Shanghai Daily news

Annoyed by bad apples? Then don't eat any.
A high-level government official thought likewise when he proposed on Monday to ban all medical adverts in order to screen out misleading ones.
Gao qiang, vice minister of health, said he will send the proposal to the State Council for approval. He also said the public should have free access to medical information.
Gao surely has a big heart and is looking out for the interests of patients. False ads have indeed led many patients to take the wrong medicine or choose the wrong hospital. I feel like I'm in a pharmacy when watching TV, as I'm hit with a barrage of film stars bragging about the fabricated superiority of a certain drug or hospital. The ads cover everything from infertility and magic tonics to breast augmentation.
About 80 percent of medical ads are false and illegal. Nearly three million people take the wrong drugs every year, thanks in part to false ads.
But gao's plan to ban all medical ads will not work for several reasons.
First, advertisers will find other ways to spread false medical information once the media is removed from the game. Pamphleting on the street, organizing symposiums, or donating drugs can all influence the public mind in a way that favors immoral advertisers.
And don't think the media would not be used. Drug companies and hospitals can secretly pay media outlets for advertorials cleverly disguised as science reports.
Stopping media adverts will not prevent the spread of false medical information.
Second, Gao's hidden assumption is that medical ads have no merit and that patients better ask doctors directly.
Certainly some media outlets do connive with immoral drug companies or hospitals to spread false medical information. But there is public interest in knowing the areas of medical expertise associated with each hospital.
When some doctors take bribes from drug companies and offer poor service, it's all the more necessary for good hospitals to advertise their skill and integrity. Of course, such ads need to be balanced with a discussion of risks, like that required in a prospectus for a company to list on the stock market.
If good apples are not allowed to advertise, people may fall into more traps by the bad ones.
Third, Gao proposed medical information be spread for free. But who would be responsible for this? Can the government do a better job than the media in investigating bad apples?
Not really. Certainly the government can provide medical information for free. But free is not necessarily better. If the government was indeed better, it would have already eradicated the false ads. The media cannot run medical ads without prior government approval. So something must be wrong in the approval procedure. Government censors of ad content are at best incompetent, at worst, corrupt.
If the government cannot fix a few immoral media outlets, drug companies and hospitals, how could it handle the proper dissemination of all medical information?
Gao's plan needs to be modified to ban commercials for prescription drugs, but allow ads that present both positive and negative information of a drug or medical service.