Two senators want to empower the FDA to send warning letters to influencers and telehealth companies that publish deceptive drug ads online and require drugmakers to report payments to social media stars.
The senators, Richard Durbin, D-Illinois, and Mike Braun, R-Indiana, wrote to FDA Commissioner Robert Califf, M.D., in February to communicate their concerns about the oversight of drug ads on social media. At the time, the senators were focused on getting the FDA to update its social media guidance to reflect changes in the social media landscape and clarify that platforms are under its jurisdiction.
Now, Durbin and Braun have decided to come at the problem from a different angle. The senators have drafted the Protecting Patients from Deceptive Drug Ads Online Act to close loopholes that prevent the FDA from putting a stop to some false or misleading online promotions.
Currently, the FDA can only target false or misleading posts by influencers or telehealth companies when they have an established financial relationship with the manufacturer of the drug, the senators said. The restriction prevents the FDA from going after influencers who promote specific prescription drugs to gain a following or seek alternative payment arrangements.
Durbin and Braun’s legislation would allow the FDA to send warning letters to influencers and telehealth companies, regardless of whether they have financial ties to the drug’s manufacturer, and follow up with fines for noncompliance. Ads that could be targeted under the law include posts that accrue a financial benefit to the influencer and contain false statements, omit facts or fail to disclose risks and side effects.
The legislation would also make manufacturers report payments to influencers to the Open Payments database. Durbin and Braun’s idea is to expand the existing model of disclosing payments to physicians to shed light on promotional activities, including through celebrities.
Multiple patient and physician groups have endorsed the bill. The American College of Physicians said (PDF) it strongly supports the bill as a way to target online posts that influence “users to seek out the drugs being advertised without appropriate warnings of side effects or other threats to public health.”
The introduction of the bill follows the social-media-fueled boom in interest in GLP-1 weight-loss drugs. Influencers and telehealth companies, not drugmakers, were behind the posts. The problem is global, with the FDA’s counterpart in Australia among the agencies to clamp down on telehealth companies that run unlawful promotions of weight loss drugs online.