My father always drew strong correlations between information and power. He used to tell me that having all of the information in the world would give me all of the power … hence the strong push on education in my household. So we talked on the phone last night and it reminded me of some of my work projects. One in particular is the National Cancer Database (NCDB).
We are drafting plans to make recommendations to overhaul the database and improve its functioning. I was just thinking of the data that we collect and put into databases and how it could help researchers identify root causes of disease, or bulletproof preventative measures. Who knew that Human Papilloma Virus was the cause of most of the cervical cancers? Viruses can cause cancer. Yep … they got that one after realizing that Nuns do not develop cervical cancer. So my point being if we get this database up we may be able to make practical and useful assertions like ‘Using a condom may also lower your risk of pregnancy, STD transmission, and it cervical cancer’ … as if HIV isn’t scary enough!
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