Kim Kardashian forced to delete selfie endorsing morning sickness drug

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/aug/12/kim-kardashian-selfie-morning-sickness-drug-instagram

Version 0 of 1.

US regulators have ordered an Instagram post featuring Kim Kardashian enthusiastically promoting a morning sickness treatment to be taken down for breaking advertising laws.

Late last month Kardashian, who recently revealed that she never does commercial deals that force her to make positive endorsements on Instagram, used her social media presence to praise a drug called Diclegis.

“OMG. Have you heard about this? As you guys know my #morningsickness has been pretty bad,” she posted to her 42 million Instagram followers, subsequently linking to her 34 million-strong Twitter feed.

OMG. Have you heard about this? As you guys know my #morningsickness has been pretty bad. I tried… https://t.co/5nA8eoDvl6

In the full post on Instagram Kardashian went on to say that the drug had been “studied” and there was no increased risk to her baby in taking it.

“I’m so excited and happy with my results that I’m partnering with [drug maker] Duchesnay USA to raise awareness about treating morning sickness.”

The post, which featured Kardashian cheek-to-cheek with a pill bottle of the drug, has fallen foul of the advertising regulations of the Food and Drug Administration.

The FDA sent a letter to the drug’s maker, Duchesnay, ordering that the post be taken down.

“The social media post is false or misleading in that it presents efficacy claims for Diclegis, but fails to communicate any risk information associated with its use and it omits material facts,” said Robert Dean, division director at the Office of Prescription Drug Promotion. “These violations are concerning from a public health perspective because they suggest that Diclegis is safer than has been demonstrated.”

Various issues include that the drug has not been studied in women with a rare complication, hyperemesis gravidarum, that causes extreme morning sickness.

The OPDP has ordered that the company needs to send out another post, ideally sent by Kardashian, containing “truthful, non-misleading, and complete corrective messages about the issues discussed … to the audience that received the violative promotional material”.

“To the extent possible, corrective messaging should be distributed using the same media, and generally for the same duration of time and with the same frequency that the violative promotional material was disseminated,” said Dean.

In the UK, it is illegal to advertise prescription-only medicines to the public. This includes social media such as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram.

The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority has noted the general issue of the rise in popularity of advertisers using celebrities to endorse products on social media.

It has delivered two rulings against vloggers, YouTube stars, for not clearly labelling that their videos were paid for by advertisers.

While the ASA delivers its rulings against advertisers, it has also warned vloggers that it “pays to be honest” in how they work with clients.

In 2012, Nike took the dubious honour of being the first company in the UK to have a Twitter campaign banned, after advertising watchdog decided that its use of the personal accounts of footballers Wayne Rooney and Jack Wilshere broke rules for not clearly telling the public their tweets were ads.