Misleading healthcare ads: Regular monitoring mechanism stressed

Doctors, consumer product associations, academicians laud Pemra initiative.

ISLAMABAD: People from medical profession and civil society have welcomed the government decision of imposing ban on ‘unethical and misleading’ advertisements on electronic media.

Talking to The Express Tribune here on Sunday, they dubbed it a bold initiative by Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra).

Leading doctors, public health workers, consumer product associations, economists, academicians and pharmacists stressed on strengthening the efforts to totally eradicate the menace.

They also demanded that a regular monitoring mechanism be put in place at Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta to obviate any possibility of re-emergence of the menace, which had assumed very alarming proportion.

They were concerned about the fact that despite clear cut ban on the unethical and misleading ads, some elements in Pemra have been ignoring laws and ethics on the subject in the past. This is tantamount to giving lience to quacks and so called experts and pseudo-specialists to kill the disease and the poverty-stricken.

They asked the media to discourage advertisements which are unethical, misleading and unlawful, to mitigate the sufferings of ailing masses. They also asked the provincial governments to pay attention to public health issue.

Pemra took the initiative after the prime minister expressed his concern on the telecasting of unethical advertisements by the so-called hakims, homeopaths and quacks who were claiming miracle recipes for serious diseases and neurological neurotically disorders.

Cabinet Secretary Nargis Sethi persuaded the Pemra to decide on September 13 to off air TV channels telecasting the unethical and unlawful health related advertisements.

Hamdard Laboratories Managing Director Dr Navaidul Zafar said the decision has sent direct message to the profiteers that the government takes public health safety matter very seriously and is committed to enforce such regulations that are meant to protect public interests.

“The people behind these advertisements and publicity were not only minting millions of rupees but also indulged in heinous crime,” he said.

Pattan Development Organisation National Coordinator Sarwar Bari said the quacks and so-called doctors/specialists who were giving such advertisements were blatantly misleading people and endangering their life. Prof Dr Shaukat Ali, Head Department of Neurology, Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, Karachi said the effective intervention in regulating the healthcare/medical advertisement practices.

He added, “Pakistan is facing serious healthcare challenges that are compounded by the opportunistic advertisement campaigns targeting the affected and often native public.”

In their separate letters to the prime minister, the Pakistan Medical Association, Pakistan Academy of Family Physicians, Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, Karachi, Pakistan Orthopaedic Association, Lahore, Hearts International, Rawalpindi, Pakistan Psychiatric Society, Lahore Medical Teachers Association, Lahore , Pakistan Society of Diabetology, Lahore, The Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi Consumer Protection  Society, Lahore, Foundation for the Preferment of Pharmaceutical Society, Islamabad have termed the decision as landmark

Published in The Express Tribune, October 3^rd, 2011.