HIPAA Blog

[ Tuesday, October 11, 2005 ]

 

Ohio Preemption Case: Oral arguments occur today at the Ohio Supreme Court in Columbus, Ohio. The Cincinnati Enquirer sought records from the Cincinnati Health Department relating to citations issued to property owners to clean up lead paint on their residential properties. All of the citations came about because a child living at the property in question was found to have lead poisoning, so disclosing the citations would be a big clue that a child at that address at the time of the citation had lead poisoning; all you would have to do is find out who lived at the address at the time, and you'd have a pretty good idea of who the child was with lead poisoning. Full description here. The Health Department refused the information, the Enquirer appealed, and the Supreme Court has the case.

Better yet, you can get watch live oral arguments or see video of archived oral arguments by going here. That's pretty cool.

Hat tip: Michael Mullen, Asst. A.G. of North Dakota
(North Dakota? That'll make Ellen happy)


UPDATE: See 3/21/06 entry. The court applied the "required by law" exception, so the Health Department must disclose to the newspapers, even though PHI is included.

Jeff [11:41 AM]

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