Sports Injury Info and Privacy Laws

[Ksyrup]

Rob Neyer has started blogging on ESPN.com (insider only) - and doing a fine job, btw - and one of his blogs yesterday about the likelihood that the Tigers are going to slump this year pointed out Kenny Rogers' "tired arm" and trip to the DL. Neyer, in passing, raised a question about injury reporting based on this comment from an article about Rogers:

"Asked what part of Rogers' arm is fatigued, Dombrowski said he couldn't say more about Rogers' injury because of new, tighter rules in baseball on disclosing information on injuries."

Neyer asked readers to enlighten him about this, and there is a small discussion about how disclosure of medical information without a person's consent is a violation of privacy laws, and that apparently, in line with this, a section of the CBA was recently added/amended which prohibits a team from commenting on injuries, only the player can do so.

I don't know if that's true or not about the CBA being amended, but if it is, this raises an interesting question about injury reporting in sports in general - is the DL a violation of privacy laws? Can teams get around this simply by placing a consent to disclosure in a player's contract? What, oh what, would the NFL do without the ability to provide Vegas with injury info each week, and how are they doing this legally now?

I assume a consent is the easiest way around this, and might be what all leagues are using to comply with the laws, and Dombrowski is skirting the issue of revealing a potentially serious (or at least more serious than "dead arm") injury to Rogers by hiding behind the privacy law excuse (which would be a pretty novel and Belichickian thing to do, wouldn't it?), but maybe not. Maybe the leagues really aren't in compliance here, and the MLB CBA provision - if it exists at all - is designed more to combat the drug testing issue than to comply with privacy laws aimed at routine player injury reporting. But I find the whole thing to be curious, in that I'd never really given it a second thought until this article. Anyone in the medical field who deals with privacy issues on a day-to-day basis care to comment?

Oh, and I found this comment from one of the respondents to Neyer's blog pretty damn funny:

"I can barely manage to get my head around the ramifications for Manny Ramirez alone. He has a certain history of taking days off for vague, dubious injuries -- and now he'll be able to do without fear of being criticized or scrutinized? That's just a midseason Dominican vacation waiting to happen. And isn't "Manny being Manny" a legitimate mental health issue in and of itself? I can't wait to see that play out. Larry Lucchino will be limited to comments like, "This is just a case of Manny being a player whose name I cannot disclose." :D

[albionmoonlight]

Maybe the NFL, etc. have it in the CBA that teams can disclose injury information about players.

[Ksyrup]

If that's the case, I'm thinking this new provision (again, if it exists - I'm just going off of a discussion on a blog) is a response to the drug testing issue that came up and is trying to shield the league from being in a position of having to turn over test results, etc.

[JonInMiddleGA]

IIRC, the primary reason that injury information is disclosed by the NFL is because of its potential impact on gambling. And I would bet (pardon the weak humor) that it is included in their CBA somewhere.

[CU Tiger]

It was written into the most recen NFL CBA, which coincidentally was ~6months after the introduction of HIPPA standards.

I remember initially the outcry, what will we do. Our sideline reporters wont be allowed to say a guy with a bone sticking out wont be able to say he wont return:rolleyes:

[Ksyrup]

I guess it was largely for legal protection of the leagues, then, even if no one follows through on it because of the players' expectations that every minor injury is documented. I suspect the bigger issues would lie with HIV, drug dependency, and mental issues and such. Somewhat like what Greinke went through - I could see a player taking issue with a team disclosing any specifics of that kind of injury/illness as opposed to a typical physical injury.

I guess the more interesting question is whether Dombrowski was being too clever when he gave that answer about the extent of Rogers' injury. A new way to sidestep a question they don't want to answer.

[Ksyrup]

A-HA!



