Privacy complaint targets online health sites

The New York Times: Consumer groups have filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission alleging popular health websites are collecting too much information from users, saying that "site visitors who provide personal details about themselves might not be aware that QualityHealth [among other websites] collects information about people's medical conditions, preferred medicines and treatment plans and uses it to profile its users for prescription drug marketing" (Singer, 11/23). 

PC World: "Some companies marketing health products online are targeting potential customers with depression, diabetes, asthma and other medical conditions based on their use of online health services and other sites" (Gross 11/23).

Meanwhile, a "Vermont law that restricts companies' use of information about the drugs doctors prescribe is unconstitutional on free speech grounds, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday," The Associated Press reports. "Three companies that gather information on drugs ordered by doctors and then sell the info to pharmaceutical manufacturers - IMS Health, SDI and Source Healthcare Analytics - had sued over the so-called data mining law." The law, which was passed in 2007, bans companies from using prescriber information for marketing purposes (Curran, 11/23).

Meanwhile, The Texas Tribune interviews Deborah Peel, founder of the Patient Privacy Rights. The intro: "Austin-based national patient privacy advocate Deborah Peel thinks our medical histories are in grave danger. With the emphasis federal health care reform places on expanding electronic health records — and what she calls an institutional disregard for patient consent technology — Peel predicts a future in which people lose jobs or are denied college admission because of their health conditions" (Ramshaw, 11/24).

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This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.