Effects of Interventions for Illegal Advertising of Food and Drugs among Local Radios

Abstract

Objective: To determine the effect of measures to contain illegal advertising of food and drugs among local radio stations in Phatthalung province including signing the memorandum of understanding (MOU), monitoring and asking for cooperation and enforcing the law. Method: This research was conducted in 15 commercial radio stations in Phatthalung Province over a period of 9 months. The measures for containing the problems were implemented in three phases. The first phase involved education on lawful advertising of food and drugs and MOU signing with the operators of radio stations on abiding to the law. After signing the MOU for 4 months, the investigator informed the stations on the monitoring results of the wrongdoings, financial penalty if prosecuted, and asked radio operators to comply with the law. In the third phase after the signing of the MOU for 7 months, the investigator, who was the competent official, enforced the law to the offenders, informed the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) on the violation, and visited the radio stations by the competent official under food and drug laws and those from the NBTC. The investigators determined illegal advertising from all stations by recording their broadcast for 2 randomly selected days per station, with one day on Monday to Friday and another on Saturday or Sunday. The recording was performed four times i.e., one month prior to MOU signing and after MOU signing for 1, 5 and 9 months. Results: Educating and signing of MOU could not reduce the amount of illegal advertising. When the measures on monitoring and feedback were employed, illegal advertising rate dropped by 30 to 40 percent (depending on units of analysis: the number of advertised products, number of times of advertising or number of unique pieces of advertising). When law was enforced, Illegal advertising decreased by 16-24 percent. Overall all interventions reduced illegal advertising of food and drugs from 1045 times in 30 day-stations at the pre-trial period to 46 times in 30 day-stations. Number of products involving illegal advertising dropped from 66 to 8 products during the same period. The pieces of illegal advertisements dropped from 124 to 14 during the same period. Conclusion: Illegal advertising problem could not be remedied by educating and signing MOUs. However, surveillance of the problems with feedback greatly reduced the problems. The additional legal enforcement helped improve the effectiveness of the measures.