The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has proposed new social media guidelines that would require drug companies tweet both the benefits and side effects of their products.
The agency said if a company "concludes that adequate benefit and risk information, as well as other required information, cannot all be communicated within the same tweet, then the firm should reconsider using Twitter for the intended promotional message," according to The Verge.
Instructions are provided in company draft guidelines for correcting production information on websites run by other people, such as chat rooms. Another guideline focuses on how benefits and risks of products can be discussed in places with limited space, such as Twitter, Google and Yahoo. In this situation, clickable links to product websites would be provided, the Wall Street Journal reported.
"These are intended to have a beneficial impact on public health," said Tom Abrams, head of the FDA Office of Prescription Drug Promotion. "But these were not developed in a vacuum. They were developed with careful consideration and with input from industry and many other stakeholders. There was a lot of important consideration given to the issues."
If the guidelines are put into place, drug companies would still be able to tweet about their products if they have to use more than one tweet to provide information. However, once the companies provide benefits of the product, they must also mention its side effects, The Verge reported.
The guidelines would also call for companies to contact bloggers and request changes to articles with incorrect information. If a Wikipedia page related to a company's product has false labeling details, the company would have to change the page under the guidelines. The FDA said the company employee or contractor who made these changes would have to be credited for making them.
"This is not an opportunity for a drug company to tout its drugs," Abrams said, adding that the information "should be factually correct" and "consistent with the FDA approved [product] labeling."
The guidelines will go into effect in about 90 days, if they're approved.
