The dismissal of the case against Dr. Eithan Haim in U.S. district court in Houston comes as the Trump administration in its first week has already issued executive orders rolling back transgender rights.

Prosecutors had said that Haim, a 34-year-old surgeon, took the information and shared it with a conservative activist with “intent to cause malicious harm” to Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, one of the nation’s largest pediatric hospitals.

Haim works in the Dallas area but had previously worked at Texas Children’s Hospital as part of his residency. The indictment alleged that Haim asked to reactivate his login there and in 2023 began accessing information on pediatric patients not under his care and then turned it over to a media contact.

  • Terces@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 month ago

    If the patients hadn’t been transgender, this would not have been dropped. It is illegal to share that data no matter what…

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 month ago

      Oh you missed the news about congress wanting to insert AI into the medical system, including diagnosis and dispensing medicine.

      An AI does not have any sort of doctor-patient confidentiality.

      So it won’t just be trans people, it will be anyone who’s health issues make them undesirable in the eyes of the government. For example, people who turn out to be part of a group genetically even if they don’t look like it.

      • Bronzebeard@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 month ago

        False… Any system that access medical data needs to follow the same HIPAA laws regarding information access. Putting that info into a database doesn’t absorb you of the responsibility of protecting that data, neither would giving access to that database to an AI