Big Pharma Hands Out Fitbits To Collect Better Personal Data 70
An anonymous reader writes: Since the dawn of modern medicine, there have really only been two ways to know what a medical patient is doing: A) keep them around and monitor them, or B) ask them. The first is often impractical, and the second is fraught with misreporting. However, we're now in the age of data collection, and medical data is no exception. Pharmaceutical companies are gleefully passing out Fitbits and other wearables so they can more accurately test the drugs they make. Early trials have already found such devices to be better than human memory at reporting things like how much a patient walks. Other organizations are using movement data to algorithmically decide whether a patient needs a higher level of treatment. The article optimistically adds, "Down the line, wearables also could help pharmaceutical makers prove to insurance companies that their treatments are effective, thus reducing health costs."
How DARE they! (Score:5, Insightful)
How dare big EVIL Pharma collect accurate information that could ensure the safety of drugs and save people's lives!
It's an outrage!
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How dare big EVIL Pharma collect accurate information that could ensure the safety of drugs and save people's lives!
It's an outrage!
You are absolutely right! Any responsible company would charge their customers for this service, not give it away free.
For example, AT&T charges their customers an upfront equipment fee and then a monthly service fee in order to collect factual information about their clients. As a result of their dedication, AT&T continues to win numerous awards for their corporate responsibility.
Re:How DARE they! (Score:5, Interesting)
It's one thing to use them on a voluntary basis in order to test the efficacy of a new drug. In such a case, it makes perfect sense.
However, it's another thing entirely for a health insurance company to require their use (or face a massive premium hike, etc).
Then again, on a slight tangent, I do find it interesting that more and more drugs are coming out these days which pretty much require the drug's use for, quite literally, the rest of your life (usually heart medications).
Re:How DARE they! (Score:5, Interesting)
Then again, on a slight tangent, I do find it interesting that more and more drugs are coming out these days which pretty much require the drug's use for, quite literally, the rest of your life (usually heart medications).
I love a conspiracy theory as much as the next geek, but this is not tin foil hat material. Things that are persistent for the rest of your life, such as pulmonary issues, are being targeted because the promise of repeat business is already there. They aren't trying to keep people sick because there is no need to; why risk everything and hope everyone else plays along when there are genuine gold mines sitting right there?
What truly is disgusting is how ineffective they are. Yet they still get to market themselves as the miracle curest that they aren't.
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What's disgusting to me is the number of people who lead a devil-may-care lifestyle and then cry and moan about health problems to only turn around and cry and moan about what modern technology is available to them.
You want to battle "big pharma"? Put down the two liter soda, the doughnut and the grease burgers. Put down the xbox controller. Put down the smokes, the rum and cokes. Stop staring into the TV for 5 hours a day and take an hour out to move around a bit.
Society had fed itself into
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What's disgusting to me is the number of people who lead a devil-may-care lifestyle and then cry and moan about health problems to only turn around and cry and moan about what modern technology is available to them. You want to battle "big pharma"? Put down the two liter soda, the doughnut and the grease burgers. Put down the xbox controller. Put down the smokes, the rum and cokes. Stop staring into the TV for 5 hours a day and take an hour out to move around a bit. Society had fed itself into the cycle of chronic illness but man, don't we have to pry those bad habits out of their hands? Now queue the 3% of those who are on a maintenance pharmaceutical regiment that legitimately are trying to keep up with their own well being but are still in a bad place.
There was a time when human beings watched no TV, only ate natural foods, had to rely on physically being in shape to scratch an existence out of the dirt.
...
Oh, by the way, life expectancy in that time was about 35 years of age
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"Put down the two liter soda, the doughnut and the grease burgers. Put down the xbox controller. Put down the smokes, the rum and cokes. "
So we won't be watching the game at your house, then?
Re:How DARE they! (Score:4, Informative)
They don't give you a massive premium hike if you don't use one. They give a massive hike to everyone and then give (potentially) a discount for those that use one.
Auto insurance does it for the safe driving discount. Credit card companies did it for paying with credit cards over cash. Merchants were once prohibited by merchant agreement (if not state law) for charging a surcharge if you paid by credit card. They could however offer a cash discount. So just raise the prices by 3% to cover the merchant fees and you circumvent the whole no-surcharge policy. (Yes, I'm aware this provision no longer applies in merchant agreements.)
Re: How DARE they! (Score:2)
And what an amazing discovery! That computery gimmick counts to 10.000 better than a human do! They deserve at least the Nobel prize...
Gasp! (Score:1)
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By which you mean "provide enough campaign contributions"?
Throw in a "think of the children" and "becuz national security", and it won't be long. In order to keep us safe, you see.
That it will also be heavily monetized is just a side effect.
But someone somewhere is salivating at the prospect of the entire citizenry being tagged and monitored, and they'll say it's to defend freedom. Give it a a little more time.
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Re:Gasp! (Score:5, Interesting)
10 years ago I would have called someone saying that delusional too.
