Sam Thielman reports: Your medical data is for sale – all of it. Adam Tanner, a fellow at Harvard’s institute for quantitative social science and author of a new book on the topic, Our Bodies, Our Data, said that patients generally don’t know that their most personal information – what diseases they test positive for, what…
Category: Healthcare
A Long-Lost Data Trove Uncovers California’s Sterilization Program
Sarah Zhang has a fascinating article in The Atlantic that raises important questions about privacy and confidentiality in historical-medical research. But the main point of the research – what we are now learning about California’s sterilization program – is so important on so many levels that figuring out how to address it sensitively and with regard for…
NY: Home health agency fined for violating patients’ privacy
Sean Lahman reports: A Rochester-based home health care service has been fined and sanctioned for violating privacy regulations in its effort to obtain new clients. All American Home Care has agreed to pay a fine of $25,000 to the New York State Attorney General’s office and to stop using patients’ private information for commercial purposes. An…
Breach of privacy: Medical journal retracts a paper for a photo used without patient’s permission
Menako Rao writes: Last month, the Indian Journal of Plastic Surgery retracted an article after patient informed the editor of the journal that it contained and photograph of her, the use of which she had not consented to. The article titled Surgical reconstruction or prosthetic rehabilitation following orbital exenteration: The clinician’s dilemma was about a woman who underwent a prosthetic graft…