The FDA doesn’t care about the First Amendment rights of the companies it regulates. It cares even less about the “free speech” rights of those companies’ sales and marketing representatives.
And why should the agency care? One of FDA’s primary missions is to protect the public health and safety of the American people from illegal, adulterated and misbranded products. Doing so involves restraining food, drug, device and cosmetics companies from committing fraudulent and deceptive acts that are not protected by companies’ commercial free speech rights.
Nonetheless, FDA Matters envisions opportunities for FDA and industry to broaden permissible product communications. The key is understanding history, not constitutional law.
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I recently participated in a forum at American University Washington College of Law on “Evolving First Amendment Protection of Commercial Speech” and offered up my mantra that constitutional analysis is largely irrelevant from FDA’s perspective. I said “largely” because FDA is still part of the federal government and can’t act arbitrarily. On the other hand, the agency mostly operates within the zone in which government is given the most leeway: where public health and safety is at stake and the threat is from commercial (as opposed to individual) speech.
History, not constitutional law, provides the best explanation. The sale of bad food and drugs—often accompanied by slick, deceptive pitches—goes back millennia and was even addressed as a problem in most ancient legal codes.
FDA’s own birth comes from a time when state regulation and inspection of food and drugs was minimal, inconsistent and often corrupt. It is hard for any of us to imagine what an unregulated market in food and drugs is like. Yet, it is not so long ago.
The 1938 Amendments to the Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act gained popular support in part because of a traveling exhibit that portrayed the death and disability that resulted from patent medicines, counterfeit products, false medical and scientific claims, and adulterated and misbranded products. Lax to non-existent cosmetics standards were particularly singled out for their role in causing burns and blindness, as well as some deaths.
It is nice to imagine that this world is behind us, just an interesting piece of history. But it isn’t.
No industry regulated by FDA is immune from shoddy products, false claims, unscrupulous behavior and greed-induced threats to public health and safety. I am sure that none of my readers count themselves among these “bad guys,” but they exist in the U.S., as well as globally.
Further, even the great and innovative companies—household names that we view with great trust—have often proven to be quite fallible. A certain amount of informal off-label promotion of drugs and devices is rightfully ignored–when good studies have been published, when the off-label indication is very close to an approved use, when assertions are made with great care about the extent of proven scientific knowledge.
In contrast, most of the off-label promotions that have resulted in billion dollar settlements with big-name drug companies have not been based on such close questions. Nor have they been the result of an individual salesperson crossing the line in some excess of enthusiasm.
Rather, the off-label promotions have been the product of marketing departments and sales managers who encouraged, empowered, or authorized the off-label promotion. There never seems to be a good answer as to who was supervising marketing and sales, which is why so many drug companies are now operating under government-negotiated corporate integrity agreements.
From FDA’s perspective, there are legitimate, well-documented reasons to scrutinize all companies: none are immune from the impulse to over-hype products to expand markets and sales beyond what FDA has approved. This is not a matter of FDA being over-fussy. It is the inevitable conclusion from about 4000 years of human commerce in food and drugs.
In the face of this, the First Amendment really has very little place. Commercial free speech does not extend to misleading statements, blatant fraud, or deception. FDA sees too much of this to ignore.
FDA Matters believes the agency still has an obligation—but not a constitutional one–to clarify its standards, provide published guidance, and demonstrate acceptance that the Internet has fundamentally changed the nature of product promotion. The lack of FDA guidance on social media (first raised at an agency hearing 15 years ago) is particularly outrageous and the agency’s tendency to create de facto policy with enforcement letters is an abdication of responsibility.
The drug and device industry can also improve the situation. They need to stop looking at the current controversies in product promotion as noble causes involving sacred constitutional rights. If these industries have a claim to better treatment and clearer policies, it needs to be grounded in the contributions they make to improve public health and evidence of serious efforts to rid their companies of unscrupulous promotional practices.
Steven
I have written previously on some of the issues in drug and device promotion, as well as about opportunities for FDA and industry to reach accommodation:
Off-Label Promotion: Best Resolved by Congress, Not Courts December 2012
On December 3, a federal appeals court ruled against one of the FDA’s untouchable restrictions on industry—thou shalt not promote the off-label use of pharmaceutical products. An industry that is little interested in constitutional law suddenly finds itself talking about the First Amendment. At stake: permitting off-label promotion undercuts the incentive for companies to thoroughly investigate the safety and efficacy of a drug for a second or third use.
Off-Label Uses Need to Become On-Label Indications December 19, 2009
A friend asked: what advice would you give a pharmaceutical company in the late stages of developing a new product that will be widely used off-label? The company’s concern was that FDA might hold the first use to a very high, perhaps unrealistic standard to protect patients that might receive the drug off-label after approval.
Internet Communications: FDA Needs to Divide the Issues to Conquer the Problem Dec. 2nd, 2009.
Creating an Internet communications policy for regulated medical product companies is so daunting that FDA has largely ignored the responsibility. November’s FDA hearing on social media was an important step, but offered no sign that new policy will be announced anytime soon. FDA needs a different approach. This is not a matter of a large, complicated problem with many facets. Rather, it is a number of smaller problems that can be addressed separately.
Off-Label Promotion and Whistleblowing September 9th, 2009
Whistleblowing and off-label promotion of drugs and devices have become hot topics because of the September 2 Pfizer settlement with the federal government. While none of my views are specific to Pfizer, the company’s settlement provides an opportunity to comment on off-label promotion….and to encourage bio-pharma and medical device companies to engage in deeper soul-searching.