You know, HIPAA doesn’t just cover citizens and legal residents of the US. While it’s legal for someone to say “some children in these centers have been diagnosed with this illness”, it’s all too easy to let enough information slip (so many children from this center, in this age range, of this gender, with these co-morbidities) that a determined person could gather enough data to identify one or more individuals, and then you have a HIPAA violation.
Aside from all the other motives, the administration may simply be reminding its employees of best practices regarding health information privacy. You don’t tell anyone anything unless they are the patient, the guardian, the health practitioner, the insurer, the facility, or otherwise have a legal need-to-know. What they’re asking for is more stringent than what the law requires, but if you don’t talk about it, you can’t break the law.
Ya know, I’ve never known anyone with “scabies”, don’t know of anyone who knows anyone who has had “scabies”. I’ve certainly never had them, despite 16-odd years of public school.
I’m a little bit embarrassed to admit that up until last week, I thought “scabies” was a made-up-by-kids word, like “cooties” or something. I’ve never encountered it in my lifetime.
I have a hard time believing its as widespread as whoever I responded to makes it out to be.
You mean they won’t let Fox News and Republican demagogues hassle these frightened kids who barely speak English and have been separated from their parents?
It’s almost as if they were trying to protect the children!
You mean they wouldn’t let journalists exploit and harass disadvantaged children who are already, most likely, quite frightened and anxious? How dare they! Hannity’s producers have an important job of trying to make Obama look bad, and how dare anyone put the welfare of children before that vital task?
Now you’re just making excuses. The media interviews people doing jobs all the time. By your logic, the President should never grant interviews given how busy he’s supposed to be. Or any other government official for that matter.
I see no evidence that journalists aren’t allowed to interview staff – just that they can’t interact with staff and children inside the facility while they work, which makes sense. The children should obviously not be harassed and exploited, and the staff should not be harassed and exploited in full view of the children.
Further, department representatives have talked to the press. I’m sure congressmen and journalists desperately searching for ways to make Obama look bad would like to interview every single staff member at the facility until they find some crumb that can be twisted as Obama’s fault, but they can’t make staff members talk to them. There’s no “right to interview” if the subject doesn’t want to be interviewed. Most likely, staff members are as reluctant to talk to Hannity producers and Tea Party congressmen as most government workers would be. If those assholes came into my office and started asking me questions, I’d tell 'em to ‘fuck off’ too.
With their employers’ permission. I used to run a restaurant. If a reporter and a camera crew came through our doors one day and started trying to interview our cashiers or cooks, I’d have told them to get the hell out.
No reporter has the right to barge into a workplace uninvited and demand its employees stop what they’re doing and answer their questions.