The INVIMA monitors advertising campaigns that incite the sale and consumption of official medical, cosmetic and homeopathic products. Also, the INVIMA allows for the realization of educational alerting campaigns, as long as they don’t drive the particular consumption of any of the mentioned products.

These are the decrees that regulate health and wellness advertising in Colombia.

RESOLUTION NUMBER 4320 of 2004

The dispositions contained in this resolution apply to advertising developed for all drugs and phyto-therapeutic products for sale with no professional prescription or free sale, and its object is to offer the consumer guidelines for him/her to be educated in the adequate use of said medicines.

DECREE NUMBER 3249 of 2006

the decree demands that advertising for dietary supplements must comply with the following requisites:

• all information must be complete and true. Also, it must guarantee that advertising the dietary supplement’s benefits will in no way counter the promotion of healthy lifestyles and habits. It must not promote unhealthy nutritional habits and cannot declare any properties that cannot be proved.

MAILSHOT 11 OF 2002 FROM THE COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY SUPERINTENDENCY IN THE 2.1.2.4 COMMERCIAL PROPAGANDA OF UNHEALTHY PRODUCTS

It establishes that in the commercial propaganda of unhealthy products like tobacco and alcoholic beverages, their noxiousness or dangers to health must be clearly advertised as well as their contraindications and the need to consult their proper use, which according to decree number 3466 of 1982 must be informed in tags, packs, containers, or in annexes included within these.

Law 1480 of 2011.

Clear, true, sufficient, timely, verifiable, comprehensive, precise and suitable information on the product must be administered, according to the Consumer Protection Law.

300.000 students can have auditive dysfunction, unless it is detected on time with an audiometry. But, for half the population that lives in the countryside, there are any place near to take the test.

So we create Radiometries: a nursery rhyme that turned into a free audiometric test

With simple sung commands, the song asks the children to respond with movement, like a choreograph. The commands are given in different frequencies and volume levels, the same used in a professional audiometry.

If the child does not respond one of these commands, there could be a problem and he should be taken to a doctor as soon as possible.

1. Make parents aware of their children’s needs for an early hearing exam that could detect any kind of problem.

2. Raise awareness at a national level, amongst friends, government entities, health officials, schools, etc. about the importance of the early detection of hearing problems among children.

A nursery rhyme that became a free hearing test for those who couldn’t afford it

With the help of professional speech therapists, we created a nursery rhyme that could detect hearing problems in kids.

The song asks them to respond with simple movements to simple orders in the song. These orders are given in different frequencies and volumes, the same that professional audiometries use. If the child doesn’t respond to one of these orders, she could have a hearing problem, and the professor or parent should take her as soon as possible to a doctor.

3000 thousand children were exposed to Radiometries in controlled environments, 120 were tested by a speech therapist, under the suspicion they could have hearing problems. Of these 120, 18 children presented real problems and are now being properly treated. Reaching these 3000 kids in a remote exam would have cost nearly U$80 per kid, Radiometries reached the 3.000 with zero investment.

4.000 children are being tested in the public schools that have requested the test.

Radio stations opened up to talk for the first time about the problem. Parents are now well aware of the need to take the test.

Instead of trying to drive hundreds of parents to take their children to their closest health center and pay for a test for which they have no money, we decided to go the other way around.

We opted for a more “paramedical” approach. We created an audiometry where everybody could be tested at home or school and only those special cases with real possibilities of having hearing problems would have to go to the speech therapist in a health center.

We strategically used a medium that reaches 98% of the national territory, RADIO. Thus, we called our plan Radiometries.

Lack of Colombian legislation in hearing problems detection programs, Over 300.000 kids might grow with a hearing problem.

Over half of the Colombian population lives in rural areas, away from places where they can take a test, and the few that have access to it, lack the economic resources; a professional audiometry costs between U$20 and U$40, and minimum daily wage is close to U$15.

Also, rural schools don’t demand that children take an audiometry and children, are not conscious of their hearing problems.