Virginia Tech college student, Cho Seung-Hui had been judged mentally ill and a danger to himself and others yet his parents didn’t know. Virginia Tech was prevented from telling them by FERPA, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.
FERPA was one of a series of “privacy” laws passed following Supreme Court Justice William […]

Giovanni Mola, 38, who claimed to have had 200 lovers, refused to wear condoms after starting a relationship with the woman in Edinburgh in 2003. His lover is now infected.
We have argued for several years that the AIDS epidemic can be brought to a rapid halt by publicizing the names of those infected with […]

Patient advocates are interested in slashing the more than 2 million cases of hospital-acquired infections in the U.S. yearly and the 100,000 deaths they cause.
Making hospital infection rates public allows patients to chose safer hospitals. The loss of patients and the associated funds should encourage dangerous facilities to clean up their act.
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The “London Times” lists many government secrets revealed by The Freedom of Information Act.
However no specifics are given. For example, how many British subjects would like to know which foreign diplomats have been accused of rape, child abuse, or murder but were not charged due to diplomatic immunity or which police officers also have […]

A super-TB carrier may be jailed in a hospital ward until he dies. Does society have the right to protect itself from health risks?
What are the implications for those infected with HIV/AIDS? At what point does an individual’s right to privacy and freedom intersect with other individuals’ right to life?
Should infected individuals who […]

This sort of story keeps coming back. How much privacy does an infected individual have versus the right of uninfected individuals not to die?
One side argued that infected individuals have a right not to be embarrassed are socially censured. When we discussed the topic on Dallas Examiner Live, several infected individuals appeared to […]