Democrats demand halt to CPSC emergency room data collection

Democratic lawmakers are calling on the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to suspend a new surveillance program that collects personally identifiable health data from Americans visiting emergency rooms. In a letter to CPSC acting Chairman Peter Feldman, lawmakers including Senator Ed Markey argued that the program is “untethered from the Commission’s statutory mission and authority.”

The program, rebranded as NEISS-R, is an overhaul of the long-running National Electronic Injury Surveillance System. While the previous system primarily requested identifiable information in less than 1 percent of cases, the new mandate instructs hospitals to share detailed patient information for more than 10,000 types of injuries or conditions. Many of these, such as vaccine reactions or suicide attempts, may have no connection to consumer products.

Hospitals have been told that participation is mandatory and that they must provide this data to Konza Health, a private contractor under a five-year, $15.9 million agreement. Privacy advocates and lawmakers expressed concern that the sweeping collection of medical records could lead to misuse or cause patients to delay necessary medical care due to fears regarding federal data databases.