Abstract
BackgroundThe European legislation prohibits prescription-only medicines' advertising but allows pharmaceutical companies to provide information to the public on health and diseases, provided there is no direct or indirect reference to a pharmaceutical product. Various forms of promotion have become increasingly common in Europe including “disease-oriented” campaigns.ObjectivesTo explore examples of disease awareness campaigns by pharmaceutical companies in the Netherlands, by assessing their compliance with the World Health Organization (WHO) Ethical Criteria for medicinal drug promotion and the Dutch guidelines for provision of information by pharmaceutical companies.MethodsMaterials referring to health/disease and treatments published in the most widely circulated newspapers and magazines were collected from March to May 2012. An evaluation tool was developed based on relevant underlying principles from the WHO ethical criteria and Dutch self-regulation guidelines. Collected disease awareness advertisements were used to pilot the evaluation tool and to explore the consistency of information provided with the WHO and Dutch criteria.FindingsEighty materials met our inclusion criteria; 71 were published in newspapers and 9 in magazines. The large majority were news items but 21 were disease awareness advertisements, of which 5 were duplicates. Fifteen out of the 16 disease awareness campaigns were non-compliant with current guidelines mainly due to lack of balance (n = 12), absence of listed author and/or sponsor (n = 8), use of misleading or incomplete information (n = 5) and use of promotional information (n = 5). None mentioned a pharmaceutical product directly.ConclusionDisease Awareness Campaigns are present in Dutch printed media. Although no brand names were mentioned, the lack of compliance of disease awareness campaigns with the current regulations is alarming. There were information deficiencies and evidence of information bias. A key concern is that the context in which the information is provided, mostly through indirect referral, is likely to support treatment with the sponsor's product.
Highlights
In 1988, the World Health Organization established the Ethical Criteria for Medicinal Drug Promotion, defining promotion as ‘‘all informational and persuasive activities of manufacturers and distributors that affect the prescription, supply, purchase and/or use of medicinal drugs’’ [1]
One disease awareness campaign was sponsored by a patient organisation
Disease awareness campaigns were significantly more frequent in free publications (RR = 2.8, 95% CI 1.7; 4.5) and in health-related supplements (RR = 3.4, 95% CI 1.9; 5.6)
Summary
In 1988, the World Health Organization established the Ethical Criteria for Medicinal Drug Promotion, defining promotion as ‘‘all informational and persuasive activities of manufacturers and distributors that affect the prescription, supply, purchase and/or use of medicinal drugs’’ [1]. European legislation prohibits advertising of products that have prescription-only status, aiming to protect public health. Health topics are often covered in printed media and they can include factual information on diseases and conditions and treatment information of promotional nature [5,6]. Definition of promotion: ‘‘all informational and persuasive activities by manufacturers and distributors, the effect of which is to induce the prescription, supply, purchase and/or use of medicinal drugs.’’. The European legislation prohibits prescription-only medicines’ advertising but allows pharmaceutical companies to provide information to the public on health and diseases, provided there is no direct or indirect reference to a pharmaceutical product. Various forms of promotion have become increasingly common in Europe including ‘‘diseaseoriented’’ campaigns
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
