To curb fake TCM health care, punishment should be strengthened

19-01-28 legal daily

Deng yong, associate professor of law in the department of law of Beijing university of traditional Chinese medicine

Legal daily intern ye ziyue

How can we better regulate the marketing and promotion of health care services and products under the banner of traditional Chinese medicine? The reporter interviewed the concerned expert inside course of study.

Take advantage of consumer trust

Marketing promotion scale has a regulation

Reporter: what do you think of some health care products and services marketed under the banner of traditional Chinese medicine?

Wang yue: the medical field is a field with serious information asymmetry. The information asymmetry between consumers, medical personnel and businesses makes the health care products and services that are marketed and promoted under the banner of traditional Chinese medicine keep emerging, and some of them eventually become frauds. Some of the health food for the formation of the network sales model, known as direct sales, its essence is pyramid selling. The hope is that the knock-on effects of the "health care crisis" will lead to stronger supervision by relevant departments, rather than sports supervision.

Deng yong: article 73 of the food safety law stipulates that the contents of food advertisements shall be true and legal, and shall not contain false contents, and shall not involve the functions of disease prevention and treatment. Food producers and traders shall be responsible for the authenticity and legality of the contents of food advertisements. Accordingly, if the health products do contain traditional Chinese medicine ingredients, it is not unreasonable for businesses to carry out real and legal marketing promotion. However, it should be noted that according to article 79 of the food safety law, health food advertisements shall not only comply with the provisions of paragraph 1 of article 73 of the law, but also declare that "this product cannot replace medicine". Its contents shall be examined and approved by the food and drug supervision and administration department of the people's government of the province, autonomous region or municipality directly under the central government where the manufacturer is located, and the approval document for the advertisement of health food shall be obtained.

It is undeniable that most of the businesses selling health care products have grasped the trust of the health care product audience towards traditional Chinese medicine and promoted health care products in the name of traditional Chinese medicine to attract more consumers to a certain extent. However, on the other hand, TCM itself plays an important role in people's health care. Many health care product manufacturers also see the great commercial value of TCM and fully explore and develop the value of TCM in the health care product market. In this case, the rational use of traditional Chinese medicine also belongs to the marketing and promotion of health care products through traditional Chinese medicine in a lawful and compliant way.

Reporter: in the relevant laws, for health care products marketing promotion scale is how to stipulate?

Deng Yong: as prescribed in article seventy-eight of the food safety law, health food label, instruction shall not be involved in disease prevention, treatment, function, content should be true, consistent with the content of the registration or registration, indicate the appropriate crowd, not appropriate crowd, efficacy composition or iconic composition and its content, and the statement "this product can not replace medicine". The functions and ingredients of health food shall be consistent with the labels and instructions.

(1) assertions or assurances of efficacy or safety; (2) involving functions of disease prevention and treatment; (3) claiming or implying that the advertised commodity is necessary for the protection of health; (4) comparison with medicines and other health food; (5) using advertising spokespersons to make recommendations and certificates; (6) other contents prohibited by laws and administrative regulations. Health food advertisements should clearly indicate that "this product cannot replace medicine".

Article 22 of the measures for the administration of health food stipulates that the names of health food shall be accurate and scientific, and the names of people, place names, code names, exaggerated and easily misunderstood names and the names of non-main functional ingredients shall not be used. Article 23 stipulates that the labels, instructions and advertising contents of health food must be true and conform to the quality requirements of the products, and there must be no publicity that may imply cure of the disease. Article 24. It is forbidden to use feudal superstition to publicize health food. Article 25 food that has not been examined and approved by the ministry of health according to these measures shall not be propagated in the name of health food.

The cost of breaking the law is relatively low

Interests drive red lines

Reporter: "in the name of traditional Chinese medicine, violations of laws and regulations have occurred from time to time. Why?

Wang yue: China's relevant laws and regulations are very clear, but the effect of supervision and law enforcement is not good. Weak supervision and law enforcement and difficulties in safeguarding rights make these problems not stop. Why poor regulatory enforcement? First of all, many health care products without power also without too much, will naturally be ignored. Secondly, it can be seen from the recent news that some of the enterprises involved are large in scale and their economic interests may lead to local protectionism. If the supervision and law enforcement are ineffective, it will lead to difficulties in consumer rights protection. If some events are not exposed, the individual power of consumers is very weak. If the sums involved are not large, victims often give up.

