Michael Schumacher's management has warned that medical documents of the injured Formula One racing champion have been stolen and are being offered for sale, a French police officer said Tuesday. The Grenoble police launched an investigation immediately after a complaint was lodged by his family.
Schumacher, 45, had been undergoing hospital treatment since sustaining serious head injuries in a skiing accident at the French Alps resort of Meribel last year, but is now out of a drug-induced coma. He was shifted from France's Grenoble University Hospital to a Lausanne hospital in Switzerland earlier this month to continue his rehabilitation.
"Some parts of a medical report that Grenoble doctors had prepared for their Lausanne counterparts are missing," said the police officer. According to the Wall Street Journal, the theft was revealed when Schumacher's family was contacted by some media organizations "claiming they had been offered the opportunity to buy his medical file."
Manager Sabine Kehm confirmed that the medical files had been on sale for several days now. "We cannot judge if these documents are authentic. However, the documents are clearly stolen. The theft has been reported. The authorities are involved," she said, warning media and alike against the purchase and publication of such documents and data. "The contents of any medical files are totally private and confidential and must not be made available to the public."
The Grenoble University Hospital stated that they had been notified about the breach by Schumacher's management, and "that one individual was offering to sell a document supposedly extracted from Michael Schumacher's medical record."
"Without knowing the precise nature of the document, the hospital decided to sue for 'theft and breach of medical confidentiality' so that an investigation can be initiated."
A computing audit has been run by the hospital as part of the investigation and so far, "no one has been implicated," police said.
A spokesman for the German newspaper Bild, Tobias Frolich, told CNN that the tabloid was among a number of media outlets to be offered Schumacher's alleged medical records, but that "the editorial office decided to reject the offer."