<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 20px" vAlign=top width="99%">Tigers Pitcher Kenny Rogers Has Surgery</TD><TD vAlign=top align=right>http://img.breitbart.com/images/ap.gif (http://www.breitbart.com/partner.php?source=ap)</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!-- headline end --><!-- date/author start --><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD colSpan=2>http://www.breitbart.com/images/common/dot.gif</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width="99%">Mar 30 02:01 PM US/Eastern
</TD><TD style="PADDING-TOP: 5px" vAlign=bottom align=right><TABLE style="BORDER-RIGHT: #bababa 1px solid; BORDER-TOP: #bababa 1px solid; BORDER-LEFT: #bababa 1px solid; BORDER-BOTTOM: #bababa 1px solid; BACKGROUND-COLOR: #edf0f4" height=33 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=1 border=0></TR><TBODY><TR><TD style="PADDING-RIGHT: 5px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">http://www.breitbart.com/images/article/email.gif (http://www.breitbart.com/email.php?link=%2Farticle.php%3Fid%3D2007-03-30_D8O6L1H81%26show_article%3D1%26cat%3Dbreaking&id=D8O6L1H81)</TD><TD background=images/article/dots.gif>http://www.breitbart.com/images/common/dot.gif</TD><TD style="PADDING-RIGHT: 5px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">http://www.breitbart.com/images/article/print.gif (http://www.breitbart.com/print.php?id=2007-03-30_D8O6L1H81&show_article=1&cat=breaking)</TD><TD background=images/article/dots.gif>http://www.breitbart.com/images/common/dot.gif</TD><TD style="PADDING-RIGHT: 5px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px"><SCRIPT>try { insert_digg_btn('world_news'); } catch(e){}</SCRIPT>http://www.breitbart.com/images/article/digg.gif (http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url=http%3A//www.breitbart.com/article.php%3Fid%3D2007-03-30_D8O6L1H81%26show_article%3D1%26cat%3Dbreaking&title=Tigers%20Pitcher%20Kenny%20Rogers%20Has%20Surgery&topic=world_news)</TD><TD background=images/article/dots.gif>http://www.breitbart.com/images/common/dot.gif</TD><TD style="PADDING-RIGHT: 5px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">http://www.breitbart.com/images/article/delicious.gif (http://del.icio.us/post)</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR><TR><TD colSpan=2>http://www.breitbart.com/images/common/dot.gif</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!-- date/author end --><!-- article start --><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD style="FONT-SIZE: 14px" vAlign=top width="99%">LAKELAND, Fla. (AP) - Detroit Tigers pitcher Kenny Rogers underwent successful left shoulder surgery Friday that removed a blood clot (http://search.breitbart.com/q?s=%22blood+clot%22&sid=breitbart.com) and repaired some arteries.


The left-handed starter had the surgery in Dallas and is expected to start throwing in six to eight weeks.

Tigers general manager Dave Dombrowski said it was unlikely Rogers would return to the rotation before July at the earliest.

The surgery announcement came a day after the Tigers placed the 42- year-old All-Star on the 15-day disabled list. Chad Durbin (http://search.breitbart.com/q?s=%22Chad+Durbin%22&sid=breitbart.com), who made the team as a reliever, becomes the Tigers' fifth starter.

Rogers is on the DL for the first time since 2001.

A fierce competitiveness, cerebral approach and tireless work ethic have helped Rogers remain effective for a long time. He has gone from a hard-throwing pitcher to a crafty one during a career that began in 1989 with the Texas Rangers (http://search.breitbart.com/q?s=%22Texas+Rangers%22&sid=breitbart.com) and included stops with Oakland, Minnesota and both teams in New York.

Rogers was 17-8 with a 3.84 ERA last year during his first season with the Tigers, then gained notoriety during the postseason when he had a patch of dirt on his pitching hand. He won all three of his postseason starts and didn't allow a run in 23 innings.

Rogers was 2-0 with a 2.05 ERA in five exhibition starts. With Rogers out of the rotation, Nate Robertson (http://search.breitbart.com/q?s=%22Nate+Robertson%22&sid=breitbart.com) will pitch in place of Rogers on Wednesday in Detroit's second game. Jeremy Bonderman (http://search.breitbart.com/q?s=%22Jeremy+Bonderman%22&sid=breitbart.com) starts Monday's opener against Toronto. Justin Verlander goes third in the rotation, followed by Mike Maroth (http://search.breitbart.com/q?s=%22Mike+Maroth%22&sid=breitbart.com) and Durbin.

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