Healthy Skepticism Library item: 2193

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

Silversides A.
Ottawa assailed for reinterpreting ad law
The Globe and Mail 2001 Sep 18

Abstract:

“Reminder” and “help-seeking” promotions reflect new marketplace: Health Canada

Full text:

Made-in-Canada advertisements for prescription drugs are proliferating, prompting critics to argue that Health Canada is not enforcing the federal Food and Drug Act.
Print and television campaigns advertising drugs such as Alesse birth-control pills, Zyban (a drug for smoking cessation) and anti-acne medication Diane-35 have been mounted increasingly in the past couple of years.

The act prohibits direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) of prescription drugs, and in 1996 Health Canada even issued a policy paper stipulating that advertising meant “activities with the primary aim of stimulating product sales.”

“I think that what’s happened, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear, is that Health Canada has reinterpreted the law,” says Joel Lexchin, a York University professor and drug-industry watchdog.

The only exception to the DTCA ban is a 1978 amendment, designed to let pharmacists post comparative prices, that allows “representation” of a brand name, proper name, price and drug quantity.

But last year, Health Minister Alan Rock put in writing what, in practice, had become a new interpretation of the act. He was replying to a petition from the Working Group on Women and Health Protection asking him to stop DTCA, which the group argued was “careening out of control.”

Mr. Rock confirmed the prohibition on DTCA under the act and regulations, but he continued: “Only two types of prescription-drug ads may be disseminated to the consumers under the existing regulatory provisions: 1) reminder ads — where the name of a prescription drug is mentioned, but no reference to a disease state appears in the ad; or 2) help-seeking ads — where a disease state is discussed, but no reference is made to a specific prescription-drug product.”

Ross Duncan, Health Canada’s policy adviser on DTCA, acknowledges that the terms “reminder” and “help-seeking” are not in the act or regulations, but rather “reflect the evolution of what is occurring in the marketplace.”

Critics say reminder ads are clearly prohibited advertising under the law, and help-seeking ads, which usually point consumers to a Web site, 1-800 number or a doctor’s appointment, occupy a greyer area.

Meanwhile, Health Canada has taken the position that the only real problem is mentioning a brand name and the therapeutic use of the drug in the same ad. But drug firms are challenging Ottawa even on that restriction.

Health Canada did cry foul, for example, when Wyeth Ltd. of Toronto used the same actors in a similar set of television ads — one “reminder,” one “help-seeking” — that ran weeks apart.

But it took the federal body six months to inform the company that its action was considered “to contravene the Food and Drug Regulations.” And no penalty was suggested.

GlaxoSmithKline PLC of Britain, meanwhile, was defiant when Health Canada asked it to immediately suspend television ads for Zyban, which ran in early 2000. The pharmaceutical company argued the ads were “informational programming” by CTV followed by a sponsorship statement from Zyban.

The company ran a slightly revised version of the original television advertisement the following year. Health Canada has said an investigation continues.