blog.bioethics.net

Health Privacy Exists No Matter Who You Are

According to a recent New York Times article, "health privacy isn't an issue when you are a legend." The article, discussing the recent health disclosures, rumormongering, and volatile stock prices at Apple, due to Steve Jobs' health claims that privacy isn't a luxury that Mr. Jobs can have when he is such a public figure and one on which stockholders and the public rely and admire.

As Mr. Nocera, author of the article writes, "There are certain people who simply don't have the same privacy rights as others, whether they like it or not. Presidents. Celebrities. Sports figures." However, I disagree. Presidents do not have the same privacy rights as ordinary citizens--that is true. Sports figures. Right again, Mr. Nocera. But celebrities and particularly celebrity CEOs? I'm not so sure your argument extends as far as Steve Jobs. Unless his health is so poor that his mental function is actually impaired to the point that he imperils the company and then he actually refuses to do what he actually did do (step-down as CEO temporarily taking medical leave), then and only then would a public outing of someone's medical status for the public good be morally justified.

Otherwise, such medical information should be kept private unless the individual wishes to make it public. Which Mr. Jobs did not. He has reluctantly, only when hard pressed and the stock of the company has fallen precipitously, spoken or written publicly to discuss his health status.

I have yet to hear anyone argue that Steve Jobs' health status has endangered Apple's status as a company or the public's safety because of his health itself. Has he botched the next generation of iPhone because of his illness or delayed the creation of the tri-fold Mac Book because of his "hormone imbalance"? If so, then there could be a reason for forcing the disclosure to shareholders. Some have argued that Mr. Jobs and Apple have played with Apple's stock prices through multiple health disclosures over the last 6 to 8 months. This, if it were true, would be unethical as well and an unjustifiable use of health information.

I say: let's leave the beloved Steve Jobs alone to recover in peace and quiet and stop demanding of him what we would not ask of our friends and neighbors--to disclose the intimate details of one's illness in one of the most trying times in a person's life.

Summer Johnson, PhD