Regulator fines company for vaccine advert

Maeve Bannister | March 25, 2022

An Australian company has been fined by the medicine regulator for advertising an unapproved COVID-19 vaccine.

Vaxine Pty Ltd was fined $13,320 for breaching therapeutic goods laws. 

The Therapeutic Goods Administration alleged the company advertised an unapproved vaccine – which is still subject to a clinical trial – on its Facebook and YouTube pages. 

Information on clinical trials is published on the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry but it is illegal to advertise an unapproved vaccine which hasn’t been assessed or approved by the TGA. 

“Publicly available information about any clinical trial must be factual and balanced and must not promote the use or supply of the therapeutic goods that are the subject of the trial,” the TGA said in a statement. 

Meanwhile, an audit report has found the federal government’s human biosecurity measures at airports during the height of the pandemic were only partly effective.

The report examined existing biosecurity measures and found the departments responsible didn’t always properly administer them during the pandemic.

In 2020-21 there were more than 260,000 international arrivals in Australia, excluding those from New Zealand. 

Officers from the agriculture, water and environment department perform screening duties on behalf of the health department at international airports. 

They are tasked with identifying ill travellers, collecting information about them and passing this information to relevant health authorities.

Yet the audit office found even though biosecurity measures were in place before the pandemic, the department’s regulatory records are unreliable and don’t show procedures were properly followed. 

The report made six recommendations to improve systems for traveller processing which the departments have agreed to implement.