Docs on PA Gag Order: No Fracking Way!

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tekmagika/456104222/sizes/m/in/photostream/">roujo</a>/Flickr

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I have a new piece up today about a provision in a Pennsylvania law that critics have called a “gag order” for medical professionals. The provision would allow doctors to access information about chemicals in “fracking” fluid, the stuff injected into the ground to tap into natural gas resources, but would make them sign a confidentiality agreement stating that they won’t share that information with anyone—not even the person they’re treating.

Doctors in Pennsylvania have expressed concern that this would interfere with their relationships with patients, and with attempts to gain a better understanding of broader public health matters as they relate to oil and gas drilling. And the president of the Pennsylvania Medical Society, Dr. Marilyn J. Heine, has also spoken out about the need for more information in the state as concerns about public health have increased. “We have no definitive answers to these questions because we lack data,” she wrote in an op-ed last month.

But doctors in the national public health community are also worried about what the new law might mean. The provision “compromises both individual patient well-being and public health,” said Dr. Jerome A. Paulson, director of the Mid-Atlantic Center for Children’s Health & the Environment at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, DC, which serves Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. His group has been concerned about unconventional gas extraction the past few years and has been gathering information for families and for health professionals, he said. Pennsylvania’s new law could interfere with that work.

Doctors would be forced to decide whether to sign a confidentiality agreement that would prevent them from sharing necessary information with patients, or not sign it—and then not have access to that information at all. “It’s an untenable situation for a health professionals,” said Paulson. “It really goes against our standard ways of getting and gathering information, and it goes against moral and ethical responsibilities for protecting the public health.”

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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