I am asking Virginia to reconsider how long medical records from childhood are retained, because a childhood medical record can be old without being medically obsolete.

Behind every medical record is a real person, a real history, and sometimes a lifetime of unanswered questions. These records are more than paperwork. They may contain the earliest clues to a condition that was not understood at the time, symptoms that were dismissed as ordinary childhood illnesses, laboratory abnormalities whose significance was not yet known, or a pattern of symptoms that would only make sense years or even decades later.

I am advocating for this change because I understand firsthand how important a person’s medical history can become long after childhood has passed. When someone develops complex health problems as an adult, doctors may need to look back to infancy and childhood to understand when symptoms began, how they progressed, and whether there were early warning signs. Unfortunately, by the time a person realizes how important those records might be, they may already have been destroyed.

Imagine spending years searching for answers about your health, going from specialist to specialist, undergoing testing, and trying to piece together a medical puzzle. You begin to wonder whether your symptoms were present long before anyone recognized a problem. You want to know what laboratory tests showed, what doctors observed, what medications you received, whether you experienced unusual illnesses, and what your medical history might reveal about your condition today. Then you discover that the records you need no longer exist.

For some patients, losing those records means losing access to information that could help connect the dots between childhood symptoms and adult illness. It can mean having to rely on incomplete memories, secondhand family recollections, or medical histories that were never fully documented elsewhere. It can make an already difficult diagnostic process even more challenging.

Medicine is advancing at an extraordinary pace. Genetic testing, metabolic medicine, immunology, rheumatology, neurology, and other specialties can now identify patterns and investigate conditions that may have been poorly understood or impossible to diagnose decades ago. A laboratory result that once appeared insignificant may have new meaning today. A childhood hospitalization, an unusual reaction to medication, a history of unexplained fatigue, or a series of recurring symptoms may become important when evaluated alongside modern medical knowledge.

This is particularly relevant for people with rare diseases, inherited metabolic disorders, genetic conditions, autoimmune diseases, neurological disorders, and other complex or difficult-to-diagnose illnesses. Some conditions do not become apparent until adolescence or adulthood. Others may produce subtle symptoms for years before a diagnosis is reached. In these situations, childhood medical records can provide valuable historical evidence that cannot simply be recreated once it is lost.

Turning 18 does not mean a person’s medical history stops mattering. It is a legal milestone, not a medical endpoint. The need to understand a person’s health does not expire when they become an adult, and the potential value of their medical history should not be determined solely by their age.

I respectfully urge the Virginia Department of Health and the Board of Health to consider amending 12 VAC 5-410 to establish a more protective retention period for pediatric medical records. Specifically, I support retaining these records for at least 10 years after a patient reaches the age of majority, generally through approximately age 28, rather than allowing potentially invaluable information to disappear while patients are still in the process of understanding their health.

I also encourage consideration of secure electronic archiving and preservation practices that would make longer retention practical, protect patient privacy, and reduce the burden of maintaining older records. Reasonable, modernized retention standards can help preserve access to medical history without disregarding the legitimate operational and privacy concerns of healthcare providers.

This proposal is not about asking healthcare facilities to preserve every document forever without consideration of cost or feasibility. It is about recognizing that the current pace of medical discovery has changed what historical records can mean to patients. A thoughtful, consistent, and forward-looking standard could help balance practical concerns with the lasting value of preserving a person’s medical history.

The benefits extend beyond individual patients. Better access to historical records may support more accurate diagnoses, continuity of care, informed genetic counseling, family health assessments, and medical research. It may also help families understand inherited conditions and provide clinicians with information that would otherwise be permanently unavailable.

Most importantly, this is about giving people a fairer opportunity to find answers.

No one should have to wonder whether an important clue to their diagnosis was destroyed simply because enough years had passed. No family should be left trying to reconstruct a loved one’s earliest medical history because records were discarded before their significance could be recognized. And no patient should lose access to potentially meaningful medical information merely because the science needed to interpret it did not exist when that information was first recorded.

We cannot predict which medical discoveries will be made in the next 10, 20, or 30 years. We cannot know which childhood laboratory result, hospital note, or documented symptom may become meaningful to a future physician. But we can recognize that preserving information keeps possibilities open, while destroying it closes them permanently.

I understand that changing regulations requires careful consideration, and I respectfully ask Virginia to approach this issue with the long-term interests of patients and families in mind. Extending pediatric medical-record retention is a practical, forward-thinking step toward protecting medical history, supporting future diagnostic advances, and helping ensure that important information remains available when patients need it most.

Please consider supporting this petition and modernizing Virginia’s pediatric medical-record retention requirements. A medical record may be decades old, but the answers it contains may still be waiting to be discovered.

Thank you for taking the time to consider this request and for recognizing that preserving a patient’s history can be an investment in their future health, dignity, and opportunity to receive answers.