To the Editor: Handelsman and colleagues raise concerns1 about medical confidentiality with regard to legislation in New South Wales and a recent National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) guideline. We wish to correct some of their statements related to the NHMRC guideline.
The full article is accessible to AMA members and paid subscribers. Login to read more or purchase a subscription now.
Please note: institutional and Research4Life access to the MJA is now provided through Wiley Online Library.
- 1. Handelsman DJ, Turner LA, Conway AJ. Doctors breaching patient privacy: Orwell redux. Med J Aust 2011; 194: 403-404. <MJA full text>
- 2. National Health and Medical Research Council and Office of the Privacy Commissioner. Use and disclosure of genetic information to a patient’s genetic relatives under section 95AA of the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). Guidelines for health practitioners in the private sector. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 2009. http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/_files_nhmrc/file/publications/synopses/e96.pdf (accessed May 2011).
- 3. Suthers GK, McCusker EA, Wake SA. Alerting genetic relatives to a risk of serious inherited disease without a patient’s consent. Med J Aust 2011; 194: 385-386. <MJA full text>
- 4. National Health and Medical Research Council. Medical genetic testing: information for health professionals. Canberra: NHMRC, 2010. http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/publications/synopses/e99syn.htm (accessed May 2011).
- 5. Australian Law Reform Commission and Australian Health Ethics Committee. Essentially yours: the protection of human genetic information in Australia. Sydney: ALRC, 2003. (Report No. 96.) www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/alrc/publications/reports/96/index.html (accessed May 2011).
Online responses are no longer available. Please refer to our instructions for authors page for more information.
All authors were on the NHMRC committee that drafted the guidelines.2