HIPPA and HeLa

HIPPA is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, it is meant to protect patient information and is the first nationally recognizable regulation for the use and disclosure of an individual's health information. This is very important in the medical field today due to the fact that simply sharing the information of whether a patient is present in the hospital can lead to criminal charges under the basis of HIPAA violation. It is amazing how HeLa cells were the basis for this document. In the book the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare started investigations into human subject research and eventually would approve a federal law requiring approval by Institutional Review Board (IRB) and informed consent. It also found that McKusick’s research on the Lack’s family blood samples was inadequate because it simply wasn’t just drawing blood to identify blood but they were uncovering their genetic information and was this is a violation of privacy. This is exactly what HIPAA stands for, to protect patient information.