Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft to Use FDA Official to Take Over Patient Records in the United States

FDA logo



Summary: Microsoft hires Donna-Bea Tillman from the FDA in order to increase its influence in the United States government and help Microsoft control healthcare systems

MICROSOFT'S connections with the US government continue to be tightened. According to The Seattle Times, Obama's CIO Vivek Kundra may have just met Steve Ballmer, who also visits the White House on occasions [1, 2].



After his San Francisco tour, Kundra is coming to Seattle for a day Thursday beginning with breakfast at Microsoft with Chief Executive Steve Ballmer and other local executives.

Microsoft will show Kundra advanced research projects before he speaks at the University of Washington in the afternoon. He'll also meet with executives at Amazon.com before making an appearance at the Washington Technology Industry Association's awards dinner.


This possible encounter is not the subject of this post though; it merely serves as a precursor and a reminder of Microsoft's relationship with the government. Politics and commerce are never separate, unless one insists on oversimplification.

The FDA is connected to Microsoft through the pharmaceutical cartel, as well as the Gates Foundation, which works for Monsanto [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8] and has former Monsanto staff (which in turn has a notorious exchange of staff with the FDA). With high-level Monsanto employees inside the Gates Foundation, the connections to the government become a tad more apparent, but we won't delve into it any further because that's not the point.

The main story is the following one. According to this report from the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft is going to hire a Fed from the FDA.

The director of the Office of Device Evaluation, one of the highest-ranking positions at the Food and Drug Administration, is leaving this month to join the Washington office of Microsoft Corp., according to an email she sent Monday morning.

Donna-Bea Tillman, who has been with the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health since 1994, said in the email that she will become part of the software giant's health solutions group as the director of regulations and policy. The FDA and Microsoft confirmed the move.


There is more information in the blog -- details that didn't make it into the main article.

You probably wouldn’t put Microsoft on the list of companies in the market to hire former FDA officials, but the software giant snagged a top medical-device regulator today.

Donna-Bea Tillman, head of the office of device approvals, says her jump to Microsoft isn’t as unusual as it may seem. She told colleagues in a memo she has long had “a love for all things computer.”


Here is another news article which cites the Wall Street Journal.

Donna Bea-Tillman will leave her post at Food and Drug Administration to join the Washington, D.C. lobbying office of Microsoft Corp., according to the Wall Street Journal

Donna Bea-Tillman, the director of the Food and Drug Administration's office of device evaluation, will apparently resign her post to join the lobbying office of software giant Microsoft Corp., according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

[...]

Tillman told her colleagues in the email that she took the position with Microsoft because of the potential for health information technology to, "reduce the skyrocketing cost of health care," according to a copy of the email obtained by the paper


So quite clearly, the purpose here it to lobby for control over people's medical records [1, 2]. There needn't even be speculation about it being just more Microsoft lobbying, which works against the interests of people and instead benefits a private corporation. If people learned something from the healthcare fiasco and the insurance companies, this ought to be it. To usher this whole campaign for Microsoft as the steward of health/patient records, Microsoft seems to have started a whole tour and media blitz. In the past week alone we've found a lot of press releases about Microsoft in health. The number of press releases was very, very unusual. It includes:

Microsoft Case Study Spotlights OrthoCarolina and Mariner Partnership in Medical Practice Efficiency

Cleveland Clinic/Microsoft Pilot Promising; Home Health Services May Benefit Chronic Disease Management

Greenway Medical Technologies Advances Patient-Provider Benefits (about Microsoft)

Patients will be granted the ability to see medical records with Microsoft Technology

Cleveland Clinic, Microsoft project: Home health tracks chronic conditions better

Now, watch what else Microsoft is doing. "Microsoft Health Users Group Innovation Awards" are announced and from these "Innovation Awards" we get another press release:

NextGen Health Information Exchange and Doylestown Hospital Recognized as Winners of Microsoft HUG 2010 Innovation Awards

Microsoft is even sponsoring/arranging a "hospital luncheon" (recall the "Screw Google luncheon", which we last mentioned here).

