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PA. Appeals Ct. Refuses to Overturn Gag Rule on Physicians Talking about Fracking Chemicals
http://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2014/07/17/commonwealth-court-throws-out-several-challenges-to-act-13-including-doctor-gag-rule-updated/The PA. Commonwealth Court is the main mid-level appeals court. They made a ruling today that refused to overturn a part of a state law on the natural gas industry. That provision said that medical doctors could find out the fracking chemicals that were used near a sick patient, but they have to first sign a legally binding non-disclosure agreement that they will not talk about the chemicals. This is known as a "gag rule" on the doctors, and is in place in a number of states, including North Carolina.
Dick Cheney got the original exception to the Clean Water Act put into place for the fracking companies. This exception said that the frackers did not have to reveal to the public the types of chemicals they were putting into the ground. By sheer coincidence, Halliburton invented many of the fracking processes.
Excerpts:
"Part of the problem, says Pare, is that the language of the nondisclosure form remains a mystery.
“I can’t think of any other word for it than intimidating,” says Pare. “It’s intimidating for the doctor, and it’s intimidating for the patient.”
Not all the members of the five-judge panel agreed. Judge Patricia McCollough wrote a dissenting opinion, where she expressed concern about the larger impacts to public health.
“While the range and precise language of the confidentiality agreement is not known, it is a fair inference that a health professional will be unable to share the information in the peer-review setting, publish the clinical findings and proposed treatment plans in medical journals, or coordinate the outcome and treatment plans with other hospitals who later experience the same or a similar case.”
Here is a very good analysis of this issue by a law student:
http://scholarship.shu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1496&context=student_scholarship