Doctor Sues Over Act 13 "Gag Rule"

Susan Phillips

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Susan Phillips tells stories about the consequences of political decisions on people's every day lives. She has worked as a reporter for WHYY since 2004. Susan's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election resulted in a story on the front page of the New York Times. In 2010 she traveled to Haiti to cover the earthquake. That same year she produced an award-winning series on Pennsylvania's natural gas rush called "The Shale Game." She received a 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award for her work covering natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. She has also won several Edward R. Murrow awards for her work with StateImpact. In 2013/14 she spent a year at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow. She has also been a Metcalf Fellow, an MBL Logan Science Journalism Fellow and reported from Marrakech on the 2016 climate talks as an International Reporting Project Fellow. A graduate of Columbia School of Journalism, she earned her Bachelor's degree in International Relations from George Washington University.

July 30, 2012 | 5:19 PM

A Luzerne County doctor has filed a federal lawsuit against a controversial aspect of Pennsylvania’s new drilling law. The law, now known as Act 13, requires gas drilling companies to provide health professionals with health and safety information on chemical exposures experienced by individual patients. But the law also says those companies may require healthcare workers to sign a nondisclosure agreement. How that aspect of the law gets interpreted is controversial. Governor Corbett’s office says it is meant to help doctors treat their patients properly. But some doctors say it would compromise their medical ethics, and jeopardize public health.
A panel of Commonwealth court judges recently ruled in a separate case that another doctor challenging the law did not have standing to bring such a suit. But a lawyer for Luzerne County nephrologist Alfonso Rodriquez says his client is in a different position.
“He’s on the frontline of treating people who have been exposed to fracking fluid,” said Paul Rossi, who filed the suit on behalf of Dr. Rodriquez. “He has actually treated someone who was exposed to fracking fluid.”
As a nephrologist, Rodriguez is a kidney specialist who treats patients on dialysis, as well as people who may be suffering from bladder cancer. He did treat a worker exposed to frack fluid during a blowout.
“It was a complex medical case,” says attorney Paul Rossi. “It is not hypothetical that [Rodriquez] will be impacted by this law.”
Doctors like Rodriquez worry that they won’t be able to share the information about the exposure with their patients, although the authors of the law say patients will be able to get the information. Health professionals also worry that the confidentiality agreements would restrict them from registering the exposure, and the subsequent health impacts, for public health research. Rossi says the law restricts his clients constitutional rights of free speech.