Woman Sues Surgeon for Posting 'Cocaine Nose' Pics

She says photos were meant to be kept confidential
By Elizabeth Armstrong Moore,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 31, 2014 9:05 AM CDT
Woman Sues Surgeon for Posting 'Cocaine Nose' Pics
Not the nose in question.   (Shutterstock)

Next time you think a photo being taken of you is confidential, maybe you should assume the worst. A woman who went to a plastic surgeon for a nose job back in 2004 says that private before-and-after photos of her face have appeared on the doc's website with only her eyes blacked out alongside the description "cocaine injured nose." In a lawsuit, 55-year-old Sabrina Kropp says Dr. Robert Walton published photos of her face when he opened a new practice, Plastic Surgery Chicago LLC, in 2013, and that she has suffered "great harm" as a result, reports the Smoking Gun.

Walton's website describes "cocaine nose" as "perforations of the septum, infection, loss of supporting cartilage, scarring, and eventual collapse of the nose" in the aftermath of chronic cocaine use, reports the Chicago Tribune. Kropp is suing in part for violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which stipulates that people consent in writing to the use of health informatioon when it is used for publication, marketing, teaching, and/or commercial purposes. (Apparently Hitler's medical records betray chronic cocaine use use as well.)

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