Initially it was to be a campaign by Doctors of the World on “the indecent prices of drugs”, displayed in due form in bus shelters, subways or in the street. In the end, it will be a “wild” campaign relayed widely on the Web and social networks. The NGO Médecins du Monde met with a sharp refusal from the billboards.
What is wrong with these posters? The slogans go badly: “In the right place, cancer can bring in up to 120,000 euros”, or even “1 billion profit, hepatitis C we live very well”. So many shocking sentences that were not well received by the Professional Advertising Regulatory Authority which would have issued an unfavorable “advice”, reports the site of Inrocks.
The body believes that it could harm the pharmaceutical industry. In this opinion, relayed by Le Inrocks, the accent is laid in particular on “the risk of negative reactions which could cause the chosen line of communication, on the part of the representatives of the pharmaceutical industry. Indeed the companies thus put in causes could consider that such a campaign harms their image and causes them serious damage and decide to act in this direction “.
Behind these posters, Doctors of the World calls for signing the petition #theprixdelife to do lower the price of drugs. The text, online at leprixdelavie.medecinsdumonde.org/fr/la-petition, expresses the concern of the NGO on the current situation: “the pharmaceutical laboratories are making colossal and revolting margins on the treatment of patients”; “Social security is not able to reimburse these treatments. We are therefore not telling you anything by saying that our health system, and therefore our health, is in real danger.” And to question: “When it comes to health, is it up to the market to make the law, or is it up to the state?”
Social media response to the official poster boycott
On social networks, the announcement of the refusal of posters to relay the Medecins du Monde campaign was immediately criticized and qualified as censorship. Internet users have since turned the posters of Médecins du Monde on a massive scale to thwart the official boycott.
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