Docs vs. bots

The ideas and innovators shaping health care

Jul 03, 2024 View in browser   By Daniel Payne, Ruth Reader, Erin Schumaker and Toni Odejimi Programming note: We’ll be off this Thursday and Friday for the Fourth of July but will be back in your inboxes on Monday. DIAGNOSIS There's still something to be said for the old-fashioned way. | Getty Images Advanced AI chatbots performed as well as doctors by some measures in a recent study evaluating diagnostic abilities. Researchers from three Boston hospitals, Mass General Brigham, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Brigham and Women’s, compared diagnoses — and the reasoning behind them — made by doctors and GPT-4, the bot from San Francisco’s OpenAI, for 20 cases. GPT-4 and doctors came to the correct diagnosis at similar rates, but the humans made fewer mistakes in their reasoning to get to those diagnoses, according to a new study. One author predicts doctors will eventually use bots to help them make diagnoses but doesn’t expect them to replace doctors. Even so: The authors acknowledged that the evaluation criteria favored the bots since it tended to give stronger marks to longer answers. Other research has suggested advanced AI systems might have serious issues in consistently making sense of medical research. One author said it would be “premature to offer these tools in patient care.” The findings were published in a research letter in JAMA Internal Medicine.   THE GOLD STANDARD OF HEALTHCARE POLICY REPORTING & INTELLIGENCE: POLITICO has more than 500 journalists delivering unrivaled reporting and illuminating the policy and regulatory landscape for those who need to know what’s next. Throughout the election and the legislative and regulatory pushes that will follow, POLITICO Pro is indispensable to those who need to make informed decisions fast. The Pro platform dives deeper into critical and quickly evolving sectors and industries, like healthcare, equipping policymakers and those who shape legislation and regulation with essential news and intelligence from the world’s best politics and policy journalists. Our newsroom is deeper, more experienced and better sourced than any other. Our healthcare reporting team—including Alice Miranda Ollstein, Megan Messerly and Robert King—is embedded with the market-moving legislative committees and agencies in Washington and across states, delivering unparalleled coverage of health policy and the healthcare industry. We bring subscribers inside the conversations that determine policy outcomes and the future of industries, providing insight that cannot be found anywhere else. Get the premier news and policy intelligence service, SUBSCRIBE TO POLITICO PRO TODAY.     WELCOME TO FUTURE PULSE Shawn Zeller/POLITICO This is where we explore the ideas and innovators shaping health care. A Harvard study that examined the health of professional football players who first hit the gridiron before age 12 found no connection between playing peewee football and adverse outcomes. Share any thoughts, news, tips and feedback with Carmen Paun at cpaun@politico.com, Daniel Payne at dpayne@politico.com, Ruth Reader at rreader@politico.com, Erin Schumaker at eschumaker@politico.com, or Toni Odejimi at aodejimi@politico.com. Send tips securely through SecureDrop, Signal, Telegram or WhatsApp.   WASHINGTON WATCH The hits keep coming for TikTok from Congress. | Nhac Nguyen/AFP via Getty Images Lawmakers passed legislation in April that will ban the Chinese-owned social media app TikTok from operating in the U.S. unless it’s sold to a new owner. But they aren’t done with the video-sharing site yet. A bipartisan group of legislators now wants the Department of Justice to sue TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, for allegedly collecting data about American children in violation of federal law. On Tuesday, Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Reps. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) and Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to charge ByteDance with violating a 1998 law that bars websites from collecting data about children under age 13. The lawmakers cited a June referral from the Federal Trade Commission to the DOJ. The referral said that during two weeks in fall 2016, TikTok predecessor Musical.ly had received more than 300 requests from parents to close kids’ accounts, but the company continued to collect data on children without parental consent. The FTC said TikTok continues to collect data about kids. TikTok didn’t respond to a request for comment. Why it matters: Lawmakers are looking for opportunities to hold social media companies accountable for misusing children’s data. Last month, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, concerned about social media’s impact on kids’ mental health, called for tobacco-style warnings on the platforms. Meanwhile, a coalition of parents and young people are fighting for guardrails around social media platforms. They’ve convinced 69 senators to back legislation that would require social media sites to make their platforms safe for kids. But they still haven’t gotten it to the floor for a vote.   Understand 2024’s big impacts with Pro’s extensive Campaign Races Dashboard, exclusive insights, and key coverage of federal- and state-level debates. Focus on policy. Learn more.     THE NEXT CURES A new treatment shows promise for people with eczema. | Getty Images An over-the-counter probiotic containing strains of Roseomonas mucosa, a healthy skin bacteria, relieves eczema symptoms, scientists at the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases say. It took seven years of research in the NIAID’s Laboratory of Clinical Immunology and Microbiology to reach that conclusion — including isolating R. mucosa in the lab, conducting animal and human trials, and making the bacteria available for commercial development. In Phase I and II clinical trials, which included open-label and blind studies, most participants who received R. mucosa treatment experienced a more-than-75-percent improvement in eczema symptoms on their inner elbows, inner knees, hands, necks and elsewhere. Most had less itching and needed fewer steroids to manage the skin condition. After treatment ended, the R. mucosa strains stayed on participants’ skin for up to eight months. The probiotic — called Defensin and formulated by Georgia-based Skinesa — hit the market last month. Why it matters: Eczema, a condition that causes dry, itchy skin, affects 20 percent of children and 10 percent of adults globally. People with eczema might have microbiome imbalances and be deficient in certain skin oils. Dry skin cracks more easily, making those with eczema more susceptible to bacterial, viral and fungal infections. What’s next? To make the probiotic available to more people, NIAID researchers are conducting more clinical trials so they can ask the Food and Drug Administration to approve R. mucosa as a nonprescription drug. The researchers expect their study results to be ready later this year.   Follow us on Twitter Carmen Paun @carmenpaun Daniel Payne @_daniel_payne Ruth Reader @RuthReader Erin Schumaker @erinlschumaker   Follow us

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