Was ESPN Wrong To Publish Jason Pierre-Paul’s Amputation Medical Records?

Giants defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul suffered a gruesome hand injury in a fireworks mishap while celebrating his nation’s independence on Saturday. The extent of the injury was not known until Wednesday evening, when ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported on Twitter that Pierre-Paul had to have the index finger on his right hand amputated.

As if his followers wouldn’t believe him without proof, Schefter included an image of Pierre-Paul’s medical chart showing his index finger had, in fact, been amputated.

Immediately following his tweet, social media blew up to debate the ethics of publishing someone’s personal medical information, with some even wondering if a law had been broken.

According to the rules of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (or HIPAA, not to be confused with HIPPA, HIPPO, HIPA, or any host of other incorrect acronyms that were floating around Twitter on Wednesday from social media health “experts”), a hospital or medical center is not allowed to disclose any patient’s personal medical information without their consent. However, that’s not really what happened here.

A law may have been broken, but if Pierre-Paul’s information got into the hands of ESPN without his consent, HIPAA would only care about the medical center or business entity that leaked it. Despite that, NBC’s Mike Florio indicated on Twitter that he still would not have posted it.

It’s tough to agree that there’s nothing to gain, because it’s likely that the amount of publicity Schefter’s tweet got immediately after publishing it is exactly what he was hoping for.

Then again, there’s also this:

https://twitter.com/JulieDiCaro/status/618927299446964224

Schefter may not have broken any laws, but there’s clearly an issue of journalistic ethics in play.

Or, to be more blunt, what Steelers linebacker James Harrison said:

Indeed.