"Confidential" medical databases

[Brad Dolan <bdolan@USIT.NET>]

AP, 9/19/96:

Copies of a confidential computer disk containing the names of 4,000 
AIDS patients were shipped anonymously to two newspapers by
someone who claimed a [Florida] state health worker had been showing it 
on his laptop computer to friends outside a gay bar. 
   
William B. Calvert III, 35, of Treasure Island, was one of only three state
Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services employees with authorized
access to the confidential information. 
   
Calvert was suspended with pay Thursday as the Florida Department of Law
Enforcement and HRS investigated the breach. 

"This is very serious. We are not aware of any breach of confidentiality of
this magnitude," Jay Coburn of the AIDS Action Council in Washington, D.C. 
said Thursday. 
  
 Nobody knows how many copies of the disk have been made, or who has them. 
If the allegations prove true, it could be the worst violation of AIDS
confidentiality in history. 

[...]

bd