Director of Health Dr Lam Ping-yan says the Undesirable Medical Advertisements Ordinance protects public health, adding there is a set of standard procedures to screen medical advertisements in newspapers and magazines and refer suspected cases to Police.

In response to media enquiries concerning the ordinance, Dr Lam said today the legislation protects the public from being misled by improper medical advertisements.

There is no question about selective prosecution action, he said, adding there has been a set of standard procedures for his department to follow.

Procedure details

This set of procedures complies with the ISO 9001:2000 quality management system standard and has been certified by the Quality Assurance Agency.

"Under the standard procedures, a warning letter, together with a copy of the relevant section of the legislation and a telephone number for enquiries, will be issued to the distributor of the product and publisher of the advertisement suspected to have contravened the ordinance." he said.

"Only when the warning is ignored, the case will be referred to the police for investigation and prosecution action."

Last year the department issued 4,117 warning letters. Out of the 77 cases referred to Police, 22 involved media organisations, comprising seven newspapers and two magazines.

Well-informed

To enable the trade to better understand the requirements of the legislation, the department has published on its website guidelines on the ordinance and the Undesirable Medical Advertisements (Amendment) Ordinance 2005.

A seminar on the amended ordinance was held for the trade on March 15 and was attended by more than 100 people from the industry.