more critical appraisal skills,” Harvey said.

In terms of national code compliance Harvey also noted that the government’s “expectation” of industry compliance was
not stringent enough, and that compliance with a relevant Code “must be made a condition for registration, listing or
including a therapeutic good on the ARTG and embedded in law”.