UK cancer patient records handed to US firm working for tobacco industry giants
MEDICAL records of British cancer patients were given to a US commercial organisation which was working for one of the world’s biggest tobacco companies, it has emerged.
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Information on 180,000 patients - every case of lung cancer diagnosed in England over a four year period - was passed on by health officials to a firm which has acted for cigarette giants Philip Morris International for almost three decades.
The data is understood to have been taken from NHS records without the consent of any of the cancer sufferers or their families.
Public Health England (PHE) gave the anonymised data, covering 179,040 lung tumours diagnosed between 2009 and 2013, to a commercial firm called William E. Wecker Associates.
The company has testified on behalf of tobacco giants in dozens of 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.
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We released this data under our legal duty to comply with the Freedom of Information Act
Records show PHE released the cancer data to William E. Wecker Associates in July 2016 when the firm said it was looking into lung cancer trends in the UK, Australia, Ireland, and the United States.
The request came as Philip Morris, makers of the popular Marlboro brand, unsuccessfully fought Government plans to introduce plain packaging in the UK, which had already been introduced in Australia and agreed for Ireland.
In the request, Wecker said it wanted to examine the relationship between tobacco use and cancer - having made a career out of downplaying such links - and the part played by regulation.
PHE said it was not aware of the links between William E Wecker and Philip Morris.
Senior officials said they had been told the study aimed to “identify strategies to achieve a healthier global population” and insisted they had a legal duty to release the information when it was requested under the Freedom of Information Act.
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Laws governing the release of medical data state that it should only be released “in the interests of improving patient care, or in the public interest.”
Charities said it would be “incredibly distressing” for lung cancer sufferers to learn that their medical data was being used by the very industry which had caused so many cases of the disease.
Privacy campaigners said the disclosures were scandalous - calling on the Commons Health Select Committee to investigate how the situation could have been allowed.
A spokesman for PHE said the data was released to Wiliam E Wecker after it set out plans for a study evaluating “morphological changes in lung cancers across countries and continents” in order to “extend the analysis of relationships between tobacco use and cancer” and “identify strategies to achieve a healthier global population”.
He said PHE was not told who funded the study and the request did not suggest the data would be used in the court case on plain packaging.
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Dr Jem Rashbass, PHE’s national director for disease registration and cancer analysis, said: “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.”
PHE said it had performed “due diligence” in ensuring the release complied with section 251 of the NHS Act 2006, in ensuring it was used for healthcare purposes.
