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Just a few days ago I once again pointed to the relentless determination of the UK government to set up a sellout of individual medical data and information, collected in the medical records of the ordinary patients of the National Health Service who have never signed up as research subjects , to private interests, such as the pharmacological industry and health insurance companies. This apparently without any type of safeguard for the many misuses easily imagined as an effect of such official recklessness.
Now it turns out I was wrong. There is one safeguard, namely that you as an individual UK citizen may actively opt out of the scheme while still using the benefits of the NHS. This possibility is, one guesses, mandated by basic legal consideration and presumably by EU constitutional and human rights law as well. However, the UK authorities seem to be doing their very best to hide this option from the public, possibly realizing that the free access to private heath data of private business interests making rather easy identification of individual identities quite likely will scare the living daylights out of a lot of people. Of course, thereby making the whole design stink even more in the process.
In any case, luckily, there are vigilant bloggers around, who sniff out scams like this and provide the service to citizens that public authorities paid for the purpose fail to do. In this particular case, Med Confidential tells you more exactly how this way out for anyone who don't want to risk the substantial downsides of the "business friendly" attitude to privacy and confidentiality championed by Mr. Cameron's government has been actively obscured and how you may access and use it – providing easy to download links to the opting out form you need to fill out and submit for yopur right to take legal effect,
Read more here!
Wednesday, 22 January 2014
Sunday, 19 January 2014
UK Set to Sell Out it's Population's Medical Data and Records to Private Industry and Health Insurers
I posted almost a year back about a then apparently more restrictive, but to my eyes still outrageous, move of the UK government to frivolously open up a genomic database created out of the medical records and samples collected within the NHS in the course of normal health care (for diagnostics, safety and quality assurance purposes) for research not only by public research institutions, but also private companies in the pharmacological and medical technological area. Now, if this lengthy account is to be belived, it transpires that, apparently, the data base, which is due to be launched later this year, is not only genomic, but simply a general health research database created out of the entire medical history of the entire NHS "cohort", complete with rather specific personal information. It will not contain straightforward identification of individuals, but even government spokespeople admit that the "pseudo-anonymization" planned to be applied allows any research institution with access to a lot of informationto re-identify individual people, not even mentioning at all the recent discovery that just a little bit of genetic information together with publicly available online information can be used to trace people who have anonymously donated tissue to research.
But that's not the end of it: among the players which will be eligible to apply for access to this goldmine for – true – advanced medical knowledge and – equally true – the health business opportunity of the century are – hold your breath – health insurance companies. Yes indeed, the very same one's who are widely known to do their very best to exclude those people who are in most need of their product from buying it and to refuse paying out compensation if they are ever accidentally let in. These are the ones who the UK government and the NHS experts behind the new Health and Social Care Information Centre (which will be responsible for handling the database and provide the access) think are suitable parties to be helped to identify the heath frailties of individual persons, their children, family and so on. Mark Davies, who is something as peculiar as the "public assurance director" (let that one roll around your palate for a second, doesn't it taste a bit like "top blinker"?) of the HSCIC, pressed by reporters, admits a "theoretical risk" – apparently having never entertained the obvious thought that for an insurance company, identifying people's health risks as part of the general process mentioned above is a rational business procedure. If it's possible (and it is - even more easy than admitted by Mr. Davies), it will be standard procedure for a number possible purposes – everything from even more effectively than now screening people in need out from health insurance or compensation payment, to restructuring existing insurance schemes to more effectively weed out the potentially unprofitable customers by having no product that suits them. The "assurances" about transparency ring hollower than ever before as Julia Hippisley-Cox speaks of the right of people to be able to know who sits on their data and a "clear audit trail". Won't matter much when coverage of your recent surgery bill is being refused, will it?
Not very surprisingly, there's been criticism and debate, but the UK government seems to entertain no plan of setting a few sensible safeguards for those ordinary people who are supposed to profit from the scheme in place. Such as forcing private industry to commission any research using the database from public research institutions – thereby making redundant the reckless move of transferring data into the commercial secrecy protected hands of these far from public interest oriented parties, where as critics point put, no one will know where they will then go or how they will be used.
