If the Food and Drug Administration can't regulate how pharmaceutical companies market their drugs to doctors, its ability to protect the public will be severely diminished. A federal court ruling last week makes this scenario possible, and it will take a concerted effort by the FDA to continue setting limits on eager pharmaceutical salespeople.
The court decided that free-speech protections give drug companies the right to market off-label uses of their medications as long as the information they provide is accurate and not misleading. Off-label use refers to prescriptions of FDA-approved drugs for ailments or populations they weren't explicitly approved for, such as using chemotherapy created for one type of cancer for other types, or prescribing adult medications for children.