Collaboration

The Therapeutic Goods Advertising Consultative Committee

The Committee is the key advisory committee for the regulation of advertising. It is made up of members representing consumer, health professional, industry, media and government bodies. The Committee's member organisations were appointed by the Hon. Greg Hunt, MP, Minister for Health.

The role of the Committee is to:

• provide input to policies relating to the administration of the Therapeutic Goods Advertising Code
• provide a forum for engagement on emerging issues with respect to therapeutic goods advertising
• assist with shaping TGA reporting activities with respect to advertising compliance
• review Key Performance Indicators for advertising complaints handling
• provide input on the development of education and compliance priorities to address non-compliance of advertising for particular categories of therapeutic goods.

The Committee meets quarterly. The first meeting was held on 18 October 2018. Following each meeting a communique is published. The Committee's communiques are available on the TGA website.

Other regulators

Often a complaint raises issues that are best dealt with by, or overlap with, other regulators.

While the advertising of therapeutic goods to consumers must comply with the therapeutic goods legislation, it also must comply with Australian Consumer Law, which is administered by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).

In some cases, complaints about the advertising of therapeutic goods may be best addressed by the ACCC – for example, where the misleading nature of advertising concerns pricing.

Complaints sometimes raise concerns about the behaviour of regulated health professionals or other health practitioners. These complaints may be best dealt with by the relevant health professional board (e.g. the National Medical Board) or the relevant state or territory health complaints department.

Some types of products that are not ordinarily regulated as therapeutic goods, such as foods, cosmetics and consumer goods (interface products), may be captured by the definition of therapeutic goods if promoted for therapeutic use. Because of the nature of interface products, we work closely with state and territory health and fair trading agencies and the National Industrial Chemical Notification and Assessment Scheme to resolve complaints about these types of products.

The TGA works collaboratively with the ACCC and state and territory agencies, including where necessary to address all aspects of complex and multi-faceted complaints. For example, see bioresonance devices.