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New Jersey Rejects Request For Dolphin Necropsy Results, Cites "Medical Privacy" (muckrock.com)

Posted by samzenpus on from the won't-somebody-please-think-of-the-dead-dolphin's-privacy? dept.

v3rgEz writes: When a dolphin died in New Jersey's South River last year, Carly Sitrin wanted to know what killed it. So she filed a public record request to the NJ Department of Agriculture in order to get the necropsy results. The DOA finally responded last week with the weird decision to deny the release of the record on grounds of medical privacy. The response reads in part: "We are in receipt of your request for information (#W101407) under the auspices of the State’s Open Public Records Act (O.P.R.A.). Specifically, you requested any and all reports associated with the necropsy of the dolphin that strayed into the South River on August 5, 2015 in Middlesex County, New Jersey. This request is denied as it would release information deemed confidential under O.P.R.A., specifically information related to a medical diagnosis or evaluation. (E.O. 26, McGreevey)"

7 of 228 comments (clear)

  1. How about cows? by nospam007 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Let's hope when Governor Christie eats his next cow, nobody will tell him that it has mad cow's disease, since that would violate the privacy of the dead cow.

  2. The water? by phishybongwaters · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That has to be it right, the results would show how toxic the water is, forcing the state to step in and clean it up. That's the only logical reason for denying this request.

    1. Re:The water? by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.

      Laziness to the point of making up non-existent rights? That's pretty much malice.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    2. Re:The water? by yodleboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Look at this another way, someone with the state of New Jersey felt that they were justified in performing a necropsy on a non-food, non-endangered animal. Now they won't share the results. Why did they feel the necropsy was necessary, and what did they find that they don't want to share? The necropsy bit could be perfectly innocent. Someone took advantage of the rarity of having a large dead marine mammal to run tests on, maybe to prove that there wasn't anything in the water, per se, that killed it. It's the refusal to share the results that is suspicious...

      If this shakes out as a public safety issue and/or government corruption/cover-up, then it would be money well spent.

    3. Re:The water? by ttucker · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Or it could just be the default response for any document from the medical examiner, and their computer system lacks the distinction between human and animal medical exams.

      A small media circus is still probably the only way to get the documents, so here we go?

  3. Medical privacy? by Chas · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Okay, I beg the pardon of the PETA folks (actually no I don't...*Kicks a kitten*).
    But it's a fucking animal that died in public waterway and was autopsied on the public dime.

    People who wish to know have a right to that information.

    I want to know what mental defective thought "medical privacy" was an appropriate excuse.

    --


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!
  4. Re:speaking of laziness... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Well, having seen said dolphin in said river personally (i.e. my commute passed this incident daily while the dolphin was hanging about), one has to keep in mind that the local authorities decided the best way to deal with this was to have police on jet skis whizzing around in the river for long chunks of time. Ostensibly because they needed to keep the gawkers from molesting the dolphin, but also... just possibly mind you... getting paid OT for jetskiing full blast someplace you would other times be cited for might have been to much fun and loads of free cash for those involved.

    This leaves three ready possibilities where OPRA would be stymied, from most likely to least likely.

    1) The medical examiner report is part of an ongoing criminal investigation. Wording of the statute aside, administrative guidelines interprets them to mean that ongoing criminal investigations are excluded from opra, and the ME records may simply get covered under that umbrella.

    2) The animal died from the activities of authorities, the autopsy contains personally identifiable information of people involved, and the request was worded as submitted to not cover such extraneous information. Normally, they would redact the questionable info, but if said jet skiing po-po or similar managed to fatally injure the dolphin, they might take the opportunity and run with it if the submitter provided such an opportunity.

    3) The officer(s) policing the dolphin had herpagonasyphilaids and managed to transmit it to the dolphin somehow. In which case, it would be releasing HIPAA protected info regarding an individual if they release names outright, or the equivalent which unambiguously identifies someone despite not being an explicit naming, which opra doesn't cover.

    Reality is that the dolphin crawled up an estuary a pretty good ways. They tried to scare it back towards the ocean and it returned anyway. The sucker was in all likelihood going to die there at some point and wasn't well. The actions of the authorities may have accelerated that a bit, but mostly it just pissed away funds the state and county were short of anyway as recovery form superstorm sandy was still going on and had had a serious impact on property tax revenue.