The Patent Medicine Racket

Cue (NZERS), Issue 9, 15 October 1944, Page 4

The Patent Medicine Racket

EW ZEALAND, long considered fair game by the quick pill-vendor, introduced a somewhat desperate ’. measure known as the Medical Advertisements Act - (1942) in an endeavour to reduce the racket to manageable proportions.

Hoardings, . newspapers, magazines and radio all combined to probe the luckless John Citizen’s innards , and display them before his horrified gaze as ' being s in ■varying stages of decay and disrepair. Glib-tongued. advertising men hastened to. utter an awful ■warning of the results consequent

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upon neglecting the simple precaution of consuming . vast quantities of Smiths Lung Linctus —or Brown’s Pills for Pimply People—or even Robinson’s Elixir, which was : guaranteed to shift anything from leprosy to housemaid’s knee. New names for diseases unknown to medical science were coined, fast and furious, and the 'citizenry was treated to anatomical details ' which left them aghast. «B.O.» and your. • « best friends won’t tell you» jostled and jockeyed for position against even more, startling revelations of the ills to which, the advertising men noisily insisted, mankind was peculiarly subject. i The frenzied populace crowded the chemists’ shops everywhere and clamoured for whichever particular draught they fancied that would save

them from instant social and physical oblivion. In the meantime, ■ the makers . rubbed their hands - and shovelled the takings with glee. When the fad for the littleknown glandular products swept the seething multitude of artificial hypochondriacs, the manufacturers , . abandoned 'all shame and rushed headlong to cash in on the new/craze which resulted in an orgy of quackery of the most ludicrous kind. No part of the body . was neglected and the nostrums, gaudily packaged, distressingly . expensive and mostly quite useless, were foisted on the afflicted public by the wagonload. ■ < To be sure, far too many people will , gladly dose themselves with all manner of concoctions before consulting a qualified physician. Fortunately,half their ailments.are largely imaginary but the . rest who are J really suffering from a genuine disease arrive on the doctor’s doorstep in a condition which often defies expert treatment. ■

Yet the public are not altogether to blame. Quite unknowingly, the medical profession itself does much to foster the layman’s insatiable thirst for a branded medicine by actually prescribing it. Many products -marketed by reputable firms of manufacturing chemists are, in themselves, excellent physics and based in the first place on a medical man’s prescription. Others are, of course, the result of deep research in the companies’ laboratories, and these firms nearly always stipulate that such products should only be taken on the physician’s advice.

But this by no means compensates the increasing quantity .of worthless medicaments < bearing resounding but meaningless names

that are available to any fathead who cares to dip deeply enough into his or her pocket: Thus, the doctor who takes the least line of resistance and succumbs to the blandishments of the patent , medicine manufacturer by prescribing their articles, actually whets his' ■unfortunate patient’s appetite to. sample the prolific medicine market on his own account. Had he written that very • same prescrip-? tion to be dispensed by the local •chemist the patient would probably have had his medicine at half the price. ' The British Medical Association once published a series of books entitled « Secret Remedies.» These books set out in clear, language the exact ... analysis of practically all the better known patent medicines, and the cost of each drug used in their . dispensation, together with the market price. Some of the ingredients used in these preparations were astonishing in their simplicity—and futility; while - the difference between the cost and selling price easily explained the tremendous dividends paid by some manufacturing companies.

In an effort to stem the tide of loot arising from the gullibility of the public, the Medical Advertisements Act sets up a committee headed by the Director-General of Health, assisted by an analyst, a medical practitioner and two other nominees... Their task is to call upon any advertiser of medicines, cosmetics, dentifrices and the like to justify his published claims. ■ Failure to do so results in an injunction to refrain from further advertising and if the manufacturer persists in his defiance of the law, heavy penalties are prescribed. \ The intention of the Act is important and should perform a valuable service to the com-

mumty. There are, however, too many loopholes to prevent the unscrupulous drug-vendor gathering his harvest from the dopeswilling public. - A complete remedy could lie in the most rigorous analyses, the results .of which should be made known to the populace in a voice of thunder only equalled by the manufacturer himself. ■ If the product.• is genuine, then no harm is done and a reputable firm would welcome investigation. But the quacks should be exterminated ruthlessly. - However, the goose that lays the golden eggs .is a prolific fowl and not .easily discouraged. Judging from recent indications it should ovulate cheerfully forever. > .