Tab 3 · TGA

Medicines on social media: the TGA’s advertising rules

The TGA treats any social media activity promoting the use or supply of therapeutic goods, medicines and medical devices among them, as advertising, and that advertising must meet the therapeutic goods legislation. Under the 2021 Advertising Code, genuine unpaid testimonials are still allowed, but paid or incentivised ones, influencers’ included, are not.

General information about the TGA’s published guidance and the Code, not legal or medical advice. The official place to check is the Therapeutic Goods Administration.

Which posts are ads

Under the Therapeutic Goods Act, a statement, picture or design meant to draw attention to therapeutic goods and promote their use or supply is likely to be advertising. The TGA’s guidance lists social media activity aimed at, among other things:

attracting new customers, including by encouraging people to seek out a product;
encouraging people to consume or use the goods;
building loyalty and trust in a product or brand;
selling products, or driving traffic to a website.

A post is more likely to be promotional when it comes from, or on behalf of, someone with a financial interest in selling the goods, such as a manufacturer, sponsor or retailer. It is more likely again when it names a product or brand, highlights its uses or benefits, carries a testimonial or endorsement, even an implied one, or uses certain links, tags and hashtags.

Three points from the TGA’s guidance catch people out. Resharing content that was not promotional at first can make it advertising when the new context promotes the goods. Old posts must comply as well as new ones, and each day a breach stays up may count as a new contravention. Content made or assisted by AI is the responsibility of the business that manages and publishes it.

Testimonials and endorsements

The Code treats these as two different things, with different rules about payment.

The TGA’s distinction, summarised from its guidance.
Question	Testimonial	Endorsement
What it is	A statement about a product by someone who says they used it, or used it caring for someone else.	A form of support, approval or sanction.
If it was paid for	It can’t be used. Payment or ‘valuable consideration’ of any kind rules it out.	Payment is allowed if the ad discloses it; the TGA suggests words like ‘paid partnership’ in a post.
Who can’t give one	Among others, people engaged in producing, marketing or supplying the goods, which the TGA says takes in brand ambassadors and social media influencers who have received, or will receive, payment or valuable consideration for it. The bodies and practitioners in the next column can’t give a testimonial either.	Among others, a government body (outside health campaigns), a hospital or healthcare facility, and current or former health practitioners, health professionals or medical researchers.
Before it goes in	Confirm who made it, that they are allowed to, and that its content meets the rest of the Code.	Confirm the endorser is not someone barred from giving one.

The Code itself says it plainly, in section 24:

“(5) An advertisement about therapeutic goods must not contain a testimonial, unless the advertiser has verified the content of, and identity of the person making, the testimonial.”

“Note: For paragraph (4)(a), a person who is engaged in the marketing or supply of therapeutic goods includes influencers, direct sellers and other persons who have, or will receive, valuable consideration for making the testimonial.”

Therapeutic Goods Advertising Code, section 24, Federal Register of Legislation

What counts as payment

The TGA’s examples of valuable consideration go well past cash: services, gifts, discounts, free product, flights, accommodation and the promise of a future benefit are all on its list. Not everything given free counts, though: the TGA says valuable consideration is what cements an agreement that a testimonial or endorsement will be given.

Comments, links and tags

An endorsement or testimonial made on, or linked to, a business’s content becomes part of its advertising, and the business is responsible for keeping it compliant even if it didn’t write it, doesn’t know who did, or disagrees with it. Linked, tagged and hashtagged material counts as part of the ad, even when it sits outside the business’s own account.

Third-party comments on a business’s page fall within its responsibility too. The TGA recommends an acceptable use policy that sets guidelines for comments and warns that non-compliant ones will be removed. One tag needs particular care: unless specifically permitted, implying that the government endorses a therapeutic good is unlawful.

For businesses that pay influencers or content creators, the TGA recommends reviewing what they post, telling them the product is a therapeutic good, and making them aware of the advertising rules; a business may be responsible for paid content posted on its behalf. Where a platform offers a way to mark a paid partnership, the TGA says to use it.

What the Code asks of every ad

“(1) An advertisement about therapeutic goods must: (a) be accurate, balanced and not misleading or likely to be misleading; and (b) only contain information that is substantiated by the advertiser prior to publication or dissemination.”

Section 8, Accuracy, Therapeutic Goods Advertising Code

Section 9 rules out representing goods as safe or free of side-effects, effective in every case or a guaranteed cure, or infallible, magical or miraculous. An ad must not be directed to children under 12. Some goods, such as prescription medicines and biologicals, can’t be advertised to the public at all. Most ads about a medicine must carry the medicine’s name, one or more accepted indications, and the statement “ALWAYS READ THE LABEL AND FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS FOR USE”. The Code sets its own required statements for pharmacist-only products, goods not sold to the general public and short-form ads, and none of these statements is needed in an ad that shows only a product’s name, picture, price or where to buy it and makes no therapeutic claim.

Penalties, and reports from followers

Unlawful advertising of therapeutic goods, including on social media, carries offences and civil penalties, and the TGA lists infringement notices and civil or criminal proceedings among its tools.

Social media also brings reports in. Sponsors are expected to record adverse reactions they find on their social media channels, and to report to the TGA, within the required timeframe, every valid serious adverse reaction that occurred in Australia, including those reported to them through social media.

Practitioners who post about their own services also answer to Ahpra, set out in the health practitioners guide.