Antony – Page 3 – Antony Simpson – Author, Blogger, Nurse & Witch.

The Data (Use and Access) Act 2025

By AntonyPolitical, Technology, ThinkingNo Comments

The Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 is a new piece of legislation recently past through the UK parliament that I’m really concerned about.

It’s been sold to the public with the promises that it will:

Make grocery bills cheaper.
Lead to cheaper energy prices.
Reduce time spent in traffic.
Give NHS Staff more time with patients (by cutting bureaucracy).
Put £10 billion into the economy (over 10 years).
Provide every person with a digital identity (verified by your biometric data), which some have dubbed the digital ‘Brit’ ID Card.

Sounds too good to be true? You’re not alone in thinking this.

The Act is a long document and I’ve not had the time to read it all. But from what I have read, I’m concerned about:

Removal Of My Right to Withhold My Consent To Sharing Data And Provides No Facility For Opting Out (Fully Or In Part). This was a vital part of previous legislation around data.
My Privacy – This legislation allows sharing of medical records, meaning that everyone in the NHS (and potentially other public and private organisations) will be able to see everything about my past and present health. Surely I should be able to decide who can see what about me, but this new law allows complete data sharing through a process called automated decision making. In addition, it allows sharing without making the individual aware of what exactly is being shared and why. It feels like a data free for all.
How Safe & Secure My Data Will Be – More data online and more data transferred/shared increases the risk of it falling into the wrong hands. Either by accident or through a deliberate attempt to access/steal data through hackers or advanced AI. What I’ve read about this legislation does little to reassure me about the safety and security of my data.
Potential For Data To Be Misused/Abused – There is a great potential for this data to be misused/abused by those with power and unlimited access.
No Say When It Comes To Deleting Data – The legislation doesn’t seem to have a mechanism for deleting data. There may be several reasons to delete data, for example if it is out of date or inaccurate.
The Government Having More Control On What Data Can Be Accessed – The legislation lets Government and officials/organisations have more control on what data can be accessed about an individual and under what circumstances. This feels fundamentally flawed, as those in power/control of the data could again misuse/abuse the data.

Blog soon,

Antony

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Saturday 9 August 2025

The Story of Jonas Salk and The Polio Vaccine

By AntonyHealth, History, InspirationNo Comments

Jonas Salk, Developer of the Polio Vaccine.

Polio is a disease were symptoms can include sore throats, raised body temperature, headaches, neck stiffness, abdominal pain, permanent paralysis and in extreme cases can lead to death. It can affect anyone of any age.

Polio has largely been eradicated across the world thanks to the polio vaccine. The World Health Organization estimates a 99% drop in the rates of polio infection since the 1980s.

The man responsible for development of the polio vaccine was Jonas Salk (photo left). This is his story.

Jonas Salk started his work on the polio vaccine in 1948 in America. It would take Salk and his team 7 years of hard work before they would see success.

The common thinking in the Scientific community was to use a live strain of the polio virus to develop a vaccine, but Salk had a different idea. He decided to use a inactive and weakened version of the polio virus, convinced that it was not only safer, but more likely to support the body to develop an immunity to the polio virus.

In 1955, after successful trials in both animals and children, Salk announced to the world that he had developed a vaccine for polio.

What is inspirational about this man, is not just that he developed the polio vaccine. But that he chose not to patent it. This meant that anyone could reproduce the polio vaccine without any payment to Salk.

At the time (and still to this day) America has an corporate obsession with patenting intellectual property, so that individuals can make money from their intellectual property. If Salk had patented his polio vaccine, it would have made him several billionaire dollars.

But Salk chose not to patent the polio vaccine. Instead, Salk wanted his vaccine spread as widely as possible, for the benefit of all people. Salk went against the capitalist culture of his country and focused on maximising the good the vaccine could do for humanity. It is for this reason, that I find this man truly inspirational.

Salk became a household name, but this was not something he wanted or welcomed. Salk stated in an interview in 1980:

It’s as if I’ve been a public property ever since, having to respond to external, as well as internal, impulses. … It’s brought me enormous gratification, opened many opportunities, but at the same time placed many burdens on me. It altered my career, my relationships with colleagues; I am a public figure, no longer one of them.

After the success of the polio vaccine Salk went back to work in his virology lab. Salk later worked on a vaccine for the HIV/AIDS virus, but was sadly unsuccessful in this endeavour.

I hope you enjoyed reading this inspirational story.

Blog soon,

Antony

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Tuesday 5 August 2025