WOULD YOU TELL YOUR BOSS YOU TAKE PROZAC?(confidentiality of medical history)(Statistical Data Included)

Employers, telemarketers, even your neighbors can sometimes gain access to your medical flies. Here's how to protect your most private information.

Annette Wise is a straight arrow. The San Francisco Bay area executive assistant is devoted to her two young children, close to her family, and active in her church. But in 1997, when Wise, then 39, decided to end her 13-year marriage and take custody of her children, Wise's husband campaigned to portray her as an unfit mother. His secret weapon: a computer printout of her prescription drug records.

For several years Wise had been on a regimen of medications to relieve painful sinus infections that even surgery had failed to clear up. When she and her husband separated, she alerted clerks at her local Thrifty Payless drugstore that she had moved, and requested that under no circumstances should her medical information be given to anyone. But the very next day a store supervisor called to say that someone had goofed. Wise's husband had come in and gotten a record of all his wife's prescriptions, saying he needed the information to prepare the couple's tax return.

But that wasn't how he used it. He was soon showing the printout to relatives, friends, and fellow church members, claiming that his estranged wife was a drug addict. He submitted the records in court to try to deny Wise custody of their children. He even sent them to the Department of Motor Vehicles, asserting that her drug use made her an unsafe driver, adding that he was "fearful for her safety and that of our two children."

Ultimately his tactics failed. His wife kept her friends, her driver's license, and custody of the children. But the grueling process of fighting her husband's charges cost her thousands of dollars in legal and and other expenses, and an incalculable amount of mental anguish.

EASY ACCESS TO YOUR FILES

Wise eventually sued the Thrifty Payless chain and won a $100,000 judgment, most of which went for her legal bills. Still, her story illustrates a frightening reality: New ways of managing medical data have made your most intimate health information more accessible. With just a few clicks of a mouse, databases listing the medications you take, the results of your pregnancy tests, and other highly personal information can be passed on--not only to health-care providers and telemarketers but to angry spouses seeking retribution and employers trying to keep a lid on insurance costs.