State Public Health Department data tape lost in mail
Confidential information
WEST COVINA, Calif.—Magnetic tape containing Social Security numbers, medical information, investigative reports and other data mailed from a state Department of Public Health office in West Covina was missing today.
The tape included information on as many as 2,550 people, state Department of Public Health employees and health care workers in the Southern California area, and the data is not encrypted, a department spokesman said.
Someone at the state Department of Public Health office in West Covina mailed the tape to a central office in Sacramento to be backed up but, when the envelope arrived Sept. 27, it was unsealed and empty.
The agency is notifying each person affected and offering advice on how to guard against identity theft, according to the state. It took until Nov. 23 for a list of affected people to be compiled.
So far, there is no evidence the information has been used illegally, a spokesman for the Public Health Department said.
In an effort to make sure that all residents who are eligible for a federal food program take advantage of it, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors designated May as CalFresh month, and officials are doing special outreach to low-income families and individuals.
Those who should consider applying are people who are unemployed, underemployed, involved in Welfare-to-Work, who work full-time but still meet the income eligibility or are on programs like General Relief or Social Security.
A dozen students from six Cal State campuses, including four in the Southland, are on a hunger strike to press their demands for tuition cuts.
The action began Wednesday and is intended to end next Wednesday, when the California State University Board of Trustees meets at the Long Beach campus, where the hunger strikers hope to present their demands, the San Fernando Valley Sun reported.
U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, holding the mic, recently helped celebrate the second anniversary of the Obama administration’s affordable healthcare act in South Los Angeles at the St. John’s Well Child and Family Center. The facility was renovated with a $9.4 million federal grant.
St. John’s currently serves residents through 10 federally-qualified community- and school-based clinics. Solis noted that in the last two years, the expansion of the network of community clinics like St. John’s has created 19,000 new jobs.
In September, 2011, I wrote an Ourweekly article about Justice Clarence Thomas and his refusal to recuse (aka, excuse) himself from participating in the Supreme Court’s review of President Obama’s signature piece of legislation, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka, ObamaCare. It is a very major piece of legislation that previous presidents all the way back to Jimmy Carter have tried to get passed, but to no avail. It is also the centerpiece of Republican opposition to Mr. Obama’s re-election.
Most Americans have been enjoying the holiday haze since House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) folded and allowed the two-month extension of unemployment insurance and the Social Security tax cut, and other key matters to go through.
Indeed, if the French take the month of August off by law, we almost do the same in the period between Christmas and New Year. Except for retail establishments that support the great American pastime– shopping–few businesses got substantive work done in the last week.
