Health care companies that market drugs are going to stay away from social media until the legal thickets are trimmed by the Food and Drug Administration providing guidelines. Pharma is "years
behind in employing Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, Twitter and other social media to reach audiences with their messages. And with good reason: They fear the FDA coming down on them like a ton of bricks
for overstepping bounds that have yet to be defined," writes columnist Barry Cohen.
He notes Merck is, however, using Facebook to promote Gardasil, its cervical cancer vaccine, while
Bayer aspirin has a Facebook page for women, and Johnson & Johnson's McNeil unit has an adults-with-ADHD awareness page.
Last year, AstraZeneca suggested to the FDA that "certain
online communications, such as Facebook and Twitter posts, shouldn't be judged individually but as a group of individual comments. Doing so would allow drug makers to take part in social-media sites
without having to risk getting their hands slapped at every turn," writes Cohen.
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