Company teams up with one of the U.S.’s largest health systems in ‘Project Nightingale’
BY ROB COPELAND November 12, 2019
Google is engaged with one of the U.S.’s largest health-care systems on a project to collect and crunch the detailed personal- health information of millions of people across 21 states.
The initiative, code-named “Project Nightingale,” appears to be the biggest effort yet by a Silicon Valley giant to gain a toehold in the health-care industry through the handling of patients’ medical data. Amazon. com Inc., Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are also aggressively pushing into health care, though they haven’t yet struck deals of this scope.
Google began Project Nightingale in secret last year with St. Louis-based Ascension, a Catholic chain of 2,600 hospitals, doctors’ offices and other facilities, with the data sharing accelerating since summer, according to internal documents.
The data involved in the initiative encompasses lab results, doctor diagnoses and hospitalization records, among other categories, and amounts to a complete health history, including patient names and dates of birth.
Neither patients nor doctors have been notified. At least 150 Google employees already have access to much of the data on tens of millions of patients, according to a person familiar with the matter and
the documents.
In a news release issued after The Wall Street Journal reported on Project Nightingale on Monday, the companies said the initiative is compliant with federal health law and includes robust protections for patient data.
Some Ascension employees have raised questions about the way the data is being collected and shared, both from a technological and ethical perspective, according to the people familiar with the project. But privacy experts said it appeared to be permissible under federal law. That law, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, generally allows hospitals to share data with business partners without telling patients, as long as the information is used “only to help the covered entity carry out its health care functions.”
In his second year in office, the list of extraordinary things President Trump has done, for good and ill, continued to grow. Today, I offer my annual list of the 10 best things Trump has done in office. (In my next column, I will give you my list of the 10 worst.)
10.
He has secured the release of 19 people, including 16 Americans, from foreign captivity. When Pastor Andrew Brunson was freed by Turkey, he became the 19th captive released thanks to Trump. Others include: four held by North Korea; an aid worker and her husband held by Egypt; three UCLA basketball players and a Texas businesswoman held by China; a couple and their three children held by the Taliban; a former CIA officer held by Portugal; and two citizens held by Venezuela. That’s more Americans freed in two years than President Barack Obama got released in eight. And unlike Obama, Trump did it without releasing terrorist leaders or sending planeloads of cash to rogue regimes, creating incentive for more hostage taking.
9.
He delivered for the “forgotten Americans.” The Trump boom is benefiting those left behind by the Obama economy. Manufacturing jobs grew at the fastest rate in 23 years and the unemployment rate for Americans without a high school diploma reached the lowest point ever recorded. The Wall Street Journal reports that wages rose 3.1 percent — the biggest jump since 2009 — and that “low-skilled workers are among the biggest beneficiaries.”
8.
He worked with Democrats and Republicans to pass important legislation. It didn’t get a lot of attention, but Trump got a lot done on a bipartisan basis, including criminal justice reform, opioid and sex trafficking legislation, and a new “Right to Try” law giving dying Americans access to experimental medications.
7.
He has ushered in a golden age for women in the CIA. Trump not only appointed Gina Haspel as the agency’s first female director but also made Elizabeth Kimber the first woman to lead the agency’s clandestine service — rewarding the CIA’s “band of sisters” who have toiled to keep the country safe since 9/11.
6.
His push to expand domestic energy production bore fruit. This year the United States passed both Saudi Arabia and Russia as the world’s top oil producer.
The genius of America is that it was set up as a representative government, but increasingly, Americans are ruled over by leaders who are unelected, and very powerful. Columbia Law Professor Philip Hamburger unmasks the people who are really ruling our lives.
Philip Hamburger is the Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law at Columbia Law School. A leading scholar of constitutional law, his books Separation of Church and State, Law and Judicial Duty, and Is Administrative Law Unlawful? are all considered “must reads” in the world of legal scholarship. He is also President of the New Civil Liberties Alliance, which fights the administrative state. To join the new movement for civil liberties, visit the New Civil Liberties Alliance.
EXCERPT FROM THIS ARTICLE: There are reasons to be skeptical that Trump can defeat the administrative state—or even succeed in taming it. Power acquired over a century will not be given up easily. And there are now vast bureaucracies and thriving Washington law practices that exist solely to guard the administrative state from the voters whose lives are affected—directly or indirectly—by its decisions.
