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he Health Ministry has moved to counter false claims on the health benefits offered by some health and wellness products that are advertised on television and other media platforms.

The ministry last week invited some related stakeholders, including the state-sanctioned Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI) and the Indonesian Consumers Foundation, to join the fight against what it deems as hoaxes that have misled the public.

Among the advertisements are alternative treatments and other wellness products that claim to have beneficial health effects. Some of the advertisements are portrayed as a kind of health talk show.

“A lot of the products and treatments are advertised with exaggerated or misleading claims,” Health Ministry’s secretary-general Untung Suseno said recently. “These falsely claimed advertisements are hoaxes.”

“[Therefore] we must involve the relevant stakeholders because controlling health related advertisements also needs expertise from different fields, such as broadcasting and consumer protection,” Untung said.

The collaboration last week was marked by the signing of a memorandum of understanding aimed at better control of wellness product advertisements, while at the same time drafting more solid policies.

The collaboration also involves the Communications and Information Ministry, the Trade Ministry, the Food and Drug Monitoring Agency, the Film Censorship Board and the Indonesian Advertising Board.

This year, the Health Ministry sent at least seven letters urging the KPI to consider revoking the broadcast permit for several companies whose advertisements it deemed to have false or exaggerated health claims. For instance, the advertisements on alternative medical treatments offered by “health experts” Jeng Ana and Eyang Gentar, and products that promise to alleviate certain serious illnesses like infrared therapeutic water bottle Mega 6 Far and therapy mattress Jeido Power Mat.

“We will accept the recommendations from the Health Ministry and then verify if the advertisements contain false claims,” KPI’s broadcasting content control head Hardly Stefano said.

A wellness product advertisement, he added, is not allowed to contain superlative claims, nor endorsements from people claiming to be doctors or testimonies from clients without clear identification.

Other red flags include providing scientific or medical claims by showing images of the human body, as well as diseases that could induce public anxiety.

Ina Rosalina from the Health Ministry’s Traditional Health Service Directorate said the red flags on alternative and traditional medicine advertisements include exaggerated claims of being the only or new method or medication that is yet to be acknowledged by the medical profession.

“There are many traditional [health] treatments in the country, but the ones that are [officially considered] acceptable have been scientifically proved by the ministry,” she said. (nmn)