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In 2008, Nielsen conducted an analysis of 500 healthcare-related postings across a variety of disease categories and social media sites and found that only "one message incorporated the information needed to meet all four of the FDA’s AE reporting requirements."

The FDA requires that all adverse event reports contain the following information:

1. An "identifiable patient,"
2. An "identifiable reporter"
3. Refer to a "specific drug or biologic"
4. Refer to a "side effect or fatal outcome"

2009 Study Provides Additional Information on Volume of Pharmaceutical Adverse Events

In a follow-up study published on the blog Dose of Digital, Jonathan Richman of Bridge Worldwide and Melissa Davies of Nielsen conducted an analysis of how many days it would take to find a reportable adverse event for for popular medications manufactured by Eli Lilly and Company, Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline.  The results of this analysis appears below.

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Richman and Davies concluded: As these results indicate "it takes a long time before a discussion with a reportable adverse event pops up. For example, it would take almost a month’s (29.6 days) worth of discussions to find one Geodon reportable adverse event."