One day in late spring in the early days of the George W. Bush administration, FDA inspectors visited the headquarters of Sargento cheese in Plymouth, Wisconsin—a routine visit as part of the federal government’s efforts to ensure the safety of the food we eat. The inspectors took samples of cheese to test for bacteria. Sargento conducted tests on cheese from the same lot. A week later, the results from both sets of tests were in—the cheese was bacteria-free. Sargento, having gotten the all-clear from the government, shipped the cheese to stores across the country.
Two months later, however, the FDA called back. There had been a mistake. A subsequent test had found traces of listeria—bacteria that can be fatal if ingested by people with immunodeficiencies. Sargento retested their samples. The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture conducted an independent test. The FDA retested, too. The results of the testing confirmed the earlier tests—the cheese was bacteria-free and fine to eat.
But the FDA has a “zero tolerance” policy on listeria and formally recommended that Sargento recall the cheese. Sargento pushed back on the decision, pointing out that multiple tests—internal and governmental, taken before and after the test that found listeria—had found the cheese bacteria-free. The FDA then made the kind of demand that only the government can make: Either you issue a “voluntary” recall or we will order you to do it.
Obama is sitting on money and methods to slow the virus. Instead he blames Congress.
ENLARGE
Miami police office Michelle Albelo hands out cans of insect repellent on August 2.PHOTO:GETTY IMAGES
The Zika virus is only beginning to hit the U.S. mainland, but its political exploitation is already an epidemic. To wit, theObamaAdministration that is sitting on money and methods to reduce the Zika outbreak is using the virus as a political bludgeon to elect more Democrats.
A Zika outbreak hit Miami this week, and the Centers for Disease Control on Monday advised pregnant women to get checked for possible exposure. Women in Miami are being told to cover up, stay indoors and wear insect repellant because the virus can cause malformed brains in the womb. These are sensible precautions, but it would be better if the government wasn’t dysfunctional in spending the money it has and eradicating the mosquitoes that carry the disease.
After grabbing legal power, bureaucrats are amassing firepower. It’s time to scale back the federal arsenal.
By
TOM COBURNand
ADAM ANDRZEJEWSKI
Dr. Coburn is a physician and former U.S. senator from Oklahoma. He is the honorary chairman, and Mr. Andrzejewski is the founder and CEO, of OpenTheBooks.com, a repository of public-spending records.
EXCERPT FROM THIS ARTICLE: On Friday, June 17, our organization, American Transparency, is releasing its OpenTheBooks.com oversightreporton the militarization of America. The report catalogs federal purchases of guns, ammunition and military-style equipment by seemingly bureaucratic federal agencies. During a nine-year period through 2014, we found, 67 agencies unaffiliated with the Department of Defense spent $1.48 billion on guns and ammo. Of that total, $335.1 million was spent by agencies traditionally viewed as regulatory or administrative, such as the Smithsonian Institution and the U.S. Mint.
Some examples of spending from 2005 through 2014 raise the question: Who are they preparing to battle?
Special agents at the IRS equipped with AR-15 military-style rifles? Health and Human Services “Special Office of Inspector General Agents” being trained by the Army’s Special Forces contractors? The Department of Veterans Affairs arming 3,700 employees?
The number of non-Defense Department federal officers authorized to make arrests and carry firearms (200,000) now exceeds the number of U.S. Marines (182,000). In its escalating arms and ammo stockpiling, this federal arms race is unlike anything in history. Over the last 20 years, the number of these federal officers with arrest-and-firearm authority has nearly tripled to over 200,000 today, from 74,500 in 1996.
EPA, VA among those nabbing heavy armaments
By Kellan Howell – The Washington Times – Thursday, January 7, 2016
EXCERPT FROM THIS ARTICLE: Some agencies like the EPA, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management have come under fire in recent years for conducting raid-like operations with heavily armed agents. In 2013 armed EPA officers raided the town of Chicken, Alaska. The agency said the raid was conducted to look for possible violations of the Clean Water Act.
As the U.S. engages in a national debate over the militarization of the police, federal data shows that government agencies charged with largely administrative roles are spending tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to purchase SWAT and military-style equipment.
Since FY 2006, 44 traditionally administrative agencies have spent over $71 million on items like body armor, riot helmets and shields, cannon launchers and police firearms and ammunition, according to federal spending data from watchdog group OpenTheBooks.com.
