• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, May 10, 2010

If pharmaceutical companies can't adequately explain the risks of drugs in 140 characters, they shouldn't be allowed to use Twitter to advertise. That's according to the consumer advocacy group Center for Digital Democracy, which on Monday asked the Food and Drug Administration to preserve current policies on drug marketing even if they hinder the use of social media.

"Current FDA guidance on the presentation of risk information should not be compromised to the detriment of public health in favor of accommodating recent developments in online product promotion," the CDD writes. The group adds that if services like Twitter, which impose limits on posts, leave companies "unable to satisfy basic consumer-protective measures such as the fair balance requirement," those services are inappropriate for drug marketing.

The CDD also says that drug companies should not advertise in a host of digital platforms -- including email and social networking boards operated by third parties. "The only legitimate use of such tools to communicate directly with consumers is via a company's own website, and only with adherence to full 'fair and balanced' information rules," the group writes.

While the FDA probably isn't likely to ban direct-to-consumer ads, the agency could well decide that it's inappropriate to pair a drug name with a particular condition when space is too limited to describe the potential side effects, says Rebecca Tushnet, a law professor at Georgetown and expert in false advertising law.

But, she adds, even if space is short, companies might still be able to use so-called "reminder ads," which typically give the name of products but not the ailments they treat. "In the non-Twitter context, people have solved this problem with the reminder ads," she says. "In theory, it seems like that approach could still work."

The FDA recently held hearings addressing drug companies' use of social media and other online platforms to advertise. Last year, the agency told 14 large pharmaceutical companies that their search ads were misleading because the ad copy touted the benefits of drugs without also informing consumers about risks and contraindications. Drug companies immediately revamped their search strategies, both by curtailing the use of search ads and by revising the content of the ads. Now, when drug companies buy keywords to describe medical conditions, many no longer include the brand name in the ad copy or URL.