This privacy statement is designed to tell you how Thomson Healthcare uses and secures your personal information.This privacy statement describes the practices of the Thomson Healthcare Community, which is presently offered by the following Thomson Healthcare companies: Thomson American Health Consultants, Thomson Micromedex, Thomson PDR, and Thomson Physicians World. As described below, this privacy statement relates solely to the online and offline information collection and use practices of the Thomson Healthcare Community.

Information that We Collect

In general, you may browse online many parts of the Thomson Healthcare Community without providing any personal information. The information we collect from web site visitors is collected on an aggregate basis as you and others browse our web sites, and is not used to identify you in any way.

If you want to interact with Thomson Healthcare and take advantage of the materials available from Thomson Healthcare to qualified professionals (such as free CME opportunities or the PDR), you may register with Thomson Healthcare and join the Thomson Healthcare Community. You may register online at any of our web sites or offline, by providing us with personal information via phone, facsimile or mail. Registration is completely voluntary and free. When you join the Thomson Healthcare Community, we collect:

• contact information (such as name, office address, office phone and fax numbers, and email address), and
• other personal information (such as information about your professional background, licensure, practice and areas of specialization as well as any other personal information that you choose to provide us.)

We will tailor the materials we provide you based on the information in your profile, such as specialty. Please note that certain products (such as the PDR®) are only available to qualified, credentialed professionals, so you may not receive access to all of the services we offer if we cannot confirm your qualification.

If you are a registered user of Thomson Healthcare Community products and services, we will also collect information about your use of our products and services. For example, we will record information about the CME activities in which you participate, newsletters you subscribe to, and web sites, tools and other services that you use.

How We Use the Information

In general, we use all of the information we collect in order to:

• respond to your requests for information
• provide you with products and services
• determine if you are eligible for certain products or services
• provide customer service
• provide you with additional information that may be of interest, including marketing and educational materials from us and our partners

If you purchase a product from us (such as book or newsletter subscription), you may provide us with a credit card number. This credit card number will only be used to process your purchase. We will not disclose credit card numbers to any third party for marketing purposes under any circumstances.

Unless you tell us not to, we may also provide information about you or your practice to other Thomson companies and unaffiliated third parties. For example, like most publishers, we share our subscriber lists with selected business partners so that they may offer you products and services directly. Thomson companies also publish various quality programs and products, and we may include information about your practice in those items.

We may also share your information with other third parties who perform services for us, but we forbid these companies from using your personal information for their own purposes.

Please note that we may disclose any information as required by law, when necessary for health or safety purposes, or when needed to protect our legal rights. For example, we may disclose information about you in response to a subpoena. We may also disclose information about you in connection with the transfer of assets of our business. Additionally, as we continue to develop the Thomson Healthcare Community, we might sell or buy business units. In such transactions, customer information generally is one of the transferred business assets but remains subject to the promises made in any pre-existing privacy notice (unless, of course, the customer consents otherwise).

Your Choices

We use good faith efforts to respect your preferences about our use of your information. We only want to send you information if you want to receive it. We want to communicate with you in the manner that works best for you - whether that is via email, phone, fax or direct mail. You may change your communication preferences at any time by doing any of the following things:

• updating your profile through the profile link on a Thomson Healthcare Community web site homepage
• opting-out of emails by using the unsubscribe feature on the email communication
• contacting our customer services department by email at TH.customerservice@thomson.com or by phone at 1-888-227-6469 and requesting the desired change (e.g., opting in or out of faxes)

If you do not want to receive information from other Thomson companies or unaffiliated third parties, you may opt out by accessing your profile and checking the appropriate boxes in the preference section. You can also tell us at any time after you register that you do not want us to disclose your information to other Thomson companies and unaffiliated third parties by updating your profile through the profile link on a Thomson Healthcare Community web site homepage, or contacting our customer service department.

Accessing your Information

We strive to provide all our customers with reasonable opportunity to access and update their customer profile information. If you have disclosed information to us via online registration or by updating your profile you may access and update this information by following the link on a Thomson Healthcare Community web site homepage to your account profile. Our customer support department can also reasonably assist you with other requests related to information about you that may be maintained by us.

Additionally, if you have registered with the Thomson Healthcare Community previously but have not provided information needed to qualify for a PDR or other services that require credentialing, you may add information to your profile to enable us to qualify you and provide the additional products and services.

Privacy statement Parameters

This privacy statement describes the policies governing the Thomson Healthcare Community and the Thomson Healthcare companies listed above. It does not govern the practices at other Thomson company businesses.

Additionally, this statement applies to contact and other personal information maintained by the Thomson Healthcare Community. Personal information provided to the Thomson Healthcare companies in other ways (such as in offline communications with those companies outside of the Thomson Healthcare Community) will be covered by this privacy statement if such personal information is consolidated with personal information in the Thomson Healthcare Community.

Some of the web sites in the Thomson Healthcare Community may provide direct links to various sponsor and marketing partner sites, where you can apply for products and services (such as complimentary drug sampling). This privacy statement does not describe the practices of our partners. Before disclosing personal information to any other company’s web site, you should read the privacy notice associated with that site.

Cookies and Web Site Information

Like most other commercial web sites, we use standard "cookie" technology and web server logs to collect information about how our web site is used. Cookies are small pieces of data that are stored by your web browser on your hard drive. The cookies allow our web servers to recognize the computers used to access our web sites. Cookies allow you to move from page to page on the web site, by remembering the information about the entire session.

Information gathered through cookies and by our web server logs may include the date and time of visits, the pages viewed, time spent at our Web site, and the Web sites visited just before and just after our Web site. This information is collected on an aggregate basis and is not associated with your profile.

How We Secure Information Transmissions

Although no systems are completely secure, we have taken reasonable steps to help prevent the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control. For example, when we ask users to provide financial information (such as credit card number), or any information during the registration or profile update process, the data is protected using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption technology.

Changes to Our Policies

From time to time, we may use customer information for new, unanticipated uses not previously disclosed in this privacy statement. If we make a material change to this statement, we will post and highlight the policy changes, and we will also notify you via email and give you an opportunity to opt-out of the new data uses.

Individuals Located Outside the United States

If you are located outside of the United States, please be aware that any information you provide to us will be transferred to the United States. The Thomson Healthcare Community will comply with all applicable local laws in respect of your information. By joining the Thomson Healthcare Community, receiving our products or services and/or providing us with your information, you consent to this transfer.

Contact Us with Any Questions

If you have any questions about this privacy statement or our use of your personal information, please contact:

Thomson Healthcare
5 Paragon Drive
Montvale, NJ 07645

Phone: 1-888-227-6469
Fax: 1-201-722-2680
Email: TH.customerservice@thomson.com