A prescription for snooping

Los Angeles Times / latimes.com ^ | December 14, 2009 | By Andrew Zajac

[thecodont]

Reporting from Washington - When your doctor writes you a prescription, that's just between you, your doctor and maybe your health insurance company -- right?

Wrong. As things stand now, the pharmaceutical companies that make those prescription drugs are looking over the doctor's shoulder to keep track of how many prescriptions for each drug the physician is writing.

By obtaining data from pharmacies and health insurers, the drug companies learn the prescribing habits of thousands of doctors. That information has become not just a powerful sales and marketing tool for the pharmaceutical industry but also a source of growing concern among some elected officials, healthcare advocates and legal authorities.

The identity of patients is not disclosed in such data, but knowing in detail what individual doctors are prescribing enables drug makers to fine-tune their messages when sales reps call on doctors. They can lobby for use of an alternative drug made by their own company, for instance, bolstering the pitch with specially selected research data or free samples.

What worries some government officials and patient advocates is that keying sales tactics to an individual doctor's prescribing preferences -- known as data mining -- may distort decision-making and fuel prescribing of new, high-cost drugs.

[MNJohnnie]

Damn that inconvenient freedom thing! We MUST put the government bureaucrats in charge of this to protect us from ourselves!

/s

[ExTexasRedhead]

The Government Gestapo will know all, see all, and control all. That’s what Zero, Pelosi, Reid and the rest of the RATs and RINOs intend for their serfs. Freedom will be gone! Behold the American slaves to the state.

Don’t forget the Death Panels where Big Brother will decide if you live or you die. You can BEG your politician for your life. You can be sure that Freepers names are on a list along with the Tea Party participants, returning veterans, anyone speaking against Big Brother.

[UCFRoadWarrior]

I am more concerned with Big Pharma buying off the politicans than this data mining thing. Their non-free market over-pricing of drugs in America is a huge problem that no one wants to adress.....and scream when free market solutions are introduced

[personalaccts]

When is the EPA going to start mining how much water I use or how many toilets I have?

[Reeses]

Big Government routinely shakes down Big Pharma driving up consumer prices, such as Pfizer's recent $2.3 billion "fine", which gets worked right back into the prices. There is a lot of profit involved in the government bestowed monopolies and Big Government wants their piece. It's not fair to blame the pharmaceutical companies for the high prices they must charge to stay in business but that's exactly what Big Government wants you to do. Big Government makes by far the most money off drug sales than anybody, and they masterfully avoid all the heat. A reason the Democrats and MSM go after the pharma companies is because most of their donations traditionally go to Republicans. The Democrats have succeeded in shaking down the companies to even this up.

[exDemMom]

Oh noes, Big Pharma is engaged in marketing to their customers! The horror of it all!

Seriously—the fact that salesmen are out there, trying to get doctors to prescribe medications made by THEIR company instead of ANOTHER company means that there is competition out there, right? And isn’t competition the biggest factor in keeping a lid on prices?

I’m not going to attack Big Pharma for the prices of drugs. It takes a LOT of money (billions) to develop a drug, and for every drug that makes it to market, there are many others that fail. If they are prevented from recouping those costs, there won’t be new drugs. Where we get shafted is that these companies export drugs to countries like Canada at below cost, and we have to make up the difference.

[justiceseeker93]

The LA Times may think that snooping on prescriptions is being done only by the big, bad pharmaceutical companies, but in some cases, state governments, and even the federal government are doing the same thing, but their motives are far less benign. One of the purposes of these governmental activities is to use the prescriptions as a tool in prosecuting drug charges against patients and physicians.

[freekitty]

They need to go.

[firebrand]

Why is anyone concerned about this? Soon every medical fact about you, including prescriptions drugs you have taken or are taking, will be available to 116 different agencies.

[justiceseeker93]

Why is anyone concerned about this? Soon every medical fact about you, including prescription drugs you have taken or are taking, will be available to 116 different agencies.

I should hope that just about all FReepeers find that idea repulsive, and will stop at nothing to protect their natural rights from abuse by Big Brother.