Pharma Marketing Faces a Character-Count Conundrum

this_boat_is_real writes "There's growing concern over how pharmaceutical companies use social media and the Internet to market their products. Last November, the US Food and Drug Administration held a hearing on the topic, and many were worried over how marketing mediums such as Twitter — which has a 140-character limit on text — can sufficiently disclose drug risks." Here's the FDA's announcement about last year's hearings, which includes links to an archive of presentations as well as a video record of the meeting.

What's wrong with twitter and drugs?

[Vinegar Joe]

My dealer uses twiiter.

Re:What's wrong with twitter and drugs?

[cosm]

My dealer's girlfriend has nice tweets.

Re:A simple solution

[Shadow Wrought]

Why the fuck are you looking for medical advise on twitter?

Restless Thumb Syndrome?

Re:140 Chars?

[game kid]

Yo dawg, I herd you like side effects so we put a Viagra in your Viagra so you can go blind while you get priapism. http://www.viagra.com/ [viagra.com]

Re:A simple solution

[izomiac]

You shouldn't get medical advice from a drunk dude in a bar, but people do it. My guess is that this group seeking medical advice on Twitter overlaps very nicely with the group of people most susceptible to medical advertising.

Obligatory XKCD [xkcd.com].

Re:A simple solution

[game kid]

At least it improves on their draft slogan, "AstraZeneca: culling the unfit from the gene pool through unfortunate accidents since 1999".

Re:Isn't the solution obvious?

[lawpoop]

Anyway, the fine nation of Uganda has the .ug TLD. All we have to do is obtain dr.ug and set up a URL shortening service... What could be more logical?

Dr. Uganda?

It's easy to do in 144 characters...

[Anonymous Coward]

Viagra: Get yur d!ck up! F-ck lik a horse! SFX: Eye sh!t, belly sh!t, soft sh!t, piss sh!t, heart sh!t, brain sh!t, crash yur plane sh!t.

#Pfizer

See?

There's more info in 144 characters than you'll get from the tv commercials.

Re:Isn't the solution obvious?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

President Madagascar's personal physician...

Re:Isn't the solution obvious?

[deniable]

Connecticut. .ct.us so that you can have siddef.ct.us or couldeffe.ct.us Might work.