US groups says HIPAA rules hamper drug R&D

The US Association of Academic Health Centers has called for the revision of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which took effect on April 14, 2003, because of concerns over the restrictions on biomedical R&D, including drug research. A report published by the group is consistent with finding from an earlier study, published last year in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which found that nearly 70% of 1,500 epidemiologists said the HIPAA rules made research more difficult. One in nine respondents also claimed to have abandoned research projects due to patient recruitment difficulties (Marketletter December 3, 2007).

The AAHC report proposes that the Common Rule from the Office of Human Research Protections or the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Civil Rights should be responsible for privacy issues relating to research data. The document is available on-line at the group's web site: www.aahcdc.org.