A powerful drug industry trade group wants the Food and Drug Administration to get more involved in overseeing commercial web content that describes their products, but is not within their control. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America said it wants an FDA-certified emblem similar to the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval on web content that contains medication information. A universal safety symbol, argues the prescription drug lobby, would assure Internet users that the page they are viewing contains accurate drug risk data. They said such a symbol could be used on regular Web pages, and be compact enough for use on blogs and Twitter.

All promotional materials by companies for FDA-regulated products, wherever they may appear, are regulated. But PhRMA said social media tools offer an "unprecedented opportunity for third parties to speak about a sponsor's products without the knowledge or control of the product sponsor."

The association argues that manufacturers only should be accountable for pages they control, not sites like Wikipedia--an online encyclopedia that anyone can edit. The site includes many entries describing marketed drugs with information on the history of the treatment, FDA-approved uses, press coverage and investigational research.

A spokesman for the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation that operates Wikipedia told nextgov.com that experienced editors remove content that is not attributed to existing research. "One of the basic principles of Wikipedia is that we don't permit introduction of original research," the spokesman said. "Most Wikipedians default to a reductive editing process rather than an additive one."

For more on the FDA and drug labeling:
- see this nextgov.com article

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