[ExI] DuckDuckGo

[spike at rainier66.com]

…> On Behalf Of Brent Allsop via extropy-chat
Subject: Re: [ExI] DuckDuckGo

 

>…  Everyone else likes to stay private, but not me…

 

Hi Brent, I am with you.  I also like fruitcake and I reveal everything medical.  But now there is more to it than that.  Read on please sir.

 

> ….To me, being so private is just selfish.  On the eff’n privacy HIPPA form they now have for all the Docs, where it asks who can access my data…

 

If you meant HIPAA forms, it helps to understand the history behind medical privacy law in the USA and how we got to here.  HIPAA hipsters are welcome to comment: much of our current med privacy law evolved during a previous virual pandemic: human immunodeficiency virus, HIV.  During the peak years of infection (early 1980s) the legislatures and courts discovered that the 4th amendment applies to all things medical.  The whole “persons, houses, papers and effects” thing was viewed very generally (and rightly so in my opinion.)  

 

HIV/AIDS has consequences that are with us to this day, such as… we ended up with insufficient means to track what should have been an excellent early indicator of the behavior of covid (and the two previous SARS outbreaks) dynamics which was the bike rally in Sturgis SD.  There we had what looked like the perfect incubator for transmission (and was the reason I didn’t go in 2020.)  I went nuts trying to find out what we learned from that, which turned out to be very little because of strong patient privacy rights in the USA which trace back to a number of court decisions (based on 4th amendment considerations (which means they aren’t going to change (because local and state law cannot overrule it or overturn it.)) 

 

Long term consequence: the USA is a place with a looooootta lotta international travel all over the globe constantly, lotta advanced hospital equipment, lotta doctors, lotta money, lotta people, plenty of everything except… access to medical records unless the patient takes deliberate action to reveal (a no-op on the part of the patient is presumed no permission to access.)  Result: most of the best feedback on the efficacy of vaccines developed in the USA comes from outside our borders, where we know less about the conditions and circumstances.  Consequence: what shoulda been a perfect experiment with plentiful and willing lab rats (the bikers) goes to waste.  Other countries must tell us how our own vaccines work or don’t work.

 

Note: I am not arguing that the courts should re-examine the privacy rights decisions made 40 yrs ago, nor am I in favor of that.  I am not arguing that law should be driven by health emergencies.  Privacy is a form of freedom.  The freedom of privacy is a right but it has its costs.  Sometimes those costs are very high.

 

spike

 

 

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