Last week, Walmart made headlines by claiming that a new weight loss drug could cause people to stop buying food. John Farner, CEO of Walmart US, said: bloomberg People taking Wegovy, Ozempic, and similar drugs showed “modest changes” in their purchasing habits, meaning “less units and slightly fewer calories.” How does Walmart know this? because, bloomberg It has been shown that people’s prescription histories and food shopping patterns can be compared. This is the kind of data mining that would likely be possible in a large retail or pharmacy operation, and it raises questions about the nature of personal medical records.
Details of Walmart’s investigation are not known. The company did not respond to requests for further information. The Vergeand bloomberg provides a short two-sentence summary.
The Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer uses anonymized data about its shopper population to study changing sales patterns. Changes in purchasing behavior among people taking the drug can be studied, and their habits can also be compared to similar people who have not received the shot.
Walmart is in a strategic position to do this. We operate both a pharmacy program and a pharmacy network. Approximately 5,200 stores With approximately 3,500 one-stop shopping supercenter locations across the United States, many people fill their prescriptions in the same places they buy their groceries. Many shoppers won’t be surprised to learn that Walmart tracks general retail store purchases to predict future customer demand. bloomberg Walmart and others have suggested that they can use this data to prepare for a future in which people buy less groceries.
But someone’s prescription is more legally and ethically sensitive than the average grocery store purchase. Pharmacy records can candidly reveal health conditions that many people would like to keep secret. Not only will we know if you’re trying to lose weight, but we’ll also know if you’ve obtained abortion pills and if you’re dealing with a stigmatized mental health condition.And on the other hand, the U.S. leave a big gap In protecting consumer privacy, pharmacy records are protected by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which limits how they can be disclosed without patient consent.That begs the question bloomberg It doesn’t say whether companies like Walmart should be able to funnel them into other parts of their business operations. If so, what should the limits be?
“Buying and selling prescription data is a complex issue that balances patient privacy, commercial interests, and regulatory oversight,” said Tara Sklar, faculty director of the Health Law and Policy Program at the University of Arizona School of Law. says. At the federal level, HIPAA limits how companies can release health data associated with individuals, Sklar said.
However, the catch here is “individual”.Companies including major chains like cvs and ritual aid — He has been fined for actions such as throwing away medicine bottles with patient names and prescriptions visible.However, around bloombergWalmart promises that its data will be anonymized or stripped of personally identifying details that could be tied to a particular patient.
Unfortunately, the idea that large, complex datasets can be made meaningfully “anonymous” is largely false. polite fiction. (With no further information from Walmart, it is unclear what patient consent was obtained for Ozempic’s study.) “Even the anonymized prescription details reveal a lot about an individual. “It could be,” Sklar said. “Details such as drugs, dosages, timing, prescribers, and pharmacies are so unique for each individual that it becomes easier to re-identify them.” information is used in a way that increases the likelihood that personal details of people’s lives will be exposed.
Walmart is not the only company in a position to perform this type of analysis. For example, Amazon launched its own pharmacy service at the end of 2020 as part of its further efforts in healthcare, and is steadily moving into grocery sales. Access to medical data is raised concerns among privacy advocates. Privacy is not the only issue at issue. Recent antitrust lawsuits accuse Amazon of leveraging its data corps to solidify its retail monopoly.It’s unclear whether Amazon uses health records for the kind of research described by Walmart, but the company did not respond to questions from Walmart. The Verge About that matter. However, pharmacy records can add yet another powerful data source to their operations.
“Patients do not expect pharmacies to share or sell their medication records, whether anonymized or not.”
Sklar points out that HIPAA is not the only rule regarding medical records. The Federal Trade Commission has also issued a set of guidelines called Fair Information Practice Principles (FIPP) that emphasize ensuring that companies’ use of health data is consistent with patient expectations. And recently, the FTC has cracked down on some serious breaches of trust, including the GoodRx case, which allegedly allowed Google, Facebook, and other his web companies to use personal health information to target ads. . As part of the settlement, GoodRx agreed to unusually strict prohibitions on sharing health information with third parties. “Patients don’t expect pharmacies to share or sell their medication records, anonymized or not,” Sklar says.
But in an economy with many highly integrated companies that value unfettered access to data, it is important to understand when customers can expect their pharmacy records to be used for purposes other than their medical care and whether. It’s unclear what options you have if you don’t want the data. spread around.
Additionally, the study does not know whether Ozempic is reducing people’s food purchases. His GLP-1 drugs, such as Ozempic and Wegovy, are officially approved for diabetes but are widely used for weight loss purposes and seem to be rapidly gaining popularity. But Walmart’s Furner said: bloomberg “It’s too early to draw any final conclusions” about the impact on businesses. And that’s doubly true for outsiders if the details of the published research are too sketchy.
