Author: Dissent

Susan Evans reports in the Tribune-Democrat: Medical records at an abandoned and dilapidated clinic in Colver have been thrown around the building’s parking lot and on the side of the road, despite a county agency’s promises that patient information had been removed. Cambria Township police Officer Boyd Sherry confirmed that he responded to a call…

Elizabeth Fernandez of the San Francisco Chronicle reports: Pharmacies in California would be allowed to sell confidential patient prescription information to third-party marketing firms working for drug companies under a bill expected to be voted on Thursday by the state Senate. The legislation would allow pharmaceutical firms to send mailings directly to patients. Supporters of…

Elizabeth Fernandez reports in the San Francisco Chronicle: Joan Broner, like many people, never reads the fine print at her medical appointments. As a consequence, the 58-year-old San Francisco resident, who has arthritis, regularly receives solicitation letters at home from several local hospitals. The letters infuriate her. “It feels like an invasion of privacy,” she…

Each new identity card to be introduced next year would contain an electronic chip containing the individual’s health record, Communications Minister Austin Gatt told Parliament yesterday. Moving the second reading of the Central Registry Bill, he said the information would be linked to Mater Dei Hospital, health clinics and, in time, to general practitioners’ clinics….

  Zack Kaldveer of the Consumer Federation of California writes: The California Senate rejected a bill this week by a vote of 17 to 17 (21 needed to “pass”) that would have allowed the sharing of a patient’s confidential medical information regarding prescription drugs among a pharmacy, third party corporations and pharmaceutical companies. The bill…

Lauran Neergaard reports: Woodrow Wilson’s secret stroke. Grover Cleveland’s secret cancer surgery. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s secretly worsening heart disease at the world-changing Yalta Conference. Notice a lot of secrets? While the public knows far more today about the health of its presidents and presidential candidates than ever before, do we know enough? And does knowing…