Mississippi Administrative Code › Title 30 - Professions and Occupations › Part 2635 - Practice of Medicine › Chapter 13 - Complementary and Alternative Therapies › Rule 30-2635-13.9 - Advertising

Current through June 25, 2024
As to the advertising of alternative therapies, data
				  purportedly supporting unproven interventions commonly undermines information
				  about risks and overemphasizes information about benefits. Information
				  presented in advertising, including but not limited to clinic websites and
				  social media, shall be represented accurately and come from reputable
				  peer-reviewed publications or respected external organizations.
Even where an appropriate informed consent process seems to
				  be in place, deceptive or fraudulent information contained within practice
				  advertising, websites, and other marketing materials could mislead patients
				  into consenting to treatment, thereby invalidating the informed consent
				  process.
Treatment options described and accompanied by supporting
				  information in the form of journal articles, patient testimonials, claims of
				  partnerships with academic institutions, mentions of affiliations with
				  professional societies or networks, statements regarding receipt of FDA
				  approval or explicit mention of exemption from FDA oversight, listings of
				  patents granted, statements that clinical trials of investigational
				  interventions are being conducted, and accolades related either to the practice
				  itself or its affiliated physicians and researchers, which serve to exaggerate,
				  inflate, or misrepresent information derived from legitimate or questionable
				  sources, shall be deemed a violation of the Board's advertising regulations 
				  1 and unprofessional conduct likely to
				  deceive, defraud, or harm the public. 
				  2
Although not all-encompassing, the following represents
				  instances of improper or misleading advertising practices which the Board would
				  consider unprofessional and deceptive in nature:
1. Asserting certification of products or
				practices by international standards organizations or claiming training
				certification, in order to legitimize alternative therapies;
2. Convening scientific or medical advisory
				boards featuring prominent business leaders and academic faculty members in
				order to legitimize alternative therapies;
3. Registering trials whose apparent purpose
				is solely to attract patients willing to pay to participate in them;
4. Using the statement or impression of
				"ethics review" to convey a sense of legitimacy to products or procedures;
5. Renting of laboratory or
				business space within a legitimate scientific or government institution in
				order to legitimize alternative therapies;
6. Using membership in established academic
				or professional societies to suggest legitimacy by association;
7. Publication of open-ended voluntary
				monitoring data sets rather than undertaking controlled clinical
				trials;
8. Suggesting that patent
				applications or grants indicate clinical utility rather than initiation of an
				application process or recognition of novelty and inventiveness;
9. Publishing research and commentary in
				journals with limited anonymous peer review;
10. Citing preclinical and other research
				findings to justify clinical application without sufficient efficacy testing in
				humans;
11. Forming organizations
				to self-regulate in ways that support premature commercialization; and
12. Providing expert opinions or
				celebrity comments on unsupported clinical uses or standing of the provider.
Miss. Code Ann. §
										73-43-11
				  (1972, as amended).