Direct to consumer advertising on websites of Peruvian naturopathic pharmacies

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) classifies DTCA into three types: (1) reminder advertisements contain the name of a drug only and are designed to reinforce brand recognition; (2) help-seeking advertisements contain information about a disease or condition without mentioning a particular treatment; (3) product-claim advertisements contain specifically effective and safe information about drug products and display ads that contain the names of them, indications, and information about their safety and effectiveness.1 Despite the importance of DTCA, there are no studies in naturopathic pharmacies, which offer alternative medications that may have mild to severe adverse reactions, including renal failure or liver toxicity, and may even cause death.2 In order to evaluate DTCA in Peruvian naturopathic pharmacies, we used the Google search engine in a browser with previously deleted cookies, with the Spanish terms for ‘naturopathic pharmacy’, ‘health food store’, ‘naturopathic products’, ‘naturopathic medicine’, ‘alternative medicine’, ‘traditional medicine’, and ‘agro-food’, combined with the term ‘Peru’. [...]the ‘Regulations for the Registration and Control of Pharmaceutical Health Surveillance Products’ of Peru states that the promotion of herbal medicines must contain technical information in support of their efficacy and safety. [...]this regulation has been transgressed by most of the pharmacies for not providing the information necessary for consumers to make an informed decision.3 All websites analysed have a delivery service, and there is no mention that purchasing of any of the drugs requires a medical prescription. [...]several Peruvian naturopathic pharmacies promote their drugs online without meeting national or international regulations.