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Comment by jbandela1 | Hacker News Reader

First, this is a very scary first step in the assault on privacy. It is an opening for people to argue that a person who fits a certain search profile should be de-anonymized. After all, wouldn't you want to know if you had cancer? In addition, as it is not about law enforcement but public health, there are a lot fewer limitations on what information the government can access.

Second, after seeing the type of queries, I do not think that this is all that helpful. If a person has unexplained weight loss or yellow skin or eyes, they should always go see their doctor right away. My guess is that most of the specificity of this study comes from those two terms (weight loss combined with yellow skin). Just getting out that message will do a lot more to save people's lives than violating their privacy in this manner.

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Not chumming for sympathy here, but I've mentioned before on HN that my own pancreatic cancer first manifested itself as a vague feeling of unease at the sternum, and persistent nighttime acid reflux. No other symptoms. My GP didn't recognize it for what it was, and treated the reflux symptom.

It would sure be spiffy if mining queries could identify early symptoms, working backwards if you will, rather than be used to find cancer patients by working forward from symptoms already identified by the medical establishment.

I have exactly the same symptoms and a history of pancreatic cancer in my family. Not sure how to try to escalate this further or if that seems ridiculous. What did you do to get further exams?

I became severely anemic after a few months and the e/r did an MRI, looking for internal bleeding. They found the tumor then.

My GP had x-rayed me, looking for a cardiac anomaly - he suspected an aortic aneurism. What he should've done is order some soft tissue radiology instead. Having your GP consider a CT or MRI is my advice.

Hope in your case it's all for naught. Best to check though.

I don't think I have anemia so maybe it is just GERD, but I will mention what you said on my next visit.

I really hope you are better.

Agreed. Perhaps this could be addressed by a personal medical 'agent' that could access condition profiles & statistics on your behalf, rather than having your data mined en masse by a search engine, ISP, etc.

> they should always go see their doctor

GPs often do not catch rare conditions or determine the underlying cause of milder symptoms.

The fact that these cancers go undetected until it's too late at present is evidence enough that GPs are not adequate for this purpose.

The rule GP's are taught to follow is "when you hear the horses running, don't think of zebras". Symptoms are frequently either non-present or unspecific for such a long time that GP's stick to what fits and is most propable and only look further if current approach isn't working.

This is Occam's razor. The horses saw is new to me.

The squeaky wheel gets oil. I would say that people who are less acquiescent will get more tests, sooner, especially in a scenario where demand outstrips supply. Women tend to be better in that way in my experience, men are more easily fobbed off.

This is unfortunately a systematic problem with medicine that probably arises from the fact that the signal to noise ratio is so low. If you see 100 patients/year who have indigestion but think they have stomach cancer, then the 1 patient that really has cancer is impossible to detect (without also spending unreasonable resources on the other 99).

I had a collapsed lung and went away from my GP with an inhaler for asthma (I've never had asthma). Luckily I went in after a few days and got x-rays and then got treated immediately, and I'm fine (I hope:-) 20 years later. Still though, it reduced my trust in doctors dramatically.

You're a cyclist, so you probably have very good lungs. I was in a similar situation (saxophone player, avid cyclist) so too ended up with a misdiagnosed collapsed lung. If you're not showing the regular symptoms (such as very low oxygen levels in your blood) then they are bound to assume something else is the cause. Sharp pain in your chest is a good reason to suspect a collapsed lung or a partial detachment of the lung from the chest wall if you're otherwise in very good condition and should be taken very seriously.

My 4 year old was treated for asthma by his ped then admitted to hospital for pneumonia a few days later. Two surgeries and 30 days in hospital later, he is all better. It is frustrating how subjective medicine still is.

I don't think they necessarily have to deanonymize the data, it could be something like an alert that pops up when the search engine detects you may have a medical condition.

> Just getting out that message

How do you suggest getting out the message? Blanket public health advertising would be very expensive and would be ignored by most people.

I think search histories are potentially very useful but privacy is important too. It would be interesting to see if there's a way of using search history information in a way that preserves privacy.

We should get the word out that jaundice is a serious medical condition? I'm pretty sure that work has been done. "If your eyes turn yellow, you need to see a doctor" is an easy sell for anyone.

Should be an iPhone app

OTOH, there were, as recently as a few months ago, ads in Toronto's subway system exhorting people to go to the doctor if they found blood in their urine. And this is in Canada, where there's no financial barrier to going to see your doctor for "maybe it's nothing"-style ailments. I fear you might be overestimating the average person.

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