The advertising standards authority has rejected two out of three complaints from the Government's Medical Devices Agency concerning advertising by Unipath for the Persona family planning device.
The two complaints that were rejected concerned the use of quotations from a letter sent to general medical practitioners by the MDA and about a claim of 94 per cent reliability of the device for avoiding pregnancy.
The MDA objected to the fact that Unipath had not sought permission before quoting from its letter and challenged the 94 per cent reliability claim.
The ASA ruled that the letter to GPs was in the public domain because the MDA had held a press conference to publicise it. It also accepted the reliability claim because it was based on evidence published in the British Journal of Family Planning and accepted at the time of the advertisement by family planning experts.
The one complaint that was upheld concerned the manner in which the MDA had been quoted and reference to "their [the MDA's] appointed expert". The ASA ruled that this suggested that the MDA had consulted only one expert, when it had sought opinions on Persona from a number. The ASA also agreed with the MDA that it had been quoted out of context and that the advertisement implied MDA endorsement of the product.