The World Consumers' Rights Day was observed in Pakistan on March 15, as elsewhere in the world, with a renewed pledge that all-out efforts would be made to create awareness about consumers' rights.
However, unlike some of the other UN nominated days, it seemed to have aroused less public interest, because of the apathy to the need of ensuring consumer protection over a long period of time.
Only a few functions were held here and there to focus on its importance. Nevertheless, the Network for Consumer Protection, a rights-based advocacy organisation, said that the consumers in Pakistan observed the day reiterating their firm "NO" to Genetically Modified (GM) foods and urged the government to enforce strict measures to provide security against unethical and dangerous market practices.
They demanded legislation and implementation of laws for consumer protection, demanding of the government to protect consumers against the market abuses and social injustices, which hurt them. It may be recalled that it was on April 9, 1985, when the UN General Assembly adopted the UN Guidelines of Consumer Protection to which Pakistan is a signatory.
Generally speaking, participants in and organisers of events held on the Consumers' Rights Day missed the theme of this year's observance. With its focus on pharmaceutical industry, consumer organisations the world over were expected mark the occasion by issuing a major health warning on unethical drug promotion.
Hence, national governments were to be urged to end unscrupulous marketing practices by the pharmaceutical industry. For, unethical drug promotion left the consumers misinformed about the benefits of the drugs they were buying, thereby leading to potential health risks as demonstrated by certain cases. Needless to point out, continued investigations were stated to have found violations of ethical requirements reaching pandemic proportions.
Reference, in this regard, has been made to a study "Branding the Cure" having found 972 violations of the drug industry's own code of ethics between 2002 and 2005. More to this, 18 of the top 20 drug companies investigated were reported to have refused publicly to reveal their policies on disease awareness, and leaving unanswered questions on how they promoted their products.
Quoting, at least, one concrete example, the study also made the shocking revelation that marketing was being misrepresented as information. It will also be noted that among other disquieting trends it also found that spread of self­diagnosing quizzes as another online tactic increasingly used by the industry to create consumer demand for drugs.
As such, concluding that self­regulation is not working and that governments must do more to protect consumers, an international organisation has been working with its national member organisations across the world to highlight this problem.
The head of the organisation has summed up the agonising disarray in these words: "Unscrupulous tactics such as marketing disguised as information and the lack of transparency from the pharmaceutical industry means drug promotion needs to come with a consumer health warning. Government regulation must be improved to curb unethical marketing and to require more openness and accountability from drug companies. Only then can consumers make an informed and independent choice about the pharmaceutical products they buy."