+1 for the basic idea that we need to find a way to share medical information. surely we can write some algorithms that preserve privacy while still keeping the data useful? the costs of not sharing data are quite bit. One research paper (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1080262) finds that electronic medical records sharing within hospitals (not to researchers or innovators mind you) means about 16 fewer infant deaths for every 100k births.