Pharmacy Daily | Concern over CM ad changes

THE Federal government has been accused of attempting to bypass a Senate Committee review of proposed changes to advertising of complementary medicines, on the basis that the Therapeutic Goods Amendment Bill is "non-controversial".

Friends of Science in Medicine spokesman John Dwyer highlighted the issue in a statement on Fri, saying requests for a public hearing about concerns relating to the legislation over the Christmas-New Year period were rejected because Senators were on holiday.

"This bill is anything but non-controversial...that is particularly true for changes suggested for the regulation of the advertising of complementary medicines," he said.

Dwyer said concern was so great among a number of "civil society organisations" that they had combined to hold a public hearing to debate contentions provisions of the proposed legislation.

Participants backing the event include Monash University, The Foundation for Effective Markets and Governance, The School of Regulation and Global Governance at the Australian National University (ANU), consumer group CHOICE and Friends of Science in Medicine.

The public hearing will be held at ANU on 24 Jan 2018, from 2-5 pm.

Contentious aspects cited include:

1. the removal of pre-approval of advertisements for therapeutic goods in favour of self-regulation;

2. the TGA's plans to take over the advertising complaint system without ensuring ongoing stakeholder input and transparency of complaint outcomes, and

3. the Bill indicates it will endorse an industry-submitted list of 'permissible indications' for complementary medicines.

Monash University's Professor Ken Harvey said vetting of advertisements prior to publication is "economically efficient because fraudulent therapeutic claims create unnecessary health expenditure and divert scarce health resources from remedies that work, to ones that don't".