OCTOBER 29, 1999

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Contact: Kathryn Serkes, Association of American Physicians and Suegeons

(202) 333-3855, kaserkes@worldnet.att.net, www.aapsonline.org

"Trusting President Clinton to protect our medical privacy is a bit like asking the Pied Piper to baby-sit our children. "Congress had better take a very close look at the details of the President’s privacy regulations when they come out, as this Administration’s record on privacy is lousy. President Clinton had no problem with pushing a national patient i.d. through Congress to record all the intimate details of our records on a national database, while refusing to make public his own medical file.

"And wasn’t it this Administration that pilfered hundreds of FBI files for its own use, and leaked Linda Tripp’s personnel file? The same Administration that enacted the federal OASIS program this year to collect pages of intrusive personal information, from toilet habits to sexual activity, from people getting home health care -- whether paid for by the federal government or not.

"This Administration has repeatedly abused the privacy of others for its own agenda. President Clinton’s call for an end to abuse of medical records is the ultimate irony."