Supreme Court to hear prescription data mining case

Is data mining legal?  Pharmacies sell electronic prescription records to data miners like IMS Health, which in turn sells them to pharma.  Pharma uses the data to track doctor's prescriptions, so that it can tell whether its marketing tactics are having any effect.  But many doctors and patients object to this, and some states have started to put limits on the practice.  On April 26 the Supreme Court will hear arguments in Sorrell v. IMS Health, Inc. et. al, on the constitutionality of Vermont’s data mining law.  Read about it here.