The ACLU fought a similar case against the state of Florida on behalf of Rush Limbaugh after his pill-popping got him in hot water. (Yes, even neoconservative douchebags won’t turn down help from the ACLU when it’s their rights on the line.)
Exactly - just as if I discussed my medical treatment with a family member or priest or attorney - there’s no expectation of privacy…
Good to know the next president will be to the right of his administration no matter what.
Conservative - A Liberal who hasn’t yet had their civil rights challenged.
Pretty much
Why was PDMP even involved? Where did they get these records, and did they obtain informed consent from the patients involved?
Whaddaya mean? Conservative rights are constantly under attack! Like the right to discriminate aginst them queers, the right to carry assault weapons into Arbys, the right to graze cattle on public land for free and threaten to murder anyone who says otherwise…
The Obama administration disagrees, and argues that since the records have already been submitted to a third party (Oregon’s PDMP) that patients no longer enjoy an expectation of privacy.
I don’t know what Oregon’s PDMP is, but are they really arguing that because a third party had some access, then I should expect ANYONE to have access to my records?
Seriously, fuck the DEA.
FUCKING RIDICULOUS! We bend over backwards for HIPPA but those drug addicts at the DEA can just come waltzing in. This is a COMPLETE NON-START.
Well, that’s pretty much the raison d’etre for the shit-eating dogs in the DEA and the bootlicks who think they shouldn’t all be summarily fired.
The Oregon Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) is a tool to help healthcare providers and pharmacists provide patients better care in managing their prescriptions. It contains information provided by Oregon-licensed retail pharmacies.
http://www.orpdmp.com/
New PDMP Legislation:
Senate Bill 71 was passed during the 2015 Oregon legislative session and signed into law June 18, 2015:
Pharmacies are required to electronically report data no later than 72 hours after dispensing a prescription drug that is subject to the prescription monitoring program.
Medically necessary prescriptions are required to be reported to the PDMP. The ‘program’ is not voluntary. It almost appears as though it were designed to facilitate government harassment.
I’m not a raging libertarian type, but this is institutionalized interference in doctor-patient privilege writ large. And it was interference even before the DEA became involved. Pharmacists are not only required to report this profoundly sensitive information to PDMP, they are required to do so via a (probably weakly protected) electronic portal. It’s hard to see how this state reporting system does not violate HIPPA. However, the HIPPA statute is huge and complicated and there is probably an exclusion of state agencies in it somewhere.
I do not think non-start means what you think it means. But 4th Amendment aside, HIPAA is very strict about health information, and I do not recall an exception for DEA fishing trips.
At east in Colorado (not sure of Oregon), the pharmacy must submit the info to the pdmp, but your provider is under no legal obligation to Consult the pdmp. So the data is there if your provider wants to look and see how often you are filling certain prescriptions.
The crazy thing is that, while it lists all controlled substances, it doesn’t list other medictions. So if you come into the ER for backpain, we can see that you have filled zero or 928 prescriptions for oxycontin. But if you arrive unconscious, I can’t see if you take medications for seizures…
So what are we doing to fix the 3rd party doctrine again?
Maybe use it to shield a whistleblower to test (and define) its limits?
The government’s definition of privacy excludes anything shared with any other entity?
That’s basically reducing privacy to the realm of thought.
Sounds like the patients have had their information shared for the benefit of healthcare providers with the ostensible goal of providing better health care. Since pharmacists and doctors are actually involved in your care, HIPAA privacy rules are still in effect.
I think this is a by-product of our emotion-driven crisis-management mentality as a nation. OMG the terrorists! OMG the mass shooters! OMG the opiate epidemic. These are all real problems, but we aren’t served by quick fixes and feel-good measures. Legitimate news headlines have turned into clickbait.
From District Court Judge Ancer L. Haggerty, as quoted in the linked article:
“By obtaining the prescription records for individuals like John Does 2 and 4, a person would know that they have used testosterone in particular quantities and by extension, that they have gender identity disorder and are treating it through hormone therapy."
After reading this, the DEA’s interest in prescription records strikes me as a data mining tactic more than anything.
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