Over the next five years online will become the greatest source of illegal and counterfeit prescription drugs.

Full Article from iHealth Beat

Pharmaceutical companies can build more consumer trust in the quality of their Web disseminated information by implementing HIPPA or self-regulatory initiatives. This means exceeding their minimum duties of following only the FDA and FTC guidlines, but the payoff will be large.

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A survey sponsored by the Internet Healthcare Coalition in conjunction with the Pharma Marketing Network, and hosted by PollingPharma suggests that pharma companies should develop and follow their own self-regulatory ethical guidelines for DTC marketing- in the same way that PhRMA uses marketing codes to govern relationships with physicians.

The survey compares results from both the US and the UK, which puts an interesting spin on things since targeted disease or Rx information is not legal in the UK. A variety of quality standards for health Web sites are analyzed from both countries.

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The Bush administration has published a report titled “The Decade of Health Information Technology” that outlines plans to modernize the nation’s health care system through the use of information technology. The report lays out a set of government guidelines for technology related products and computer systems in doctor's offices, hospitals, insurance agencies, labs, and pharmacies, to help facilitate communication and allow for more efficient information sharing between these health related industries. Link to NYTimes article

FDA regulations stipulate that when advertisers promote a specific drug for a medical condition they must also state any possible side effects associated with that drug. For online advertisers this regulation, called Fair Balance, creates a number of unique problems:

Possible ways to combat Fair Balance issues include:

Full Article on iMediaConnection by Debrianna Obara, i-FRONTIER