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The Secretary for Food and Health makes notice to commence the provisions related to the control of health claims of orally consumed products under the Undesirable Medical Advertisements (Amendment) Ordinance 2005.
The Notice is gazetted today (January 13). It proposes to commence the extension of the prohibition/restriction on advertising orally consumed products for six groups of health claims from June 1, 2012.
The Undesirable Medical Advertisements Ordinance(UMAO)(Cap 231) was first enacted in 1953 with the purpose of protecting public health through prohibiting/restricting advertisements which may induced the seeking of improper management of certain health conditions.
"Specifically, advertisements likely to lead to the use of any medicine, surgical appliance or treatment for the purpose of treating human beings for, or preventing them from contracting listed diseases or conditions or purposes specified in different Schedules of the Ordinance are not allowed," a DH spokesman elaborates.
"The background was that in view of the ever increasing number of orally consumed products with various health claims on the local market, coupled with stakeholders' concern about their impact on public health, the Administration amended the UMAO in June 2005 after careful risk assessment and consultation. In essence, a whole new Schedule 4 (Annex) on prohibition/restriction on six groups of health claims by orally consumed products is added to curb the threat," the spokesman continues to reveal.
Other major amendments include increasing the penalty for contravention of UMAO, empowering the Director of Health to appoint inspectors to enforce the Ordinance and amendments to Schedules 1 and 2.
"In fact, provisions related to amendments in Schedule 1 and 2 have already been implemented since January 2006. The reason for proposing June 1, 2012 to be the commencement date for the rest of the amendments is because amongst the latter, there is reliance on the Chinese Medicine Ordinance (Cap 549) which only comes into full implementation from December 1, 2011," the spokesman explains .
In any case, DH has been launching various education and publicity activities for stakeholders since 2005. In particular, a set of guidelines on the Amendment Ordinance has been prepared for the trade (www.drugoffice.gov.hk/) and briefings and seminars have been organised to provide platforms for interactive communication between stakeholders and the regulatory authority.
"The above will be conducted again as and when necessary," the spokesman supplements.
The commencement notice will be tabled at the Legislative Council for negative vetting on January 18, 2012.
Ends/Friday, January 13, 2012
Issued at HKT 20:37
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