Consumer Health Data Policy

Washington has a law called the My Health My Data Act. It treats health information differently from other personal information, and it requires any organization that may collect it to publish a separate policy about it. This page is separate from our Privacy Policy for that reason. The two work together.

We are a research and education organization, not a clinic. We do not provide medical care and we do not diagnose or treat anyone.

We do not have a health form. There is no symptom checklist on this site, no intake questionnaire, and no box that asks about your condition.

What we do have is a contact form with a free text message box, and several pages that invite you to tell us what you have been seeing in your community, including health observations. So the health information we may receive is simply whatever you choose to write to us. In practice that can include:

• Symptoms you or people near you have noticed, such as breathing trouble, headaches, nosebleeds, or skin irritation.
• A health condition or diagnosis you mention while explaining your concern.
• Where and when you were exposed to something, which can suggest something about your health.
• Your name and email address, which arrive attached to whatever you wrote.

You are never required to send any of this. If you would rather not write it down, call us at (509) 551-8777 instead, or describe the environmental problem and leave the health part out.

One place only: you. We receive health information when you type it into our contact form, send us an email, write to us, or tell us on the phone.

We do not buy health information. We do not receive it from data brokers, from advertising networks, from your doctor, from an app, or from any government agency. We do not infer it from your behavior on this site, because we do not track your behavior on this site at all.

We use what you tell us for two purposes, and no others.

• To answer you. Someone from the Coalition reads your message and replies to it.
• To decide where to study. Reports from residents help us decide which places, seasons, and materials to sample. When your report informs that kind of planning, we use the location and timing, not your name.

If we ever want to quote you or name you in something we publish, we will ask you first and wait for your answer.

We do not sell consumer health data. Not for money, not for anything else of value. We have never done this and we have no plans to.

We have no affiliates. There is no parent company, subsidiary, or commonly owned organization that we pass your information to.

Two kinds of companies can technically see a message that contains health information, because they carry it or store it for us. Neither one is allowed to use it for its own purposes.

• A form delivery service. Your message passes through it on its way to our inbox.
• An email provider. Your message sits in our inbox there.

We do not share consumer health data with advertisers, with data brokers, with laboratories, with researchers outside the Coalition, or with any government agency, unless you ask us to or a court order requires it.

Under Washington law you have all of the following rights over consumer health data. They are free to use, and using them will never affect how we treat you.

• Confirm. Ask whether we hold any health information about you.
• Access. Get a copy of it, along with a list of who we shared it with, if anyone.
• Withdraw consent. Tell us to stop collecting it and stop sharing it, at any time, and we stop.
• Delete. Tell us to delete it. We will remove it from our records, and we will tell anyone who stored it for us to do the same.

How to use these rights

Email contact@coalitionforgeoengineeringresearch.com with the word HEALTH DATA in the subject line, or call (509) 551-8777, or write to us at Pasco, WA 99301. Tell us what you want us to do. We will respond within 45 days. If we need more time we will tell you why, and we will not take more than 90 days in total.

We may ask you to confirm the email address your message came from. That is only so we do not hand your health information to a stranger who is pretending to be you.

If we say no

If we turn down your request, we will tell you why in writing, and we will tell you how to appeal. To appeal, reply to that message or email us with APPEAL in the subject line. A different person will look at it and answer you within 45 days.

If we deny the appeal, you can complain to the Washington State Attorney General at atg.wa.gov/file-complaint.

Nothing we publish or write back to you is medical advice. We do not diagnose and we do not treat. If you are worried about your health, please talk to a medical provider, ideally one who knows environmental medicine.

If we change how we handle health information, we will update this page and change the date at the top before the change takes effect.