Stacy Cordova holds a photo of her aunt Mary Franco in Azusa on July 5, 2021. Franco was a victim of California's forced sterilization program when she was 13 in 1934. Photo by Jae C. Hong, AP Photo
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Patients who were already victimized once by California’s forced sterilization program — and who are running out of time to claim state compensation —were nearly victimized again.
This time, it’s because of a data breach that exposed their personal and medical information.
Last December, a researcher looking into the sterilization of thousands of female patients and inmates — a practice that was sanctioned since the 1900s and had only ceased in 2013 — was viewing records from the California State Archives. Records 75 years and older are publicly accessible, but a digital copy of microfilm the researcher viewed was mislabeled and actually included more recent information, from 1948 to 1954.
The records were eventually pulled and redacted from the state Archives after the researcher told officials. But personal information, including patients’ full names, birthdates and family medical histories were exposed, as well as medical information such as diagnoses and dates of sterilization.
An exposé from The Center for Investigative Reporting in 2013 revealed 148 women were sterilized without proper approval from 2006 to 2010, and a separate state audit found that the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation oversaw the illegal sterilization of 144 inmates from 2005 to 2013.
In 2021, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law a compensation program that pays as much as $25,000 per patient. The program is budgeted at $7.5 million and ends Dec. 31. Despite public outreach to contact more patients, plus radio and TV ads, it’s unlikely that California will find and compensate all victims. Through February, about 60 claims had been approved, totaling $915,000.
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