Healthy Skepticism Library item: 6808

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: report

Drug Action Programme
WHO ethical criteria for medicinal drug promotion: a strategy for review and assessment of effectiveness
Geneva: World Health Organization 1998 May

Abstract:

This document reviews the development of the World Health Organization’s Ethical Criteria for Medicinal Drug Promotion and then explores a number of areas: are the Ethical Criteria needed; are they widely known and promoted; have they been adopted, implemented and monitored; constraints to implementation; and the supportive framework that is needed for them to function properly. The report discusses the actions of the various parties involved in promotion: industry, national drug regulatory authorities and drug policy makers, health professionals and their associations, universities, professional media, NGOs and consumer and patient organizations, WHO. The final section is a discussion about monitoring activities needed to assess the extent to which the Ethical Criteria have been adopted and promotional practices are consistent with them.

Keywords:
*analysis/World Health Organization/WHO/regulation of promotion/ Ethical Criteria for Medicinal Drug Promotion/REGULATION, CODES, GUIDELINES: INTERNATIONAL CODES