Supreme Court Rules Against Limits on Mining Rx Drug Data

Original post: on iHealthBeat

The U.S. Supreme Court overturned a Vermont law that sought to limit the practice of selling information about physicians’ prescribing habits for marketing purposes, the AP/Burlington Free Press reports.

The Vermont law also was aimed at increasing the use of generic drugs (Sherman, AP/Burlington Free Press, 6/23).

In a 6-3 ruling, the court said that the law placed an unconstitutional restraint on the free-speech rights of drugmakers (Kendall, Wall Street Journal, 6/23).

The Supreme Court ruled the Vermont law violated constitutional free-speech rights, even though the statute was drafted to prevent drug companies from using direct marketing to persuade physicians to prescribe brand-name drugs, Modern Healthcare reports.