Kim Kardashian has fixed that viral Instagram post that the FDA demanded she take down
The reality TV star, who is pregnant with her second child, took to Instagram last month to share a glowing testimonial about the morning sickness drug DICLEGIS, for which she's a paid spokeswoman.
"OMG. Have you heard about this? As you guys know my #morningsickness has been pretty bad. [My doctor] prescribed me #Diclegis. I felt a lot better and most importantly, it's been studied and there was no increased risk to the baby," Kardashian wrote to her 42 million Instagram followers. She also tweeted the post to her more than 34 million followers on Twitter.
But in a letter dated August 7, the FDA ordered that the drug's manufacturer, Duchesnay USA, take the post down.
"The social media post is false or misleading in that it presents efficacy claims for DICLEGIS, but fails to communicate any risk information associated with its use and it omits material facts," the letter reads.
Kardashian's updated post, below, read in part: "I guess you saw the attention my last#morningsickness post received. The FDA has told Duchesnay, Inc., that my last post about Diclegis (doxylamine succinate and pyridoxine HCl) was incomplete because it did not include any risk information or important limitations of use for Diclegis."
The drug also comes with a warning about activities requiring mental alertness, and the most common side effect is drowsiness.
The FDA's letter called for Duchesnay to "immediately cease misbranding DICLEGIS and/or cease introducing the misbranded drug into interstate commerce," as well as a written response describing how it will spread "truthful, non-misleading, and complete corrective messages about the issues discussed in this letter to the audience(s) that received the violative promotional materials."
Laney Landsman, a spokeswoman for Duchesnay, confirmed that Kardashian's posts had been removed immediately, The Washington Post reported.
Given the fact that you can only convey a certain amount of information in a given space, social media poses a challenge for accurately communicating information about drug safety. And due to safety disclosure requirements, a lot of companies have steered clear of using it entirely.
But that doesn't stop individuals from spreading questionable information.
"Outside of a promotional context, Kim Kardashian, if she jumped on Twitter and made these statements, and had absolutely no relationship to the company, that would be fine," Kevin Madagan, counsel at Reed Smith, told the Post. However, "You need to be careful about how you go about doing it," he said.