Deng yong: the phenomenon of "using the name of traditional Chinese medicine to violate laws and regulations" has been repeatedly banned. The key is that the cost of breaking the law is relatively low. Compared with the huge profits, the punishment made by relevant departments according to the existing laws is a drop in the bucket. In sharp contrast, dealers and manufacturers cannot help the temptation of profits and dare to repeatedly hit the "red line". Second, the lack of regulatory synergy makes it impossible to eradicate the phenomenon. Food and drug supervision requires the cooperation of multiple departments to achieve practical results. In addition to the departments in charge of food and drug supervision, if it is false propaganda, it shall be transferred to the industrial and commercial department, and if it involves fraud, it shall be transferred to the public security department. At present, most of the law enforcement is carried out by a single department alone, and the law enforcement is insufficient, leading to this phenomenon that cannot be eradicated. In addition, the general public repeatedly "recruit" also makes the phenomenon has been existing. As the health care system is not yet perfect, some people are afraid of diseases and put their hopes in health care products. People's extensive demand for health care products also stimulates sellers' desire to pursue profits even if they break the law.

Reporter: how to further strengthen the supervision and control over the problem of "violating laws and regulations in the name of traditional Chinese medicine"?

Wang yue: there is no shortage of relevant laws, but there are big problems in the implementation of laws. At the present stage, the effect of administrative law enforcement against illegal behaviors such as false publicity of health products is not ideal. In view of this kind of incident the administrative law enforcement often fine settles, cannot play the correction function fundamentally. In this case, the mode of social governance should be changed from simply relying on administrative law enforcement to correct illegal behaviors to social co-governance. The legal weapons should be gradually transferred to consumers. Such as increasing punitive civil compensation, public interest litigation. Secondly, the malfeasance of administrative law enforcement personnel should be investigated to alert local protectionism. In addition, the state should promote the popularization and publicity of public health care, improve the asymmetry of medical information, make the public understand the real nature and function of health care products, and better choose the most authoritative and professional health care products and services.

Deng yong: from the perspective of laws and regulations, relevant regulations have solved the problem that the health care product supervision in China cannot be relied on to a certain extent, and provided behavioral guidance for market subjects, which is conducive to regulating the health care product market and making it develop in a sound direction of legal compliance. On the other hand, the current legal system is still unable to meet regulatory needs. The revision of relevant laws and regulations is lagging behind, the penalties for violating relevant laws and regulations are unclear, and the penalties are relatively low, resulting in limited impact of relevant laws and regulations on the market.

From the perspective of marketing and promotion, with the increasing attention paid by the state to TCM, TCM science popularization has made some achievements. TV, newspapers, the Internet and other media have a lot of popular science publicity on TCM, which to some extent is conducive to the public's understanding of TCM. But on the other hand, with the rise of "Chinese medicine fever", Chinese medicine popular science propaganda mixed problems also surfaced. In some cases, the lack of strict checks and effective supervision by relevant departments has led to some erroneous "knowledge of TCM" flying everywhere. It can be said that at the present stage, the popularization of TCM also needs to be further standardized, so that the standardized and correct knowledge of TCM into thousands of households.

Reporter: to average patient, consumer character, how should treat traditional Chinese medicine health care to taste correctly?

Wang yue: the world health organization has set the standard for six-star doctors, and one star represents "health promotion", which is one of doctors' duties. The general public should regard the real doctors as their health protectors, believe the advice of medical staff, and do not believe the health care products in the Internet rumors and advertisements.

Deng yong: people should have a rational understanding of health care products and traditional Chinese medicine health care products. Health care products are not omnipotent, "medicine is three points poison", traditional Chinese medicine health care products mainly through the way to improve the human body function. Therefore, in the case of physical and mental health, the misuse of health products is likely to have the opposite effect. Secondly, people should follow the correct procedures when taking health care products. If think oneself need to take health care article to undertake conditioning really, should avoid to listen to advertisement of a few health care article to buy health care article without authorization as far as possible. People can go to regular medical institutions, please doctors or Chinese medicine doctors after diagnosis, according to the recommendation of doctors choose health care products or traditional Chinese medicine health care products. Finally, the public should gradually establish a correct concept of health care, should adjust the mentality, strengthen physical exercise and other ways to strengthen the body, as far as possible to reduce external health food or drug dependence.