4 ms·

Don't employees have privacy rights with respect to medical procedures. How is this legal?

JoeAltmaier 5y ago
It's a public health issue. Border officials screen for TB for example. Many hiring policies demand a drug test. Company policy can be pretty much whatever it wants to be. Because, you see, you aren't forced to work there.
- hulitu 5y ago
  You aren't force to work there, you aren't force to give any personal info to the company. Do they have a legal basis to do this ?
  - JoeAltmaier 5y ago
    They don't need one? They don't have to hire you. Problem solved.
- dilap 5y ago
  Sure, but we still put limits on what a company can require. They can't say, hey, you have to give your boss a handjob every Wednesday, don't like it, go work somewhere else! We don't think of that as kosher. If you, personally, do think that's kosher, OK, great, you have a consistent position, but it's not a common one. If you don't, then it's worth thinking about what sorts of things are reasonable to a allow a company to require and which are not. To me, it's an easy call that autonomy of your body is somewhere we should draw that line, especially when it's a medical treatment that is not zero risk.
  - blitzar 5y ago
    > it's an easy call that autonomy of your body is somewhere we should draw that line So being being physically present in the office / at your desk / at your till / stacking your shelf / serving your section of a restraunt is negitiable? You are free to excersise autonomy over your body and take it out to the park for a walk rather than sitting in that cubicle?
    - dilap 5y ago
      Along those lines, how about something like the NFL, which asks you risk serious injury for entertainment. A coal miner. A race car driver. And in fact, a porn star, who IS required to do sex acts as part of the job. I think to me what the job requires has something to do with it -- if your job necessarily entails something, then it's OK to require it. Otherwise, I would prefer the company stay uninvolved.
      - blitzar 5y ago
        A porn star that refuses to present an std test would not get very far, and because they are interaction with their collegue in the production of said entertainment content, I doubt anyone would say it is an unreasonable request. I dont feel it is an unreasonable expectaton that the person who hand rolls my sushi wash their hands. Is being clean and healthy a requirement for that job? Not everyone likes washing their hands, there is evidence that it makes people go crazy and alters their brains, like it did to Howard Hughes. Even more often there are side effects such as dryness, irritation and peeling. Anyway, washing your hands doesnt stop the hands from touching the food, let alone anything else, so it is completely pointless and ineffective anyway. Is it reasonable to ask that the person who sits in the chair next to me in the office not come to work carrying a contageous disease? The flu; some say "dont be a wimp and go to work anyway". What if it was smallpox or ebola or even chickenpox? While not a job requirement to be free of ebola, I suspect some might blame the carrier if they decided to ride out their ebola infection and ended up killing a bunch of their colleagues.
        dilap 5y ago
        Yeah, but the risk profiles of a new vaccine and washing your hands are night-and-day different.
        blitzar 5y ago
        ‘Wash your hands’ was once controversial medical advice Everyone knows handwashing is an easy way to stay healthy, but that wasn't always so. In the 1840s, advocating it cost a doctor his career. Everyone knows ... or is that just what big hand-wash wants you to think...

It's a public health issue. Border officials screen for TB for example. Many hiring policies demand a drug test. Company policy can be pretty much whatever it wants to be. Because, you see, you aren't forced to work there.

hulitu 5y ago
You aren't force to work there, you aren't force to give any personal info to the company. Do they have a legal basis to do this ?
- JoeAltmaier 5y ago
  They don't need one? They don't have to hire you. Problem solved.
dilap 5y ago
Sure, but we still put limits on what a company can require. They can't say, hey, you have to give your boss a handjob every Wednesday, don't like it, go work somewhere else! We don't think of that as kosher. If you, personally, do think that's kosher, OK, great, you have a consistent position, but it's not a common one. If you don't, then it's worth thinking about what sorts of things are reasonable to a allow a company to require and which are not. To me, it's an easy call that autonomy of your body is somewhere we should draw that line, especially when it's a medical treatment that is not zero risk.
- blitzar 5y ago
  > it's an easy call that autonomy of your body is somewhere we should draw that line So being being physically present in the office / at your desk / at your till / stacking your shelf / serving your section of a restraunt is negitiable? You are free to excersise autonomy over your body and take it out to the park for a walk rather than sitting in that cubicle?
  - dilap 5y ago
    Along those lines, how about something like the NFL, which asks you risk serious injury for entertainment. A coal miner. A race car driver. And in fact, a porn star, who IS required to do sex acts as part of the job. I think to me what the job requires has something to do with it -- if your job necessarily entails something, then it's OK to require it. Otherwise, I would prefer the company stay uninvolved.
    - blitzar 5y ago
      A porn star that refuses to present an std test would not get very far, and because they are interaction with their collegue in the production of said entertainment content, I doubt anyone would say it is an unreasonable request. I dont feel it is an unreasonable expectaton that the person who hand rolls my sushi wash their hands. Is being clean and healthy a requirement for that job? Not everyone likes washing their hands, there is evidence that it makes people go crazy and alters their brains, like it did to Howard Hughes. Even more often there are side effects such as dryness, irritation and peeling. Anyway, washing your hands doesnt stop the hands from touching the food, let alone anything else, so it is completely pointless and ineffective anyway. Is it reasonable to ask that the person who sits in the chair next to me in the office not come to work carrying a contageous disease? The flu; some say "dont be a wimp and go to work anyway". What if it was smallpox or ebola or even chickenpox? While not a job requirement to be free of ebola, I suspect some might blame the carrier if they decided to ride out their ebola infection and ended up killing a bunch of their colleagues.
      - dilap 5y ago
        Yeah, but the risk profiles of a new vaccine and washing your hands are night-and-day different.
        blitzar 5y ago
        ‘Wash your hands’ was once controversial medical advice Everyone knows handwashing is an easy way to stay healthy, but that wasn't always so. In the 1840s, advocating it cost a doctor his career. Everyone knows ... or is that just what big hand-wash wants you to think...