“Equality policy aspects”
“…and ask your doctor or pharmacist.”: Well-known advertising information is being changed
Medicine warehouse of a pharmacy in Frankfurt am Main
© Andreas Arnold/ / Picture Alliance
“For information about risks and side effects, read the package leaflet and ask your doctor or pharmacist.” Almost anyone can recite this sentence from medication advertising in their sleep. It will be changed at the end of the year. That’s what lies behind it.
The sentence has been part of every drug advertisement for decades – and has long since become a household word: “For risks and side effects, read the package insert and ask your doctor or pharmacist.” From December 27th, advertisers and consumers will have to get used to it because the advertising notice will be changed.
Last June, the Bundestag decided to amend the Medicines Advertising Act, which stipulates the passage of medication advertising outside of specialist circles. In the future the note will be: “For information about risks and side effects, read the package leaflet and ask your doctor Pharmacy.“
New reference in medication advertising motivated by equality policy
The first pharmaceutical companies have already started to adapt their commercials accordingly during the transition period. During the legislative process there was criticism of the new wording from several quarters. The Federal Association of the Pharmaceutical Industry, for example, rated the new sentence structure as “bulky”.
In the draft bill from February, the Federal Ministry of Health justified the change by saying that it was intended to “take equal opportunity policy aspects into account”.
The origin of the reference lies in the 1990s, reports the “Pharmazeutische Zeitung”. At that time, drug advertising should actually be banned in general. It was then stipulated that everyone Mandatory information from the Package leaflets also had to be presented in advertising – hardly affordable in a commercial. At the end of the discussions there was the sentence. “To risks and Side effects Read the Package leaflet and ask your doctor or pharmacist.” He remained in this form for almost 34 years.
Sources: Federal Ministry of Health, “Pharmaceutical Newspaper”DPA news agency