Mission Viejo Microsoft Store takes title sponsorship for hospital luncheon



[...]

The Microsoft Store at The Shops at Mission Viejo is slated to be the title sponsor of Mission Hospital’s 14th Annual Valiant Women Luncheon on Friday, March 12, at the Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel.


Then, Microsoft uses Philips to storm the medical system and consume private data (also covered here). This a colossal mistake given Microsoft's proven disregard for people's privacy and very poor reliability in general. To seize control of the medical system becomes more of a matter of life and death in this case. Microsoft has abysmal record here, with Windows zombies becoming the menace of many hospitals. See for example:



People should be killing Microsoft's attempt to invade hospitals before they kill people. Sadly enough, some reporters play along with this media blitz [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], which is backed by new lobbyists and marketing people, with people's lives at stake (to Microsoft it's just the smell of money and crucial dependency/lock-in).

“It's not about embrace but about exploiting rivals' platforms to help Microsoft, which has almost no market share in phones.”On a related note, Microsoft is trying to control (with patents) bar codes and it's advertising this through Linux/Android phones [1, 2]. Just like Hyper-V drivers for Linux, it's self serving. It's also the same with Microsoft applications for iPhone -- ones that merely have users connect to Microsoft services. It's not about embrace but about exploiting rivals' platforms to help Microsoft, which has almost no market share in phones. The reporters totally missed that or chose to ignore it. Mary Jo Foley looks at this news and wonders if Microsoft will use this strategy to also advance Silver Lie, much like Microsoft uses the *Spark programmes to achieve this (with free advertising from IDG).

Last but not least, Microsoft wants to manage people's national identities [1, 2]. In India, Microsoft had NASSCOM facilitate this but in Germany too Microsoft apparently found some guinea pigs.

Microsoft released its new identity management software at the RSA conference on Tuesday and is working on a prototype national ID card system in Germany that is designed to give consumers control over the amount of personal data they share with specific organizations.


ID cards are a terrible idea for many reasons (including surveillance but a lot more than that). We won't go into it. In any case, Germany ponders implementing an unnecessary system and even putting it in the hands of a private company from abroad, and one that's highly abusive and irresponsible. What an utter disaster.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Traf-O-Data, the Company That Jeffrey Epstein's BFF (Bill Gates) (Co)Founded 53 Years and Went Out of Business Due to Heavy Losses
Who will die first, Bill or Microsoft?
A Note on SimilarWeb
Or why SimilarWeb is meaningless for more than 99% of the sites on the Web
IBM Said to be Shutting Down Offices or Sites in the United States
the press can no longer avoid admitting that IBM moves many jobs to India
LLM Slop as Attack Vector on the Reputation of Linux
The attacks on Linux have escalated to information warfare
 
