"Microsoft Launches HealthVault Medical Record Manager" (Lifehacker)

Lifehacker writes:

Today Microsoft unveils new web application HealthVault, a medical records manager that will let users—and their doctors—store and track personal health information online. ... You willing to entrust the big MS with your medical records?

The prevalence of sloppy methodology and biased funding has pushed the current state of medical research somewhere between embarrassing and scandalous.

I'm less worried in the privacy risks, and more excited about the impact on medical research. Maybe a large body of unmanipulated health data such as this one could help open up medical research, making results more easily obtained and verifiable without disgusting amounts of funding for large studies that leaves researchers beholden to corporate interests.

My secret hope:
MS does maintain such a database, and that it does get hacked, and that the hacked information is widely distributed amongst independent researchers around the world.

I know some folks on this blog care more about privacy than me, so maybe there's a debate to be had in the comments?