China to Ban Prescribed Medicine Ads in Mass MediaThe draft amendments to a medicine law presented Monday to the ongoing session of the Standing Committee of National People's Congress (NPC), contain a provision that prescribed medicines are not allowed to be advertised in the mass media.Li Boyong, vice chairman of the NPC Law Committee, gave a presentation to the lawmakers on the draft amendments to the Pharmaceutical Administration Law, which makes it clear that prescribed medicines are only permitted to be introduced in medical and pharmaceutical journals designated by the national medicine administrative departments. In order to better fight corruptive practice among medicine administrative departments, the draft amendments stipulate that such departments are prohibited to take part in producing or selling medicine, or to recommend or supervise the manufacturing and marketing of any medicine, Li noted. The draft amendments lay down that relevant officials in the medicine administrative departments should be procesuted should they are responsible for illegal action of medicine-related enterprises whose authorization certificates are issued by the department. "They even could be charged with criminal conviction," Li noted. According to the draft amendments, only licensed medicine dealers can sell manufactured medicine on markets. This is the third time that the draft amendments were submitted to the lawmaking body for deliberation. The draft law is expected to be presented for a final vote for approval at this session of the legislature. |
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