New Zealand is one of two developed countries that allow direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription-only medicine. Critics claim a proposed trade deal could make advertising more worthwhile if drug-buying agency Pharmac is affected. Health reporter Eileen Goodwin looks at the issue.

Drug advertising is relatively low-level in New Zealand, but critics fear that could change if agreement is reached on the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), the controversial commerce and trade deal under negotiation.

Critics claim doctors' time is wasted dealing with increased demand for medicine, and that patients are at greater risk of exposure to newer, potentially riskier drugs.

However, the industry - and a University of Otago medical ethics professor - argue the time of doctors as gatekeepers of medical information has long gone. The industry argues that as advertising is regulated, it is a safer information source than the internet.

Just over 10 years ago, opponents harnessed health sector interest groups and ''got within inches'' of persuading politicians to ban the advertisements, campaign leader Prof Les Toop recalls.

''We managed the front page of the NBR three times in a row ... saying what awful people we were,'' Prof Toop said.

Prof Toop, a University of Otago general practice authority at the Christchurch campus, said he still wanted the ads banned, but acknowledged the industry tightened its standards. However, the self-regulation framework was essentially a ''joke''; few medical people bothered complaining any more about individual adverts.

''I suspect it's still unfinished business for various people.''

The campaign gained momentum because of outrage in the early 2000s about some big-ticket campaigns that doctors felt had been misleading.

New Zealand lacked an independent source of information about medicines, and he did not accept advertising filled the gap.

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Medicine run amok, or mere advice?