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Don't let your doctor put you on "The Spine"

Mike Dobson | 20.06.2006 16:36 | Anti-racism | Health | Technology

At the centre of the recent NHS computer debacle is an information system ripe for gross abuse: "The Spine".

You may have to actively opt out of having YOUR medical notes on this system.

Information which could be contrived in the future to form an "out-group" identity is tagged to names and addresses as the essential part of patients' records.

The ability to form lists is a collective danger, possibly to liberty and life.

What do I mean?

Details like:
family history of certain diseases (say Tay-Sachs, sickle-cell, thallassaemia, for instance),
presence of certain antigens (HIV,HPV say),
presence of unfashionable disease (e.g. obesity, tubercle bacillus),
dependence on certain substances (you don't need examples)
are just springers to mind of the sort of information which could, no will (I've got a degree in Social Psychology so I can say this) be the basis of some trawling list of some authority sometime in the future.

Hopefully never an extermination list again.

And the keys in such trustworthy hands as a Government Chief Medical Officer, several Members of Parliament, Boots the Chemist and the entire officer cadre of the Royal Army Medical Corps?

Plus: It lists the healthy as well as the sick.

Any power intent on mass participation warfare has an accurate call-up list here at the push of a button.

Totally by coincidence Kellogg Brown and Root were in charge of the whole NPfIT project for its first three years.

KBR are an American private military contractor, with billions of dollars in income from the Pentagon. It is part of Halliburton - a large commercial organisation and military supplier close to the current Vice President of the United States.


Mike Dobson
- e-mail: michael.dob871@onetel.net