Consumer Watchdog has called on Google to end a rumored lobbying effort aimed at allowing the sale of electronic medical records in the current version of the economic stimulus legislation.
The California-based, non-profit consumer education and advocacy organization is also urging Congress to remove loopholes in the ban on the sale of medical records and include other privacy protections absent from the current bill, such as giving patients the right to an audit detailing who had accessed their medical records and how the records were used.
Reportedly, Google is pushing for the provisions so it may sell patient medical information to its advertising clients on the new "Google Health" database.
"Americans will benefit from an integrated system capable of making our medical records available wherever we may need them, but only if the system is properly used," Watchdog officials wrote in a letter to Congress. "First and foremost, electronic medical records should be designed to benefit patients, not the corporate interests lobbying hard on Capitol Hill to get a piece of the $20 billion in taxpayer subsidies provided for this project."
Watchdog also wrote: "The medical technology portion of the economic stimulus bill does not sufficiently protect patient privacy, and recent amendments have made this situation worse. Medical privacy must be strengthened before the measure's final passage, rather than allowing corporate interests to take advantage of the larger bill's urgency."
The letter detailed five patient privacy protections that Congress is urged to adopt in the electronic medical record section of the Economic Stimulus bill.
