Strengthening the handling of violations in advertising health protection foods

On March 10, the Ministry of Health held an online conference on “coordinating the management of health food advertising activities in 2022”. At Nghe An bridge, Dr. Nguyen Huu Le - Deputy Director of the Department of Health chaired. Also attending were representatives of relevant departments and branches.

Speaking at the conference, Deputy Minister of Health Do Xuan Tuyen said that currently, people's demand for health protection products has increased significantly. However, there are still some businesses that have not properly implemented regulations on advertising functional foods, the advertising content is incorrect, advertising functional foods as medicines... creating misunderstandings among people when using these products.

Scene at Nghe An bridge. Photo: Tien Hung

According to him, violations in advertising health protection foods, especially online newspapers and websites, are still very common, with widespread advertising on Zalo, Facebook, and YouTube. Meanwhile, websites with servers located abroad are difficult to control, some websites and electronic information pages with foreign domain names face many difficulties in managing advertising content, cannot identify the violating advertising subjects, and have no basis to handle violations.

The development of digital technology has made it easy to create clips and videos using images of medical facilities, doctors, images of Vietnam Television, Police and Defense Television, major newspapers, or using images of public figures and retired scientists to advertise foods as medicines.

An advertisement that haunts viewers on Youtube. Photo: Tien Hung

Some companies also rent locations and organize training for employees to make phone calls, provide consultations, impersonate doctors and pharmacists to advise on medical conditions, and threaten customers to advise on treatment regimens, in reality selling health supplements.

After analyzing the current situation and causes, the conference also proposed a series of solutions to limit this situation. The most important of which is the need for drastic participation of ministries and branches. Accordingly, ministries, branches and management agencies according to their functions and tasks need to seriously implement their responsibilities to closely coordinate in managing advertising of goods and services in general, especially managing health protection foods in particular. Direct advertising agencies under the management of ministries and branches to strictly implement the provisions of the law on advertising of health protection foods. Inspect and strictly handle violations of the law on advertising of health protection foods and publicly post the violating units on mass media according to the provisions of law.

Staging and impersonating a TV station to trick customers. Photo: Tien Hung

The Ministry of Health also recommended that the Government amend Decree 15/2018/ND-CP dated February 2, 2018 detailing the implementation of a number of articles of the Food Safety Law, and more strictly regulate the conditions for registering product declarations. At the same time, it is recommended that the Ministry of Industry and Trade strengthen the management of e-commerce trading floors, manage multi-level marketing companies that sell health protection foods, and take measures to monitor multi-level activities, especially seminars to develop members of companies to avoid false word-of-mouth advertising. The Ministry of Public Security strictly inspects and handles violations to set an example for domain name owners who advertise on social networking sites that violate advertising laws...