Healthy Skepticism Library item: 15657
Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.
Publication type: news
Dearne K.
Commissioner to probe potential privacy breaches
The Australian 2009 May 21
http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,25517817-5013044,00.html
Full text:
FEDERAL Privacy Commissioner Karen Curtis has been asked to investigate two potential breaches of privacy laws in relation to the sale or re-use of patient medical records for drug marketing purposes.
Juanita Fernando, chair of the Australian Privacy Foundation’s health committee, said recent news reports suggested some doctors were “selling or trading health records” to third parties without patients’ knowledge or consent.
The concerns relate to courtroom revelations that pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co paid specialist nurses $500,000 to hunt through patient records for potential candidates for the firm’s new anti-arthritis drug Vioxx, now the subject of a class action in the Federal Court in Melbourne, and an unrelated story about AsteRx, a pharmaceutical data aggregator which hopes to gain access to GPs’ prescribing data in exchange for a gift of free business software.
Dr Fernando said the APF was also concerned about allegations made in court that the local Merck marketing team provided incentives so that pharmacists would “tell suitable patients” to talk to their doctors about Vioxx.
“Evidently the (Vioxx) data was harvested with the permission of the GPs,” she said. “The public expects the privacy commissioner to use her existing powers to the fullest extent, to ensure health organisations recognise their responsibilities to patients.”
Meanwhile, earlier this week, the APF asked Ms Curtis to clarify the “de-identification” process used by AsteRx to cleanse patient data harvested from hundreds of GPs’ computer desktops for aggregation and on-sale to customers including drug firms, pharmacists and medical researchers.
“We note that a complaint made to your office in 2004 about extracting information from Medical Director software was subsequently dismissed on the basis that the patient data was de-identified,” Dr Fernando said.
“However, we remain concerned. We request that your office provides descriptions of the analysis that was undertaken and the nature of the evidence provided.”
The APF also sought information about the data-items acquired by AsteRx, “so the public can be reassured” that re-identification is not feasible, and that regulatory arrangements ensure that the company cannot make “material changes to those arrangements”.
Ms Curtis has told The Australian her office “is aware of both matters and is making enquiries into them”.
