Why medical advertisements are not only forbidden, but also difficult to be supervised and punished

The main reason why false and illegal medical advertisements are often banned is the serious information asymmetry in the medical market Pharmaceutical manufacturers use the information asymmetry to exaggerate the efficacy of products, ensure the cure rate, mislead and induce consumers to buy However, due to the lack of information and the care of treating diseases, consumers are easy to fall into the trap of these false and illegal medical advertisements In addition, the loose approval of advertisement, the difficulty of single supervision and the light punishment of law make it difficult to stop the false and illegal medicine advertisement The food and drug administration also exposed 30 illegal advertising products and 27 illegal drug websites False and illegal medical advertisements are a common topic Every year, the relevant departments will carry out rectification actions However, after strict investigation and fierce fighting, the false and illegal medical advertisements will be "repackaged" again, reviving in a new form Recently, Xu Kaiwen, who works in Peking University, had a upset at home Xu's father asked him for money to buy some brand of unsaturated fatty acid oil after seeing the advertisement "A few small bottles of oil will cost more than 8000 yuan." This makes Xu Kaiwen, a medical student, puzzling The original advertisement said: the unsaturated fatty acid oil was invented by an old professor in the school of physics of Peking University, which has a magical effect on the prevention of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases "How did the professor of Physics Institute invent the unsaturated fatty acid oil?" the more he thought about it, the more strange he thought about it, he decided to ask the seller himself According to the seller, the oil was invented by a professor of Peking University Physical College and the company is also located in Peking University Physical College, but when asked about batch numbers such as "drug supervision character", the seller was vague Later, Xu Kaiwen got in touch with Peking University Institute of physics and found that there was no so-called old professor who invented unsaturated fatty acid oil and no so-called company "When the old people trust the brand of Peking University, the businessmen will grasp their psychology and make advertising It's totally lawless to cheat the elderly and hold lectures to sell medicines and health care products on the campus of Peking University with the signboard of Peking University " The Xu Kevin family, who almost got cheated, are very angry At the same time, the false and illegal medical advertisements in traditional newspapers, TV and radio have been severely attacked At the same time, the disguised medical advertisements in new forms such as health lectures and conference marketing appear quietly In May this year, information came from the news conference on the monitoring of medical advertisements of traditional Chinese medicine held by the State Administration of traditional Chinese medicine: in the first quarter of 2013, 739 false and illegal medical information of traditional Chinese medicine were detected, of which 99% were disguised advertisements, which is a new trend found in the monitoring These disguised false advertisements introduce treatment methods or experts and technologies in the form of news reports, lectures, forums, etc., some of which are full-length pages, including cases, photos and various award-winning publicity, etc., which bypass the supervision of some government departments and give people the feeling that it is not advertising, and people often lack vigilance to this form of publicity "The fundamental reason why false and illegal medical advertisements are forbidden repeatedly lies in the serious information asymmetry in the medical market." Xiao Jiangping, director of the competition law research center of Peking University, said that pharmaceutical manufacturers use information asymmetry to exaggerate product efficacy, ensure cure rate, mislead and induce consumers to buy However, due to the lack of information and the care of treating diseases, consumers are easy to fall into the trap of these false and illegal medical advertisements In addition, the loose approval of advertisement, the difficulty of single supervision and the light punishment of law make it difficult to stop the false and illegal medicine advertisement Liu Junhai, vice president of China Consumer Association, said, "the lack of administrative supervision and enforcement has led to the repeated prohibition of false and illegal medical advertisements The executive power of industrial and commercial departments is limited, so it is difficult to complete the comprehensive supervision of the whole pharmaceutical advertising from application to release, which requires joint governance of multiple departments " Three months of centralized regulation can play a role as an example to the illegal phenomenon, but some profit seeking businesses and media have already figured out the market regulation routine, and know when to converge and when to "sell" According to the provisions of the advertising law, most of the illegal acts, such as false advertising, bear the legal responsibility of "stop publishing, publicly correct, confiscate the advertising expenses, and impose a fine of more than one time but less than five times the advertising expenses" "The legal liability at the regulated level is too light, making the illegal 'cost' far less than the illegal 'income'." Xiao Jiangping said that from the discovery of false and illegal medical advertisements to the investigation of the case and then to the investigation of responsibility, illegal advertisements may have disappeared, the probability of being punished is very low, and the punishment is so light, which makes the illegal acts prohibited repeatedly "For example, Shanghai Municipal Administration of industry and Commerce and other relevant departments have carried out special rectification of false and illegal medical advertisements since late April this year In three months, 133 cases of medical and health-care illegal advertisements have been investigated and dealt with, with a penalty value of only 2.44 million yuan, including confiscation Even if they are