Bulletin

Issue: April 2005

News

BAN pharmaceutical drug ADS on prescribing software

Prescription drug advertising on GPs’ prescription software should be eliminated on public health grounds, according to Dr Ken Harvey, a Senior Lecturer in Public Health at La Trobe University.

He made this recommenda-tion during a seminar at the Melbourne (Bundoora) campus on March 2 entitled, “Pharma-ceutical advertisements in prescribing software: an analysis”.

Dr Harvey was presenting the results of a research project by a team comprising himself as leader, Dr Agnes Vitry (University of South Australia), Dr Rosalie Aroni (Monash University), Dr Libby Roughead (University of South Australia), Dr Ralph Faggotter (a GP with a practice in South Australia) and Ms Nicola Ballenden (Policy Officer, Australian Consumers’ Association).

More than 90 per cent of Australian GPs use computers to prescribe drugs, a situation stimulated in 1999 when Federal Government granted medical practices substantial grants to acquire computers and software on the grounds that legible, printed prescriptions were desirable.

Since then, one medical software vendor, ‘Medical Director’ has become the market leader when its software package incorporated pharmaceutical advertising.‘For doctors and patients, the advertising is “in your face, all day every day”,’ Dr Harvey told the audience which included Dr Andrew Magennis, medical director of the Health Communication Network (HCN) which is now responsible for ‘Medical Director’.

Dr Harvey said the research project was being undertaken to assess the location, frequency and type of pharmaceutical advertisements appearing in prescribing software, their compliance with Medicines Australia self-regulatory Code of Conduct, and their likely impact on prescribing practice and the policy options that follow.

There were 29 clinical functions in recent ‘Medical Director’ software (V2.81) which showed a total of 129 separate advertisements containing 174 images.

These clinical functions included many that would be viewed by patients which, Dr Harvey said, was a breach of regulation that pharmaceutical drugs cannot be advertised directly to patients.

Pharmaceutical advertise-ments comprised 73 per cent of the total, 25 per cent of which contained animated images. There were 130 separate pharmaceutical advertising images provided by 19 companies, promoting 43 branded products for 29 different indications. Only one generic manufacturer was represented, contributing 3% of advertisements and images respectively.

‘Of 94 pharmaceutical advertisements and 130 images, about half were judged potentially in breach of various provisions of Medicines Australia Code of Conduct,’ Dr Harvey said.

Not all aspects of such advertising were adverse. A variety of views about pharmaceutical advertising in prescribing software were posted on ‘GPCG_TALK’. A common concern was that the price of software would rise if such advertising was removed. Nevertheless the research group found that research-based manufacturers provided the vast majority of advertisements.

The major aim appeared to be brand name reinforcement with around half the material having illegible generic names. In addition, many advertisements were used to make unsubstantiated claims.

More seriously, claims were made that appeared not to be in accord with the published literature and advertisements were preferentially placed where they were likely to stimulate patient demand.’

Dr Magennis, who was supplied with the research findings before the seminar, presented written comments to the audience, and participated in discussions, in which he took issue with a number of the findings and conclusions.

One of his main points was that most problems identified were the responsibility of the pharmaceutical companies who provided the advertisements, not HCN.

Dr Harvey’s seminar presentation is online (as a 1.8Mb PDF) at http://www.medreach.com.au/Downloads/Ads_in_prescribing_software.pdf and Dr. Magennis’ written response is available (as a 36Kb PDF) at http://www.medreach.com.au/Downloads/Comments_by_Dr_Magennis.pdf

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