[e-drug] Eli Lilly violates patients' privacy

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E-drug: Eli Lilly violates patients' privacy 
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[Published as fair use. HH]

BMJ 2001;323:65 (14 July 2001)

Eli Lilly violates patients' privacy 
Gavin Yamey, San Francisco 

The drug company Eli Lilly, which manufactures fluoxetine (Prozac),
has admitted that it violated its own policy on patient confidentiality
by publicising the email addresses of over 700 patients taking the
drug. For the past two years the company has offered patients
taking fluoxetine an email reminder service (Medi-messenger).
Patients decided what kind of reminder they wanted, such as a
reminder to take their medication or to attend a clinic appointment.
An email sent to all Medi-messenger participants on 27 June,
announcing that the service was to be discontinued, inadvertently
listed the addresses of others who had signed up for the service.
Anne Griffin, an Eli Lilly spokeswoman, said that "a computer
program error" was to blame for this breach of confidentiality. "We
are very concerned about the error," she said, "and have had
complaints from six people so far. We have a system in place to
prevent this from happening again." The company's breach in
privacy has led to a renewed debate in the United States about the
difficulty of protecting confidential patient data that are stored
electronically and could be disseminated via the internet. The
American Civil Liberties Union, a civil rights non-profit making
organisation, has sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission
asking it to investigate the breach. The letter argued that Eli Lilly
breached its duty of care towards fluoxetine users. "If this breach
of duty goes unnoticed," said the letter, "it would raise the
possibility not only that Eli Lilly will continue to injure consumers
and harm the public interest, but that other companies will be
encouraged to engage in similarly unfair and deceptive practices." 
The letter from the American Civil Liberties Union to the Federal
Trade Commission is at www.aclu.org/news/2001/n070501b.html 


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