first opinion
Don't forget about medical ethics in AI health products
Adobe
You've probably noticed that Google recently integrated Gemini, its new large language model, into its search engine. This could someday become a critical tool for people going to Google with health questions, which happens 70,000 times per minute. But in a new First Opinion essay, two authors say that the technology isn't quite there yet. See: that time Gemini told a user that "geologists recommend eating at least one small rock each day."
There are four fundamental principles of medical ethics — non-maleficence, beneficence, autonomy, and justice — that clinicians and researchers use to make morally sound judgments. AI products that are intended to or may produce health information or medical advice should not be exempt from following these ethical principles, the authors write. Read more.
health inequity
How to fix the 'fundamental flaws' that underlie racial health inequity
To eliminate the longstanding racial and ethnic health inequities that plague the U.S., Congress needs to provide affordable health insurance for all, federal agencies need to enforce existing laws against discrimination, and researchers need to improve collection of racial and ethnic data, according to a new report released yesterday by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine.
The report comes two decades after a groundbreaking 2003 report, also from NASEM, laid bare the realities of structural racism in health care: People of color receive worse treatment, regardless of factors like income or education. Unfortunately, not much has changed in the ensuing decades, the authors wrote, echoing findings from a 2022 investigation by STAT's Usha Lee McFarling. Read more from Usha on the new report and the authors' recommendations.
(And speak of the devil, just yesterday the FDA issued draft guidance on enrolling more people of color in clinical trials.) (It is six months late.)
h5n1 bird flu
Q&A: Lessons from the Bush administration bird flu response
In 2005, Mike Leavitt had been the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services for only a couple months when he first heard about an avian flu outbreak that began in Asia and eventually spread to North Africa, Turkey, and Europe. He was so worried that he bought 200 copies of a book on the 1918 flu pandemic, hand delivering one to then-President George W. Bush. (Leavitt says Bush read it.)
In an interview with STAT's Rachel Cohrs Zhang, Leavitt reflects on his response to that bird flu outbreak, which was never detected on American soil — and never in dairy cattle like we're seeing now. Read the interview.
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