Summary

RFK Jr. is using private medical records to create a registry of people with autism in the United States.

The National Institutes of Health is helping to collect private medical records from government and commercial databases, including “prescription records from pharmacies, lab testing, and genomics records from the Department of Veterans Affairs and Indian Health Service, private insurance claims, and data from smartwatches and fitness trackers.”

Kennedy, a longtime critic of vaccination, has made the study of autism one of HHS’s primary goals. He has called autism “preventable” and claimed “he can find a cure for the condition by September.”

  • santa@sh.itjust.works
    70·
    7 hours ago

    This is fucking terrifying. How is this not a HIPAA violation?

    Edit: Fixed initialism. What can we do to protect ourselves and loved ones?!

    • Cuberoot@lemmynsfw.com
      311·
      9 hours ago

      Because it’s called HIPAA, not HIPPA. The second P is the one that stands for privacy.

      Fifty years ago, doctors would protect their patients by accidentally losing certain files if they didn’t think the authorities had a good reason for seeing them. Under HIPAA, they’re required to keep and maintain good records in case the government subpoenas them.

      • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
        11·
        8 hours ago

        For those trying to keep the spelling straight, it helps me to think the last two letters stand for “Accountability Act” meaning it can never be spelled “HIPPA” as there is only one “a”.

  • frustrated_phagocytosis@fedia.io
    13·
    9 hours ago

    OK, how are they getting consent for this from the subjects? I do basic research with tissue from patients and if they change their mind and revoke consent, we are legally obligated to destroy any remaining tissue or data.

  • Donkter@lemmy.world
    18·
    9 hours ago

    What’s crazy is that it’s perfect. Getting rid of autistic people is exactly the intellectual purging that fascists want when they get into power.

    I know not every autistic person is “an intellectual” but many transgressive artists and radical leftist college professors are autistic.

  • BeNotAfraid@lemmy.world
    56·
    7 hours ago

    It’s Eugenics, this is them warming you up to forced sterilisation. This is Timesplitters shit, let’s just kill the Billionaires. Come on.

    • turnip@lemm.eeEnglish
      21·
      1 hour ago

      He did run on finding the increased cause of autism in the youth. He said it was likely environmental toxins from corporations.

      So if hes right and hes not looking to murder people then we get statistics on where its occuring, and he would track it down like we did lead and things like that.

      Which there doesnt seem to be a counter-point to what hes doing, heres MSNBC who obviously hates Trump, and as she says theres not been clear answers yet. Which maybe with the data he is gathering there will be some insights:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0OxB7DzBGQ

        • turnip@lemm.eeEnglish
          21·
          33 minutes ago

          I dont like the guy, but clearly it is an issue according to this MSN interview. So if he can figure it out I’d like that he did, so that the corporation causing it is held to account. Or what, do we just wait until a democrat is the one to do the same thing?

          RFK is also talking about the obesity epidemic, specifically tying it to our food quality that many large donors really dont want to hear. I think some of these things seem sane, and I’m glad the republicans are starting to appreciate these ideologies.

  • Dizzy Devil Ducky@lemm.eeEnglish
    62·
    8 hours ago

    Look! The man with an IQ of 6 wants to keep tabs on autistic people like myself who clearly have above average IQ! Though, to be fair, it’s not that hard to have an IQ higher than 60.