Comment Re:Why is this even a debate? (Score 4, Insightful) 355
I know that is the talking point they've decided to go with, but it simply isn't true. I ran the lab for an 8 center trial covering nearly 9,000 cancer patients. We didn't get any personally identifying data - just a number. (unless the nurse of phlebotomist made a mistake and wrote the patient name on the vial). Our couple-million data points were all tied to a number. The number tied back to a list of data about the patient - not including anything personally identifying.
I can't speak for every research situation, but claiming that medical research requires violations of patient confidentiality is specious. It clearly does not in most cases. I suppose if you were studying something rare like breast cancer among post-operative transgendered males you might run into some difficulties with identities being discoverable, but I don't think that's enough to claim the whole thing to be null and void.