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Cracking the drugs code

Drug companies are continuing to make misleading or unsubstantiated claims for their products, and there is inadequate regulation of promotional activity by the industry, say the authors of a recent study in the British Medical Journal.

Drs Andrew Herxheimer and Joe Collier examined the working of the voluntary code of practice which has governed drug company advertising since 1958. They found that between 1983 and 1988 there had been 302 complaints to the code of practice committee of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI). The complaints came mainly from doctors (48%) and competing companies (33%). Almost two thirds of the complaints were upheld, with the most common breaches being misleading claims, or the giving of misleading or unsubstantiated information.

Promotion is also regulated by the law. The researchers estimated that 71% of the breaches of the voluntary code were also possible offences under the Medicines Act 1968, but point out that prosecution of companies by the Department of Health is extremely rare.

’Our survey shows that companies are good at recognising breaches, but this has not led them to commit fewer of them,’ the researchers comment. ‘The APBI gives virtually no adverse publicity to companies found to have breached the code.’

But a spokesperson for the ABPI told healthmatters that ‘the code of practice is an efficient system because it responds much more quickly than the law’ to a breach.

The doctors accuse health ministers of neglecting their responsibility for enforcing the Medicines Act, and of ignoring the promotional activities of the companies.