Celebrity, privacy, and inelegant charitable solicitation

By now, nearly everyone knows that actress Farrah Fawcett has serious cancer, and the media have reported on her every twitch. The L.A. Times ran this piece about how her medical privacy was breached for the sake of tabloid news and how her treating hospital asked for a large donation from her for a cancer foundation.

In an interview with the Times (given last August, but green-lighted by Fawcett recently), "Fawcett described how she was deprived of the choice that most other cancer patients have: when, and even whether, to share information with family, friends or strangers."

In the time since the interview, the hospital employee who leaked the information was criminally prosecuted and convicted, the medical center has attempted to remedy its policy, and the governor of California has signed a stricter medical privacy law.

On the topic of the solicited donation, the story notes:

The university went so far as to give her a prewritten letter that she could sign and fill in a dollar amount for the foundation, documents show. It also created an official-looking proposed announcement that said, "Ms. Farrah Fawcett has established a fund in the Division of Digestive Diseases with the expansive goal of facilitating prevention and diagnosis in gastrointestinal cancers."