Lots of shady situations in Beijing’s medical profession recently, from celebrity-endorsed city hospitals preying on rural folk to thousand-yuan consultation fees. Advertising rules are the latest consumer issue.
Judging from the medical advertisements that blanket Chinese media, one could easily conclude that no medicine is too strange, no cure too astonishing to be granted approval to market itself. So the Beijing Drug Administration’s reiteration that no product claiming to dissolve tumors, cure AIDS, or restore sexual potency has been issued a permit may be surprising.
Unsurprising are the photographs accompanying the news reports. On the left is an image from Wednesday’s Mirror of illegal ads covering a bus-stop sign. Below is an image from The Beijing News (also Wednesday) of ads for pills and medical services littering a Beijing street in April.
Sources: The Beijing News, Mirror [both Chinese]