Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: AI's Diagnostic Abilities Outperform Doctors; Appointing RFK Jr. AS HHS Chief Is Too Big A Risk
Stat: What History Tells Us About AI’s Diagnostic Triumph
Physicians received unexpected news recently when a a small study published in JAMA Network Open found that ChatGPT-4 had outdone us at our own craft: diagnosis, what some have called the physician’s “most important procedure.” The study’s large language model (LLM) outperformed doctors, achieving a 90% diagnostic reasoning score on challenging cases while physicians — even those working with the chatbot — reached only 76%. (Lakshmi Krishnan, 1/31)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch: RFK Is Hazardous To America's Health
If and when the full Senate votes on whether to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the federal government’s top health agency, it will say as much about the senators who are voting as about Kennedy himself. The central question is this: Are Senate Republicans willing to put their duty to the nation above their fealty to a president whose appointment in this case is so intentionally irresponsible as to barely rise above the level of a fraternity prank? The indications aren’t good. (1/30)
The New York Times: Under Trump, A Wink And A Nod At Anti-Abortion Violence
In his first days in office, Trump hasn’t made curtailing abortion a major priority. His Justice Department has not, so far, acceded to requests from the anti-abortion movement to declare the mailing of abortion pills illegal under the 19th-century Comstock Act, though that could easily change. (Michelle Goldberg, 1/31)
Bloomberg: Trump’s Climate Data Purge Hurts Americans’ Health And Wallets
Compared with President Donald Trump’s many attacks on science so far in his second term, his affront to climate science feels like a mere flesh wound at the moment. Delaying cancer research, depriving HIV and AIDS patients of life-saving medicine and divorcing from the World Health Organization in the middle of a bird-flu outbreak all feel like more urgent emergencies. (Mark Gongloff, 1/31)
Kansas City Star: Trump Blames DEI For Air Crash, But That’s Prejudice Talking
After watching Donald Trump try to pin Wednesday’s awful air collision over the Potomac on the diversity of our air traffic controllers, I am going to retire the word “unbelievable” from my vocabulary. We do not know what caused this national tragedy, and Trump said that. But he also suggested that 67 people lost their lives because Joe Biden lowered the standards for air traffic controllers, though there is not even a wisp of evidence behind that claim. (Melinda Henneberger, 1/30)
Stat: Congress Must Protect Federal Health Agencies From Political Interference
In the fall of 2020, even as scientists raced to develop Covid-19 vaccines, Americans’ trust in these lifesaving shots plummeted. Many became more skeptical because of the behavior of U.S. leaders. Our recent study, published in the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, tracks how the Trump administration applied public pressure on the FDA during the 2020 election season, sparking a crisis of vaccine confidence. (Anushka Bhaskar, Aaron S. Kesselheim and Daniel Carpenter, 1/31)
