As Christina Applegate ascertained last week, the options are limited.
She is just the latest fame to regain her medical troubles in a rag. Patrick Swayze, Britney Spears, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, Dennis Quaid, George Clooney, Farrah Fawcett � all in recent long time have seen information from their aesculapian records, or those of loved ones, spread in the iron out and on the Internet � without their license and sometimes in assault of the law.
Sometimes leaks stem from happenstance.
"I've been at the doctor's office and had some other person in the wait room call and report that I was in that respect � I think it's appalling," says actress Jennifer Garner.
But much celebrities surmise that medical personnel or loved ones have been lured by money to share versed details. In a celebrity-mad culture in which stars' medical problems have high news value and tabloids have deep pockets, the people's correct to know about Swayze's pancreatic malignant neoplastic disease or TomKat's baby sonogram or Clooney's injuries in a bike accident trumps celebrities' right to save their aesculapian records secret.
Unsurprisingly, celebrities, their publicists and their lawyers are bitter, regular though there's nothing new about this: Elizabeth Taylor's many medical crises take been rag fodder for decades. What's new now, they say, is the increased populace appetite for any celebrity news, the increased competition to catch that news and the cash some outlets wave to tempt people.
"Every time you think the bar can't get whatsoever lower, it gets depress. It's beyond outrageous," says publicist Ken Sunshine. "This is way, way over the line and indefensible in a civilized society."
Blair Berk, a Los Angeles lawyer world Health Organization has represented many celebrities, says no one should have to give up all rights to privateness just because he's notable.
"Somehow, none of the traditional boundaries of civic conduct appear to apply," Berk says. "It's not whining for someone wHO is noted to believe they lavatory see their physician in private and not sham it's passing to be published."
What to do? Celebrities can assert the leaker be prosecuted or sue the outlet that paying for and published the leak for invasion of privacy. Both would lease a long time, monetary value a caboodle of money, perpetuate the leak and even force more disclosures of records. They power not win, and the story of their medical condition will live incessantly on the Internet.
Or they could do what Applegate, 36, did, which was go public. One day after the tab National Enquirer reported the Emmy-nominated star of Samantha Who? had had a double mastectomy, Applegate was on Good Morning America gamely discussing the procedure.
Aside from showcasing Applegate's pluck, her appearance brought new attention to the option of contraceptive mastectomies for millions of women wHO have a history of breast malignant neoplastic disease.
But would she (or anybody) otherwise volunteer to discuss her medical condition on national television? Maybe. But after announcing on Aug. 9 that she had breast cancer and vowing then not to make whatever further statement, someone in a location to know about her treatment told the Enquirer, which routinely pays for information.
Applegate could have denied the level or ignored it. Or she could try to take control of it.
"She should be commended for the way she's handled this," says Los Angeles entertainment lawyer Martin Singer, world Health Organization represented Celine Dion in 2000 when she sued the Enquirer for $20 million for a story that she was pregnant with twins. (The story was retracted, and the rag apologized and donated money to charity.) "I can't say that everyone should do what (Applegate) did � it depends on each celeb. Sometimes the story is true only exaggerated. Sometimes you don't want to concede the story is true."
It's illegal under union law for a health care prole to divulge any person's records without authorization, says Chicago lawyer Deborah Gersh, who specializes in cases involving the 1996 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
Employees at UCLA Medical Center recently were caught snooping in piles of celebrities' records. Several, including doctors, were pink-slipped or disciplined this year, and one has been indicted on charges of selling information to the media.
But the law applies only to workers with access to medical records. "The National Enquirer (or any publication) is not a covered entity; it has no legal responsibility to protect that information, regular if they paid for it," says Gersh.
Enquirer editor in chief David Perel failed to return perennial calls, simply he did comment in the Aug. 22 edition of The New Republic on the John Edwards affair story and acknowledged that the paper pays for information � simply only if it's plant to be true. "We do it the way cops yield tipsters and informants," he said.
Journalism ethics good Kelly McBride, who teaches at the Poynter Institute journalism think tank, gives the Enquirer course credit for tenaciousness but low marks for ethics and credibility because paying for information taints it, she says.
"This is a follow-the-money question � there's more money in the celebrity market, so there's more money available to entice people to illegally release records," McBride says. "Medical information about a celebrity has very little populace value � it's by and large for titillation and amusement purposes."
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