# \[e-drug\] Ensuring ethical drug promotion--whose responsibility? (cont'd) **URL:** \ **Category:** e-drug\ **Created:** [September 2, 2003, 11:22am UTC](https://talk.edrugplus.org/t/e-drug-ensuring-ethical-drug-promotion-whose-responsibility-contd/17555 "2003-09-02T11:22:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Barbara\_Mintzes1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/77aa72/32.png) [@Barbara\_Mintzes1](https://talk.edrugplus.org/u/Barbara_Mintzes1)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 11:22am UTC](https://talk.edrugplus.org/t/e-drug-ensuring-ethical-drug-promotion-whose-responsibility-contd/17555/1 "2003-09-02T11:22:27Z")
E-drug: Ensuring ethical drug promotion--whose responsibility? (cont'd) --------------------------------------------- Hello, I am not writing from France but would be happy to comment on this campaign, as I believe that precisely the same print advertisement has been running in Canada. I've last seen the ad in the July/August 2003 issue of a magazine intended for physicians' waiting rooms, called 'Healthy Woman', which is co-sponsored by a media group (Roger's Media) and the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada. The first ads appeared here more than a year ago. Initially, they had Pfizer's logo on them as well as the Canadian Lipid Nurses Network. Currently, although the image and the text of the ad are the same as in those that had Pfizer's name on them, only the Canadian Lipid Nurses Network and the Canadian Diabetes Association appear as sponsors. The ad has run repeatedly in a national newspaper, the Globe & Mail, and in a major national magazine, Chatelaine, among other media. Chatelaine's French version had precisely the same headline as the one quoted below. In the English version, the headline is: "Which would you rather have, a cholesterol test or a final exam?" Some ads feature a toe tag saying that the corpse is a woman aged 52, others a man aged 42. In both cases, the tag on the toe says that they are not overweight -- an odd thing to say on a toe tag -- and that they died of a heart attack. Not only is the message strongly misleading from a public health perspective, it raises a fundamental ethical question about using fear of death to sell a product, in this case Pfizer's leading cholesterol-lowering drug, atorvastatin (Lipitor). It is fantastic to see the letter to the Lancet from the WHO EDM team. Thus far, Canadian health authorities have done nothing to stop this campaign in spite of the misleading implications about cardiovascular risks. We have the additional problem here that public drug payment is mainly a provincial responsibility, whereas upholding the Food & Drugs Act, which prohibits deceptive advertising, is a federal responsibility. Thus the arm of government that fails to regulate adequately unfortunately also fails to directly experience most of the financial risks of non-regulation. Barbara Mintzes Centre for Health Services & Policy Research University of British Columbia bmintzes@chspr.ubc.ca Access Essential Drugs Monitor #32 at [http://www.who.int/medicines/mon/mon32.shtml](http://www.who.int/medicines/mon/mon32.shtml) -- To send a message to E-Drug, write to: e-drug@healthnet.org To subscribe or unsubscribe, write to: majordomo@healthnet.org in the body of the message type: subscribe e-drug OR unsubscribe e-drug To contact a person, send a message to: e-drug-help@healthnet.org Information and archives: [http://www.essentialdrugs.org/edrug](http://www.essentialdrugs.org/edrug)