Doctor can't tell patients the negative effects of fracking.

[myreality]

http://rt.com/usa/medical-gag-rule-risks-fracking-053/

Pennsylvania authorities have denied a doctor the right to challenge a so-called “medical gag rule” that prevents him and other physicians from warning the public about the health dangers associated with fracking.

Dr. Alfonso Rodriguez of Dallas, Pennsylvania filed a lawsuit against the state last year, asserting that Act 13 of 2012 forces medical professionals to enter “a vague confidentiality agreement” that prevents them from having a completely honest dialogue with patients.

Hydraulic fracking involves drilling through underground shale rock with the help of chemicals - many of them toxic - to release natural gas. Earlier this month, a research team out of Duke University examined Pennsylvania wastewater and found what they described as “alarmingly” high levels of radioactivity, salts, metals, and other potentially harmful sediments.

Yet the “medical gag rule” forbids doctors like Rodriguez from going into depth about the health problems that chemicals from fracking can cause. Critics have said the bill’s passage, and the court’s refusal to grant Dr. Rodriguez the right to speak freely with his patients, is an indication of just how entrenched the oil and gas lobby is in state politics.

Rodriguez specializes in renal diseases, hypertension, and advanced diabetes. He “has recently treated patients directly exposed to high-volume hydraulic fracturing fluid as the result of well blowouts,” including a patient “with a complicated diagnosis with low platelets, anemia, rash and acute renal failure that required extensive hemodialysis and exposure to chemotherapeutic agents,” the complaint stated, as quoted by Courthouse News.

For fulfilling his true responsibility as a doctor, though, Rodriguez allegedly risks violating the American Medical Association’s Principles of Medical Ethics, an infraction that could cost him his medical license.

That may well happen, because the state requires professional healthcare providers “to enter into, upon request by gas drilling company or vendor, a vague confidentiality agreement to maintain the specific identity any amount of any chemicals claimed to be a trade secret by a gas drilling company and/or its vendor as a condition precedent to receiving such information deemed unnecessary to provide competent medical treatment to plaintiff’s patient,” according to the complaint.

Despite Rodriguez’s complaint that the provision is a violation of his First and 14th Amendment rights, and multiple briefs filed by medical associations on his behalf, a federal judge dismissed the suit upon deciding the issue was “too conjectural” to stand.

“Although plaintiff alleges that he requires the kind of information contemplated under the act for the treatment of his patients, he does not allege that he has been in a situation where he needed or attempted to obtain such information, despite the fact that he alleges that he has treated patients injured by hydraulic fracturing fluid in the past,” wrote Judge A. Richard Caputo. “Similarly, plaintiff does not allege that he has been in a position where he was required to agree to any sort of confidentiality agreement under the act."

The decision goes on to state that any attempt Rodriguez made to notify his patients of Act 13’s impact were “merely a prophylactic measure to ease his fears of potential future harm.”

[Moss]

I think that belongs in poopdeck... that's a serious issue

[Ksandra]

ya moved. wtf at this shit?

[Serra]

Well.. guess I'm never living in Pennsylvania..

Anyone know if other states have similar laws? I know it's not so easy as 'pick up his life and move somewhere else,' but curious if that solution would be even possible.

[Roranora]

lobbyists continue to win

this is pretty messed up, coming from someone in the energy services industry

[BaneTheBrawler]

democracy and capitalism at work

[Draginhikari]

Gee, I wonder who was the one responsible for funding that act. It is really disturbing how deep the big money will go with this kind of stuff to the point where their gagging doctors from even revealing the dangers of what their doing in order to save face.

[Suvhater]

but if the doctors tell the people what they are poisoned with then the poison is no longer trade secret!

[Xajii]

Unbelievable. Lobbyists are destroying this country...

[Drex]

you can tell it's a propaganda piece when it references the lawsuit instead of the underlying act. the act is a huge tax on oil companies and requires them to disclose the ingredients to the government. the carve out requires them to also disclose it immediately to any doctor who requests it (previously they could tell the doc to pound sand). they are already amending the act to express in baby terms what the NDA (which hasn't even been sent down yet, hence the suit rejection) can and can't allow, as if the doc listing the chemicals in your water to you will help you be treated vs him just knowing what they are and treating. if you want to know why every law is thousands of pages and takes years to write, rabble rousing like this is why.

[Meresgi]

Unbelievable. Lobbyists are destroying this country...

w/e hippy, if you hate capitalism so much move to north korea!!!!!!

Everyone knows companies will always do what is best for the people, in terms of chemicals they use, or making new jobs, etc etc.

as if the doc listing the chemicals in your water to you will help you be treated vs him just knowing what they are and treating. if you want to know why every law is thousands of pages and takes years to write, rabble rousing like this is why.

I tend to like to know WHY i'm getting x or y medications and treatment and not just take them at face value, call me crazy.

[Clash Perez]

If the doctor needs to know the contents of water in order to provide effective treatment, why shouldn't the patient have the right to know to what he has been exposed?

That said, in the era of all chemicals being bad and the big GMO boogeyman, I'm skeptical as to whether this is really a significant issue.

[Sepukku]

Having gone to college in Drilling Country, PA and moved back in to Pittsburgh's county (Allegheny) and public water/sewers rather than wells, I feel a lot safer (mentally). They are very aggressive out there, one student was struck and killed by a speeding vehicle for the companies about 2 miles off campus and the story blew up and then suddenly went silent within ~48 hours.

[Ksandra]

they are already amending the act to express in baby terms what the NDA (which hasn't even been sent down yet, hence the suit rejection) can and can't allow,

this isn't a fucking video game. There should be no NDA. At all.

[Jaybar]

this isn't a fucking video game. There should be no NDA. At all.

Video games created NDAs.

[Ksandra]

Video games created NDAs.

Obviously not, but to treat this as simply as one would treat a game nda is just stupid.

[myreality]

Thanks for moving it, i will try and update this thread with new information.....about the doctor's sudden car crash that explodes when hitting a tree.

[Churchill]

lol, vidya ndas

[kuronosan]

A patient has a right to know.

[Howie Roary]

obligatory Canadian "I can't imagine living in the states"-even-more-now post