Ads making tall health claims to be reviewed

Dubious health advertisements on television claiming to improve one's sexual performance or reduce weight without exercise will be under the government's scanner. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Jul 19, 2011, 23:27:31 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Dubious health advertisements on television claiming to improve one's sexual performance or reduce weight without exercise will be under the government's scanner.

The consumer affairs ministry has decided to constitute an inter-ministerial committee to find out whether these claims are based on any scientific evidence or are being made to cheat the consumers.

"We are considering consumers point of view," a senior ministry official said.

Television channels during night hours are flooded with advertisements making all sorts of claims to improve health in a short period of time. Some people fall for them.

"Not knowing its implication a person took a medicine shown in advertisement claiming to end backache with few days. Instead, the person found himself in a hospital for a major operation due to inflammation caused by the medicine," the official said.

Apparently, the case triggered the consumer affairs ministry to have an in-depth look at such advertisements. The National Consumer Helpline has been receiving several complaints against fake advertisements but the government was not able to take any action.

For the first time, the government has constituted a committee consisting of officials from ministries of consumer affairs, information and broadcasting and health.

The committee also has representatives from the Advertising Standard Council of India, National Consumer Grievance Redressal Commission and civil society organsiations.

The consumer affairs ministry has already prepared a list of dubious advertisements which the inter-ministerial committee will discuss at its first meeting by July end.

Ministry officials said if the committee decides to take action the I&B ministry is competent as per rules to stop an advertisement or a programme from being aired. It can issue directions to the private television channel for violation the advertising code.

"We are looking for a broad policy direction in this regard," the official said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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