BMJ  2007;335:694-695 (6 October), doi:10.1136/bmj.39346.525764.AD

Feature

Direct to consumer advertising

Industry funded patient information and the slippery slope to New Zealand

Department of Public Health and General Practice, University of Otago, Christchurch, New Zealand

Industry funded health information campaigns could become common on our television screens if the European Commission proposals are passed. Les Toop and Dee Mangin warn that Europe could end up with similar problems to those in their country

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The European parliament is considering allowing the drug industry to have a much greater role in providing information to patients, with no restriction on the type of media.¹ After direct to consumer advertising was rejected in 2002, industry and the commercial arm of the European Commission submitted a new proposal to allow communication between industry and patients that deliberately leaves out the word advertising and replaces the term independence (freedom from commercial influence) with objective. Information can be entirely objective and yet still mislead through incompleteness or lack of balance and context. Opponents believe that industry will not, and cannot be expected to, provide balanced, comparative and comprehensive information,² and that the proposals amount to advertising by stealth.^{3 4}

In New Zealand and the US, the only two developed countries that allow direct to consumer advertising of prescription medicines, opposition has grown steadily from both the public and doctors. New Zealand's . . . [Full text of this article]

Rise of advertising

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