FDA Could Enforce Social Media Guidelines for the Pharmaceutical Industry

First Posted: Jun 18, 2014 03:18 PM EDT
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In order to make knowledge about prescription drugs more ubiquitous, the Food and Drug Administration could soon require pharmaceutical and medical device industries to post information on social media sites and correct false information.

The FDA announced on Tuesday that they proposed two draft guidances for industry on social media and Internet communications about medical products. These proposals aim to make accurate information more readily available to consumers so communication about medicines and devices can be more accessible and more of a priority.

The first guidance recommends that these companies post benefit and risk information on social media sites with character limitations so the presentation of information can be balanced. The administration hopes this will help companies provide a way for consumers to be involved in a forum or discussion about products.

The second guidance would require these companies to correct any erroneous third-party information that is posted on these social media sites, and elsewhere on the Internet. Corrections should be made on false information that is both positive and negative, and a clear enumeration of the company's response should be posted directly on the social media website or any other forum on the Internet.

"We developed these new guidances, in part, to respond to requests for best practices from companies and other stakeholders," the FDA mentioned in their blog. "We gave careful thought to our draft recommendations, and we understand technology will continue to evolve. So we worked across FDA Centers and Offices to develop best practices that can be applied to existing online Internet sites."

However, despite the FDA's concerted effort to make this a reality, Thomas Sullivan, the editor of the Policy and Medicine blog for a Maryland-based medical education company, does not believe it's plausible. He says most medications have too many side effects or other relevant information essential for documentation that wouldn't be able to fit on a social media site such as Twitter, where there's a 140-character limit.

Facebook would seem to be the only reasonable option because Twitter would be impossible to provide extensive information and the FDA has yet to propose regulations for other well-known social media photo-sharing sites such as Pinterest and Instagram.

Whatever the case, this is an interesting proposal from the FDA and hopefully it will help promote knowledge on a number of products that many people are otherwise unaware of.

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