Thread: Minnesota Lawmaker Wants to Violate Lou Gehrig's Medical Records

Just saw this on Associated Press:
Associated Press

The nerve of some people!!! An ancient rule of behaviour comes to mind: if he didn't invite you into his house, you've only earned what he allows you to know about him. Too many people want to know too much about athletes personal lives. When you buy a ticket, you get to watch a performance, not intrude into other areas.

And we wonder why people have no faith in government.

Originally Posted by Theseus

And we wonder why people have no faith in government.

We KNOW why people have no faith in government!!

On the other hand... the guy has been dead for a while, and it could be medically relevant.

Steal a guy's ring from his casket after 50 years of burial and you're a graverobber.
Steal a guy's ring from his casket after 500 years of burial and you're a respected archaeologist.



Look, I don't think absolutes are any good. Not in one way and not in the other.
Let's take typhoid mary as an example.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoid_Mary

When Typhoid Mary died after many years of involuntary confinement, autopsy showed she was indeed an a-symptomatic carrier of the disease. She was not sick, and rejected all requests for her to be tested. After her first quarantaine, she schanged her name and again spread disease and death.

She spent the rest of her life in quarantaine when she was found for the second time, still denying there was anything wrong, still rejecting tests. So she was really involuntary detained, with only circumstantial evidence.

Was it wrong to violate her rights and thus save countless lives?
Or would it have been right to respect her privacy and destroy countless lives?

I don't know about 'nerve' versus 'inquisitiveness' here, but what if researching Mr. Gehrig's medical records did show a connection between concussions and ALS? Would that have been a frivolous inquiry?

Hard call as to what's right in this case. It would be easier if he was more current. One of the vendors that provided him with care would have computerized it all by now and if not up for sale, we could just call wikileaks !

Representatives of the people should focus their efforts on doing the peoples work rather than pursuing personal quests or advocating ridiculous things like giving the right to vote to 12 year olds.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

Representatives of the people should focus their efforts on doing the peoples work rather than pursuing personal quests or advocating ridiculous things like giving the right to vote to 12 year olds.

I agree 100%. If the AMA had come out and said that enough could be learned by studying Gehrig's medical records, I would be fine with that. But for a state representative to demand the release of the medical records... I just think that the government has more important things to be worrying about.

Bruno --
What is the compelling in this case to promote and maintain public safety? Simply put, there isn't.
She's just another busybody with too much time on her hands and a public platform from which to spout her garbage.
Here in the U.S.A., in the absence of a "compelling need to promote and/or maintain public safety", a person's right to confidentiality of medical records survives their death. That does not exist in this case. End of debate.

I just don't understand how her "curiosity" couldn't be solved with a study on living patients. I mean, we have studies all the time. Surely if she wanted to a study could be set up. But I guess that wouldn't make her as famous ...