Posted by Deborah14 on October 22, 2000, at 23:30:55
I am new to this website. I have found the website extremely informative, helpful and fascinating. I know that you have probably heard this all before and I know the disclaimers are on the site. However, I can't help to be extremely concerned about people's, including my own, medical privacy. It seems too easy and too tempting to reveal too much detailed private medical information to strangers on this website.
Specifically, there are two areas I am concerned about.
1) In order to preserve one's medical privacy one should not discuss their medical diagnosis,especially in detail, on-line. Please be careful about identifying yourselves. You do not know who can and will use this information to their advantage against you - insurance companies, medical information bureaus, pharmaceutical companies, companies that buy and sell mailing lists, and yes even the government- just read the fine print in the Kennedy-Katzenbaum bill (HIPPA) that was approved by HHS. I am not being paranoid, definitely not one of my issues, just smart. This is an area of my expertise. It you want more information contact the Coalition for Patients Rights (CPR). Remember, even dr. bob warns that anything that is written on this website, he can use.
2) It is very important that lay people who are receiving and exchanging psychopharmacological advice with each other be extremely careful - especially on acting on advice without consulting with their pdocs. Unfortunately, many of us have not had good experiences with the medical advice we have receive. Our pdocs don't have all the information, aren' t gods and some are better than others. Many of us are suffering and have suffered for a long time and are seeking information and non-traditional help because it seems that all else has failed. That is one of the allures of the site. However, on the flipside, many of us have very complicated, long medical histories and by maintaining our medical privacy, we are receiving information that is based on only a fraction of what can and should be revealed. Therefore, I would advise from the little I learned so far. Take the information you've received, do your own research and talk with your pdoc or get another professioal consultation before acting on anything you read on this site. We all have too many medications in our medicine cabinets that when used in combinations different than how they were prescribed orginally, could be lethel.
I hope I don't sound like I'm preaching, I'm just concerned about keeping a balance between maintaining medical information privacy and learning new helpful information that may or may not be useful to anyone of us individually.
Thanks for listening.
poster:Deborah14
thread:47148
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20001022/msgs/47148.html