By Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D.

Egypt’s crisis has raised alarms about national security and economic impact for Americans if regime change leads to an anti-US government controlling a strong ally in the Middle East. This crisis raises another more personal concern for Americans that has been overlooked by the national media: the security and availability of your electronic medical records in the event of a government-imposed “kill switch” for the Internet.

Many Americans still do not know that hidden in the February 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, known as the “Stimulus” bill, was a provision that by 2014, physicians, hospitals, and other medical settings are to implement electronic medical records keeping systems. In 2015, penalties will be levied against physicians and health care facilities that do not implement use of electronic medical records.

The government’s plan is that medical information from physician consults and other medical visits will be sent to the Federal Health Information Technology (HIT) bureau in Washington, D.C. to provide individual medical data for the federally run Comparative Effectiveness Research coordinating panel of experts. According to a provision also hidden in the “Stimulus” bill, this panel of government-appointed experts is designated with deciding what treatment is allowed for individuals, based on government criteria for both cost and effectiveness.

Why do the events happening in Egypt raise concerns about these provisions in the 2009 Stimulus Bill? Think about it. The authoritarian government in power in Egypt quickly realized that communication via the Internet was furthering the spread of the protest movement. Without warning, the Egyptian government suddenly shut down the Internet to stop protesters’ ability to organize rallies.

Of course, protesters’ communication was not the only communication that was interrupted with this draconian “kill switch.” Financial systems, such as on-line banking, ATMs, and wire transfers, were affected, along with hundreds of other businesses that could no longer communicate with other offices around the world.

Medical communication via the Internet also came to a halt. Suppose your local doctor or hospital Emergency Room must obtain your electronic medical record via the Internet from the Health Czar’s cyberspace “cloud,” with access controlled by Washington elites.

What happens to your ability to get rapid medical treatment if you find yourself in a medical emergency that occurs in the middle of a political crisis and the government has shut down the Internet? At that point, you will appreciate first hand the true tyranny of ObamaCzarCare.

The President already has the authority under the Emergency Powers Act to do just this, so it isn’t hard to take the next step and imagine what can happen to patients if we physicians only have access via the Internet to people’s electronic records.

I prefer the old fashioned paper medical records that are available to me and my patients 24/7 – even when monsoon storms knock out electricity and the computer is out, or we are hit with a high-altitude detonation of a nuclear device that generates an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) which knocks out all electronic systems, or our own government decides suddenly to implement an emergency internet “kill switch.”

Any of these scenarios could be life-threatening if you have a medical emergency and all your information is tied up in computer systems that are no longer accessible.

Paper has a purpose. Paper medical records also serve valuable functions, even in the computer and Internet age. I have grave concern about moving totally to electronic medical records as I watch the problems that occur with disruptions to Internet access – whatever the cause – and the problems that occur with breach of computer systems security to steal confidential information.

Remember the hacking of Pentagon and NASDAQ computer systems? Remember the massive Wikileaks confidential data dump on the web? How do you feel about this type of leak of your personal private medical information? David Blumenthal, M.D., the President’s former “health information czar,” acknowledged “No infrastructure exists in most areas of the country for secure health information exchange among providers and between providers and consumers.”

Medical privacy? Apparently it is more important, according to this administration’s health czars to achieve the government’s efficiency goals than to insure your personal medical information is kept between you and your physicians.

Many of us who work with patients every day are very worried about the potential for harm to patients under a system in which medical information is controlled by government-appointed central planners. Physicians need immediate access to critical information, and we also realize the sacred responsibility we have to keep our patients medical information private – both of these functions are potentially seriously harmed by government control of our health information.

Have the Obama Administration central planners really thought about the many potentially serious ramifications to having all our medical records concentrated in one place and accessible only via the Internet? Or, is that the unstated purpose of our new “ObamaCzarCare:” government-controlled health services and control of medical information?

By limiting your freedom to get the care you need, when you need it, and with whom you choose…and by infringing on your medical privacy, the government has ever-increasing control of your life.

Americans face many dangers that lie in government control of electronic medical records coupled with government control of access to communication via the Internet.

Just thinking about a government-controlled kill switch can make you ill.

©Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D.

DISCLAIMER: Dr. Vliet speaks as an independent physician, not as an official spokesperson for any organization. Dr. Vliet has no financial ties to any health care system, pharmaceutical company, or health insurance plan. Her allegiance and advocacy is to and for patients.

AAPS – The Voice for YOU, Not The Government!

Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D.

Dr. Vliet is the 2007 recipient of the Voice of Women award from the Arizona Foundation for Women for her pioneering advocacy for the overlooked hormone connections in women’s health. Dr. Vliet received her M.D. degree and internship in Internal Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School, then completed specialty training at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Dr. Vliet is a Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.

By: Jane M. Orient, M.D.

The radiation dose is likely the least of the problems with airport screening.

If operating as specified, a scanner delivers about 0.01 millirad of radiation, or 0.00001 rad.  You unavoidably get 10,000 times as much from the natural environment every year.The worry is not surprising in a nation that has been barraged with antinuclear propaganda for decades. Keeping people terrified of doses even tinier than those from airport scanners seems to be government policy. Fearmongering has likely caused a $10 trillion loss to our economy by stopping the expansion of nuclear power plants, and greater dependency on hostile foreigners for energy—including those who sponsor terrorism.

We must not induce unreasoned fear, not even to oppose an outrageous assault on liberty. There is, however, another aspect to the airport scanners. They use an ingenious low-energy backscatter technique, which is apparently wonderful for identifying explosives in cargo. Since the radiation doesn’t penetrate far, it wouldn’t affect an unborn baby. But it does concentrate the dose in the skin.

Some scientists warn that this effect has not been properly studied, and one nuclear medicine expert told me that he is going to opt out of the scan. I think this much is clear: if you had a deadly disease, and the scanner were an FDA-regulated device that might save your life, your doctor wouldn’t be allowed to use it, because of inadequate study.

Also, if your doctor had an ownership interest in the scanner, he might go to federal prison for referring you for a scan. These anti-kickback laws, however, do not apply to the influential government cronies who stand to make a fortune from the scanners.

Leaving aside the radiation, let’s look at U.S. airport security from the perspective of a terrorist, or a Martian. We have TSA agents scurrying about, fighting the last war against the shoe and the underwear bombers, both caught by vigilant human beings. The threat is from aspiring martyrs, who are captive to an ideology that advocates turning its sons and daughters, even little children, into bombs.

So is the remedy to subject all Americans to virtual strip searches, and even little children to groping that we teach them is wrong? Does it make us safe, and are the medical and psychological side effects worth it?

Inmates of Nazi concentration camps were frequently subjected to strip searches. It was probably just one more way to dehumanize the prisoners.

The TSA process treats American travelers (except congressmen and other significant people) like prisoners, and strips them of Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. It subjects them to enhanced risk of loss (or theft) of important things like their indispensable government-issued photo ID. While in the scanner, their luggage is unattended—what about that risk of “introduction of items without their knowledge”? And what about the transmission of scabies, crab lice, bedbug larvae, and all manner of germs by TSA gropers? Do they change gloves and wash their hands between subjects, as hospital personnel must do?

The option of a “private room” is no protection against violation of dignity. We need, so to speak, transparency in government operations. Let Americans see—and record on video—their protectors in action. Let them watch agents search a screaming three year old to see whether it makes them feel safer.

How much “safety” is enough? Will a virtual stripping suffice, or do we need an invasive body cavity search of everyone? Even then, there would be threats. Swallowed explosives detonated by radio frequency. A bomb set off in the crowd waiting to get through security. A blast in the luggage compartment. A missile launch.

The Israelis use intelligence, but Americans seem to have ruled that out, to keep our agents safe from the charge of “profiling.”

Safety requires vigilance, not mindless rules. We need plainclothes observers, watching for tell-tale behavior. We might consider screening polygraphs with questions such as “Where do you expect to be this evening?” For suspected explosives, we have sniffers: technologic ones, and dogs.

Watching the holiday scene at the airport may awaken Americans to the reality that we are not rich enough or powerful enough to keep acting this stupid.

Use those scanners to check luggage and cargo. But still, it’s not the radiation that’s the problem; it’s the abandonment of common sense.

Jane M. Orient, M.D.,

Dr. Orient is the Executive Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.  She has been in solo practice of general internal medicine since 1981 and is a clinical lecturer in medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. She received her undergraduate degrees in chemistry and mathematics from the University of Arizona, and her M.D. from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. She is the author of Sapira’s Art and Science of Bedside Diagnosis; the fourth edition has just been published by Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins. She also authored YOUR Doctor Is Not In: Healthy Skepticism about National Health Care, published by Crown. She is the executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, a voice for patients’ and physicians’ independence since 1943. Complete curriculum vitae posted at www.drjaneorient.com.