Friday, July 30, 2010

How to deal with Deb Peel

For those of you following the battle over Privacy rights in Healthcare, today's post by Lygeia Ricciardi on The Healthcare Blog is a must read.

Ms. Ricciardi suggests that factual responses to fear mongering often don't work because our response to fear is often stronger than our response to reason. She writes that one way  to counter alarmists like Deb Peel is to offer your own alternate scary scenarios:
If it’s fear you’re after, we hardly lack material:
- How about being given a drug you are dangerously allergic to?
- How about receiving a radical misdiagnosis—and the treatment to match?
- How about enduring prolonged, unnecessary pain?
- What abut the cures not found, or contagions not contained?
But, the post continues, a better way is to also use holistic, moving stories. Look for this battle to heat up in the coming months as more companies monetize de-identified data. Alarmists must not be allowed to derail progress.

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