Healthy Skepticism Library item: 10493

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Grove ML.
A frightening industry proposal
BMJ 2007 Jun 16; 334:(7606):1236
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/334/7606/1236-c

Abstract:

The National Care Record Service (CRS), if it is ever deployed, certainly offers amazing potential for pharmaceutical research. The whole COX2/NSAID debacle could have been rapidly resolved by access to the complete prescription records of 55 million people.

But this article sent shudders down my spine about how the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry would like to use the service.1 Dr Barker is quoted as saying it would allow drug companies to easily identify patients fitting a trial’s inclusion and exclusion criteria.

Not using anonymised data, it wouldn’t. I suppose it might tell you how many potential candidates there were, but that shouldn’t be too hard to figure out anyway. Anonymised data use for adverse events surveillance is one thing; non-anonymised data to identify potential trial candidates, presumably followed by a direct approach to invite them to join a drug trial, are another matter entirely.

This use is clearly . . .