E-drug: DTCA (cont)
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It is good to know that the European parliament has rejected the
Direct to Consumer Advertising (DTCA) despite the strong lobby from
the pharmaceutical industry. For those who still have a feeling that
it should have been approved, I suggest to see how the pharmaceutical
marketing is done in India. Even with the necessary regulations in
place, these companies resort to unethical marketing with the
confidence that they can easily overcome the objections, if any, that
could be raised from the consumers or other voluntary service
organisations. Drug control mechanism is highly incompetent and
seeking legal intervention is troublesome and is less likely to
provide justice to the common man, given the access to the nation's
best lawyers these companies can employ. Even in the event of the
common man winning the case, the penalty is an insignificant fine
where as the common man would need to spend a good amount to carry on
the law suit. Even the multinational companies that disclose
informations about their drugs in the developed world withhold not so
good information from the public because they can coax the drug
control authorities not to make it mandatory to disclose the same.
The sale of nimesulide is one example that can show how powerful the
companies are.
S D Rajendran
JSS College of Pharmacy
Ootacamund - 643 001
India.
"S.D.Rajendran" <sdrajendran@hotmail.com>
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