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Full-Text Articles in Law
Mission Creep: Public Health Surveillance And Medical Privacy, Wendy K. Mariner
Mission Creep: Public Health Surveillance And Medical Privacy, Wendy K. Mariner
Faculty Scholarship
The National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program has parallels in the growth of disease surveillance for public health purposes. This article explores whether laws requiring health providers to report to government names and identifiable information about patients with infectious or chronic diseases may be vulnerable to challenge as an invasion of privacy. A shift in the use of disease surveillance data from investigating disease outbreaks to data mining and analysis for research, budgeting, and policy planning, as well as bioterrorism, tests the boundaries of liberty and privacy. The Supreme Court has not reviewed a disease reporting law. Its few related …
Newsgathering In Light Of Hipaa, Alexander A. Boni-Saenz
Newsgathering In Light Of Hipaa, Alexander A. Boni-Saenz
All Faculty Scholarship
This short piece examines the interaction between the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), a federal law designed to protect the privacy of individuals’ health information, and state Freedom of Information (FOI) laws, which are designed to ensure public access to government documents. It describes three recent cases from different states that addressed difficult issues about where and how to draw the line between the public’s right to know and individuals’ rights to keep their medical information secret. It concludes that questions about the interaction of state FOI laws and HIPAA should be guided by the framework suggested in …
Medicine And Public Health: Crossing Legal Boundaries, Wendy K. Mariner
Medicine And Public Health: Crossing Legal Boundaries, Wendy K. Mariner
Journal of Health Care Law and Policy
No abstract provided.
Medicine And Public Health: Crossing Legal Boundaries, Wendy K. Mariner
Medicine And Public Health: Crossing Legal Boundaries, Wendy K. Mariner
Faculty Scholarship
In 2006, New York City began a mandatory reporting system for laboratories to submit blood sugar (A1c) test results (primarily for diabetes) to the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene without the patient's consent. This article examines whether this new program is an innovative way to improve New Yorkers' health, an invasion of medical privacy, or usurpation of the physician's role. The registry is an example of public health initiatives in chronic diseases, which challenge the limits of laws governing medicine care and public health programs by blurring the historical boundaries between them.