A disease doesn’t have to be real to cause worldwide damage “While I am deeply concerned about the long-term existential threat of AI and synthetic biology to create new or modified pathogens, my extensive experience detecting and controlling outbreaks around the world makes me fear a more immediate threat: a rogue actor using existing AI tools to simulate a bioterrorism attack that would destabilize a region or the world. [..] Freely available AI tools now permit people to create “deepfakes” that are almost impossible for a person to differentiate from reality without special tools. It’s not simply a question of whether … Read More
“The largest health care companies in the US are no longer just health insurers, pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), physician practices, home health agencies, hospices, data warehouses, data analytics firms, or hospitals. They are increasingly all of the above. A small number of unavoidable health care intermediaries are incorporating these services into essential platforms that simultaneously serve as payers, providers, and everything in between. While these companies claim to rationalize health care and realize the promise of coordinated, integrated care, the reality may be quite different. The creation of “big health care” platforms risks worsening the already serious problem of monopoly … Read More
It used to be progressives who distrusted the experts. What happened? “Citing evidence, ignoring appeals to authority, reserving judgment, demanding more research—these are potentially exhausting traits in a conversational partner, but they’re also marks of a scientific mind. Rather than being “anti-science,” [Robert F] Kennedy [Junior] seems enchanted by it. His accusatory book “The Real Anthony Fauci” (2021) is packed with discussions of clinical studies, and it bears a blurb from a Nobel-winning virologist. (Anyone worried about the lack of public appetite for complex writing should contemplate the fact that this nearly five-hundred-page, data-drenched work of nonfiction has sold more … Read More
Results could help build case for insurance coverage for prescription digital therapeutics “In a new report, the Peterson Health Technology Institute (PHTI) finds that Rejoyn, an app for depression from Otsuka Precision Health, and DaylightRx, an app for anxiety from Big Health, warrant further adoption because their clinical trials show strong evidence of benefits. Both apps are intended to be used alongside ongoing mental health treatment, and in most cases, the institute found the apps will save money. PHTI was founded in 2023 with $50 million to conduct independent evaluations of health technology. Its findings, both positive and negative, have ruffled feathers in the industry, and have … Read More
STAT reviewed dozens of studies, interviewed chronic disease experts, and landed on three focus areas for RFK Jr. to boost health Excerpt – Among Kennedy’s primary focuses so far has been convincing food companies to remove chemical additives and artificial dyes: an admirable goal, many nutrition experts say, but not the kind of change that would substantially improve people’s health when compared to other needed reforms. He will need to go bigger, they told STAT. However, some researchers say Kennedy is right to keep his eyes on the environment Americans inhabit — the products in their supermarkets, the toxins in … Read More
A new book reveals how Big Pharma’s brazen behavior fueled medical mistrust. “Five years before Purdue Pharma received FDA approval to begin selling OxyContin, an oxycodone pill that Purdue claimed was less prone to abuse, J&J [Johnson & Johnson] received the agency’s sign-off on its own opioid-based painkiller. Duragesic was a fentanyl patch that was initially given primarily to cancer patients who struggled with swallowing—a relatively limited market. As [investigative journalist and author of “No More Tears” Gardiner] Harris writes, doctors already knew that opioids were highly addictive; few of them “were willing to prescribe them in anything but the … Read More
“clinicians in the US have increasingly prescribed amphetamine-type stimulants, most commonly to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). But a cross-sectional study published in JAMA Psychiatry found that among those taking prescription stimulants, about 25% reported using them outside of their intended purpose and 9% had prescription stimulant use disorder (PSUD), which causes clinically significant impairment or distress. Looking at data from adults aged 18 to 64 years, researchers found that misuse was about 3 times higher for prescription amphetamines than for methylphenidate, which is generally considered less potent. [..] Those taking amphetamines were also more likely to develop PSUD. Although women … Read More
“A wave of new ventures is no doubt poised to deliver fresh possibilities in DTC [direct-to-consumer] health care. However, Big Tech is uniquely positioned to scale their own DTC health care services rapidly and efficiently or can choose to provide the technological backbone for traditional HCOs [health care organizations] or new entrant startups. Big Tech platforms have hundreds of millions of users and access to hyperpersonalized data from search, social media interactions, mobility data, and LLM [large language model] engagement. Google Search has long been a de facto patient decision support tool for diagnosis and more, well before being tuned … Read More
“Two major, interconnected problems afflict organ transplantation today: the widening gap between the demand for organs and their supply and the illegal, exploitative organ trade. [..] Organ trade profits from this gap by preying upon both patients waiting for and willing to buy an organ and potential donors living in poverty and willing to sell one. In particular, the principle of financial neutrality has been questioned. This principle states that a donor or their related family should not lose, but also not gain, monetarily as a result of donation, implying that the organ does not become a commodity and money … Read More
“To paraphrase health policy expert Timothy Hoff, there is a fight going on for the soul of health care, and primary care is at the center of the struggle. In the United States, we face an unresolved tension between two conflicting visions: Does our society want an empathetic, highly relational care delivery system built around primary care and trusting relationships, or, as Hoff puts it, “a more efficient, convenient, and highly transactional care delivery system, impersonal and built on algorithms, health care corporations, and technology”? [..] Increasingly, health care organizations and information technology vendors, recognizing the need to better support … Read More