Legal Regulation on Medical Advertisement / 中国医学伦理学

Illegal medical advertisement induces the patient's choice of seeking for medical care,A wrong chioce could cause that the patient loses the opportunity of obtaining the proper medical diagnosis and treatment in time.This is the root cause of regulation of medical advertisement in law.The law has strict rules on the release master and contents of legal medical advertisement.Violating this regulation can be the basis of administrative saction,civil liability for damages and even criminal punishment.

Current Situation and the Future of Regulations for Medical Advertising

Currently, all medical advertisements in periodicals, leaflets, posters, street banners and online newspapers are subjected to prior review to verify whether they comply with relevant standards. Ironically, medical advertising on public transportation, on the Internet or on broadcast is not subjected to prior review even though such media are far more influential to medical consumers. With these facts in mind, Korean government needs to widen the scope of prior review for medical advertisements on the media. The expansion of the regulation should not be considered as an increased governmental interference with commercial activities. Appropriate advertisement standards are necessary to prevent excessive competition, and also to protect interests of the medical service providers, who themselves could become the victims of false and exaggerated advertisement. Since it is likely that the medical advertisement on broadcast to be allowed from the year 2010, relevant laws and regulations need to be revised in due time to enable proper review. Claims made on Internet websites by medical service providers should also be reviewed. In addition, approvals for medical advertisements should have a temporal regulation so that certificates of approval are only valid during a given period of time.

Precensorship on Medical Advertisement

Medical advertisement had been prohibited for more than 50 years in Korea. On Oct 27, 2005 the Constitutional Court decided that complete ban of medical advertisement is against the Constitution so that medical advertisement should be permitted with some regulations. According to the decision, the Medical Advertisement Committee was established to precensor the medical advertisements. Doctors, medical institutions and medical corporations can advertise their careers, skills, and instruments after passing censorship of Medical Advertisement Committee. But passing censorship does not justify everything. The Medical Advertisement Committee considers whether the advertisements meet the minimal conditions of the regulatory laws. So the veracity of informations depends on advertiser's responsibility. If the information on advertisement is not scientifically true, the advertiser will be blamed for the falsity even though his advertisement had passed censorship. Also, Medical Advertisement Committee reviews advertisements in newspapers and magazines mainly, not on web pages. So the regulation of advertisements on web pages is carried out indirectly by consumer groups. The medical advertisement has just begun and the freedom of expression needs some trial and error.

Social Responsibility of Media on Medical Advertisement / 中国医学伦理学

Advertisement, which has strong association with the interest of media and the development of enterprise, can benefit both. The rampancy of illegal medical advertisement infringed on the interest of consumer, violated the social economic order, and even affected the image and the public trust of media. Hence, as the watchdog of medical advertisement, media should deal with the relation of the economic profit and social responsibility properly, and play a role as the transmitter of civilization.