Healthy Skepticism Library item: 8301

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

Nader C.
Doctors to face ban on drug advertising
The Age (Melbourne) 2007 Feb 8
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/doctors-to-face-ban-on-drug-advertising/2007/02/07/1170524164111.html#

Full text:

IT IS inappropriate for doctors to appear in advertisements endorsing drugs, the Federal Government has decided, and the contentious practice will be banned.

As the financial links between doctors and drug companies remain firmly in the spotlight, Assistant Minister for Health and Ageing Christopher Pyne yesterday announced the days of doctors and other health professionals being paid by drug companies to endorse over-the-counter drugs would be over within a month.

Endorsement of prescription drugs is already banned.

The move comes after former Australian of the Year and renowned plastic surgeon Fiona Wood admitted to The Age in December that endorsing the drug Nurofen was a mistake she would never repeat.

“I would not explore it again because I believe the negative perception outweighs the gain … I believe it was a mistake for me personally,” she said at the time.

Dr Wood said she personally had not made any money from her endorsement of Nurofen.

The money went to the McComb Foundation, of which she is the chairwoman, for research into burns.

Mr Pyne said he had asked the Therapeutic Goods Advertising Code Council to consider the issue and it had recommended that the practice be banned.

The ban will extend to others including dentists and pharmacists, who have also appeared in recent advertisements.

Health professionals were not permitted to endorse drugs until about 18 months ago, when the ban was lifted as part of a trial.

But Mr Pyne said there was a clear need to reinstate the ban.

“I have watched the unfolding development of these ads over the last 18 months, since the ban was lifted, and felt that it jarred with me that the medical profession would be potentially compromising themselves by endorsing a particular product,” Mr Pyne said.

“I felt that the medical profession is held in high esteem in Australia and endorsing products I think diminishes that status.”

The Australian Self-Medication Industry, which represents companies that make over-the-counter drugs and complementary products, was disappointed but said it would not fight the change.

“There was no evidence that consumers were being misled by these advertisements,” its marketing and development director, Chris Arblaster, said.

Dr Arblaster said companies now stood to lose money. “They will have ads that have cost them a lot of money to bring to the marketplace and they would have booked space and have no alternative ad to put in its place,” he said.

But the Australian Medical Association, whose ethical policy frowns on doctors endorsing drugs, said it was a good move.

President Mukesh Haikerwal said publicly endorsing drugs put doctors in a position of potential conflict.

Perceptions were very important, he said.

“A sensible way to proceed is not to go down that road because your credibility starts coming into question and that’s not a good thing for a practitioner,” he said.