A timely revised code of ethics

The Philippine Medical Association recently issued a “Revised” Code of Ethics that has undoubtedly been written to deal with certain abuses or loopholes, which members and officers of the PMA believe have seriously misled or even endangered the public.

As can be expected a number of broadcast companies particularly in radio have taken the lead to question or attack the PMA Revised Code of Ethics as if it were their business. From what I know the PMA is for doctors while the KBP is for broadcasters. This is quite normal considering certain networks or stations have long been earning several hundred million pesos every year from programs and advertisements that feature doctors who have “commercialized” the practice of medicine when they sideline as “part-time announcers and product endorsers”.

If some broadcasters are hot under the collar about the PMA’s revised code of ethics, it is because a number of them earn a couple of million each year for reading and indirectly endorsing the same products that endorser doctors or EDs have been promoting for many years. Just to give you an idea, one network will reportedly earn a total of P200 million + or - for airing programs, commercials and interviews for one bloody product!

The Philippine Medical Association deserves to be congratulated for this bold initiative.

The truth of the matter is that many physicians and people knowledgeable in the health industry have long lamented the ill effects of unsupervised or unregulated promotions of alleged “health products” done by doctors themselves.

What started out as an “on the air” accommodation, where doctors would give information or informal assessments for callers, has become a highly anomalous activity where doctor/endorsers would make a blind evaluation of ailing listeners and then “suggest” the use of health products that do not carry any “therapeutic claim”.

It’s bad enough that wrong diagnosis have sometimes been made by otherwise competent doctors, aided by a full staff of laboratory technicians. But when an ED makes presumptions about a strangers’ state of health through the airwaves, we must agree there is something very wrong about the practice. 

If a so-called health product can’t promise to cure you, how can a so-called licensed professional called a doctor even think of prescribing or suggesting a product that already says cannot cure his patient. These endorser/doctors are either winging it or cashing in. No Ifs and no buts!

If Congress can make Judy Ann Santos responsible and accountable for being the Meralco “Explainer” and if the law prohibits doctors from endorsing legitimate medicines that have passed international testing with proven therapeutic benefits, why should the same doctors be allowed to endorse products full of empty promises?

Aside from the lack of common sense, integrity and responsibility, these EDs have simply ignored the greater damage they have caused by indirectly endorsing “self-medication”. I have previously written about how some employees we had in the past stopped visiting or consulting their doctor regarding any medical condition because they thought they were qualified to self-diagnose while listening to “doctors on air”.

It does not take a lot of effort to convince people to self-diagnose and self-medicate since this saves them from taking a day-off without pay, the usual consultation fee of P150 to P500 and the certainty of an honest evaluation of being sick or unhealthy!

After their self-diagnosis, the patients would then buy the cheaper health products that don’t require prescriptions and are of course cheaper because very little research, safeguards, and product liability back up these products that don’t cure! They might improve your constipation but they won’t get rid of the disease.

If our colleagues in the media would be willing to refocus, they might come up with scary statistics on how many people have physically endangered themselves because of self-medication as influenced by EDs. The angry broadcasters might also learn that while they were earning a ton of money, a few people were going into coma because their liver went into shock or their kidneys collapsed, or how diabetic shock occurred because people stopped going to doctors and simply listened to radio. They might also consider that the revised code of ethics is the business of the PMA and none of their business.

To be quite brutal about it, some media owners, practitioners as well as the KBP failed in their responsibility to be gatekeepers because advertising cash jammed up the doors of responsibility and integrity. We all need to post profits, make a living and sometimes to be practical. But commercial interests must never overcome public interests that we have always claimed we will protect.

The herbal based health product industry are understandably concerned over the matter, same as the “formula milk” manufacturers. But instead of stirring up a controversy where there is none, they should all sit down and honestly appraise the true state and integrity of their products and the industry.

I for one respect and recognize the purpose and the needs for herbal and milk based products. But those who promote these products must do so based on actual content and deliverables, not on suggestion and insinuation. One successful model would be coconut oil, which started out with a ruined reputation because of US corn oil lobby. Because of research, systematic presentation of proof and actual market experience plus marketing flair, coconut oil is now a major player in the health supplement industry.   

Like the cigarette industry, those in the herbal and milk products industry must recognize that the feast of plenty is dawning and unless they do their work right, a famine may soon follow. Milk is good, herbs are great, but Truth is always the best.