Propaganda de medicamentos. É possível regular ?

Abstract

Four frailties incorporate the regulation of drug advertising in Brazil: 1. The monitoring, overseeing and punishment of irregularities occur after the infraction has been committed (when the population has already been submitted to sanitary risks); 2. The fines imposed by Anvisa (Brazilian s National Health Surveillance Agency) have ludicrous values compared to the sums destined for drug advertising; 3. There is no mechanism to prevent that those same ludicrous sums be passed on to consumer prices; 4. The alert phrase: Should the symptoms persist, a medical doctor must be consulted instead of enlightening the population on the risks of self-medication, stimulates the usage of medication without prescription, suggesting the search for medical advice only in case the symptoms endure. According to data collected by Anvisa and academic studies, 90% of all the drug marketing in Brazil contains irregularities. Thus, Anvisa s Resolution 102/2000 (that legislates on the sector), constitutes itself only as an apparent regulation system, that benefits the offender and places the population under risk. This work analyses the marketing mechanisms used for increasing commercialization of pharmaceuticals (in what s called disease mongering ), as well as their recent uses; examines the concepts of medication, regulation and manipulation; covers a few of the drug advertising international codes (focusing on the European Union directives) and exposes the evaluation of some of the European consumer defense organisms on the effective implementation of these codes. Finally, this study exposes the positioning of the regulated agents in Brazil (industry, publicity agencies and media) contrasting it with those of the consumer defense organisms, the academy and the organized society (in the scope of the Brazilian Universal Public Health System), in order to propose an alternative regulation model that overcomes the weaknesses of the current system.