There’s a lot to like about the Consumer Product Safety Commission. After all, the sole purpose of the independent government agency is to evaluate all kinds of consumer products and warn the public about potential hazards.
With this in mind, Politico published a report last week that at first glance seemed wholly uncontroversial. According to the article, the commission is overhauling its system for tracking consumer-product-related injuries at hospitals, enabling officials to act more quickly to emerging problems.
Starting next year, Politico added, the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System will “automatically pull from patients’ electronic health records to flag issues with consumer product safety in near real-time.”
In a normal political environment, this would probably seem like good news. If, for example, a new toaster model was causing a series of injuries that required hospitalization, the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s new tracking system would be able to pick up on the national trend quickly and pull the toaster from shelves to prevent additional harm.
This is not, however, a normal political environment. KFF Health News, in conjunction with CNN, published an unsettling report noting that as part of the endeavor, the commission is “demanding that some of the nation’s biggest health systems turn over detailed, personally identifiable medical records of all patients who seek help at their emergency rooms.” From the article:
The Consumer Product Safety Commission, responsible for tracking and issuing recalls of dangerous products sold in the U.S., began discreetly pressuring hospital executives this year to share personally identifiable health data with a private contractor. […]
In a stark departure from its product-focused mission, the agency’s goal is to obtain millions of Americans’ medical records from emergency room visits for most injuries, from a broken bone to a childhood vaccine reaction or even a suicide attempt, according to documents and emails obtained by KFF Health News, as well as interviews with five people involved or familiar with the discussions.
Again, the problem isn’t with the goal of tracking potentially dangerous consumer products. What matters here is the scope of the information the Trump administration is seeking. According to the KFF Health News report, which hasn’t been independently verified by MS NOW, the Consumer Product Safety Commission sent emails to hospital executives insisting on patients’ “identifiable information,” including “names, addresses, diagnoses, and other personal details,” which would then be shared with a private contractor.
I have a hunch a whole lot of Americans would be uncomfortable with sharing these private medical records with any administration, much less this one.
“The whole thing is troubling,” said Sharona Hoffman, a professor of health law at Case Western Reserve University who expressed unavoidable concerns about risks to patient privacy. “If this company really is collecting identifiable information, that is worrisome for patients.”
Steve Roney, CPSC spokesperson, said in an emailed statement to KFF Health News that the CPSC is “modernizing” its surveillance system. Asked whether the CPSC will file complaints against hospitals that do not participate, he said only that while the previous system “operated as a voluntary program, the ability of hospitals to opt out limited the sample size and usefulness of the data.”
If the statement was intended to assuage the underlying concerns, it’s probably not going to work.
Let’s not forget that Donald Trump last year fired the CPSC’s three Democratic board members, which sparked a serious legal fight, culminating in a Supreme Court ruling in which Republican-appointed justices empowered the president to do as he pleases.
We’re now confronting the consequences.
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