Comments on: Non-obvious Dinner – Digital Exahust Cures Cancer – Idea #1

By: The next killer app – How Open Innovation Will Change Drug Developement « Yet2com Blog

Sat, 29 Jan 2011 23:05:50 +0000

[...] article available here in Sunday’s Boston Globe. I wrote a very similar article on how digital exhaust will cure cancer. I think people will have the ability to opt out/in of large scale medical studies on each of our [...]

By: Stuart Henderson

Stuart Henderson — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 17:45:33 +0000

It is an interesting question and I believe that sharing of data will contribute to curing cancer. A study between the use of antiperspirant and incidence of breast cancer would be unlikely to reveal a cause of breast cancer. Maybe a false positive but not a result. There is value in this data though and sharing like this should be encouraged.

You also rightly point out that study participant numbers look low. The reason for this is that biopharma companies and NCI are seeking to learn from these studies. They seek to understand the mechanism of the disease (of which cancer is made up of many many mechanisms across numerous types of cancer).

They identify a hypothesis and then test it in small numbers of patients to evaluate the accuracy of their hypothesis. In some Phase 0 studies that can be as few as one patient. Learning about the disease and it’s mechanisms is the best approach to curing cancer.

Sharing mechanism data that is held in the biopharma companies would likely accelerate the arrivals of the cures. The challenge is that they would then be unable to recoup the investment they have made in trying to cure cancer. Moral goals in a corporate setting make it a tough industry to balance.

By: Michael Fruhling

Michael Fruhling — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 12:02:33 +0000

Both you and Zach raise fascinating points that will invariably be debated by marketers, civil libertarians and researchers in the near future (if not the present)

By: Zach Shipley

Zach Shipley — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 16:30:51 +0000

As always, the question is how to assure that privacy is preserved. But then, that question arises even if no one makes use of digital exhaust in ways that are charitable or beneficial to the public. Right now, patterns in the data at the places Ben cites (CVS, etc.) can be exploited for obnoxious marketing, public hunilitaion, blackmail and discrimination. Got AIDS, suffer infertility, keep Kosher, fast during Ramadan, have an interest in Wicca or Satan-worship, buy a new hat for Easter, like to dance? Imagine the Taliban or even the relatively respectful government of the People’s Republic of China decides to pour over your records, to confirm that you are not a social misfit, a danegr to socieity or merely a soulless infidel. It may turn out, when people look back cebnturies hence, that information technology has done more harm to humanity than nuclear technology. But I am afraid I have stepped into the realm of the obvious. What is not obvious is what to do about it. Ironically, the only public figure who has demonstrated any effective program for protecting personal privacy in an electronic age is Osama Bin Laden. Digitally, he is a zero emitter. In this respect–and, lest government authorities scanning this text put me on a list, I must emphatically say ONLY in this respect–, perhaps he is to be emulated.