Editor’s Note: What is not clear is how well the FDA’s planned data analysis system will function regarding contraband cigarettes that are produced, distributed and sold completely outside the legal, licensed and taxed, distribution chain.
According to the FDA’s Request for Quotation, the initial “data sets that FDA/OCI will procure from a commercial source and/or obtain from US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and that the Contractor will load into the system….”
Thus, the FDA’s system will not have any apparent capability to spot contraband cigarettes which have been illicitly produced and/or smuggled into the country.
From: Nextgov
By Joseph Marks
The Food and Drug Administration plans to turn to data mining to spot illegal sellers of cigarettes and other tobacco products, solicitation documents show.
The agency is seeking a vendor to mine commercial shipping data going back to 2007 to spot oddities that might indicate illegal tobacco sales or trafficking in counterfeit cigarettes, according to the request for quotation posted Monday.
Other datasets may be added to the system later, the solicitation said.
The government and industry have increasingly turned to complex data analysis tools in recent years to spot patterns and peculiarities that warrant investigation or investment. The move to data mining has displaced more qualitative approaches to investigation.
The National Security Agency’s controversial program to collect telephone metadata is an example of how data analysis by computers can turn up useful information that humans alone would be incapable of finding.
The proposed FDA system is called “LeadMiner”
The agency is also considering a separate system to mine the Web for evidence of illegally marketed drugs, medical devices, cigarettes and dietary supplements.
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