The United States Supreme Court has recently granted pharmaceutical companies the right to access doctors’ prescriptions as long as the patient’s name is not mentioned.

The process by which pharmaceutical companies access and use the information gained from a doctor’s prescribing records is known as data mining. The information that can be gained from data mining can be used by pharmaceutical companies to develop better drugs.

Previously, data mining had been restricted in Maine and New Hampshire in order to protect the privacy of patients. The issue of privacy and data mining has been in the court system for some time. In Vermont, a high court ruling struck down a law in Vermont relating to pharmaceutical data mining. As well, Federal Courts in Boston upheld the data mining restriction for Maine and New Hampshire and soon after the New York based appeals court struck down the Vermont law.

Finally, when the case was taken to the Supreme Court, it was ruled that anti-data mining laws unfairly restricted pharmaceutical companies’ access to the information. The Supreme Court therefore decided that companies could access the information as long as patient’s names were removed to protect their identity and thereby ensure that patient privacy is respected.