May 11, 2012 — In the wake of the June 2011 U.S. Supreme Court decision in IMS v. Sorrell, which stated that a Vermont law violated the First Amendment because it restricted the sale of prescription drug data for commercial marketing purposes, the New Hampshire legislature recently amended a similar law on its books by striking “references to prohibitions on disseminating ‘prescriber-identifiable data’” and bolstering patient confidentiality protections, according to an article posted May 10 on Pharmalot.com.

The article quotes industry attorney Arnie Friede, who said: “The scope of the new law is not clear, how it would work in practice is not clear, whether in practice it would allow legitimate health care and insurance operations to be undertaken and completed properly while still retaining the apparent objective of the new law … is unclear.”