The Assembly Health Committee has unanimously declined to forward SB 1096 to the floor of the Assembly. I’ve written quite a bit about this privacy invasion, and it’s heartening to see this one disappear for a while.

As a reminder, SB 1096 would allow pharmacies to sell prescription data so that patients could receive “reminder letters” from third parties. As the law currently stands, pharmacies and doctors could do so themselves, but could not sell the data to others. Other states allow this privacy invasion, but fortunately California will remain the lone holdout against PhARMA’s plans to commoditize our health records. Despite the $20,000+ that health care interests invested in Sen Calderon, they were unable to succeed in passing this poorly conceived legislation.

Thank you to Asm. Health Cmte Chair Dymally and the entirety of the Committee for rejecting this.