The wire services are reporting that the U.S. Supreme Court will not hear an appeal by IMS Health Inc and Verispan that challenged a New Hampshire law would block companies from data-mining prescription information for the purpose of increasing drug sales. The companies had argued that the law violated their free speech rights. This is…
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A Push for the Wired Patient’s Bill of Rights
Starting with a few dozen supporters, including health bloggers, individual physicians, startups and Microsoft, a group is seeking to firmly inject the rights of patients into the Obama administration’s multibillion-dollar drive to computerize medical records. The group’s effort begins with a Web site, HealthDataRights.org, which goes live on Monday night. And it is a bottom-up…
Broad Coalition Says Consumer Role Is Key to Improving Health and Health Care
From the press release: The future of health care should encourage expanded use of information tools to help consumers better manage their health, 56 diverse organizations said today as they embraced a framework for personal health information access and privacy. “Consumers need to be full participants in modern health information tools and services to help…
Privacy Groups Challenge Calif. Bill
A California bill seeking to create a new regulatory framework for consumer genomics firms that interpret genomic data but do not analyze samples at an in-house laboratory has raised red flags within the personalized medicine community and among privacy advocates. California state Senator Alex Padilla (D-San Fernando Valley) earlier this year introduced SB 482, a…
CDT paper on de-identification of personal health data
The Health Privacy Project at the Center for Democracy & Technology today released a major paper advocating the need for stronger standards for “de-identified” personal health information when used for medical research, to promote public health, or other specialized purposes. Stronger standards are needed to ensure that “de-identified†data cannot be re-identified in order to…
FTC Approves Final Consent Order in CVS Caremark Case
Following a public comment period, the Commission has approved a final consent order in the matter of CVS Caremark Corporation, a case previously reported on this site that involved the hugest fine levied, to date, for a HIPAA violation. Additional documents on the case can be found here. Of particular interest (to me, anyway) was…