Healthy Skepticism Library item: 20072

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

Limprecht E
Software drug ad rules 'contradictory'
Australian Doctor 2005 Mar 16

Full text:

RESTRICTIONS on drug advertising on GP software that prevent targeted ads during prescribing but allow ads linked to the patient’s condition, have been criticised as “contradictory” and “illogical”.

While the Medicines Australia code of conduct does not allow targeted advertising at the point when doctors prescribe drugs using medical software, an apparent loophole still allows targeted ads on clinical toolbars.

Last week Health Communication Network, which owns Medical Director, revealed it charged drug companies extra for preferential placement of targeted ads on clinical paths on its software.

Dr Andrew Magennis, chief medical officer of Medical Director, said toolbars were “sponsored” by a drug related to their clinical function. For example, the depression tool bar was branded with Efexor (see box).

Ms Deborah Monk, director of scientific and technical affairs at Medicines Australia, said the code wasn’t aimed at protecting doctors clinical decisions from pharmaceutical influence. But she said the code prevented pop-up ads from being linked to what a doctor prescribed because it “was not an appropriate marketplace”

However, as long as they were on a “clinical path”, advertisements for drugs within a therapeutic class were allowed, she said.

But Dr Ken Harvey, senior lecturer in public health at La Trobe University, Melbourne, and a long-time critic of pharmaceutical advertising, said allowing targeted advertisements in clinical functions but not in prescribing was “contradictory”

“It’s totally illogical obviously the code has not caught up with what the advertisers are doing,”
he said.

Dr Ron Tomlins, chairman of the General Practice Computing Group, called on the Federal Government to fund a study into whether the ads influenced doctors prescribing habits.

AMA ethics committee chairwoman Dr Rosanna Capolingua said the association had “serious reservations” about the use of advertising in medical software.

“It is totally inappropriate for this type of promotional material to be visible during a consultation with a patient,”she said.

Dr Magennis said Medical Director received less than 10% of the total market share of medical media advertising spend in Australia.

Targeted ads on Medical Director(as at 8 March 2005)

Toolbar—Advertisement

Depression

Efexor

Cardiovascular risk

Lipitor

Blood pressure

Micardis Plus

Renal function

Diamicron

Travel medicine

Twinrix