Check out the headlines of the below editorials and columns demanding
the release of the Virginia Tech records!
Not surprisingly, Mental Health America, which is urging privacy, (see
below) receives funding from Pharma. See here:
https://www.lillygrantoffice.com/docs/q1_registry_report.pdf
Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine created the Virginia Tech Review Panel to
investigate the largest school massacre in U.S. history. Seung Hui
Cho's mental "health" records and medical examiner records (toxicology)
still have not been made public.
If you want the records to be made public, send your comments to the
Virginia Tech Review Panel here:
http://www.vtreviewpanel.org/CitizenComments/
The next scheduled public meeting for this Review Panel is June 11, 2007
in Northern Virginia. The time and location has still not been
determined.
http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=125571&ran=167275
Editorial
The Virginian-Pilot
Secrecy erodes trust in Tech commission
May 29, 2007
Openness and privacy already are colliding in a public inquiry into
events surrounding the deaths of 33 people at Virginia Tech on April 16.
An eight-member review commission appointed by Gov. Tim Kaine closed its
second meeting for more than three hours. The commission itself is
barred, at least temporarily, from access to mental health and student
records that might illuminate the actions of student-killer Seung-Hui
Cho.
Common sense suggests legitimate reasons for keeping some personal
matters private. Various interviews are being conducted in private by
staff, as well.
But make no mistake, the group will overuse or abuse secrecy to its
peril. Every time it goes behind closed doors, it risks diminishing
public acceptance of its findings.
Already, some question the quickness with which Chairman Gerald
Massengill, a retired Virginia State Police superintendent, seems to
have concluded that Virginia Tech police and officials acted
appropriately during the crisis. "I think we know enough about the
response to know it was very effective and a very successful response,"
Massengill noted at the commission's first meeting.
Maybe Massengill was just being gracious; that appears to be his style.
Maybe he has had enough private briefings to make a correct analysis. If
he'd seriously concluded that the response was correct in all
particulars, even before the commission's first public meeting, than
Massengill needs to slow down and let the process runs its course before
coming to such an important conclusion.
For example, Massengill may have known for some time that Cho left 203
rounds of live ammunition unused when he took his own life. The public
didn't learn that fact until the commission's second meeting. A slower
police response surely would have resulted in more carnage.
As for mental health records, the commission cited the need to discuss
them as one reason for closing a portion of the second meeting. Later,
however, it became clear that the commission itself doesn't have access
to key records.
University officials said they can't reveal whether Cho ever sought help
at a campus counseling center after a special justice ordered him to get
outpatient treatment in December 2005. There are several ways the panel
might get at such facts, perhaps through the voluntary cooperation of
Cho's parents, perhaps through the subpoena powers of the State Crime
Commission.
In any event, the Independent Virginia Tech Incident Review Panel needs
to understand all it can about Cho's mental condition and treatment, or
lack of it, as surely as the general public needs to know all it can
about the entire episode.
The privacy rights of Cho, who killed 32 others and himself, do not
supersede the obligations of an elite investigative group. Nor do the
privacy concerns of that group trump the right of the public to know and
understand how such a tragedy could occur at our doorstep.
http://www.timesdispatch.com/cva/ric/opinion/columnists.apx.-content-art
icles-RTD-2007-05-26-0152.html
Richmond Times Dispatch
Tech killer deserves no protection
Saturday, May 26, 2007
By RAY MCALLISTER
TIMES-DISPATCH COLUMNIST
The Virginia Tech shootings revealed troubling issues with the state's
mental-health system, its treatment of severely disturbed people, and
maybe even police and administrative responses.
But one issue doesn't seem to take a brain surgeon:
Why are mental-health-related records of the shooter being kept private?
He's dead.
Cho not only killed 32 innocent people on April 16, he killed himself.
So why are we still trying to protect HIS privacy?
Investigators on a gubernatorial review panel are looking into whether
the massacre could have been prevented -- or more important, whether
others can be.
But they're stymied, at least temporarily.
In 2005, the killer-to-be was ordered to undergo outpatient treatment by
a special justice who found him to be suicidal. But it's unclear whether
he sought the treatment -- or whether anyone in the system cared one way
or the other.
Something's broken there.
But Virginia Tech says -- rightly, apparently -- that it is forbidden
even from disclosing whether Cho ever sought mental treatment there, let
alone turning over to citizen panels any files that may exist.
W. Gerald Massengill, head of the panel, says the group will go to court
if it needs to.
It shouldn't need to.
The U.S. Department of Education says don't blame it.
"As a college student, Seung Hui Cho's [Family Educational Rights and
Privacy Act] rights expired upon his death," Education Department
spokeswoman Katherine McLane said. She said his education or treatment
records could be released at "the discretion of the institution."
FERPA rights expire at death, but it seems HIPAA rights -- Health
Insurance Portability and Accountability Act rights -- live on in the
afterlife.
HIPAA's privacy rule, according to a U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services Web site, "is balanced to protect an individual's privacy while
allowing important law-enforcement functions to continue." Information
can be disclosed but usually only to law-enforcement entities under
specific circumstances.
That's too tough a standard, when a gubernatorial commission has to
labor -- and have its important work delayed -- simply to get
information about a dead man.
Paula Price, executive director of Mental Health America of Virginia, a
citizens organization that promotes mental-health issues, cautioned
yesterday against a rush to overhaul privacy laws, though.
They possibly make the nation less dangerous, not more, she said.
Without them, fewer would seek help. "The stigma against people with
mental issues is the culprit that keeps them from getting treatment."
Fair enough.
But again, the shooter is dead. What's the stigma now?
Price said it's possible some would be less likely to seek help if they
thought their illness would be revealed after death. That might shame
their families.
Price urged lawmakers to be cautious if they consider changing privacy
laws, as many people think could happen at the federal and state levels.
"This is an extraordinary case,"; she said, "and any time laws are made
for a particular case, they're generally not good laws.";
Point made.
But there simply has to be an exception made in cases like this.
Cho did horrific harm before finally turning that gun on himself.
He shouldn't be allowed to continue.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/27/AR200705
2700858.html?sub=new
The Washington Post
Needed: More sunlight on the inquiry into the Virginia Tech massacre
May 28, 2007
EDITORIAL
IN LAYING out his vision for the panel he named to review last month's
massacre at Virginia Tech, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) said that he hoped
its work would be "be conducted in as open and as public and as
transparent a way as possible." Last Monday, in its second meeting, the
panel ignored the governor's directive and booted out the media for two
hours of testimony from law enforcement officials, then acceded to the
university's request that journalists be barred from accompanying panel
members when they toured the massacre sites. In doing so, the panel and
its chairman, retired State Police Col. W. Gerald Massengill, raised
doubts about their commitment to openness and accountability.
The Virginia Tech panel inquiry is expected to be long and complex. No
doubt, panel members will wrestle with legitimate issues pertaining to
privacy, confidentiality and the sensitivity of survivors. But for
reasons that Mr. Kaine articulated well, there should be a bias in favor
of openness -- for letting the media, and thereby the public, scrutinize
as much information as possible about the horrifying events on April 16
and what preceded them. "The degree to which that [process] is open and
transparent will create that sense of confidence about the
recommendations," the governor said, and "will give that sense of
comfort to families who are grieving."
The arguments offered for closing the doors last week were flimsy. In
their public statements, police and other state officials have given no
indication that Seung Hui Cho had any accomplice or that his crime was
in any way part of a conspiracy. If that is the case -- if, in other
