MEDICAL RECORDS SHOULD BE OFF LIMITS TO FISHING PROSECUTORS

Rush Limbaugh has rubbed a lot of people the wrong way
during his nearly two-decade gig as a national radio talk-show host.
He has done so intentionally, we might add.

In his world there are not merely feminists, but "femi-Nazis." In his
world, homelessness is a hoax. In his world, there is no room for any
opinion even slightly left of the center line.

So it might be easy for some to suggest that the right-wing blowhard
should stew in his own legal juices now that he's become a target in
the War on Drugs. But that would be the wrong thing to do.

Even the American Civil Liberties Union -- a favorite nemesis of
hardline conservatives like Limbaugh -- knows that would be the wrong
thing to do. The ACLU has ridden to Limbaugh's side on an important
issue that transcends the question of whether a radio personality
might or might not have seen too many doctors in his quest for pain
relief.

The issue is the sanctity of the doctor-patient relationship, a
relationship that for centuries, and for good reason, has been based
on strict confidentiality. The reason for that confidentiality is that
patients sometimes need to tell their doctors embarrassing things in
order to get the proper treatment; were the doctor to blab, trust
would be shattered and health care could suffer.

Limbaugh, and the ACLU, assert his privacy was violated when Florida
prosecutors obtained a search warrant that allowed them to peer into
his medical records for evidence of "doctor shopping," the illegal
practice of going from physician to physician for multiple painkiller
prescriptions.

Limbaugh has not been charged with a crime. In fact, the entire case
centers on those medical records; without them, prosecutors will just
have to leave the man alone.

A Florida appeals court ruled Wednesday that seizing the records
comported with Florida law. Limbaugh has vowed to appeal. Some legal
experts say his chances at the next level don't look too good, either,
because prosecutors long have had the ability to look at medical
records in criminal investigations.

Well, maybe they have. And maybe in some cases they should.

But in cases like this, a victimless "crime" if it can even be called
that, the law should be able to tell prosecutors to butt out. The
entire issue here is personal. Limbaugh was suffering, he got addicted
to painkillers, he may have gone to great lengths to get them -- and
the only way prosecutors can prove that is to snoop into some of his
most intimate records.

It's scary. It does no justice to medicine and little to the cause of
law enforcement. It might give pause to many who confide in their
doctors but who now might fear the contents of those conversations
could be divulged.

This looks like a great opportunity for courts to draw appropriate
limits on these kinds of inquiries. We -- along with strange bedfellows
Rush Limbaugh and the ACLU -- hope they do.