Supreme Court case: Can drug companies buy doctors’ prescription data?

Warren Richey
MinnPost.com
April 26, 2011

The US Supreme Court on Tuesday takes up a case examining whether a Vermont law that blocks access to prescription-drug records violates the free-speech rights of pharmaceutical companies.

At issue is Vermont’s 2007 Prescription Confidentiality Law. The measure bars drug companies from obtaining and using a doctor’s prescription records for marketing purposes unless the doctor grants prior permission for companies to use the data.

The prescription-drug data do not identify patients. But drug stores, which maintain the records, can sell them to data-mining companies, which then sell the information to pharmaceutical companies.

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This article was posted: Tuesday, April 26, 2011 at 10:44 am

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