Bristol-Myers Squibb has been criticised for running a website giving information on its product Zerit (stavudine, d4T) which was held to be advertising as it was open to members of the public.
The company had established a website entitled the "d4T factsite". The Medicines Control Agency complained about the site to the Presciption Medicines Code of Practice Authority.
Bristol-Myers Squibb said that it had decided to establish its own website after finding out that there were already over 4,000 other sites with information about the compound on the internet.
When looking at how to restrict access to the site the company said that it had chosen "a practical and pragmatic" solution of self-declaration. Users were asked to chose one of four options: "I am a health care professional working in the United Kingdom", "I have been prescribed d4T and am a UK resident", "I am a UK resident but have not been prescribed d4T" or "I am not a UK resident but I would like further information". The company said that password protection systems on other websites it had seen often had no further checks than this kind of self-declaration in return for a password.
In addition, the company said that it was only advertising the address of the site to health care professionals and was planning to develop a site aimed at patients "reducing the temptation for members of the general public to falsely self-declare in order that they might access the (potentially more interesting) health care professional area of the site".
The PMCPA ruled that since members of the public could access the site simply by making a false declaration, the site was open and its contents fell within the remit of the code of practice. The contents of the site were clearly promotional, since they featured the Zerit brand name and logo and made product claims, and thus breached the restrictions on advertising prescription only medicines to the public. The complaint was upheld on appeal.
Details were published in the PMCPA's November, 1999, quarterly review.