Hospital Records to Be Handed Over to Private Research Companies

[Guest]

....expect boxes of internal organs labelled for sale to turn up shortly in Cabinet Ministers' bedrooms:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/8933721/Animal-test-firms-given-your-NHS-data.html

I will use treatments for the benefit of the ill in accordance with my ability and my judgment, but from what is to their harm and injustice I will keep them

(Hippocratic Oath becomes Hypocritical Myth)

[teamsaint]

Was this in the tory manifesto?

Apart from anything else, I should think that this will be a major payday for the lawyers...legal actions here there and everywhere.

We should be very afraid of what government is doing right now.

European fiscal integration.
Wars nobody wants , (iran will be next).
Plans to deal with riots if Eurozone unravels.
NHS details sold to the private sector.
NHS privatised(not a manifesto pledge).
Endless "austerity " measures. (for the ordinary people of course, not the rich or the banks)
Raising retirement ages while a million youngsters are unemployed.
Family court system with almost no accountability.

Add your own !

[Lateralthinking1]

Thanks.

Tearing up of planning regulations
Nuclear power - Mox gamble
Rising unemployment
Probable closing of job centres
Decimation of public sector, its pensions and state pension
No answers to private sector pension problem
Desire to freeze benefits and link to enforced volunteering
Lansley hospital tape loop
Encouraging Councils to phase out libraries
Backtracking on climate change
Ongoing arms sales with no review of procedures
Inefficient response to new United States of Germany
Ongoing bankers bonuses and fat cat privileges
Selling off banks at favourable prices to private sector
Arguably new venture into sub prime mortgages
Refusal to deal with tax loopholes and dodgers
Half-baked initiatives - Big Society, localism
Boundary changes

[MrGongGong]

What I don't get is why the Torygraph seems to focus on these firms being "Animal test firms" ???

I am considerably bothered that this government seems intent on selling everything to their mates
but

I sincerely hope that anyone doing tests to develop drugs DOES use animals in their research !

[Serial_Apologist]

but

I sincerely hope that anyone doing tests to develop drugs DOES use animals in their research !

Volunteering yourself then, I take it, GG?

[MrGongGong]

I would be dead if it wasn't for animal testing !
(which is entirely different to testing cosmetics etc )

Oh and to answer the question serial

Yes........ I was the subject of an experimental procedure last week !

[Lateralthinking1]

Well, I was sort of here on the margins work-wise in the 90s. In-vitro style alternatives - the use of synthetic membranes etc - were progressing technologically although they had their limitations. I can tell you that there was pretty much universal agreement in the UN Committee I attended to do everything possible to reduce animal testing and that mainly among scientists. The numbers of tests were already falling significantly. We were as a Committee in the area of ensuring that products could be transported safely. Of course, when it comes to the direct application of substances to the body that is different. There is arguably less scope. My understanding though was that effort was being made there too. Reining in the cosmetic industry for example.

My feeling is that as we hit the big 2000, it signalled the start of a new barbarian era. Cruelty became fashionable again. That across countries and societies. 9/11 was possibly a contributor in complex and even unfathomable ways psychologically. Media games technology etc has contributed as has more recently the economic crash. The impression I get now is increasing numbers care little if at all about such things as limiting animal tests to only where necessary. They are seen as the concern of a few maverick elderly Conservative women in Sussex, anarchist students, and the "difficult" hippy and post-hippy generations whose sensibilities are a pain in the backside to rampant money-makers. Don't worry though guys. They will all be dead soon.

I find it sad and depressing. As for the broader policy here, I see it as fitting in with the wider one that includes pensions. We were all told one thing for years and years - in this case that everything would be confidential - and now it isn't going to be as they said. It is like being governed by a collective classroom sneak and let's face it. If you were to draw someone in that character, he would have the younger face of an Osborne, Lansley or Gove. Where this one really gets me is in its potential to elide with the idea of a presumption in favour of having your body parts ripped out before ever having a dignified funeral. I probably have the potential to become the next Guy Fawkes if there ever comes the day of there being no opt out. I have already drawn the line on some things but action would be required if they started hacking into peoples' souls along with everything else.

[Flosshilde]

Surely the implicit 'contract' between the NHS & people it treats is that personal information is required for the purpose of that treatment only? Are people to be offered the opportunity to opt in to their data being shared?

I assume that this only applies to the English NHS, though. When I see the increasing privatisation of the NHS in England I'm jolly glad I live in Scotland, although I do fear for my family & friends in England.