Read more here.
But that's not the end of it: among the players which will be eligible to apply for access to this goldmine for – true – advanced medical knowledge and – equally true – the health business opportunity of the century are – hold your breath – health insurance companies. Yes indeed, the very same one's who are widely known to do their very best to exclude those people who are in most need of their product from buying it and to refuse paying out compensation if they are ever accidentally let in. These are the ones who the UK government and the NHS experts behind the new Health and Social Care Information Centre (which will be responsible for handling the database and provide the access) think are suitable parties to be helped to identify the heath frailties of individual persons, their children, family and so on. Mark Davies, who is something as peculiar as the "public assurance director" (let that one roll around your palate for a second, doesn't it taste a bit like "top blinker"?) of the HSCIC, pressed by reporters, admits a "theoretical risk" – apparently having never entertained the obvious thought that for an insurance company, identifying people's health risks as part of the general process mentioned above is a rational business procedure. If it's possible (and it is - even more easy than admitted by Mr. Davies), it will be standard procedure for a number possible purposes – everything from even more effectively than now screening people in need out from health insurance or compensation payment, to restructuring existing insurance schemes to more effectively weed out the potentially unprofitable customers by having no product that suits them. The "assurances" about transparency ring hollower than ever before as Julia Hippisley-Cox speaks of the right of people to be able to know who sits on their data and a "clear audit trail". Won't matter much when coverage of your recent surgery bill is being refused, will it?
Not very surprisingly, there's been criticism and debate, but the UK government seems to entertain no plan of setting a few sensible safeguards for those ordinary people who are supposed to profit from the scheme in place. Such as forcing private industry to commission any research using the database from public research institutions – thereby making redundant the reckless move of transferring data into the commercial secrecy protected hands of these far from public interest oriented parties, where as critics point put, no one will know where they will then go or how they will be used.
Read more here.
Sunday, 29 December 2013
This Was Philosophical Comment 2013
Time once again to make a bit of a summary for this blog during a year which will soon end – last year's summary is here.
The trend mentioned last year of a seemingly (after my recovery from illness) continuously increasing popularity (in terms of reads) seems this year to have initially continued and then leveled out somewhat after last year's extremely positive surge. The monthly figures have in 2013 been residing rather steadily between over 6 000 and over 9 000 reads, with 9 549 as the top figure for September and today the total number of reads ever passed 188 000. There will, however, be a notable dip in reads for this the last month of the year, as with a few days left the figure is still only at slightly more than 3 600 (click the image to see a larger version).
I have also noticed a tendency of a less secured minimum number of monthly hits during autumn, although I've had a few posts that have attracted more than the average attention to make for good monthly figures in the end. A main explanatory factor for this development, as it seems, is that Blogger has chosen to move its Blogs of Note page, where Philosophical Comment has been featured and thus widely displayed at the top since August 2012, into archive mode, favouring instead the increasing integration with the Google+ platform and its blog function. During the year, I've also – albeit with some reluctance due to my dislike of the increasing dominance of Google and what that means to make for a less dynamically evolving internet – finally chosen to integrate Philosophical Comment with Google+, although much remains to be done on that front to have impact on read numbers. I have to say, I do prefer to have the quality and attraction of posts to determine readership over strategic marketing tricks like these. But I can't deny the world around me, so here we are, we'll see next year if I managed to conjure the energy to maximize exposure in this new environment, or found the time and inspiration to post more regularly.
So, over to the posts themselves. This is the all time high statistics of the blog so far (click the image to see a larger version):
Compared to last year, some significant changes have occurred. First, after several years at the top, the WikiLeaks piece is now third, with my musings over various less impressive sides of the new online landscape of academic publishing is at the top. There are still a few posts connecting to my comments on the many strange moves connecting the the management of the American Journal of Bioethics up there, but as that affair is now a thing of the past, I expect these to gradually be pushed down and eventually off the list by fresher and more relevant material. A few posts that made last year's all time high list have been so pushed off, to be replaced this year by a rather sarcastic piece commenting on a scandalous and eventually officially declared unlawful police registry of roma people in south Sweden, a lament over my academic colleague Adrienne Ash, who sadly passed away this year, a brief pointer to a post by my colleague Udo Schuklenk on his Ethx Blog regarding how to reason around the idea of a military intervention in Syria and, finally, a cross post and referral to a nicely indexed eminent series of posts on moral responsibility, free will and such matters by John Danaher on his Philosophical Disquisitions blog. Not that John really needs the assistance, but I'm nevertheless happy to have been able to thus helped a few people find their way to one of the better philosophy blogs around. Off the list fell, most notably, my comment on how to assess the possible criminal insanity of Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik. It may also be noted that while last year it took about 650 reads to make the list, a post this year needs to get above 840, another indication that the leveling out of reads numbers mentioned above has more to do with a less stable minimum than decreased numbers of the top hits of this blog.
Finally, as tradition dictates, a look at the geographic source of the total readership (click the image to see a larger version):
The USA readership is increasing its dominance further, and in all the main reader of Philosophical Comment continues to be anglophone or European, although China has this year made the top ten country of reader list. The full span of the geographic home of readers, however, is better displayed by this image from the ClustrMap function attached to this blog (where larger red markings indicate a larger concentrated number of unique readers of the blog – click the image to see a larger version):
This function displays statistics starting later than Blogger's own, and also counts only unique hits on the entire site (thus not number of readers of individual posts or number of reads). As you can see, Philosophical Comment has a notable readership also in South America, Asia and, albeit still weaker, throughout Africa. Go here to inspect the numerical relations in more detail!
So, that's it. As usual, I wish to thank all you people who read Philosophical Comment, who follow the blog in the various ways available, who comment on the posts, like them on Facebook and other places, +-click, tweet, cross-post and refer to them in other ways. A happy new year and a very best 2014 to you all!
The trend mentioned last year of a seemingly (after my recovery from illness) continuously increasing popularity (in terms of reads) seems this year to have initially continued and then leveled out somewhat after last year's extremely positive surge. The monthly figures have in 2013 been residing rather steadily between over 6 000 and over 9 000 reads, with 9 549 as the top figure for September and today the total number of reads ever passed 188 000. There will, however, be a notable dip in reads for this the last month of the year, as with a few days left the figure is still only at slightly more than 3 600 (click the image to see a larger version).
I have also noticed a tendency of a less secured minimum number of monthly hits during autumn, although I've had a few posts that have attracted more than the average attention to make for good monthly figures in the end. A main explanatory factor for this development, as it seems, is that Blogger has chosen to move its Blogs of Note page, where Philosophical Comment has been featured and thus widely displayed at the top since August 2012, into archive mode, favouring instead the increasing integration with the Google+ platform and its blog function. During the year, I've also – albeit with some reluctance due to my dislike of the increasing dominance of Google and what that means to make for a less dynamically evolving internet – finally chosen to integrate Philosophical Comment with Google+, although much remains to be done on that front to have impact on read numbers. I have to say, I do prefer to have the quality and attraction of posts to determine readership over strategic marketing tricks like these. But I can't deny the world around me, so here we are, we'll see next year if I managed to conjure the energy to maximize exposure in this new environment, or found the time and inspiration to post more regularly.
So, over to the posts themselves. This is the all time high statistics of the blog so far (click the image to see a larger version):
Finally, as tradition dictates, a look at the geographic source of the total readership (click the image to see a larger version):
This function displays statistics starting later than Blogger's own, and also counts only unique hits on the entire site (thus not number of readers of individual posts or number of reads). As you can see, Philosophical Comment has a notable readership also in South America, Asia and, albeit still weaker, throughout Africa. Go here to inspect the numerical relations in more detail!
So, that's it. As usual, I wish to thank all you people who read Philosophical Comment, who follow the blog in the various ways available, who comment on the posts, like them on Facebook and other places, +-click, tweet, cross-post and refer to them in other ways. A happy new year and a very best 2014 to you all!
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