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Rules for selling dietary supplements on Mercado Libre
Check Anvisa's rules for selling dietary supplements
The “Agência Nacional de Vigilância Sanitária” (Anvisa - Brazil’s National Health Surveillance Agency) establishes a set of rules about how the sale of dietary supplements should be. And following the rules for advertising this type of product is fundamental to avoid that your business suffers any sanctions.
Warning: The content available in English is not complete. To check the full version, please access Anvisa's website in Portuguese.
Before listing a dietary supplement, make sure that the product is regulated by Anvisa. The details of these rules are available at the Agency's portal. Check the main points of attention for listing supplements:
Disclaimers that cannot be used for dietary supplements
For the sale of dietary supplements, Anvisa does not allow the use of therapeutic or medicinal statements, that is, information that attributes to the supplement the effects of curing or prophylaxis of some disease or emotional condition.
Examples of disclaimers that are not allowed:
- vitamin "X" helps in the treatment of osteoporosis
- product "Y" helps in the treatment of baldness
- supplement "Z" helps fighting anxiety
- supplement "W" helps in weight loss
Disclaimers allowed for supplement sales
It is recommended that the seller inserts in the product description information such as: ingredients, allergenic components and the nutritional composition, and make it clear that the product is not medicine.
Please refer to Anvisa's Normative Instruction No. 28/2018, Annex V, to find out which disclaimers are authorized for the sale of dietary supplements. It is important to remember that it is allowed to use only the disclaimers listed in the Normative Instruction and that are described on the label of the dietary supplement duly regulated by the agency.
Learn how to list dietary supplements
It is essential to verify that your listing complies with Anvisa regulations. Make sure they comply with the agency's regulations and avoid the removal of your listing with the following actions:
- Make sure that the supplement is regulated by the health surveillance agency. If in doubt, consult the manufacturer, the health surveillance agency, or Anvisa.
- Be careful when using certain words or expressions in your listings to refer to the supplements.
- It is not allowed to state that the supplement helps to treat, cure, or combat any disease.
- Watch out for mention of diseases in the title or description of the listing. Any kind of reference to supplements curing diseases may lead to removal of the listing.
- You may not include phrases that mislead the consumer into believing that food is unable to provide the necessary components for health or that the supplement is comparable or superior to conventional foods.
When listing the supplement on the platform, make sure that there are no disclaimers that are prohibited by Anvisa to refer to the supplement, either in the title or in the description of the listing. In addition, it is important to check that the product label itself does not contain such disclaimers, even if in other languages.
Important: It is not allowed to advertise medicines in Mercado Libre.
Account penalties
Listings that do not comply with Anvisa regulations and with Mercado Libre's prohibited products policy may be removed from the platform and the seller may suffer sanctions on their account.
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