Health & Healthcare | By July 17, 2008 | By Jennifer Bunn, RN | 5 Comments

The Ethics of Selling Prescription Data

The compilation and selling of physician prescribing habits has been a common practice since the 1990’s. Many physicians were unaware that the issue was occurring.

Pharmaceutical companies argue that the mining of prescribing data has beneficial uses, such as providing information about drug interactions and long-term effects, and prevention of drug errors. Pharmaceutical companies have also stated that without the use of this information, they would be less able to target educational information. Doctors would see an increase in sales calls and a decrease in needed drug samples. Read more →