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via DNA - Centre cracks the whip on Indian Medical Association for endorsing products.

Sending a strong signal to doctors endorsing products for private companies, Medical Council of India (MCI) has banned top office-bearers of Indian Medical Association (IMA) from practising medicine for six months. IMA’s national president Goparaju Samaram and secretary Dharam Prakash have been removed from the Indian medical register for six months, which means they cannot practise as doctors in this period. The action was taken following a complaint that IMA was endorsing products for private companies. Earlier, MCI had issued warnings to IMA and affiliated associations to refrain from endorsing such products.

This is probably the first time IMA office-bearers have been punished, though MCI has been taking action against doctors on a case-to-case basis. The association reportedly endorses about six products, including Dettol and Aquaguard.

MCI has also issued a censure letter to all executive committee members of IMA warning them not to repeat such practices.

“The ministry received a complaint relating to endorsement of some food products by Indian Medical Association in 2009. The complaint was forwarded to MCI for appropriate action. The ethics committee of MCI, at its meeting held on November 9, 2010, considered the matter and decided to remove the name of the president and secretary of IMA from the Indian medical register for a period of six months and issue a censure letter to all executive committee members of IMA to not repeat such practices in future,” minister for health and family welfare Ghulam Nabi Azad said in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha on Friday. “There is a code of medical ethics in place, according to which no doctor or association can endorse products. There is a watchdog in the government and a group of people is monitoring all such endorsements,” SK Sareen, chairman of MCI’s board of governors had told DNA earlier. He said MCI had jurisdiction over not only doctors but also their associations. “If doctors can’t, even IMA cannot,” Sareen said. [emphases are mine. read the full story here]

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More on the same via ToI - IMA officials penalized for endorsements.

After more than two years of arguments at different forums over Indian Medical Association (IMA) endorsing two food products in violation of its own ethics and Medical Council of India (MCI) regulations, MCI decided to remove secretary and president of the IMA from the Indian medical register for six months. As a result, these doctors cannot practise for six months. MCI has also decided to serve censure letters to all the 187 IMA executive committee members ”to not to repeat such practices in future”. IMA represents two lakh [200,000] doctors in the country. This is the first time in IMA’s history that names of its office bearers would be removed from the register. The decision was taken at an MCI ethics committee meeting on November 9. This was later ratified by the board of directors. Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad announced the MCI decision in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha on Friday.

[here's the root cause] In April 2008, IMA had signed a Rs 2.25-crore [Rs. 22,500,000, nearly half a million US $] contract with Pepsico to allow Tropicana fruit juice and Quaker oats to use the IMA logo on their packs for three years ending 2011. Dr K V Babu, an IMA central committee member, complained to MCI on June 6, 2008 and followed it up with RTI applications that brought out details of this and other endorsements. [read the full story here]

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I wonder when the Indian Dental Association is going to get penalized for endorsing certain brands of toothpaste?

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