BMI 101: Assignment 23 Discussion Board Instructions
Assignment 23 is due Wednesday, November 21, at 11:59pm. The assignment is worth 1.5 points. You
will need to make three substantive posts to the Assignment 23 Discussion Board to receive full credit.
Instructions:
In your first post, include information from one of the additional sources of information (1-5, below) as
you provide an answer to the following two questions:


Should HIPAA privacy protections apply to patient health data voluntarily released by patients
to commercial companies (like PatientsLikeMe, or 23andMe)? (Currently, patient data on these
sites is subject to the company’s privacy policy, but these companies are not subject to HIPAA.)
Should there be any limitations or regulations, similar to HIPAA privacy protections, regarding
what patients are allowed to post about their own health? (In other words, should all aspects
of PatientsLikeMe be password protected and?)
Your second and third posts should respond to a classmate’s original post, either extending or
disagreeing (respectfully!) with their ideas. Your posts should add to the discussion by referring to any
reading you have done for class to date. (That is, this is a real discussion, so please treat it like one. A
post that just says “Great points! I agree!” will not receive credit.)
If you make a fourth post before the due date you will receive extra credit. Your fourth post must
either be a substantive response to someone who responded to your initial post, or an additional
substantive post to a discussion thread started by another classmate.
Choose one of these short news items as an inspiration for your answers in your first post. You can
also refer to them, or to any other course readings, in your subsequent posts.
1) This report from CBS news discusses howaA commercial survey research company used fake
accounts to collect data about patients on PatientsLikeMe:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/patientslikeme-is-more-villain-than-victim-in-patient-datascraping-scandal/
2) This blog post talks about how journal that publishes peer-reviewed research removed a paper
after realizing it contained a verbatim quote from a patient that could reveal the patient’s
identity: http://retractionwatch.com/2016/09/15/paper-pulled-for-including-identifiablepatient-quote-from-social-networking-site/
3) PatientsLikeMe makes money by providing patient-generated reviews of medications to
Walgreens.com: https://blog.patientslikeme.com/openness/patientslikeme-adds-patientreviews-of-medications-to-walgreens-com/