Wednesday Writs: The Willy-nilly Invocation of The Nuremberg Codes Edition

Em Carpenter

Em was one of those argumentative children who was sarcastically encouraged to become a lawyer, so she did. She is a proud life-long West Virginian, and, paradoxically, a liberal. In addition to writing about society, politics and culture, she enjoys cooking, podcasts, reading, and pretending to be a runner. She will correct your grammar. You can find her on Twitter.

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9 Responses

  1. Oscar Gordon says:

    My understanding of HIPAA is that vaccine status is not covered, because it’s a public health concern. Otherwise schools would not be able to require students prove they are vaccinated.Report

    • Em Carpenter in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

      HIPAA does not prohibit the asking of questions about your health at all.
      It covers disclosure of your records by covered entities. Covered entities are mostly health care providers, insurers, and any of their business associates who may have access to medical records as part of their business (an example is a third party billing company that your doctor uses to prepare invoices and insurance claims). It is to protect your records from being distributed without your consent, except for authorized purposes.
      It does not prohibit anyone or any entity from asking you questions about your health.
      There may be other protections for that – ADA or discrimination laws, for example – but not HIPAA.
      Even if a school has possession of your immunization or other health records, that is also not HIPAA covered; they are considered education records, which are exempt from HIPAA, because they are instead protected by FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.)Report

    • PD Shaw in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

      It’s not really any different than a school requiring a doctor’s note in order for a student to be allowed to return to school, so I’m not sure “vaccines” are a significant factor here. HIPAA isn’t violated because the doctor doesn’t release any medical record without consent when the student or legal guardian is the one that gives the note to the school.

      The one vaccine angle I can think of is that state laws usually require immunizations to be reported to a state public health agency. The state agency would not be a covered entity under HIPAA either, and probably can do things with those records as part of its public health mandate, but still would need to comply with whatever privacy laws govern government records.Report

      • dhex in reply to PD Shaw says:

        it would be nice if people internalized that you can tell anyone you want about your PHI – great for chronic over-sharers!

        if you’re trading your info for a free donut (if you’re into that sort of thing) or better/different access to the drooling psychedelic nightmare simulacra that is disney parks, then you’re ok to do so.Report

  2. Chip Daniels says:

    TYhis is a fine writeup, but likely to make sense only to those who are already sensible.

    The appeal to Nuremberg or HIPAA isn’t amenable to reason since it isn’t coming from a place of reason. What we’re seeing is that sort of belligerent victimhood which gives excuse to victimizing others.

    Phantom voter fraud, oppression of white people, urban chaos…all these panics are ginned up hysterias for the purpose of making their own oppression feel legitimate.Report

  3. Reformed Republican says:

    I propose a new Twitter law. If you cannot spell HIPAA, you cannot talk about it.

    Actually, muting “HIPPA” would probably remove a lot of bad HIPAA takes from your timeline.Report

  4. If anyone is interested in how some human experimentation is performed nowadays, I found this an interesting read: https://undark.org/2021/04/07/getting-sick-for-medical-research/#Report