Law
New Hampshire prescription privacy law upheld
A federal appeals court has upheld the constitutionality of New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation law making doctors' prescription writing habits confidential.
The ruling Tuesday by the 1st U.S. Court of Appeals in Boston overturns one last year in New Hampshire saying the law unconstitutionally infringed on free speech.
The appeals court said the law, intended to thwart hard-sell tactics by drug companies to doctors, is a valid step to promote the delivery of cost-effective health care.
"Even if the Prescription Information Law amounts to a regulation of protected speech _ a proposition with which we disagree it passes constitutional muster," the court said.
"In combating this novel threat to cost-effective delivery of health care, New Hampshire has acted with as much forethought and precision as the circumstances permit and the constitution demands," the court said.
Drug companies use the information to target and tailor sales pitches to particular doctors. Patients' names are not included in the data.
Less than a month after the law took effect in 2006, IMS Health Inc., of Norwalk, Conn.; and Verispan LLC, of Yardley, Pa., sued to have it declared unconstitutional.
The data compiled by companies like IMS and Verispan is considered invaluable by the tens of thousands of drug company salespeople, who use it to identify doctors' drug preferences, whether they favor brand-name medicines over generics, and whether they have been willing to prescribe new drugs to the market.
The companies, which collect, analyze and sell prescription information, said the law went too far. They argued it violated free speech, endangered public health and impeded research.
U.S. District Judge Paul Barbadoro in Concord threw out the law in April 2007. Another federal judge subsequently ruled against a similar law in Maine, relying heavily on the New Hampshire decision.
The appeals court decision applies to both states' laws because they are in the 1st District.
New Hampshire Attorney General Kelly Ayotte appealed the New Hampshire decision. She said the law protects doctor-patient relationships and the health and safety of patients while also helping to contain health care costs.
Barbadoro had ruled that the law placed a burden on free speech and that the state had not shown the law would reduce unnecessary spending on prescription drugs.
Supporters of the law said drug companies use the data to manipulate doctors and aggressively market off-label uses for drugs, driving up health care spending and improperly interfering with doctors' practices. Off-label uses are uses not specifically approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
The data-mining companies stress that the information they gather also is used by researchers, law enforcement and government agencies.
(Published by AP - November 19, 2008)