The Food and Drug Administration plans to control online prescription drug advertisements. They plan to issue new standards for posting medical information about drugs on social media sites such as Twitter or Facebook.

Currently, there are no regulations in place that differentiate between online advertisements and hard copy advertisements.  The FDA hopes to put guidelines in place that will “not become quickly outdated as the tools and technology evolve,” according to FDA spokeswoman Shelly L. Burgess in a NextGov report.

One issue the FDA faces with the regulation of online advertisements is that on these social media sites there is not enough space to include the full list of directions, side effects or drug interactions. The FDA hopes to put guidelines into place that will require promotional messages to be accurate and not deceptive.

A possible way to get around this shortfall of the Internet is to require a graphic that would indicate that the information is accurate. In a way, it would be a “seal of approval.” However, the FDA has not yet confirmed that this concept will be carried out.

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