This comes in addition to the $330 million spent on such equipment in that period by traditional law enforcement agencies like the FBI, Secret Service and Drug Enforcement Administration.
Some examples of the purchases include:
• Nearly $2 million spent by the Department of Veterans Affairs on riot helmets, defender shields, body armor, a “milo return fire cannon system,” armored mobile shields, Kevlar blankets, tactical gear and equipment for crowd control.
• Over $300,000 spent by the Food and Drug Administration on “ballistic vests and carriers” in fiscal 2014.
• Over $200,000 on body armor spent by the Environmental Protection Agency during the Obama administration years, versus just $30,000 in the three previous fiscal years.
• More than $28,000 by the Smithsonian Institution on body armor for its “zoo police and security officers” in fiscal 2012. (more…)
On May 15th, 1862, the thirty-seventh Congress passed into law the creation of the United States Department of Agriculture. Its purpose, as the law explained, was “to diffuse among the people of the United States useful information on subjects connected with agriculture in the most general and comprehensive sense of that word, and to procure, propagate, and distribute among the people new and valuable seeds and plants.”
How charming; how quaint. Over one hundred and fifty years later, the USDA is still going strong; from its humble beginnings; it now commands hundreds of billions of dollars in Federal funds and more than 100,000 personnel. What is it doing with all that manpower, and all that cash? Is it spreading “useful information” about agriculture? Is it passing out “new and valuable seeds and plants?” Are we getting the most bang for our agricultural buck?
Er, not quite, or rather not merely. As came to light this week, the USDA has distributed a flyer that assures Mexican immigrants that they can acquire food stamp benefits for their children without proper documentation — that is to say, illegal immigrants may still be eligible for an EBT card. The news is hardly surprising; what’s remarkable is that the USDA is actively advertising it.
But that’s what happens to bureaucracy over time. The USDA was founded on a relatively simple set of principles: promote American agriculture. That was it; that was pretty much its whole raison d’être. In one hundred and fifty years it apparently learned a few new tricks, the least of which is teaching people how to live off the public dole. The USDA now boasts an Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, an Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs, and an Economic Research Service, to name a few of its bureaucratic functions; it manages offices of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, Tribal Relations, Communications, Nutrition Policy and Promotion, the Executive Secretariat, and many others; it hath pronounced on the “Harmonized Tariff Schedule” and “International Phyosanitary Standards” and lots of other fascinating topics.
How much of this is “useful information?” about agriculture? How much of it is regulatory folderol? (more…)
Disturbing developments are sweeping across the greater Middle East. In Syria, tens of thousands of innocent people have been slaughtered. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood has come to power, and the country’s peace treaty with Israel hangs in the balance. In Libya, our ambassador was murdered in a terrorist attack. U.S. embassies throughout the region have been stormed in violent protests. And in Iran, the ayatollahs continue to move full tilt toward nuclear-weapons capability, all the while promising to annihilate Israel.
These developments are not, as President Obama says, mere “bumps in the road.” They are major issues that put our security at risk.
Yet amid this upheaval, our country seems to be at the mercy of events rather than shaping them. We’re not moving them in a direction that protects our people or our allies.
And that’s dangerous. If the Middle East descends into chaos, if Iran moves toward nuclear breakout, or if Israel’s security is compromised, America could be pulled into the maelstrom.
We still have time to address these threats, but it will require a new strategy toward the Middle East.
The first step is to understand how we got here. Since World War II, America has been the leader of the Free World. We’re unique in having earned that role not through conquest but through promoting human rights, free markets and the rule of law. We ally ourselves with like-minded countries, expand prosperity through trade and keep the peace by maintaining a military second to none.
But in recent years, President Obama has allowed our leadership to atrophy. Our economy is stuck in a “recovery” that barely deserves the name. Our national debt has risen to record levels. Our military, tested by a decade of war, is facing devastating cuts thanks to the budgetary games played by the White House. Finally, our values have been misapplied—and misunderstood—by a president who thinks that weakness will win favor with our adversaries.
Associated Press/Hassene DridiAn American school adjacent to the U.S. Embassy in Tunis, Tunisia, on Sept. 15. Protesters burned the school the day before.
By failing to maintain the elements of our influence and by stepping away from our allies, President Obama has heightened the prospect of conflict and instability. He does not understand that an American policy that lacks resolve can provoke aggression and encourage disorder. (more…)
