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Many Voices, One Freedom: United in the 1st Amendment

March 19, 2024

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Do you remember those suspicions we had growing up after reading spy stories or George Orwell’s 1984? That feeling that someone was always watching? Those suspicions are fact in today’s medical environment. 

Who would have thought that anyone but you and your doctor would have access to your private medical information? It is rare to find a doctor’s office that is not using electronic medical records. Your doctor has become a data clerk. Who would have thought that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (the Stimulus Act) would have contained a section on electronic medical records? The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Actto promote the adoption of health information technology” tied physicians’ payments to the use of electronic medical records. 

And yes, the federal government is the overseer of those records. In 2016 the director of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) was encouraging a change in the “culture of data sharing.” Karen DeSalvo, MD, remarked that “for too long, and today, we think about data as something that we have to hold tightly onto; it is built into our DNA of medicine that we want to hold data, and we’re worried about exposing it.” Darn right, we are worried about exposing it! Data breaches have now become commonplace, with an average of 56.75 per month reported to the Department of Health and Human Services. In May 2022 alone, there were 70 data breaches, exposing the records of 4,410,538 individuals. 

It’s creepy enough when it comes to privacy, but the over-emphasis on electronic records affects patient safety. Since these electronic records have been mandated, doctors spend more time navigating records than seeing their patients. Worse, to streamline the process, a lot of “cut and pasting” of chunks of the records goes on. This is a recipe for mistakes.

Today’s episode features Twila Brase, who sounded the clarion call about the lack of privacy of our medical information and the failure of HIPAA to protect us. As she puts it, “our medical records are an open book.”

Twila Brase is President and co-founder of Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom (CCHF), a national patient-centered, privacy-focused, free-market policy organization established 25 years ago in Minnesota to support health care choices, individualized patient care, and medical and genetic privacy. She is the author of the eight-time award-winning book Big Brother in the Exam Room: The Dangerous Truth About Electronic Health Records.

Her efforts led to a national law requiring parental consent for research using newborn DNA, and a national campaign exposing HIPAA as a data-sharing rule. She developed an online nationwide directory of direct-pay practices, The Wedge of Health Freedom (JoinTheWedge.com), and the Patient Toolbox (PatientToolbox.org), an easy-to-use tool to help patients understand their options in coercive situations and maintain control over their treatment decisions.

Twila’s “Health Freedom Minute” is heard on weekdays by more than 5 million listeners on more than 850 radio stations in 48 states. She provides testimony at state legislatures and meets with members of Congress and health care policymakers.


Join us weekdays at 5 pm ET and the encore at 10 pm ET on America Out Loud Talk Radio. Listen on iHeart Radio, our world-class media player, or our free apps on AppleAndroid, or Alexa.

Monday’s with Dr. Marilyn Singleton, Tuesday’s with Dr. Jordan Vaughn and Dr. Stewart Tankersley, Wednesday’s with Dr. Peter McCullough and Malcolm Out Loud, Thursday’s with Dr. Peter Breggin and Ginger Ross Breggin, Friday’s with Dr. James Lyons-Weiler. Discover all the episodes on podcast networks, i.e., Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, Tunein, Stitcher, and iHeart. You’ll find them the day after they air on talk radio, available on podcast. Extraordinary voices for extraordinary times.

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MANY VOICES, ONE FREEDOM: UNITED IN THE 1ST AMENDMENT

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