Rielle "Kit" Peddler (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
liberaition) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
capitalchan2014-02-06 11:46 pm
liberaition) wrote in capitalchan2014-02-06 11:46 pm
Entry tags:
002; a new post on the well-known anonymously run blog The Uplink.
Hello, internet. Many of you aren’t familiar with the company I’m going to talk about today, but their research has probably changed your lives.
Harmony Medtech, a pioneering biomedical research firm based in Seattle WA, has been collecting DNA samples without consent since at least 2009, and using them in their research. It is unclear exactly how they obtained these hundreds of thousands of samples. Though company servers showed emails sent by top scientists and executives that mentioned picking up genetic material from area hospitals, the company has specimens on file from all over the United States.
It is also unclear exactly how these samples are being used. Harmony is a research facility, and generates profit mainly by selling its research and prototypes to pharmaceutical and medical equipment corporations. Many of Harmony's innovations have successfully passed clinical trials and gone mainstream, but CEO Alan Koizumi remains notoriously reclusive, and rarely gives press conferences or attends industry conventions.
[attached as images to the post are documents recovered from Harmony Medtech's servers: screenshots of their database (personal information redacted, of course), emails between researchers and interdepartmental memos re: collection of specimens. It's all very clinical, but there are clear references to the illegality of what they're doing. One even mentions bribing several lab employees of Seattle area hospitals, though it doesn't give their names. There’s no data on what they’re using the samples for, though there are vague references to several ongoing projects.]
In more ethical news, a new AI with its own blog has been drawing a lot of attention over the past few days. This is a step in the right direction: giving humans positive experiences with AI will help foster trust and open mindedness to different kinds of beings (not to mention make it easier for us to accept our robot overlords). Please, treat this new blogging AI with kindness and courtesy, as it learns from your messages. Don't let its first experiences with humanity be unpleasant ones.
Until next time.
[as always, the comment sections of The Uplink are wide open. if you want to comment IC anonymously just mark that it's anon in the subject line OuO ]
Harmony Medtech, a pioneering biomedical research firm based in Seattle WA, has been collecting DNA samples without consent since at least 2009, and using them in their research. It is unclear exactly how they obtained these hundreds of thousands of samples. Though company servers showed emails sent by top scientists and executives that mentioned picking up genetic material from area hospitals, the company has specimens on file from all over the United States.
It is also unclear exactly how these samples are being used. Harmony is a research facility, and generates profit mainly by selling its research and prototypes to pharmaceutical and medical equipment corporations. Many of Harmony's innovations have successfully passed clinical trials and gone mainstream, but CEO Alan Koizumi remains notoriously reclusive, and rarely gives press conferences or attends industry conventions.
[attached as images to the post are documents recovered from Harmony Medtech's servers: screenshots of their database (personal information redacted, of course), emails between researchers and interdepartmental memos re: collection of specimens. It's all very clinical, but there are clear references to the illegality of what they're doing. One even mentions bribing several lab employees of Seattle area hospitals, though it doesn't give their names. There’s no data on what they’re using the samples for, though there are vague references to several ongoing projects.]
In more ethical news, a new AI with its own blog has been drawing a lot of attention over the past few days. This is a step in the right direction: giving humans positive experiences with AI will help foster trust and open mindedness to different kinds of beings (not to mention make it easier for us to accept our robot overlords). Please, treat this new blogging AI with kindness and courtesy, as it learns from your messages. Don't let its first experiences with humanity be unpleasant ones.
Until next time.
[as always, the comment sections of The Uplink are wide open. if you want to comment IC anonymously just mark that it's anon in the subject line OuO ]
text, from OP