396 Quantitative Analysis of FDA Warning Letters Related to the Use of Social Media Sites in Product Misbranding for the Treatment, Prevention, or Diagnosis of COVID-19

Abstract

OBJECTIVES/GOALS: Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warning letters regarding misbranding of products intended to treat, prevent, or diagnose COVID-19 were used as a proxy for assessing misinformation on social media. The FDA database of Warning Letters was used to identify the largest misinformation contributor. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: On November 9, 2022, the full dataset of warning letters dating back to January 1, 2018 was extracted from the FDA website. Separate datasets were also extracted using the search terms: Facebook’, Twitter’, YouTube’, and Instagram’. The data entries were organized by issuing office and subject. The subjects were then filtered to only include letters related to misbranding of products for COVID-19. Letters regarding medical devices, manufacturing practices, and adulterated products were excluded from the analysis. Cumulative totals were collected for the number of letters issued for each search term. These totals were stratified by year and scaled by platform size for relative comparison. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: The FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research issued the most letters related to misbranding of COVID-19 products, 153 out of the 2798 entries in the complete dataset. Analysis of the datasets by search term show: 53, 18, 24, and 17 letters were related to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram respectively. Forty-one letters were related to other non-social media sources. Facebook had the most letters issued, however when scaled to account for the size of each respective platform’s approximate user base, Twitter had the largest proportional amount of misinformation regarding agents for the management of COVID-19, followed by Facebook, then Instagram. Most letters were issued in 2020. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE: In light of COVID-19, many social media sites adopted policies to limit inaccurate information. The success of these efforts have been variable. Although Facebook is the largest absolute contributor assessed, greater attention should be given to the policies of other platforms utilized by the industry.