Laws Against Discussing Pandemics, Cont ’d: Privacy

Walter OlsonIwrote last week in this space about government ’s longstanding tendency during dangerous outbreaks of contagious disease to assert control over public discussion of medical matters on the rationale of preventing the spread of misinformation. (Some members of Congressare currently trying to browbeat platforms into taking down social media posts that promote erroneous notions about vaccines.) Citing the flu pandemic of 1918 –19, I pointed out that “rather than quieting the rumor mill and the popular spread of false ideas about the virus, the tight control of information [often does] the reverse.”There ’s a less visible and more politically sacrosanct way in which modern government also tries to curb discussion of disease outbreaks, namely privacy law. If a co ‐​worker you see regularly at your workplace comes down with the illness, for example, there’s a good chance you ’ll receive a cryptically worded message from management that awkwardly half ‐​anonymizes, rather than names, the colleague (“someone on the fourth floor”) in line with guidance from the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or its state counterparts. “Oh, must be HIPAA,” people chuckle, which is not strictly accurate, since that health privacy law (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) covers only those in the health business. The practical difference doesn’t matter that much, however, since broad privacy ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs