Posts by catbox 2 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Dec 2011
If data is made open, it will do the exact opposite of what you're saying. Instead of enabling big pharma to hide its mistakes, it will allow independent groups to show where problems exist.
Of course, independent studies are already conducted, but no matter how well controlled they are, when cohort sizes are only tens to hundreds of people, there's no way you can properly assess a drug's safety.
If the data is anonymised, I don't see any problem. I'm sure there's probably a horrendous number of deaths that result every day from poor treatment combinations, which are never identified because researchers (including government scientists) don't have access to data like this!
What's the point of medical records, if not to improve medical treatment?
It's also reassuring to see the government acknowledging the importance of science for once (pretty much the only area where Britain leads at something).
The best thing for everyone would be to push for thorough identity stripping of the data, and safe, confidential treatment (i.e. don't outsource the preprocessing to street kids in Somalia).
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