ILLINOIS CITIZENS PREVAIL IN RIGHT TO KNOW CASE

Congratulation to The Southern Illinoisan newspaper for sticking to their guns in a lengthy public health fight they have been waging with the Illinos Department of Public Health[IDPH]. After 8 years of litigation and appeals, the Illinois Supreme Court recently ruled that the IDPH had to fork over certain public health records they had been withholding. The newspaper had been fighting to obtain IDPH data regarding neuroblastoma, a rare childhood cancer. The Supreme Court ruled that the IDPH must comply with the newspaper's Freedom of Information Request that would help identify "clusters" of cancer cases. The original request was filed shortly after a civil lawsuit was filed by several families in Taylorville, Illinois. The families suspected that the cancer developed by their children resulted from coal tar at a nearby utility plant. The families had shown a link between the cancers and the contaminants, and a monetary settlement was reached. The paper wanted to find out if children in others areas of the state were at also at risk from similar contaminants or carcinogens.

So the Southern Illinoisan filed a Freedom of Information Request for the data in 1997. There was no request for specific names. Instead, the paper was looking for the type of cancer, date of diagnosis and zip code of all cancer patient diagnosed since1985. Seems reasonable enought. But the IDPH didn't think so. The Department denied the request, alleging the data could be manipulated to identify the patients. To prove their point, the Department offered evidence that a professor of Computer Science could use the information requested to determine the names of most of the patients. [It should be noted that the Professor had a Ph.D in computer science, used sophisticated search techniques and expensive software to get the names]. The newspaper filed suit in 1998, seeking court intervention to get the records. The trial court ruled for the paper, but the IDPH fought the ruling, and the Appellate Court overturned the lower court's decision. The case was sent back to the lower court. And again, in 2002, the trial court ordered the Department to turn over the data. In fact, the trial judge, William Schwartz, ordered the agency to pay the paper's legal fees, because he found the Department's conduct was "obstreperous". But the IDPH wasn't done. They took the fight to the Illinois Supreme Court. Thankfully the Supreme Court ordered that the records were to be turned over. But the IDPH seemingly hasn't given up. A spokesman for the IDPH was quoted as saying "We are very disappointed and wer are exploring all options" to avoid release of the data, including legislation.

Makes you wonder why the IDPH would fight so hard to keep these records confidential. Wonder what they are so afraid of...