Judges are chipping away at government censorship of communications about prescription drugs. The Food and Drug Administration exerts great power over a medicine’s label, which describes the medicine’s therapeutic claims. Drug makers and the FDA sometimes spend years negotiating a label.
The FDA regulates both safety and “efficacy.” So, a drug maker has to prove its medicine works to the FDA before marketing it to doctors. However, the cost of clinical trials to prove claims is monumentally high, so drug makers will not always invest in clinical trials for every indication. Once a drug is used, doctors will find that it is effective for more claims than indicated on the label. The new indications are often supported by peer-reviewed, published research. However, the drug makers have not yet invested the time and money to negotiate with the FDA to get the new claims onto the label. The FDA says drug makers can’t talk about these off-label uses. A federal judge just decided they can
Read the entire entry at NCPA's Health Policy Blog.
Research and commentary from a former senior executive in the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
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