Supreme Court: Can State Governments Dictate How Publicly Available Information Can Be Used?
At issue: Doctors prescribing records:
The data has become more available because pharmacies, which are required by law to collect and maintain detailed files about each prescription filled, can sell records containing a doctor’s name and address, along with the amount of the drug prescribed, to data brokers.
The law:
gives doctors the right to consent before their prescribing information may be sold and used for marketing.
Some exceptions:
Vermont allows those records to be used in research and by law enforcement, said Thomas C. Goldstein, a lawyer representing IMS Health. Moreover, he said, drug makers are allowed to buy the very same records so they can identify doctors whose patients might be good candidates for clinical trials or communicate drug safety updates.
Some side effects:
such laws reduce the ability of drug makers to quickly communicate with specialists about new drugs for rare diseases, a situation that could make it prohibitive for, say, a small biotechnology company with a tiny sales force to market a breakthrough medication, said Randy Frankel, the vice president for external affairs at IMS Health.
The free speech issue:
But industry representatives contend that Vermont should not be allowed to cherry-pick certain approved uses for the records in question while restricting those that conflict with what the law’s opponents say is the state’s apparent agenda: promoting less expensive generic drugs in an effort to lower health care costs.
Full article on the drug marketing dilemma.
This is a very complex issue. I’m definitely in favor of free speech. However, the slippery slope in this particular case is whether or not pharmacies can report the private business practices (e.g. prescribing habits) of third-parties (i.e. doctors) they are required to keep information on.
I believe pharmacies have a right to profit from information they collect in the normal process of conducting business. I also believe firms like IMS have the right to purchase data from the firms that own it. The question is: should physicians be able to opt out if they want their prescriptions concealed from marketers? I’m inclined to say yet; but I also worry about the excess burden this would add to record keeping. Doctors that might opt out are unlikely to be the target marketers are looking for. Those physicians that profit from relationships with drug companies are the ones most likely to want their prescribing habits known.
What in the blazes happened to doctor-patient confidentiality???? How is this not a violation?
The issue is: Can the state arbitrarily make information available for some uses and not others.
Have we learned nothing from Julian Assange?
I don’t think any entity should have access to the prescriptions my doctor prescribes for me without my written consent. That is what HIPPA is for.
As long as personally identifying information is left off it’s not a violation. (Ex-sales rep here)
The info is used for more than identifying clinical trial patients or drug safety updates. Pharmaceutical reps use that info to find opportunities for their products and usually what a rep will see is how many subscriptions were filled for a certain product in a given week. They use that to identify prescribing habits for a particular physician and to, in effect, change those habits by executing the company marketing strategy. But there’s no personal identifying patient material available that I’m aware of.
J’accuse!I also am skeptical of siocalized medicine, in the American context. However, we have been subsidizing rural electricity since 1936, and thus creating a permanent welfare class in our outback. See below, just one sliver our permanent rural subsidy program, since 1936.”Welcome to USDA Rural Development’s Electric ProgramsProviding reliable, affordable electricity is essential to the economic well-being and quality of life for all of the nation’s rural residents. The Electric Programs provide leadership and capital to upgrade, expand, maintain, and replace America’s vast rural electric infrastructure. Under the authority of the Rural Electrification Act of 1936, the Electric Programs make direct loans and loan guarantees to electric utilities to serve customers in rural areas.The loans and loan guarantees finance the construction of electric distribution, transmission, and generation facilities, including system improvements and replacement required to furnish and improve electric service in rural areas, as well as demand side management, energy conservation programs, and on-grid and off-grid renewable energy systems. Loans are made to corporations, states, territories and subdivisions and agencies such as municipalities, people’s utility districts, and cooperative, nonprofit, limited-dividend, or mutual associations that provide retail electric service needs to rural areas or supply the power needs of distribution borrowers in rural areas.Through the Electric Programs, the Federal government is the majority noteholder for approximately 700 electric systems borrowers in 46 states.The Electric Programs also provide financial assistance to rural communities with extremely high energy costs to acquire, construct, extend, upgrade, and otherwise improve energy generation, transmission, or distribution facilities.”I think the “right wing” broadly defined, is marginalizing itself by taking loud exception to market distortions and subsides–but only when the urban poor appear to benefit. Never do I hear the R-Party bash to ongoing subsidization of rural areas, which has helped create and sustain a whole population that can only be sustained by ongoing subsidies for roads, electricity, phones, even rural medical clinics. Check out where a lot of Homeland Security spending went. It become a boondoggle for rural districts. The Cato Institute has produced some excellent reports wondering about the size of our military when we face almost no substantive military threats. I won’t even mention the home mortgage income tax deduction, which is nanny-state social-engineering at its worst. I don’t know if the right-wing can ever change–and thus it will be rather easily pegged as a front for plutocrats, not a movement genuinely interested in real market reforms, all through the economy, and no cows sacred.I have to say, on this score, I am disappointed with Carpe Diem, although I admire the energy and openness of Dr. Perry (who I have never met). But, IMHO, if Perry wants to become a leading light for the right-wing, he should bring to light the full range of federal, or even state subsidies and market distortions, scared cows be damned.J’accuse! (Did I spell that right?)
DaveinHackensack:Maybe, but likely just a much smlelar rural population, and wealthier cities. We (the feds) are siphoning out of cities $100 billion every year to sustain rural areas, probably more (no state-by-state tallies).I expect rural areas would be clustered along the main highways, and railroads tracks. Might even have dirt roads running to railroad tracks.I understand FDR started the program, and it was a bad idea then and now. It is a regrettable market distortion, probably much larger than the minimum wage everybody gets so hot and bothered about. And sheesh, talk about environmental despoilation. J’accuse!!!!