But the last 10 years have taught me that almost nothing is too far fetched to believe. Years ago the nerds all went "yeah, right, they can't actually do that you know".
Post-Snowden, however, lots of people are going "holy crap, we're not paranoid enough ".
And there's so many people saying "well, if it's to protect the children or stop the terrorists it must be OK". Sadly, we seem to be racing towards a surveillance society, and people seem to not be outraged by it.
I'm no longer kidding when I say such things. And that is scary, because it means being tinfoil-hat-crazy is now a normal state, and founded in reality.
But always remember: All of this data collected by these things is pretty much under secret US jurisdiction, just like the stuff from Microsoft is. So, yes, Big Brother really is watching.
Re:Why just pharmaceuticals? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not just medical insurance companies. But that will come when wearing of these devices are made mandatory, probably an argument along the lines of "well only terrorists *wouldn't* wear them". Then following an accident anywhere (on the road, place of work, whatever) the insurance company will be able to analyse the data about your physical state prior to the incident to find a reason why they won't pay.
Wearing such devices wouldn't ever be mandated, you say? Sure they will, bribe... I mean lobby, enough politicians and it will happen.
People wouldn't willingly concede even more freedoms to wear these things, you say? Yeah... right.
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100? My fitbit cost almost 300...
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Not just medical insurance companies. But that will come when wearing of these devices are made mandatory, probably an argument along the lines of "well only terrorists *wouldn't* wear them". Then following an accident anywhere (on the road, place of work, whatever) the insurance company will be able to analyse the data about your physical state prior to the incident to find a reason why they won't pay.
Wearing such devices wouldn't ever be mandated, you say? Sure they will, bribe... I mean lobby, enough politicians and it will happen.
People wouldn't willingly concede even more freedoms to wear these things, you say? Yeah... right.
Don't even have to take it that far. Just offer a 'discount' on insurance premiums for those wearing (aka raise the rates of those not wearing).
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Not just medical insurance companies. But that will come when wearing of these devices are made mandatory, probably an argument along the lines of "well only terrorists *wouldn't* wear them"
You say that like the edict will come from the right wing, and that may be a popular belief. But the left is the party that voted to mandate health insurance, and people went along with it because, a) they believed the "it's for the good of everyone that everyone have insurance" line; and/or, b) they accepted it because it came from their side. Granted, the established left and right in the United States is basically the softest game of tug-o-war in history; however, it seems to me that the "Fitbit Mandate"
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:My kingdom for a hacker. (Score:5, Interesting)
Same here! I've wanted a Fitbit-style fitness tracker as well, but one that didn't require an account or cloud synchronization. I see no reason at all for a fitness tracker to outright require that data be uploaded to someone else's hard drive; all of the functions and accounting it performs can be adequately handled on my phone directly. However, no one seems to be marketing to this particular niche. If you find one, or if the Fitbit can be modded to exist in some form of 'local only' mode, I'm definitely in.
Re:My kingdom for a hacker. (Score:4, Insightful)
Really? Is vendor lock in too obvious for you?
If they sold you a device where you had all of your own data, and they weren't in the loop (with an EULA which says it's their data) you'd buy it once and they'd have no ability to make money off it and keep you coming back.
Because it doesn't make them money.
So all of these fancy internet connected things? They mostly exist to provide your data to corporations, so they can lock you in, monetize and sell your data, and ensure you need to keep going back to them.
Which means people need to realize they don't give a shit about what you want. You're just the meat puppet who buys the device to populate their data.
All this crap which wants to connect to the internet and give you an app? It's about someone making money off your data. Me, I refuse to buy this crap.
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Really? Is vendor lock in too obvious for you?
I was born in the morning, but not this morning. I'm poignantly aware that this is the reason; the better way to state my intended message was "I see no technologicalreason...". For some applications, there's a valid reason to require internet connectivity (WhatsApp, etc.). Fitbit is neither holding either massive amounts of data, nor doing complex data crunching, nor directly communicating with other users. Thus, from a practical standpoint, the requirement for data uploading is purely artificial, and not
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And this, folks, is why Laissez-faire capitalism is a crock of shit. The only way to stop this would be for the government to step in and prohibit companies from stealing your data.
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Yeah, right ... do you actually believe the bullshit that the free market solves these problems? Nobody could have drank that much kool aid.
The "free market" is incapable of fixing these kinds of things.
And the assumption that the free market works due to honest players, with complete information, making rational choices is a pile of shit. It's the assumption that people aren't lying cheating bastards, and that's pretty much false.
There never has been, and never will be a free market .. because it simply
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I never made that assumption. People are lying, cheating bastards, but the government doesn't necessarily made that better. However, the free market doesn't require complete information,
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Yea because google has no function to store an encrypted blob?
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Well, for starters, uploading it to their server means if you get new phone you don't lose all your old data.
