It didn't start with Farrah Fawcett's medical records landing in the National Enquirer or recent reports on a celebrity website that actor Patrick Swayze was near death.
For decades, the tabloids have made a cottage industry of star ailments -- whether Dean Martin's declining health, Rock Hudson's AIDS diagnosis or Bob Hope's final years in and out of hospitals.
"Bob Hope Says Last Goodbye," the Star reported months before the entertainer actually died.
"While Doctors Battle to Save Her Life . . . Liz Boozes It Up In Hospital," screamed a famous National Enquirer headline from the 1990s.
But celebrity representatives say that a growing appetite for entertainment-related news coupled with an increasing reliance on computerized record-keeping has dramatically increased invasions of medical privacy.
"With the advent of networked computers, the problem has increased exponentially," said attorney Blair Berk, whose celebrity clients include Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan.
"You are literally and virtually surrounded by people who are willing to trade in [medical] information either for profit or for their own 15 minutes."
Berk and others cite snooping into the medical files of Spears, Fawcett and other high-profile patients at UCLA Medical Center as "Exhibit A" in the threat to the privacy of celebrities.
Nearly 70 current and former UCLA employees -- including physicians -- have been accused of illegally viewing computer medical records of celebrities.
One of them, a longtime administrative specialist accused of looking at the medical records of 61 patients, including celebrities and co-workers, was indicted by a federal grand jury last month for allegedly selling information to the news media.
There also are suspicions that someone at Cedars Sinai Medical Center tipped the celebrity-news website TMZ.com to a story involving a drug overdose for the infant twins of actor Dennis Quaid and his wife, although no one has been charged.
It remains unclear how many of the tabloids' medical scoops come directly from hospital workers snooping through records or from others who glean the information in other ways.
Several tabloid veterans told The Times that the risks of using details from medical files for stories far outweighed the rewards.
What's more, their scoops depend on reporters and "word of mouth" from a broad network of sources.
