Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Big Tech: Data's Racial Biases Must Be Fixed Before AI Health Care Expands
Fierce Healthcare: Google, Microsoft Execs Say Bias Must Be Addressed To Expand AI
As new generative AI models like ChatGPT gain popularity, some experts are saying that to ensure such tools work in healthcare, implicit racial biases baked into health data must be accounted for. Officials with Google and Microsoft discussed the use of AI in healthcare during the Healthcare Datapalooza event held Thursday in Arlington, Virginia. There is a lot of excitement around the potential for AI models like ChatGPT—a chatbot that crunches massive data sets to generate text, video and code—for healthcare use cases. (King, 2/23)
On research relating to covid —
CIDRAP: Celebrity Tweets Swayed US Public Opinion Toward Pandemic Efforts, Study Suggests
US celebrity Twitter posts—especially those from politicians and news anchors—likely influenced the increasingly negative US public attitudes toward efforts to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study published this week in BMJ Health & Care Informatics. (Van Beusekom, 2/23)
CIDRAP: Long COVID May Double Risk Of New Heart Conditions
COVID-19 survivors with persistent symptoms are at more than double the risk of new-onset cardiovascular symptoms, suggests a meta-analysis to be presented Mar 6 at the American College of Cardiology (ACC)/World Congress of Cardiology Annual Scientific Session in New Orleans. (Van Beusekom, 2/23)
In other scientific, innovative health news —
CIDRAP: California Animal Law May Have Led To Less Drug Resistance In Human E Coli Infections
A California law that banned the routine use of medically important antibiotics for disease prevention in food-animal production was associated with a reduction in one type of antibiotic-resistant infection in people, researchers reported yesterday in Environmental Health Perspectives. (Dall, 2/23)
CIDRAP: Study Links Acid Suppressants To Colonization With Multidrug-Resistant Bacteria
A new study suggests that medications used to control heartburn and other gastrointestinal issues may increase the risk of acquiring multidrug-resistant bacteria in hospital patients. The study, published today in JAMA Network Open, found that hospitalized patients using proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) had a nearly 50% increased risk of acquiring extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL)- or carbapenemase-producing Enterobacterales, with a slightly higher risk among patients who used PPIs twice a day. (Dall, 2/23)
St. Louis Public Radio: Aural Diversity Studies Hearing Differences In Humans
Stephanie Gurley-Thomas could always tell that something was off with her hearing, but she didn’t know what. “When I was 15, I had a staph infection in my ankle. We ended up having an ototoxic drug to clean it out,” she said. “Ototoxic means it's poisonous to your ear, basically.” Her symptoms gradually worsened, but because she was quite young, she didn’t consider that hearing loss might be the culprit. (Rogers, 2/23)
