The very fact that the US government is examining the regulatory framework for how companies engage with the public through social media speaks to the explosive, revolutionary impact of the age of public engagement:

Government leaders and their advisors see that the health engagement train has left the station -- gliding, twisting and turning on ever-crossing, infinite tracks of the Internet, and that all participants in society need to collaborate with engineers of the train. As Newsweek’s Jacob Weisberg articulates in his Nov 9 column, “In a world where everyone has his own printing press, restrictions on personal behavior will become increasingly untenable.”

This unrelenting, unlocking of all rules of public engagement online means there could be harm in trying to prevent medical products companies from participating. The conversations are already happening; information and opinion are being promulgated; and, medical products are being discussed. We need the people (and yes, companies are comprised of actual people!) who know the products best to be able to correct, clarify, and educate to ensure an effort to create “fair” balance, so we don’t paradoxically create a public engagement that is unfair – harmful to the public good.

At the same time, business leaders need to understand that fundamentally, many stakeholders – including government officials, social and medical pundits, and health advocates from the most organizational to the “merely” individual – don’t trust them. Not enough, anyway, for businesses that profit from something that many see as a social right and all know to be absolutely, literally, about life and death. When a company’s social responsibility is its very product line – as it is in the business of health care – earning and maintaining the public trust is harder – but all the more important when doing well and good are increasingly one in the same.

Thankfully, the FDA is now helping to change the dialogue between government and business as relates to communications about medical products. This moment can be a trust game-changer too.

Health communicators and public engagement leaders need to help strange bedfellows better understand each other. Openness and the public health are not mutually exclusive when all parties act according to the golden rule. Whether “corporate” or “consultant,” we need to create more great examples – of digital conversation that educates with flair but no spin, informs in real time, and empowers people to take more responsibility for their personal health reform. The social comtract among government, medical products companies and public is challenged now more than ever – and more but better public engagement by medical products business is the only approach that is healthy – literally.