May 05, 2006

More scary paternalism in the name of public health from the Bloomberg crew: the New York City government has begun "legally requiring laboratories that do medical testing to report to the Health Department the results of blood-sugar tests for city residents with diabetes -- along with the names, ages, and contact information on those patients. City officials are not only analyzing these data to assess patterns and changes in diabetes prevalence in the city, but are planning 'interventions.' ... If you wish to keep your medical data confidential, you cannot." Coercive public-health techniques originally seen as needed to combat communicable and infectious disease will now be deployed in hopes of correcting less-than-healthy individual behavior. Where's HIPAA, the manically overbroad federal patient-privacy law, now that it might actually do some good? (Elizabeth Whelan, "Big Brother Will See You Now", National Review Online, Apr. 25).(cross-posted from Overlawyered).