Originally published August 6 2005
Privacy invaded by diabetes tracking
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Some hackles are raising over a new plan devised in NYC, which would require medical labs to report diabetes tests back to the city so they can judge how well diabetics are taking care of themselves.
At least half a million New Yorkers have diabetes, many of them at risk for blindness, kidney failure, amputations and heart problems because they are doing a poor job of controlling their illness.
A century after New York became the first American city to track people with infectious diseases as a way to halt epidemics, officials here propose a similar system to monitor people with diabetes, a noncontagious foe.
Conceived after a sharp rise in diabetes deaths over the past 20 years, the plan would require medical labs to report to the city the results of a certain type of test that indicates how well individual patients are controlling their diabetes.
"There will be some people who will say, 'What business of the government is it to know that my diabetes is not in control?'" said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the city's health commissioner.
By pinpointing problem patients, then intervening ever so slightly in their care, Frieden said the city can improve thousands of lives.
The Board of Health vote on the proposal isn't likely until at least September, but it has already attracted attention from other public-health experts and privacy advocates.
Pyles praised the intent of the program, but said unless diabetics are asked for their consent, it would be "an outright violation of the constitutional right to privacy" for the government to obtain their identities.
The city's program wouldn't initially get consent to collect data, but would allow patients to opt out later.
The database would also be tightly controlled, off limits to anyone but department staff, the patients and their doctors, health officials say.
"Some people are uncomfortable with public-health departments expanding their scope beyond infectious disease, but I would say we have to do it," he said.
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