Situation of Illegal Advertising of Health Products among Local Radios in Lopburi in the Era of the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO)

Abstract

Objective: To determine the situation of illegal advertising of health products among local radio in Lopburi after the reform of radio broadcasting by the Declaration of the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO).  Method: Researcher and research assistant recorded the programs broadcasted by 14 randomly selected local radios from the beginning time to the closing time of the stations. The broadcasting programs were recorded for 2 days in each station during December 2014. The researcher assessed whether the identified advertising conformed to the law using the evaluation form developed in the study and examined by officers with at least 10 years of working experience. Results: All 14 local radios had at least one pieces of illegal advertising. Among the total of 658 times of advertising, 483 (73.4%) were illegal. Numbers of times of illegal advertising according to drug law, food law, cosmetics law and medical device law were accounted for 73.5, 79.2, 33.3 and 100%, respectively. The advertising on dangerous substance was legal. No advertising on narcotics were identified. The most frequent illegal characteristics of the advertising were over claim of the benefits and false statement on miraculous or complete cure. Furthermore, there were advertisings on 3 unregistered drugs and 2 dangerous drugs not legally allowed for advertising to public. Conclusion: Illegal advertising of health products on local radios in the era of NCPO remains an important problem. Measures for broadcasting reform and handling illegal advertising are not adequate to curb the problem. Relevant parties should review the result of past effort and seriously invent the measures to reduce this problem.