Source: MMonline, 26/02/2008

A subject of great discussion involving the pharmaceutical and advertising sectors today, the placement of advertisements for medicines that do not require a prescription was addressed this Monday, 25th, during the 1st Prescription-Free Medicines Advertising and Advertising Forum (Mip´ s). The theme gains dimension because a new resolution on the rules for the disclosure of this type of product is expected to occur in the first half of this year. The ban on advertisements for this category of medicines is not ruled out.

“Many advertisements stimulate consumption and dispense basic and elementary information to consumers,” says Terezinha de Jesus Andreoli Pinto, director of USP's Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences. Among the main problems pointed out by the speakers in the ads are the lack of clarity of essential product information, phrases that induce the consumption of medicines, lack of warnings for the use in a certain age group and disclosure of properties that they do not have.

“The behavior of companies is a determining factor in building a good business environment. And being ethical must be the first social responsibility of a company ”, says André Franco Montoro Filho, executive president of Instituto Etco. The panel with the theme Ethics in advertising of non-prescription drugs moderated by Roberto Duailibi, managing partner of DPZ, and also had the participation of Clóvis de Barros Filho, professor at the School of Communication and Arts at USP and ESPM, Luiz Carlos Dutra, vice president of Conar, and Stalimir Vieira , advisor to the presidency of Abap.

The event held by the Brazilian Association of the Prescription Free Medicines Industry (Abimip) in partnership with the Advertising Management (GPROP) of the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa).