Speaking Out

On Biomed Communications

I just learned that the School of Medicine has closed my former department, Biomedical Communications. After spending 36 years as director, and building an excellent department of photographers, illustrators and computer graphic artists, with a reputation of excellence, I am truly dismayed at the Medical Schools decision to close an integral service to not only the Medical Center, but to the University as well.

Biomedical Communications was a self supporting department and never received proper support for growth from the Medical School administration. It was always a challenge to create more space within the confines of the original limited space in the Med Library. There were many promises to expand, to allow us to increase services and equipment, but promises were cheap and nothing was ever done. I guess that I retired at the proper time in July 1999. It is truly a shame.

-- Art Siegel, former Director of Biomedical Communications

Privacy on Auction Block

I'm mighty irked to read the Executive Director's, Human Resources, glib pontifications. Leny Bader maintains, ‘the protection of personal privacy is an important priority at Penn. This message has been clearly conveyed to all our vendors…'

If Human Resources didn't allow anyone with a buck and a hustle to shop the employment records looking for fresh meat, vendors selling names to more vendors selling names to still more vendors wouldn't have those names in the first place, hence no letters to Speaking Out howling with outrage.

I pitched a royal fit when Friends of the Library--recipient of 10% of my take-home--shared my particulars. ‘Oh,' soothed the spin-doctors, ‘we don't sell names, we exchange donor-lists'. What a nifty little game of fish that must be: "We'll swap four hundred of our suckers for four hundred of yours."

Do let's keep in mind your name and my Social Security number were melded, creating ‘ghosts'. Then HUP billed Medicare for hospitalization given these non-existing patients. We are employed by an ethical Brigadoon. The University we serve with loyalty and love has placed our privacy on the auction-block.

And if ya think that accusation a mite too harsh, how about the latest vendor mailing using University personnel: a shameless pitch ending with this escape clause--P.S. The University of Pennsylvania does not endorse Answer Financial, any particular product offered, or any available product provider. Nor do we supplement any purchases you may make through them--all under the aegis of the University crest, ‘Human Resources' bold as brass nails as if we've just been handed an official message from an employer expected to be above-board.

The Division of Human Resources has been entrusted with confidential information. That information has now blown across the continental landmass, all the way to Encino, California.

With our Faculty/Staff Telephone Directory printed outside the United States, home address floating around loose and who-knows-where before arriving on-campus by mid-October, who can say for sure what ‘increasingly sensitive pieces of personal data' really are off-limits?

--Jerry Briggs, Van Pelt Library

Pricy Prescriptions at Pharmacies

We agree with Professor McDevitt's point about the use of social security numbers on our Caremark prescription cards (Almanac Vol. 49, No. 1). It is an "unacceptable misuse of our identity information". We were both very disturbed when we received our prescription cards in the mail with our social security numbers available to anyone other than us who opened our mail or working the counter at the pharmacy. We wonder how such an oversight on the part of Caremark is excusable. In our opinion, no apology is enough for the misuse of sensitive information such as one's social security number.

In addition, our recent visit to the pharmacy was a surprise in itself! In the month of June, a prescription refill cost $0.93. One month later, the month of July, that same refill now costs $5 for a generic drug no less. This astronomical increase is incomprehensible and quite frankly infuriating. How is it that an institution such as the University of Pennsylvania continues to do business with a company whose prescription drug plan increased by 400% in one month? In addition, these price increases are made on prescriptions needed for life-preserving reasons. How can a prescription plan justify charging a young person more than $70 for a few vials of insulin? Imagine the surprise when, the other day, a purchase of a drug that is needed literally to save someone's life, quadrupled in price! Not only are we paying more for our prescriptions but we are also paying more for our health care coverage. How can this outrageous price inflation be justified?

--Leny Bader, Executive Director,
Human Resources, Benefits