Category: Uncategorized

I’ll be offline until Monday, traveling with some friends.  Blogging will resume Monday. Hope everyone enjoys the rest of their week!

It was one of the first breaches reported to HHS under HITECH, and it had never been in any media reports that I had seen.  Even to this day, HHS’s breach tool does not provide any specifics other than 501 people were affected by the theft of a USB drive. But in a press release…

Kathy Tomlinson reports: A Vancouver man who transcribes medical records for a living says patients have reason to worry about the privacy and accuracy of their medical information. Donan Forde says that’s because all dictated reports by hospital physicians in B.C.’s Lower Mainland will soon be transcribed by private contractors, accessing and working on records…

Jane Yakowitz writes: Vioxx, the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug once prescribed for arthritis, was on the market for over five years before it waswithdrawn from the market in 2004. Though a group of small-scale studies had found a correlation between Vioxx and increased risk of heart attack, the FDA did not have convincing evidence until it completed…

Na Jeong-ju reports: The state-run disaster control agency is working with a credit card company to issue cards that will contain biological information about holders to enable a quick and effective treatment in the event of an emergency. Heated debate concerning possible privacy violation and the consequences a leakage of such information could bring will…

James Brooks reports: A French court has effectively reaffirmed the country’s policy of gamete donor anonymity by rejecting a donor-conceived woman’s demand for information on her biological father. The woman requested that a message be passed on to the man asking whether he would accept to be identified. She was also seeking disclosure of non-identifying information – medical…