Available? Fine. Default? Fine. The problem isn't that such a service is available, it's that an artificial limitation has been made that actively prevents the bought-and-paid-for hardware from performing its intended functions independent of that service. There's no technological reason I can't store my Fitbit data on a MicroSD card. There's no technological reason I can't have it save an encrypted blob to Dropbox or e-mail it to myself if I want. Fitbit making it easy and seamless for people who don't car
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It could, as others have suggested, store the data as an encrypted blob where I (not they) have the private key. It could send the data directly to my own PC at home. It could just hold the data until I connect the phone to my PC via USB cable. It absolutely does not need to share the data with any corporate entity at any time.
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biometric technology originally fascinated and excited me. After spending 2 months hacking the fitbit flex and fitbit one im all but broken. the system uses asymmetric cryptography to ensure you never have independent access to the data it collects. the transmission protocol it uses is simple, ANT in most cases, but the private key to decrypt my footsteps and data lies solely on their servers. One would think that without independent evaluation of the data its gleaning, most major pharmaceuticals and insurance companies would be wary but that doesnt appear to be the case. like breathalizers and OBD/ECM monitors from car insurance companies, no one seems interested in their accuracy.
my last 3 jobs have offered these fitbits. the first one, an option, subsidized the device. The next two jobs basically ordered it for me and stated that if i wanted a discount on my health insurance, id better strap in. the privacy policy for fitbit outright states theyre going to sell your data to other companies, like it or not. So why do people put up with this? does anyone know of an open-source and accurate alternative for the fitbit?
Buy a small dog that runs around a lot and strap it on with his collar.
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lol on the doggie running around all fit-bit strapped ;)
I would have a serious problem being told that I HAVE to wear a tracking device if I wanted the normal price for health insurance. note, they are NOT giving a discount, they are increasing prices for others. I don't buy their bullshit shifting of 'discount'. its not a discount if its compelled and these days, saving money on a huge bill like H.I. is not really a choice you have. when you are struggling to make ends meet, its not actually your sole
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Hi - I moved to France awhile ago and, other than missing my friends and family in the US (I only get over about once a year), I don't regret it at all.
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I don't know about the accuracy, but MetaWare [kickstarter.com] seems to be a fairly good alternative. You'd need to develop a wearable to put the hardware in, but it looks pretty good to me. Add in a good bluetooth heart rate monitor and your smartphone and you can duplicate the functionality of any fitness tracker out there while also being less expensive.
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After spending 2 months hacking the fitbit flex and fitbit one im all but broken. the system uses asymmetric cryptography to ensure you never have independent access to the data it collects.
Well no shit. If they can't guarantee that the data they're selling to various companies isn't tampered with, it wouldn't be worth nearly as much. Otherwise every hacker would be wearing one of these that "proves" to their insurance company that they exercise like a paragon of health, and their vitals are like an Olympic champion's.
The article optimistically adds.. (Score:5, Insightful)
The article optimistically adds, "Down the line, wearables also could help pharmaceutical makers prove to insurance companies that their treatments are effective, thus increasing health profits."
Fixed.
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That really ought to read "Down the line, wearables also could help pharmaceutical makers prove to insurance companies that their treatments are effective, thus increasing healthcare profits."
Big Pharma companies don't profit from "health," they profit from "care."
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That really ought to read "Down the line, wearables also could help pharmaceutical makers prove to insurance companies that their treatments are effective, thus increasing healthcare profits."
Big Pharma companies don't profit from "health," they profit from "care."
Sure, but if they don't show that they deliver the former, people will be reluctant to pay for the latter.
It is still a big problem, but I'd say that drugs are actually far better off than the rest of healthcare. How much clinical evidence do you think there is for half the advice your doctor charged you $80 to give the last time you visited him? The pills are actually some of the better-tested stuff on the healthcare market.
Of course they do. (Score:3)
Hope they are not using the wristbands (Score:2)
because I "walk" 8 miles a day when I am coding. It detects my typing style as walking.
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because I "walk" 8 miles a day when I am coding. It detects my typing style as walking.
Anyone else now picturing Lumpy typing?
Anyone else just realise they're picturing Lumpy as John Cleese?
Oh, now you are... good.
Funny, innit?
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I also walk like him as well.
That reminds me I need to return a parrot.
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What a bunch of BS (Score:2)
Never has something which is shown to be effective reduced costs. It's like being a safe driver yet your car insurance goes up every year.
The only ones who will see the savings are the companies themselves. It will not "trickle down" to us peons.
Remember how forcing people to hand over their money to private companies via Obamneycare was supposed to make health insurance less expensive? How's that working out [kff.org]?
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Remember how forcing people to hand over their money to private companies via Obamneycare was supposed to make health insurance less expensive?
Actually, it was supposed to make health care less expensive. In my household, it's working out quite well.
Pre-ACA, my wife could not find a company willing to insure her at any level. Post-ACA, we pay $709/mo to cover both of us with a $3000 deductible and no copay. I don't use the coverage but, even having to pay to cover both of us at a cost of $8508/yr, plus her $3000 deductible (total $11508) we've spent over $20k less this year on her health care than we've spent in years past. The most we can spend