Healthy Skepticism Library item: 20155

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

Howe M
Push for consumer ads rejected
Australian Doctor 2001 Jun 2923

Full text:

The ban on direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription medicines should stay in place, according to the long-awaited final report of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) review of the issue.

However, it recommends restrictions should be loosen to allow advertisements which are part of government-backed public health education campaigns.

The final report of the COAG Review of Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances legislation, chaired by Dr Rhonda Galbally, was finalised earlier this year but was only made public recently.

Despite lobbying by the drug industry for greater freedom to advertise drugs direct to consumers (DTC), the report recommends the prohibition on advertising of schedule 3, 4, and 8 medicines be retained.

It states that if DTC advertising of prescription medicines was permitted, it was likely the bulk of advertisements would be for new and generally high-priced products.

“There is also a view that Australian manufacturers would be less likely to advertise older (possible cheaper), but nonetheless, effective products to consumers, because it would be difficult to build the cost of advertising into the price of the product”, it states.

The report recommends strict new criteria to permit advertising of prescription drugs only on limited occasions when governments want to provide information about a particular product – such as a vaccine – as part of a public health education campaign.

The review also looked at the drug companies’ increasing use of advertisements for disease states – rather than for specific products – as a way of circumventing the ban on advertising prescription medicines.

There were concerns about the lack of transparency of the system because there was nothing to alert the consumer to the fact a drug company had sponsored and paid for the advertisement. “Appropriate mechanisms to manage disease state promotions will be necessary if there is to be net benefit to the community as a whole”, the report states.

It calls for the National Co-ordinating Committee on Therapeutic Goods to develop a new code of practice including clear parameters and requirements for disease state advertisements.

The report has been presented to the Australian Health Ministers Conference, which has set up a working party to assess the recommendations.