“Minnesota is a dead zone for pharmaceutical marketing research …”

January 27, 2010 – 12:43 pm by Chris

Did that title catch your attention?

A lot of press releases stream into my e-mail inbox. Some of them are interesting, some of them relevant, some of them both. Like many journalists, I hit my delete key a lot.

One from the Marketing Research Association nearly went into electronic limbo, until I caught that quote, from Howard Fienberg, the association’s director of government affairs. Mr. Fienberg was in Minnesota on Monday testifying on this measure, H.F. 1641, which would put medical device manufacturers under the same restriction as pharmaceutical companies when it comes to banning gifts to medical practitioners and requiring disclosure of payments made by pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers.

“Thanks to a vaguely crafted law and misguided interpretations, Minnesota is a dead zone for pharmaceutical marketing research with health care practitioners,� Mr. Fienberg says. “The legislation being considered, H.F. 1641, would shift the regulatory authority and expand that dead zone to medical device research.�

According to the MRA, “Even a change that would allow such payments to practitioners but require them to be publicly reported would not likely change the status quo for research. Pharmaceutical and medical device companies have stopped doing research in states with even the most rudimentary reporting requirements. To date, the only exception has been Massachusetts, where MRA won an explicit exclusion for marketing research in regulations last year.”

It’s not the first time MRA has lobbied against market research restrictions at the state level. Last October asked Maine’s Joint Standing Committee on Judiciary to exempt survey and opinion research from tthe Prevent Predatory Marketing Practices against Minors Act. The law, aimed at protecting minors in Maine under 18 years old, prohibits any transfer of their personally identifiable information, for any purpose, regardless of any parental consent. This, of course, prohibits health-related information.

But what’s this at the bottom of the release? “Diurea grindable farm neighborship superadiabatic ypserver. Debris leveller spinach hydrotherapeutics isolable, epoxy!” And then about 200 live links to things such as Thai stock traders and illicit online pharmacies.

It’s not particularly reassuring to imply to legislators that you can keep minors’ personally identifiable information safe, yet your industry’s own site is hacked. Ah, delicious, delicious irony.