all calculated according to the penalty, the penalty for each case is less than 20000 yuan." Liu Jifeng, a professor at China University of political science and law, said: "the deterrence to illegal advertisements is mainly reflected in fines According to the advertising law, fines are based on advertising costs Because many advertising areas are located in rural areas, the advertising fee is also relatively low, and even the advertising fee can be artificially deducted in an alternative way This leads to the punishment of illegal medicine advertisement is seriously low compared with the illegal income, and it is difficult to produce "the pain of cutting flesh", and even more difficult to "hurt the muscles and bones." The current advertising law was passed in 1994, and has not been amended in the past 20 years The punishment measures of more than 10000 yuan but less than 100000 yuan, and the fine of more than one time but less than five times the advertising expenses, etc., have indeed punished the illegal phenomena at that time, but are difficult to deter the current violators However, drug advertisement examination methods and medical device supervision and management regulations are mostly administrative regulations and departmental rules, and the legislative level is low, so it is difficult to form effective deterrence and punishment for illegal elements In addition, according to Article 38 of the advertising law, "if an advertising agent or an advertisement publisher knows or should know that an advertisement is false and still designs, produces or publishes it, he shall bear joint and several liability according to law", which is also difficult to implement in practice "There are few cases of joint and several liability, the main reason is that the bearing of liability needs to meet the" know or should know ", and the burden of proof lies in the plaintiff, namely the victim The difficulty in adducing evidence is the main obstacle to investigate the responsibilities of advertising agents and publishers " Liu Jifeng said "In order to eliminate the breeding ground of false and illegal medical advertisements, we should strictly control the examination and approval, supervise and control all departments, improve laws and regulations, jointly curb illegal phenomena, create a healthy market environment, and prevent the resurgence of false and illegal medical advertisements." Liu said Liu Jifeng suggested that in the aspect of advertising approval, it should strengthen the comparative examination before and after the publication or broadcast of the advertisement If the version at the time of publication or broadcast is different from the version previously applied for advertising approval, the publication and broadcast should be stopped immediately It is necessary to strengthen the supervision of advertisement publishers, especially the media in counties and cities Further improve the content of network information, improve the information file inquiry system of relevant examination documents and relevant examination conclusions required by the advertising legal system, so that the advertising related persons other than the advertisers can play a supervisory role, and make the published advertisements under the general supervision of the public "In terms of law enforcement and supervision, we should improve the cooperation and supervision mechanism of industry and commerce, drug administration, radio and television and other departments, strengthen the exposure of typical false and illegal advertisements, and strengthen the supervision of drug advertisements in new forms such as conference marketing and health lectures To strengthen credit management, we can refer to the method of points in traffic safety management As long as one such case is verified, the legal representative and direct responsible person of the advertising company will be blacklisted and the company will be blacklisted To achieve certain points, to revoke the license of the company, to prohibit the individual from entering the pharmaceutical advertising industry for life " Xiao said that at the same time, we should improve and dredge the channels of public reports and complaints, improve the efficiency of supervision and make violators subject to proper sanctions In terms of the improvement of laws and regulations, Liu Jifeng said, "for the responsibilities of advertising agents and publishers, it is suggested to remove the preconditions of" knowing or should know "and assume joint and several liabilities according to the objective facts as long as the false advertisements are published Although for these two subjects, the responsibility is a little heavy, but for regulating the advertising market, it will achieve better results The consumer protection act, which is being revised, has adopted this program " In addition, Liu Junhai proposed to implement the policy of "double increase and double decrease", to improve the illegal cost of businesses and the revenue of consumers' rights protection, to reduce the illegal revenue of businesses and the cost of consumers' rights protection, so as to better protect the interests of consumers How to identify the false advertisement, first of all, we should pay attention to check the approval number in the pharmaceutical advertisement, because we can judge whether the product and its advertisement are within the validity period from the approval number, and some advertisements can also be verified through online query According to relevant regulations, the validity period of drug registration approval number is five years, that of medical device registration approval number is four years, and that of drug, medical device and medical advertisement approval number is one year Secondly, we should pay attention to the legitimacy of the content of medical advertisements Only over-the-counter drugs can be advertised in the mass media, and the special logo of over-the-counter drugs "OTC" must be indicated in the advertisement The content of medical advertisement is limited to the following eight items: the first name, address, ownership form, category, diagnosis and treatment subject, number of beds, reception time and contact number of medical institutions Finally, you can also check whether the relevant medical advertisements have been approved by the relevant departments through the relevant government websites.