13. Doctors Exploited the Conjoined Twins
The Tocci twins became something of celebrities, not only to the mass public but also to the medical community. A year after their birth, they were featured in Lyon Medical Magazine, having been examined by doctors in Lyon, France. A few years later, in 1881, doctors in Vienna claimed that they were “the greatest wonder in the world.” Pretty much everywhere they went, doctors clambered over each other to get the chance to examine them. All of this happened in a day and age when health information privacy was not even on the books, and people’s medical conditions could be exploited for gain by the doctors.
Fortunately, that era has ended. Following the crude medical experiments performed on children at Auschwitz by monsters such as Dr. Mengele, laws are now in place to prohibit people’s medical conditions from being exploited. People cannot receive any form of medical care without their consent. Additionally, laws such as HIPAA (Health Information Privacy Act) in the United States and GDPR (General Data Protection Regulations) in Europe mean that people’s medical records must remain entirely confidential. In other words, people can no longer be exploited by the medical community for any reason.
