A US Senate proposal to ban the medical data mining of physicians’ prescription writing for targeted marketing by drug companies will not be part of the Senate’s health reform bill according to a Senate staff member for Senator Herb Kohl.
A data mining ban on doctors’ prescription records would strike at pharmaceutical data companies like IMS Health and Verispan that collect and sell the information to drug makers.
The American Medical Association ( AMA ) also profits from its database of prescription data and probably would have fought the ban along with the data mining companies.
Supporters of the prescription data mining ban will continue to push for the legislation according to the Senate staffer.