FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - Thursday, March 22, 2001 Contact: Kent Snyder, 703-241-1003 E-mail: mailto:kentsnyder@thelibertycommittee.org Web site: http://www.thelibertycommittee.org The Liberty Committee 701 W. Broad St., Fifth Floor Falls Church, VA 22046 "MEDICAL PRIVACY" DOESN'T MEAN PRIVACY IN WASHINGTON "Washington's dirty little secret is out -- the so-called 'final federal medical privacy rule' recently announced by the federal government gives us less privacy, not more," stated Kent Snyder of The Liberty Committee. Section 160.310: Grants the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services access to a person's medical information without his consent or a warrant. Section 164.512: Grants many third parties access to a person's medical information (including genetic information) without his written, informed, non-coerced (as in "sign away your right to privacy or we will deny treatment") consent. Sections 164.502 and 164.506: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has the ultimate authority to decide who can access your medical records without your informed consent. "The truth is that laced throughout the 367-page federal medical privacy rule are provisions that actually give a patient less control over his own medical records than he currently has. At the same time, these regulations give federal, state, and local governmental agencies -- along with insurance companies, HMOs and others -- more access and more control than the patient himself has," Kent Snyder stated. Reacting to growing public concern, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson reopened the comment period on these deceptive "privacy" regulations. Unfortunately, in order for a citizen's comment to be acceptable, it must follow guidelines as to form and content -- thus ensuring that many well-meant and deeply felt concerns will be discarded as simply not in compliance. As a public service, The Liberty Committee is providing a free on-line petition that meets the guidelines for comments and reminds Washington what the true definition of "privacy" is. The petition can be found at http://www.thelibertycommittee.org/medprivacypetition.htm . The Liberty Committee is a nationwide, grassroots organization of over 51,000 Americans whose goal is to defend and advance liberty by restoring our national government to its constitutional limitations. -30-