Can Patient-Generated Health Communication on the Internet Enhance Pharmacovigilance?

Can Patient-Generated Health Communication on the Internet Enhance Pharmacovigilance? (Part 1) Spontaneous reporting of adverse drug reactions by health care providers has been the keystone of pharmacovigilance.  Yet health care providers tend to under-report for a variety of reasons including lack of time, complacency, indifference, fear of medico-legal consequences or their uncertainty of the causal relationship between medication and condition.1 An unexpected opportunity to supplement spontaneous provider reliant reporting may be at hand. Communication about personal health that occurs over the Internet could be a resource for pharmacovigilance.  In June 2016, a think tank co-sponsored by the [...]