Links 04/04/2025: Fury in South Korea, Flight MH370 Remains Mystery
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/04/2025: Anger and Raspberry Pi CM4
Links for the day
Links 04/04/2025: LLM Slop Bubble Bursting and Korea Music Copyright Association Bans Slop 'Music'
Links for the day
Why Microsoft's Shares Sank Almost 20% in Recent Months (the Bubble is Imploding)
verified press reports from the past 24 hours
GNU/Linux Rises to Almost 5% in Algeria While Windows Sinks to All-Time Low
GNU/Linux grew tenfold
Where to Get More Gags
A valued reader recommended that to us
Links 04/04/2025: Tech Stock (Inc. GAFAM) Fall, Google Pretends to Do End-to-End Encrypted Emails (With Google in Control)
Links for the day
To Participate in Fedora Diversity You Must Use Proprietary Software
Not for the first time either
Yandex About to Be Three Times Bigger Than Microsoft (Bing) in Asia
That's about 60% of the world's population
Gemini Links 04/04/2025: Decoupling Updates, Elaho as Gemini Client
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 03, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, April 03, 2025
Microsoft's Trouble in Africa and Asia
A new all-time high for GNU/Linux
Brett Wilson LLP Reported to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)
The saddest thing in all this is that law firms can maintain high standards shall they wish to
Links 03/04/2025: Tariff Pains and C.D.C. Cuts
Links for the day
StatCounter: Microsoft is Masking a Disaster, It's Way Behind DeepSeek Already and Interest in LLMs Has Waned
it turns out the money "raised" for "Open" "AI" may not even exist at all
Links 03/04/2025: SoftBank Money for Microsoft "Open" "AI" Probably Doesn't Even Exist, Wikimedia Foundation Blasts LLM Nuisance While Microsoft Admits Demand Has Shrunk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/04/2025: Patch Panel and Pictures
Links for the day
Islamic Republic of Iran: GNU/Linux at All-time High This Month, Windows Falls to 12%
Vista 10 is up this month despite being "end of life" (EoL) soon
Indonesia: All-Time Highs for GNU/Linux
What's noteworthy right now is the growth of GNU/Linux
statCounter Says GNU/Linux Usage is Up Again (Internationally)
some preliminary April data
Only on April 1st Can the Free Software Foundation Associate With Microsoft's Open Source Initiative (OSI)
We saw some pranks that day linking the FSF to Microsoft (e.g. "endorsing" Windows)
Confirmed in the Mainstream Media: A Lot of Microsoft "Workloads" Were Just LLM Slop (Helping to Fake Growth for Years, as Microsoft Had Paid "Open" "AI" to Become a "Client") and Demand is Rapidly Waning, Datacentres Canceled and/or Shut Down
Anything to facilitate further accounting fraud
Taiwan's Media Covers Closure of Microsoft's "AI" Lab, It's Time to Talk About the Gradual Death of Windows and Implosion of the "AI" Bubble
Earlier this week we showed that mostly Asian media had the 'nerve' to mention Microsoft silently shutting down its 'AI' lab
IBM Gets Rid of Kelly Chambliss as Mass Layoffs Reported in IBM Consulting, IBM Loses Key Contracts/Graft
IBM Consulting has been in disarray lately
More Gains for GNU/Linux, Based on Web Surveys
the Steam site shows rapid growth for "Linux" this month
Slopwatch: Anti-Linux Articles, Not Even Written by Humans
Why aren't Web sites more vocal about this problem?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 02, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, April 02, 2025
Links 03/04/2025: Apple Fined Over Secret Surveillance, "Elegant Writer For A More Civilized Age"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 02/04/2025: Books and Cold Tea
Links for the day
Links 02/04/2025: More Layoffs, Nokia Again Takes Advantage of Illegal and Unconstitutional Patent Court With Nokia Staff as 'Judges'
Links for the day
Links 02/04/2025: Seizures and Returns to Windows of 24 Years Ago
Links for the day
LLM Slop Helps Obscure and Distort News About Layoffs (IBM, GAFAM)
It's hard to find accurate information
Links 02/04/2025: Microsoft Developers Are Threatening to Go on Strike, World Backup Day Noted
Links for the day
Gemini Protocol Has Growing Appeal (the Web Got Too Bloated and Full of LLM Slop)
For any "data plan" with bandwidth limits or "tiers" it would be cheaper to use/browse Geminispace
The Web Can Survive LLM Slop, But Only If We Collectively Shun and Discourage Serial Sloppers
Doing nothing ought not be a possibility
Amid Secret Shut-downs and Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (4 Waves of Layoffs in 3 Months of 2025) Some Microsoft Staff Expected to Go On Strike
workers going on strike
Gemini Links 02/04/2025: No more on Mastodon and Gemini Mention Script in Go
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, April 01, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, April 01, 2025
My Motion Disbarring or “Striking Off” Brett Wilson LLP for Enabling Violent Americans Who Try to Crush Microsoft Critics in the United Kingdom by Multiple SLAPPs
"Guns for hire" (for Microsoft people who received Microsoft salaries)
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Hijacked Again by Patent Litigation Industry, as President Cheeto Prioritises Aggressors
The "mafia" has taken over the "industry" and the Federal system (justice and constitutions trampled upon)
Ubuntu Slop and FUD Manufactured With LLMs and Funded (by Oneself) 'Studies'
Slop and FUD are ruining the Web