FDA To Regulate Online Drug Ads

Food and Drug Administration officials said this week that the agency plans to issue this year proposals regulating prescription advertisements on the Internet, and the agency likely will not differentiate between social media tools.

Since November 2009, the pharmaceutical industry has pushed FDA to allow companies to promote medical information about drugs on Twitter and other similar microblog applications, using abbreviated text. Current FDA regulations on product labeling do not distinguish between hard copy and digital content, like Twitter posts. "That's akin to using standards created for horse and buggies to regulate automobiles," said Jeffrey Francer, assistant general counsel for the drug industry group PhRMA, during a conference call with reporters on Tuesday. "So we're asking for new standards as quickly as possible."