The Food and Drugs Board (FDB) has threatened to sue alcoholic beverage distributors who persistently run advertisements on the sexual efficacy of their alcoholic beverages.

The Chief Executive Officer of the board, Mr E. K. Agyarko, who gave the warning Tuesday April 15, 2008, said "it is wrong for alcoholic beverage distributors to run sexually suggestive and deceptive adverts on their products", since alcoholic beverages did not have any medicinal properties.

"There are so many sexual suggestions in the adverts and labels of alcoholic beverages. It is wrong to tell people that gin corrects impotency. Honestly, it is a shame and now the FDB wants to stand tall to address the situation," he said.

Mr Agyarko was speaking at the opening of a sensitisation meeting with top managers of locally manufactured strong liquor.

The meeting sought to encourage manufacturers and distributors of alcozties, processes and products to meet standard requirements and promote a sense of social responsibility among them.

Mr. Agyarko challenged distributors who believed in the medicinal capabilities of their products to submit them for testing to determine their true status.

He said if the FDB found out that alcoholic beverages had medicinal properties, the board would register them as medicine, not gin.

"If you want to present alcohol as medicine, then you are wrong as an industry and our progeny will not forgive us," he stressed.

Mr Agyarko wondered why distributors and advertisers chose names that were so sexually suggestive and asked the distributors to rather "spend their money on developing the quality" of their products, saying that "it is quality that will draw the customers to you".

According to him, his outfit would intensify its post-market surveillance to determine whether alcoholic products on the market conformed with the ones registered with the Board.

Mr Agyarko said the FDB would "draw the line" and raise the regulatory mechanism to discourage those activities to ensure public health and safety.

For instance, he said, the board would use PNDCL 305B, which speaks against deceptive advertisements, and recommend offending parties to the Ministry of Health for a possible closure of their companies.

He said statistical data available to the board revealed an increase in the number of local manufacturers of strong liquor, majority of which belonged to the 'Gin Bitters' group.

However, he said, ''the assessment of the operations of these manufacturers falls short of the technical requirements to conform to current codes of good manufacturing practices".

Coupled with that, Mr Agyarko said, was inadequate consumer information provided on the labels, leading to abuse of the product.

The acting Deputy Chief Executive of the FDB in charge of Food, Mr John Odame-Darkwah, mentioned the lack of knowledge on regulatory requirements for the establishment of an alcoholic beverage industry and good manufacturing practices as some of the hindrances facing the distributors and manufacturers of alcoholic beverages.

He said the FDB deferred the registration of 48 per cent of alcoholic beverage companies in 2005, 36 per cent in 2006 and 50 per cent in 2007.


Source: Daily Graphic