British cancer victims’ medical records were “handed over” to a “controversial American firm” working for one of the world’s biggest tobacco companies “without the consent of any of the cancer sufferers or their families”.
The claim comes in a scoop by The Daily Telegraph today (behind the publication’s firewall), which says every case of lung cancer diagnosed in England over 2009 to 2013 was “given” by health officials in July 2016 to a firm that has acted in the past for cigarette giant Philip Morris International.
The newspaper claims “it is feared” the company could use the anonymised data – covering 179,040 cases – in legal cases minimising the dangers of smoking, or fighting regulation.
Public Health England (PHE) gave the anonymised data to a commercial firm called William E. Wecker Associates which has testified on behalf of tobacco giants in dozens of anti-Big Tobacco lawsuits, including the landmark United States v. Philip Morris case, which in 2006 held the company liable for racketeering and deceiving the public for decades about the dangers of smoking.
The article states that Public Health England has access to thousands of medical records, which come from NHS hospitals and screening services – and that patients are unable to block the use of information about them, because the body is not currently covered by NHS rules on consent, which allow patients to refuse for their data to be used for any purpose “bar direct care”.
PHE told the paper it had not been aware of the links between William E Wecker and Philip Morris until contacted by the Telegraph, and that they had been told the study aimed to “identify strategies to achieve a healthier global population”.
They also insisted they had a legal duty to release the information when it was requested under the Freedom of Information Act – but the article quotes critics who say the move was a grave mistake that needs to be investigated by the Commons Health Select Committee.
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It quotes patient data privacy campaign group medConfidential: “It’s a scandal that ‘medical purposes’ has been twisted, and officially approved, to include a firm working for big tobacco… We don’t know how this data from medical records is being used – we only know it was given to a firm which has spent three decades acting for a tobacco giant, trying to use statistics to dispute the impact of smoking on cancer.”
Paula Chadwick, chief executive of Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation, is also quoted that this situation could be “incredibly distressing for patients and their loved ones”.
Dr Jem Rashbass, National Director for Disease Registration and Cancer Analysis at the PHE, told the paper, “We released this data under our legal duty to comply with the Freedom of Information Act. Patient confidentiality is of upmost importance and we’ve ensured that no sensitive or identifying patient information has been released.
“Any organisation or person can submit an FOI request and is legally entitled to a response, provided there is no applicable exemption.”
But lung cancer sufferer Michele McMahon, said she was “horrified” that medical data from thousands of patients like herself had been handed to allies of Philip Morris.
The former NHS nurse is quoted as stating that, “I really believe in the importance of research. I want medical data to be used for positive reasons – to help people, to help to find better treatments, and also to find ways to make smoking less attractive to young people.”
