Title : Adverse event reporting on health websites – A pilot study

November '09

Reports suggest the growing use of social media for discussing drug related adverse events (AEs). In this paper, we investigate the use of health websites as a source of AEs based on assessment and analysis of data across three drugs. We also discuss the importance of monitoring AEs cited on the internet and challenges associated with monitoring, assessing and reporting these. We identified 713 AEs from our investigation across a 3 month search period and across 3 products. Of these total AEs, 55 were unlabeled and serious. We expect that this investigation will serve as an aide to an informed discussion amongst the pharmaceutical companies and the regulators about using the internet, and specifically, using health websites as a valid source of AE reports and an additional avenue to obtain safety information on marketed drugs.