Doctor Challenges Fracking “Trade Secrets” Medical Gag Rule

Thursday, August 02, 2012
Fracking flames: tap water set on fire
Pennsylvania’s “Medical Gag Rule” faces a legal challenge in federal court now that a local doctor has sued the state to get the fracking-related law thrown out.
 
Dr. Alfonso Rodriguez filed a lawsuit against the state attorney general, its secretary of environmental protection and the chairman of its Public Utility Commission claiming a new law (Act 13) prohibits him from discussing the health dangers of fracking with patients, other doctors, and the public.
 
Act 13 requires natural gas drilling companies to reveal the chemicals used in the fracking process. But also allows them to force doctors into signing confidentiality agreements before revealing the industrial composition of their fracking fluids, which constitute trade secrets.
    
“The Medical Gag Rule imposes a content-based restriction on the speech of health care practitioners receiving information from gas drilling companies on chemicals that a patient may have been exposed by requiring the health care practitioner to enter into … a vague confidentiality agreement to maintain the specific identity and amount of any chemicals claimed to be a trade secret by a gas drilling company,” Rodriguez’ civil complaint reads.
 
A kidney specialist, Rodriguez became involved in the fracking issue because some of his patients require pure sources of water. He receives daily alerts from federal agencies and local water companies on the status of the water system.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
 
To Learn More:
Local Doctor Sues over Pa. Chemical Gag Rule (by Terrie Morgan-Besecker, The Times Leader)
 

  

Comments

Katie 11 years ago
The frackers were extepemd from Federal Clean Water Act regulations by the famous Bush/Cheney Energy Taskforce. The NY Times and others are outing those officials though: Not to be denied their day in the sun, in an exclusive interview, Propublica followed the Times with another revealing episode a revealing admission by a former Bush EPA Assistant Administrator for Water, Benjamin Grumbles.Grumbles was directly involved with the Bush/Cheney Energy Task Force – the industry dominated group that drove the EPA study that led Congress – in the 2005 Energy Policy Act – to exempt fracking from federal environmental laws, including the Safe Drinking Water Act ..

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