Pharmacy Collaborators
By 
Pharmacy corporations are going to completely collaborate with the far right in repressing abortion.
The nation’s largest pharmacy chains have handed over Americans’ prescription records to police and government investigators without a warrant, a congressional investigation found, raising concerns about threats to medical privacy.
Though some of the chains require their lawyers to review law enforcement requests, three of the largest — CVS Health, Kroger and Rite Aid, with a combined 60,000 locations nationwide — said they allow pharmacy staff members to hand over customers’ medical records in the store.
The policy was revealed in a letter sent late Monday to Xavier Becerra, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.).
The members began investigating the practice after the Supreme Court’s decision last year in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ended the constitutional right to abortion.
The revelation could shape the debate over Americans’ expectations of privacy as Texas and other states move to criminalize abortion and drugs related to reproductive health.
Pharmacies’ records hold some of the most intimate details of their customers’ personal lives, including years-old medical conditions and the prescriptions they take for mental health and birth control.
Because the chains often share records across all locations, a pharmacy in one state can access a person’s medical history from states with more-restrictive laws. Carly Zubrzycki, an associate professor at the University of Connecticut law school, wrote last year that this could link a person’s out-of-state medical care via a “digital trail” back to their home state.
Given that the founder of CVS is my employer’s top donor, it would be nice if anyone in power cared about this around here. But they don’t. After all, what if they need to build a fancy new building?