Do the Feds Know What Meds You Take?

A political blog that I respect—AMERICAblog—has come to a disturbing conclusion after reading a report from ABC News about alleged Virginia Tech shooter Cho Seung-Hui: The U.S. government may have a database showing every prescription drug that you, as an American, have bought.

I don't mind telling people—say, those who are discussing depression—that I take an antidepressant. My husband doesn't mind telling people—say, those who think only children have attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) or those who think there's no such thing as AD/HD—that he takes a controlled substance to manage his AD/HD. But that's our choice. It would never be our choice to voluntarily tell the federal government what meds we take.

Here is the paragraph in question, from the third page of the ABC News story:

Some news accounts have suggested that Cho had a history of antidepressant use, but senior federal officials tell ABC News that they can find no record of such medication in the government's files. This does not completely rule out prescription drug use, including samples from a physician, drugs obtained through illegal Internet sources, or a gap in the federal database, but the sources say theirs is a reasonably complete search.

Does this possibility bother you as much as it bothers me? I want to know how to find out whether there is a federal database. I want to know where it is and who has access to it.


Updated 5:58 p.m.: A little searching on USASearch.gov helped me answer my own wondering, to some extent. From this page, I learned that the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) was created in 2002 by the U.S. Department of Justice Appropriations Act (Public Law 107-77). The legislation set up the PDMP to help individual states set up their own monitoring programs and encourages state programs to share data with one another. The drugs monitored are supposedly just controlled substances, such as the AD/HD meds taken by my husband and one of our sons. The PDMP's goals are (1) to cut down on "inappropriate" (who determines this?) use of controlled substances; (2) to decrease instances of doctor-shopping (going from one physician to the next and using fraud to get the desired meds); and (3) to increase cooperation among federal and state health, regulatory, and law-enforcement agencies.

This chart lists states with drug-monitoring programs. Here is more info, including what drugs are monitored and contact details for states with drug-monitoring programs. Here is what some states do with the info they obtain through their monitoring programs.

What's really important to know is that "disclosure of information [about what prescription drugs you take] under [s]tate [drug-monitoring] laws by providers or dispensers may place those parties in violation of HIPAA," the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, so you may have some grounds to contest your physician's reporting of your medications to your state's drug-monitoring program. Read this for more information on your privacy rights under HIPAA.

And the ACLU's rundown of what the government is allowed to know about your medications is essential reading.


Updated 5/22/07.



Virginia Tech shooting federal government prescription drug database Big Brother ADHD controlled substance depression patient rights HIPAA ACLU EditorMom