John Wilbanks: Let’s Pool Our Medical Data

Author: John Wilbanks

Publisher: TED

Publication Year: 2012

Summary: The following speech gives an overview of the process of medical methodology and getting informed consent and how this has changed over time. The author discusses how informed consent can actually unintentionally prevent innovation. Specifically, in the health field, prior data for things such as cancer is not accessible. He suggests that records should be kept anonymous but built together with shared data to allow for more research and innovation to happen. This raises an important question of balancing data privacy and consent with getting enough data to conduct ethical research.