How Apple and Google Are Going to Help Cure Humanity's Diseases | Joseph Farrell

"Apple announced the open-platform medical research tool ResearchKit on April 15, and while it was overshadowed by news of the Apple Watch, it's a tool with staggering potential for humanity. 'We are incredibly confident that [ResearchKit] will have a profound impact on all of us,' Apple CEO Tim Cook said at WWDC in San Francisco. The initial apps released with ResearchKit included apps for asthma, Parkinson's disease, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and breast cancer. So how does it work, and why is it important? Is it the future of healthcare research or just a flawed, creepy data collection tool? And what the heck does Google have to do with it?  With ResearchKit, anyone can participate in a scientific study. Researchers set the criteria and eligibility requirements in their app, and an interested iPhone user then downloads that app and fills out a questionnaire. The app then tells participants what to do. For the Parkinson's mPower app, for instance, users are asked to speak into their device's microphone and take several steps, allowing for researchers to track and measure gait to gauge the progression of the disease.  The robust technology of the iPhone and Apple Watch can give researchers never before imagined, real-world data. And the widespread use of the iPhone (and Apple Watch) means an exponential increase in the sample size available. Unlike traditional research, scientists won't be limited to slow, expensive, and laborious manual recruitment that yields relatively small sample groups. With ResearchKit and programs like it, any approved researcher can collect data on not dozens or hundreds but perhaps millions of people. This massive open access to research subjects and their data is what makes ResearchKit so important ... But apps are just one aspect of ResearchKit's ultimate potential. Apple is now expanding into genome territory. Partnering with UCSF and Mount Sinai Hospital, they're currently recruiting large numbers of participants for a massive genome-sequencing project. So far we don't know exactly what Apple plans to do with all this information, but there's immense value in the interaction between your genetic data and your lifestyle data collected by things your phone and watch already track (location, purchasing habits, diet, fitness, and sleep). Combined, these two data could give researchers an unprecedented look at how genetics and environment interact to affect our health ... The inherent problem for Apple, of course, is that no matter how big the ResearchKit numbers, the data will be reflective only of iPhone users. That means by necessity a higher income bracket, among other differentials. The median iPhone user in the US earns $85000, while the median income in the US is $51,939. It's even been found that, for the most part, iPhone users are better educated (or at least, states with a higher number of college graduates have a higher number if iPhone users).  Why does this matter? Certain health conditions, diet-related cardiovascular disease for instance, overwhelmingly affect poorer populations, making accurate date from iPhone users not that likely ..."