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Recent data from the CDC has indicated that 50% of Americans are taking one prescription drug, and 10% are on 4 or more prescribed medications as well. Taking into consideration the aging population and the movement towards primary prevention with medications, it is likely a larger shift will occur in the next decade.
Coupled with this is the increasingly large role of social media in the daily lives of the social schema of many Americans — and we may have a new form of Drug Surveillance. It comes as no surprise that many patients report their daily status of health online, and include their experiences with their medications as well. But recent data has come out from researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital that Twitter alone could be a treasure trove of data.
Traditionally, adverse drug effects could be reported to the FDA through their Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS). From this, monitoring post clinical trials can be conducted for any issues that may arise. Many medications have been adjusted or withdrawn from the market based on unseen side effects on patients.
But Friefield and colleague’s recent study in Drug Safety demonstrated that patients are increasingly reporting their side effects via Twitter. Utilizing a semi-automated process to identify 23 drug products on Twitter, approximately 7 million tweets were assessed, with 60,000 evaluated, producing 4,400 identified. Many of the events related to side effects from drugs and how they were responding to therapy.
Another recent study by White and colleague’s in JAMIA also highlighted the use of social media in drug safety analysis. The researchers have highlighted the growing use of social media as a low-cost monitoring tool for federal agencies and drug manufacturers to utilize.
While these studies are sure to spark great interest in the use of social media as a new method to collect post-market safety data, there may be some shortcomings to consider.
Via Pharma Guy
When FDA announced the 2009 public hearing about regulating the pharma industry use of social media for promoting drugs, the agency asked for specific feedback regarding the use of social media for monitoring drug side effects.
Pharma Marketing News published survey results to see if and how the industry was using social media to monitor adverse events. The chart above shows some results. For more details read Social Media Adverse Event Reporting Safe Harbors, which includes a detailed summary of responses to the survey "FDA Regulation of Drug & Device Promotion via the Internet & Social Media" regarding social media adverse event monitoring, processing, challenges, and uncertainties.