Consumer Watchdog Calls on Google to Cease Lobbying Effort to Allow Sale of Patient Medical Records; Urges Congress to Adopt Privacy Protections in Economic Sti...(ject. The 5 patient privacy pro...),Health

The 5 patient privacy protections that Consumer Watchdog urged Congress to adopt in the electronic medical record section of the Economic Stimulus bill, include:

1. Retain & Strengthen Prohibition on Sale of Private Medical Data. Our private medical information, including which prescription drugs we take and which illnesses we have, is extremely valuable to the medical-insurance complex. Some want to market to us, others want to use this information to deny us access to insurance coverage. For instance:

• Google is said to be lobbying hard this week to weaken the ban currently in the draft measure on the sale of our private medical records. Google must not be allowed to destroy this basic privacy protection.
• On Friday, Representative Roy Blunt (R-MO) added an amendment to the House version of the stimulus bill allowing pharmacists to sell our private medical information without our knowledge. This amendment must be removed.
• Currently, the stimulus bill makes an exception to the ban on the sale of private medical information for purposes of "research." This loophole is large enough to allow drug companies, marketers and health insurers to buy our private health information for purposes of "researching" consumer advertising for the newest health products, or to decide which of us to insure.
• Another broad exception would allow companies to sell or exchange a patient's records if the sale or exchange is "to a business associate for activities ... that the business associate undertakes on behalf of and at the specific request of" the company holding the private information.

These blatant attempts to weaken privacy protections all must be turned back.

2. Provide an "Audit Trail" To Track Who Accesses
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