BPOM regrets ad body's exit from review team

JAKARTA (JP): The National Drug and Food Control Agency (BPOM) regretted the resignation of the Indonesian Advertising Association (PPPI) from the advertisement review team, saying that the team's function should not have been disrupted.

BPOM also considered PPPI's decision as one-sided, as the two agencies had been working together for the past seven years in reviewing various drug and food advertisements.

"We were taken aback by their sudden decision, we had been cooperating very well with them thus far until certain people started working for PPPI," Mawarwati Djamaluddin, the permanent secretary of BPOM told The Jakarta Post.

She refused to identify the people, who became PPPI's decision-makers and are believed to have changed the ad association's commitment to the ad review team.

BPOM has yet to decide who is going to replace PPPI and has acknowledged the difficulties of finding representatives willing to participate in the ad review team.

"We must find those who are willing to be committed to the team without being paid," Mawarwati said.

The ad review team, which is supervised by BPOM, consists of representatives from advertising companies, executives of PPPI, pharmacologists, psychologists from the University of Indonesia, and also representatives from jamu (traditional herbal medicine) companies.

BPOM does not pay the representatives and their membership is non-binding.

According to Mawarwati, the team meets regularly every month to review up to 42 ad proposals. During the period of January to August, some 860 advertisement proposals were reviewed.

The final decision on whether a food or drug ad can be published is made by BPOM, upon the recommendation of its team members.

Regarding PPPI's allegation that the agency often disregarded its recommendations and made one-sided decisions on publishing advertisements, BPOM considered the accusation unfair.

Often, companies disregard the requirement to obtain BPOM's approval before publishing their ads. In other cases, some of them received approval for their ad proposals but then they published a completely different version to what had been approved.

"They are aware of our situation as they are also part of the team, therefore, whatever problem we encounter is their problem as well," Mawarwati asserted.

"I admit that we might have some differences in our review meetings, but we've always considered that as normal," she said.

Separately, the Indonesian Consumers Foundation (YLKI) suggested that PPPI position itself as a watchdog on advertisement ethics now that it had withdrawn from the BPOM team.

"It would be in a better position if it could provide objective feedback for the sake of consumers," Retno Widiastuti, executive secretary of YLKI told the Post.

As consumers are always subject to misleading advertisements, YLKI suggested PPPI establish a control body that would be influential in leading public opinion in relation to dubious advertising practices.(06)