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A man uses a chatbot in this illustration photo.
Get AI out of my health care
You fall and break an arm. Doctors set the break and send you to rehab. It’s pricy, but insurance should take care of it, so you submit your claim – only to be denied. Was it a claims examiner who rejected it? Or AI?
On Feb. 6, the US government sent a memo to certain Medicare insurers clarifying that no, they cannot use artificial intelligence to deny claims. While machine-learning algorithms can be used to assist them in making determinations, an algorithm alone cannot be the basis for denying care.
This memo, sent by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, follows lawsuits against health insurers for allegedly using AI to erroneously deny deserved care to patients. United Healthcare and Humana have each been sued by patients claiming the companies used the AI model nH Predict nefariously — a model they claim has a 90% error rate. It’s a clear and present danger of the technology at a time when many regulators and critics are focusing on far-off threats of AI.
CMS also said it’s concerned about the propensity for algorithms to “exacerbate discrimination and bias” and said the onus is on insurers to make sure these models comply with the Affordable Care Act’s anti-discrimination requirements. And it’s not just the federal government: A number of states including New York and California have issued warnings to insurance companies to ensure their own algorithms aren’t discriminatory.
Illustration of a female healthcare worker wearing scrubs and a surgical mask created with Generative AI technology.
The WHO’s AI warning
Generative AI could be game-changing for the world of medicine. It could help researchers discover new drugs and better match ailing patients with correct diagnoses.
But the World Health Organization is concerned about everything that could go wrong. The global health authority is formally warning countries to monitor and evaluate large language models for medical and health-related risks.
“The very last thing that we want to see happen as part of this leap forward with technology is the propagation or amplification of inequities and biases in the social fabric of countries around the world,” said WHO official Alain Labrique. This advice was issued as part of a larger guidance on AI in healthcare, a topic on which the WHO began advising in 2021.
Artificial intelligence systems are susceptible to bias, because the inclusion or absence of data could seriously affect its outputs. For example, if a medical AI model is trained solely on health data from people in wealthy nations, it could miss or misunderstand populations in poorer nations and do harm if used improperly.
Hard Numbers: French teachers strike, Spanish doctors compensated, Lula soaring in Brazil, Biden pledges more COVID tests
75: Around 75 percent of French primary school teachers participated in a strike this week against the government’s handling of the pandemic. The teacher's union says that President Emmanuel Macron is putting educators at risk by constantly changing safety standards and protocols amid the ballooning omicron wave.
153: A group of 153 Spanish doctors won a lawsuit against the regional government in Valencia over inadequate PPE supply during the early days of the pandemic. A judge awarded compensation ranging from 5,000 to 49,000 euros ($5,732-56,177) per plaintiff because health workers were only given one face mask a week and expected to reuse gowns.
45: Brazil’s former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva would win 45 percent of the vote if the October presidential election were held today. According to a new survey, the incumbent Jair Bolsonaro would only get 23 percent.
500 million: The Biden administration will purchase an additional 500 million COVID tests to be distributed for free to Americans. Half a billion tests had already been purchased, but they won’t reach US households until later this month, which critics say is too little, too late.
Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro gives a thumbs-up while lying in bed surrounded by medical personnel, in this still image obtained from social media. January 5, 2022.
Hard Numbers: Bolsonaro discharged, Taiwan buys Lithuanian rum, Niger mayor busted with coke, Rocket Man does it again
2: Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro was discharged two days after being admitted to a hospital with an intestinal obstruction. Bolsonaro's latest health problem is related to when he was stabbed while campaigning in 2018, which also caused him to develop chronic hiccups months ago.
20,000: A Taiwanese distillery bought 20,000 bottles of Lithuanian rum bound for China, after learning that Chinese customs might block the shipment to punish Lithuania for allowing Taiwan to open a de-facto embassy in Vilnius. The company is enticing Taiwanese consumers to purchase the booze by sharing tips on rum cocktails and rum-infused cooking.
440: A small-town mayor in northern Niger was arrested after 200 kilograms (440 pounds) of pure cocaine were found in his vehicle. Drug seizures are on a recent upswing in West Africa, which narcos use as a transit point on the way to lucrative markets in Europe.
62: North Korea conducted on Wednesday its 62nd ballistic missile test in a decade, by firing a projectile — which Pyongyang says was hypersonic — that landed in the sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan. During his 10 years as North Korea’s supreme leader, Kim Jong Un has blasted three times as many missiles as his dad, and six times as many as his grandfather.
How development of the COVID-19 vaccine shattered records
They said it couldn't be done: a vaccine developed in record time. In 1967, Merck had a license for a mumps vaccine, less than five years for work that normally takes decades. But that record is now being shattered as the COVID-19 vaccine reaches the market in less than a year. It's an unprecedented scientific development in a whirlwind year of crisis.
Watch the GZERO World episode: A Shot in the Arm: Moderna's Co-Founder on the COVID-19 Vaccine
India investigates if organochlorines behind unknown illness
The unknown illness has infected more than 300 children.
Production suspended at 28 factories of world's biggest glove maker after Covid-19 infections
KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysian glove maker Top Glove will suspend operations in 28 of its factories in Klang, in Selangor, after more than a thousand employees tested positive for Covid-19 on Monday (Nov 23).
Anxiety mounts over safety of Vietnam's food staples
HANOI • Vietnam's fragrant noodle soups and fresh spring rolls have won fans across the globe, but mounting food safety scandals on the country's streets are sparking a rising tide of anxiety among millennials about what they eat.