New Hampshire data mining law overturned

The US State of New Hampshire has announced that it will appeal a federal trial court decision, that a state law which banned firms from "data mining" by selling, using or distributing patients' prescription drug information, was unconstitutional. Federal Judge Paul Barbadoro ruled that the law violates the the US Constitution's First Amendment and "restricts constitutionally protected speech."

New Hampshire Governor John Lynch (Democrat) approved legislation last year that made New Hampshire the first state to restrict drugmakers from having access to information that identifies physicians' prescribing choices.

IMS Health and Verispan, two of the major US analysts of medical data, filed a complaint in a US District Court. The plaintiffs said the law "violated free speech rights, endangered public health and impeded research." The New Hampshire case was that: "our primary argument was that the transmission of data was not speech."