Originally published at: Complaint filed after writer and "whistleblower" publish details of young trans patient | Boing Boing
…
10 Likes
Sue the shit out them; make them pay dearly for the evil they do.
41 Likes
I hate that being outed is such a baseline trans experience. You come out to your friends and family, then somewhere along the line someone maliciously outs you. How bad it is depends on who does it. Trans children especially seem to get outed to “save” them. With no concern for how the kids safety was jeopardized.
I remember there was an infamous TERF in Cali ten years ago who made it a point to out trans teens in high school to “protect the children”
I hate that this is such a common experience.
38 Likes
From everything I’ve read about him, it seems that this Jesse Singal has decided to base his career on creating mental and physical pain to trans youth. I hope this HIPAA complaint hits him hard.
28 Likes
Why are these people so exhaustingly, relentlessly, predictably shitty? Don’t they have something better to do?
Even if one hates trans folk (which, to be very clear, I think is wrong), I don’t understand the effort being put in to stick one’s nose where it doesn’t belong.
23 Likes
As I tweeted the other day:
33 Likes
I often have the same thought.
What I wish on folks like this is the realization that their own lives are a mess because of wasting time and effort trying to run and/or ruin the lives of other people. Then they can go right to…
28 Likes
What exactly should Signal be sued for?
Breaching patient confidentiality.
19 Likes
For endangering children, for one… for violating HIPAA for another. He’s not a whistle blower… he’s a transphobe masqurading as a crusader for children.
26 Likes
Hello, random person who hasn’t been active for a year.
In case the other people who already answered the obvious ‘question’ you ‘just asked’ didn’t make it clear enough:
HIPAA violations are serious as fuck.
29 Likes
Obtaining private health information that you have no clinical justification to see is itself a crime. Showing someone else, journalist or no, is a crime. Disclosing it to the public, an additional crime.
26 Likes
But those corrective actions are implemented at the organization level, not the individual level.
This is a perfect example of when authorities should go for maximum penalties. First, this involves children’s confidential medical data. Second, this information isn’t simply embarrassing, it’s potentially lethal for the kids and their families.
If they don’t bury Singal and Reed (who is not a whistleblower by any definition) as deep as the law allows, it takes all the teeth out of the privacy provisions of HIPAA.
And just to clarify, there is no carve out for journalism in HIPAA. There isn’t even a carve out for medical/scientific publications. Patient privacy must be maintained and where anything related to patient medical data is concerned, even anonymized, consent from the patient must be secured in writing. Which, of course, Reed and Singal did not get.
26 Likes
My understanding of whistleblower laws is that they protect employees from abuse and retaliation from the employer.
Neither Reed nor Singal were employees of the clinic during the reported breech. They weren’t ever subjected to abuse or retaliation from their employers. And they’re not being sued by the non employer.
That’s some complete bullshit claim of whistleblower protection from a complaint by a parent and child.
27 Likes
If you care about this subject you should read “Time to think” by Hannah Barnes or maybe the Cass Review about the NHS Tavistock clinics similar failings.
In a just world, Jesse Singal would never work in journalism, or even “journalism,” ever again.
In our world, dominated by major news organizations dedicated to transphobia-for-clicks, he’ll probably be offered a weekly column in the New York Times.
(In another decade or so, Singal and/or the Times will run a column asking bewilderedly who on earth was responsible for all that nasty transphobia back in the day…
7 Likes
Are you suggesting that alleged medical malpractice justifies breaching patient confidentiality?
9 Likes
I sure as fuck hope not; NOTHING justifies that without the patient’s explicit consent. (Ethically speaking, at least; it’s been a while since I reviewed the HIPAA laws…)
8 Likes
I heard that there may have been issues at a prostate cancer clinic in Bulgaria. This obviously taints all prostate cancer treatment - everywhere.
9 Likes
