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Following is the speech by the Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, Dr Yeoh Eng-kiong, in moving the second reading of the Undesirable Medical Advertisements (Amendment) Bill 2004 in the Legislative Council today (February 11):

Madam President,

I move that the Undesirable Medical Advertisements (Amendment) Bill 2004 be read the second time.

Under the existing Undesirable Medical Advertisements Ordinance (UMAO) (Cap. 231), it is an offence to publish, or cause to be published, an advertisement likely to lead to the use of medicines, surgical appliances or treatments for prevention or treatment of certain diseases or conditions as specified in Schedule 1 and 2 of the Ordinance.

We have observed in recent years, there is an increasing number of so-called "health food" products on the local market. Some of these orally consumed products, which are not subject to the regulation of the Pharmacy and Poisons Ordinance (PPO) or the Chinese Medicine Ordinance (CMO), may however be labeled or advertised with claims of specific beneficial health effects which are in the domain of drugs, but are currently not specified in the UMAO. This has led to confusion relating to their medical effects.

These claims are considered undesirable as they not only take advantage of credulity and fear of ill health, but may also result in improper self-medication, thereby causing harm as a result of either the improper self-medication itself, or the delayed proper treatment the consumer should receive. There have been complaints from consumers against misleading or exaggerated claims of these products. There are calls from the public and from this Council that control on these irresponsible claims should be introduced for the sake of public health.

The Bill, therefore, seeks to widen the scope of the Ordinance in two aspects, namely to extend the prohibition/restriction on advertising to six additional groups of claims specified in the proposed Schedule 4, and to apply the prohibition/restriction on advertising of claims specified in Schedule 4 to all orally consumed products, except those customarily consumed as food or drink.

There are two levels of restriction based on the risk-based approach in the new Schedule 4. The first level of restriction would apply to the most risky claims. The making of such claims will not be allowed under any circumstances. For the second level of restriction which is applicable to three other types of claims, we propose to specify two permissible claims for each type of claim. For products making the specified claims under the second level of restriction, and which are not registered under the PPO or CMO, they must explicitly say so in the form of a disclaimer both on the packaging and in the advertisement. The claims permissible would facilitate the public's ability to distinguish the product from conventional drugs.

It is not our intention to regulate conventional food like cereals, cooking oil, fruits and vegetables, but some conventional food may be affected under the new regulation as they can also be described as orally consumed products. We propose to define "orally consumed products" in such a way that a product which is customarily consumed only as food or drink to provide energy, nourishment or hydration, or to satisfy a desire for taste, texture or flavour, would not be subject to regulation.

Under existing section 7 of the UMAO, the Director of Health has the power to amend the new Schedule so as to add or delete claims for orally consumed products and to vary the exemptions. We propose in addition that the Director of Health should have power to authorise public officers to be inspectors, and that they should have investigative powers to enable them to enforce the UMAO.

After the passage of the Bill, penalty for offences under the Ordinance will increase to $50,000 and imprisonment for 6 months on first conviction, and $100,000 and imprisonment for 1 year on subsequent conviction. Upon the enactment of the new schedule of prohibited claims, the "health food" industry would be given a grace period of at least 18 months to enable them to make changes and preparation in order to comply with the new requirements.

We conducted a public consultation in the last quarter of 2003 on the regulatory framework for nine groups of health claims, based on the advice of an Expert Committee. We found that in general, the medical professional bodies and academics are supportive of the proposal, while the major opposing views come from the trade. Taking into account the opinions from the public and the trade, and comments proposed by Members of the LegCo Panel on Health Services, we have further revised Schedule 4 of the Amendment Bill to exclude three types of claims, namely, the regulation of the immune system, the promotion of detoxification and slimming/fat reduction, since these claims pose relatively lesser risk to public health and views on their regulation are divided.

We have also taken the opportunity to review other parts of the UMAO. Based on the risk assessment approach, we consider that some permitted claims can be added to Column 2 of Schedule 1 while some restrictions on the permitted claims can be removed. We also propose to amend the Chinese Short Title in order to better reflect the object of the Ordinance.

I hope Members will support the Bill. Thank you, Madam President.

Ends/Wednesday, February 11, 2004

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