DTC Advertising
This article was originally published in SRA
Executive Summary
MoH due to issue a second report for consideration by the Cabinet
MoH due to issue a second report for consideration by the Cabinet
According to the Researched Medicines Industry Association of New Zealand (RMI), the Ministry of Health (MoH) is due to submit a report to the Cabinet outlining, once again, several options for direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising. This follows a MoH review into the practice, as requested by the minister of health, Hon Annette King. The RMI assumes that, as in the report issued for consultation in 2000 (see above), the options will range from a complete ban through to maintaining the status quo, but that this report may also include discussion on `disease awareness' advertising (as practised in Australia) and a `tougher, more regulated form of DTC advertising'.
Background
The MoH first made its recommendations for the options available on DTC advertising in a discussion paper issued in December 20002. The decision of the minister of health to allow DTC advertising but with stricter regulations, following this consultation on the paper, was never actually implemented and a report, issued in February 2003, has sparked argument, once more, over whether there should be a ban on DTC advertising of prescription medicines3. The report (the Toop Report), which was issued in February 2003 by a group of academic general practitioners from all four New Zealand schools of medicine, reviewed the local and overseas literature regarding DTC advertising, and examined the development of the current state of the practice in New Zealand and the US, and the policy positions of other international jurisdictions. It concluded that there is convincing evidence to justify a ban in New Zealand, such as negative effects on health funding, the patient-clinician relationship and patient safety, and recommended that `the government introduce regulations and/or legislation to prohibit the advertising of POMs directly to the public, through print and broadcast media or any other means'. In response, the New Zealand Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) commissioned a report from a public policy consultant, Barrie Saunders, to review the Toop Report4. This rejected many of the findings of the Toop Report, notably concluding that the case for banning DTC advertising is very weak.
References
1. Personal communication, RMI, 14 October 2003
2. The Regulatory Affairs Journal , 2001, 12 (1), 58-59
3. Direct to Consumer Advertising of Prescription Drugs in New Zealand: For Health or for Profit - Report to the Minister of Health supporting the case for a ban on DTCA, February 2003, www.chmeds.ac.nz/report.pdf
4. Direct to Consumer Advertising of Prescription Drugs in New Zealand - Professors' Protest to Governmen' Placed Under the Microscope, 7 April 2003, www.asa.co.nz/Research_Papers