On September 16, 2014, WLF filed formal comments with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), urging it to rescind a recently released draft guidance document that imposes severe restrictions on the right of drug and medical device manufacturers to use Twitter and other similar social media. Twitter limits all messages to 140 characters or less. FDA’s draft guidance states: (1) manufacturers may not post anything online about their products unless they include detailed risk and benefit information; and (2) because most manufacturers cannot squeeze all that information into 140 characters or less, they should refrain altogether from using Twitter and similar social media platforms. WLF argued that FDA’s speech restrictions violate manufacturers’ First Amendment rights, stating that FDA could achieve its objectives (consumer access to risk and benefit information) without imposing a total speech ban.
