Would You Trust Your Medical Records to a Company Run By Steve Case?

Two timely items I want to share, both having to do with legal niceties surrounding health and food:

1. A member of Steve Case’s team at Revolution Health, the best known of several online firms hoping to capitalize on patient record databases, left an interesting comment a couple days ago. In response to my stated suspicions that Case, the ultimate marketer in growing AOL, would find a marketing maven’s dream in all the medical records at his disposal, Caroline Curtin, director of privacy, said in a comment the startup company "will not use the personal details of a consumer’s personal health portfolio, lab reports or medical records to market to them, and we will not rent, sell or share consumers’ personal information with outside companies, including insurance and pharmaceutical companies."

So I went to the privacy page Curtin referenced and braced myself for a long read through lots of fine print. It is a long and tedious read, though the language is clearer than I would have expected. And sure enough, there are any number of statements that individual member information won’t be sold or otherwise made available, except in aggregate form.

But then I came across a paragraph that kind of made me nervous: “We may release personal information to third parties: (1) to comply with valid legal requirements such as a law, regulation, search warrant, subpoena or court order; or (2) in special cases, such as a physical threat to you or others, a threat to homeland security…”

As we’ve all come to understand over the last few years, “homeland security” can be a catch-all excuse to go after all kinds of records, such as telephone and credit card info. And after seeing how easily search warrants can be obtained, as in the case of Richard Hebron and Family Farms Cooperative, I’m leery. In other words, don’t expect these people to put up a big fight to protect your medical records.

2. The Ohio Department of Agriculture has appealed Carol Schmitmeyer’s victory in a lower court decision that restored her dairy license and could have allowed her to continue her cowshare arrangement. But alas, the cowshare must wait, according to Gary Cox, her lawyer.

“The record will have to be transmitted, briefs will have to be filed, then oral argument heard. The whole process could take another six months before a decision is issued. In the meantime, the Schmitmeyers cannot make raw milk available to their shareholders because the trial court’s decision imposed that prohibition during the time, if any, there was an appeal. Now that there is an appeal that prohibition remains in force. Bummer.”

Cox says the ODA may have filed the appeal as a reflex action because it is in transition between Republic and Democratic administrations, and the new head of ODA didn’t have the opportunity to review the case carefully before the 30-day time period allowed for an appeal ran out.