Dave plans to share your medical information.....

David Cameron has outlined plans to share NHS patient data with private companies as party of government efforts to boost the medical research industry.

The prime minister said the move would not threaten privacy but allow patient data to help with "medical breakthroughs".

Speaking in London on Monday, he said that as part of the "new paradigm" in life sciences "we must ensure that the UK stays ahead".

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This is quite a shift for a party that is against ID cards on the grounds that they would contain too much private data....

Will you be exercising your opt out option or do you feel content with his assurance that your medical data will be safe in the hands of companies some of whom are Tory party Donors?

Anything which takes medical science to the point where the British public is no longer threatened by the much-feared Tory-borne disease Plagueum Cameronium will be welcomed by many.

My Supermarket loyalty-card already records the fact that either we are alcoholics or the dog is. What's to fear about Medical Records?

Anybody against medical research companies being given anonymous facts about health treatments is still living in "Olivers" London. Surely it makes sense for research to be aimed at factual treatments rather than waste money on pointless research. The NHS has £millions tied up in obsolete drugs sitting in storerooms countrywide. No wonder it's in such a sick state!

Surely it makes sense for research to be aimed at factual treatments rather than waste money on pointless research.

Perhaps, but isn't it nice to know that, since 1957, the only thing we've managed to cure - despite trillions of dollars/pounds/euros of research money - is erectile dysfunction? And that's probably not even a real disease. It's simply called "getting old."

the only thing?

HIV treatment? Pfizer's cholesterol pill Lipitor? Plavix, the blood thinner from Bristol-Myers Squibb? Nexium, a heartburn pill from AstraZeneca; and Advair, an asthma inhaler from GlaxoSmithKline.

Alleviation may be just as welcome as a "cure" to a sufferer.

Alleviation may be just as welcome as a "cure" to a sufferer.

Of course it is. I have to take a pill every six hours to avoid agonizing pain - and even that is only partially effective. However, I would rather be cured completely instead of having to pop pills and only have them work 50% of the time. Yet, in terms of the business mantra and the profit motive, it is more profitable to keep people sick and treat them over a lifetime than it is to offer a "miracle cure" that will rob the medical industry untold billions of dollars of "alleviation" money every year.

By coincidence, Big Pharma is not looking healthy for the near future, as a number of million-dollar-earning drugs are about to run out of patent.