System of pre-approval of advertisements of medicinal products in Malaysia

In Malaysia, sellers are required to submit advertisements with medicinal claims to the Medicine Advertisement Board of Malaysia (MAB) for a review before the advertisements can be published or broadcast. The MAB is responsible to approve the claims in the advertisements before the products bearing them may be marketed to consumers. This form of regulatory control, which is known as a system of pre-approval of advertisements, is carried out to prevent irreparable harm that may be caused by advertising. Advertisements are checked for not only untrue, misleading or highly exaggerated medicinal claims but also impermissible claims. Whilst Malaysia exercises a system of pre-approval of advertisements of medicines and thereby is able to prevent a fraction of deceptive advertisements from reaching the public, the system is arguably inadequate given the increasing number of deceptive claims in advertisements. This paper aims to examine the system of pre-approval of advertisements in Malaysia by way of comparison with the system in Australia, and suggest how the system may be improved so as to ensure a better protection to consumers who rely on advertisements with medicinal claims.