Google’s pitch to regulate AI

With Evan Peng

LOUD-AND-CLEAR MESSAGE — Regulations to govern artificial intelligence in health care are in the works, and Google says it’s here to help.

That’s the message lobbyists for the tech giant — whose motto is “do the right thing” — are sending, but policymakers have barely begun considering what the rules should be.

In the meantime, legal experts, legislators and small startups worry about the search firm’s record on privacy and its ability to capture the regulators, POLITICO’s Ruth Reader reports.

Google’s pitch: It’s vying to dominate in AI and sees opportunity in the health care industry. The company’s tech scours medical records, research papers, imaging and clinical guidelines to help doctors diagnose diseases and evaluate treatment options.

Hospitals already use AI even though the government hasn’t yet written rules ensuring its safety and effectiveness.

President Joe Biden issued an executive order in late October asking his agencies to devise a plan.

In mid-November, Google published a policy agenda for AI, calling for pro-innovation laws and infrastructure to support the advancement and adoption of AI.

It’s hired former Food and Drug Administration officials to guide its talks with the Biden administration since the FDA is leading the rulemaking.

And FDA Commissioner Robert Califf used to work for Google’s parent company.

Even so: Over the summer, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) sent a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, saying he was troubled that hospitals use the company’s AI without sufficient vetting.

“There is great promise in many of these tools to save more lives,” he told POLITICO, adding that “they also have the potential to do exactly the opposite — harm patients and their data, reinforce human bias and add burdens to providers as they navigate a clinical and legal landscape without clear norms.”

And small rivals see a move to dominate health care AI in the same way Google dominates internet search.

“They’re going to basically create a setup where we will be dependent just on them to move forward,” said Punit Soni, CEO of clinical note-taking company Suki AI, referring to big tech players in health care, including Google.

WELCOME TO TUESDAY PULSE. The House Energy and Commerce Committee today will mark up 44 pieces of legislation, including bills on telehealth in Medicare, PBMs and biosimilars. Any bills you’re watching? Let us know by emailing [email protected] and [email protected] and follow along @ChelseaCirruzz o and @_BenLeonard_.

TODAY ON OUR PULSE CHECK PODCAST, your host Ben talks with POLITICO health care reporter Alice Miranda Ollstein, who explains why calls by former President Donald Trump to replace the popular Affordable Care Act, which insures more than 40 million people, could fall on deaf ears.

TRANQ RESEARCH ACT TO BIDEN — The House endorsed by voice vote Monday a Senate-amended legislation requiring the National Institute of Standards and Technology to coordinate science and research into illegal drugs containing the horse tranquilizer xylazine, which has increasingly been mixed with illicit fentanyl to deadly effect, POLITICO’s Carmen Paun reports.

The bill, named the Tranq Research Act, now heads to President Joe Biden for his signature.

The bill authorizes critical research and development to help authorities better understand, detect and handle combinations of xylazine, also known as Tranq, and other drugs, said Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), chair of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, during the floor debate Monday.

The NIST will help develop technologies to quickly identify and safely handle drugs containing Tranq, which will keep first responders safe, said bill sponsors Mike Collins (R-Ga.), chair of the Science Research and Technology Subcommittee, and Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), the top Democrat in the Science, Space and Technology Committee.

WASTE NOT, WANT NOT— Every American, on average, wastes nearly 350 pounds of food a year, and a lot of it is perfectly good, Evan reports.

As a result, the Biden administration has proposed steps to tackle food waste. The strategy tasks the FDA, the USDA and the EPA with educating the public about food-packaging labels since designations like “best before” or “expiration date” prompt people to throw away food that’s often still safe to eat.

The labels aren’t federally regulated and mean different things on different products.

The strategy also has the FDA working with the food industry to handle product recalls more carefully so food isn’t trashed unnecessarily.

And it asks the agency to provide more support for organizations that donate food.

Why it matters: In 2015, the Obama administration announced a goal to cut food loss and waste in half by 2030.

Meeting that goal remains far off. In 2016, the EPA found a baseline of 328 pounds of food wasted per person in the retail, food service and residential sectors. In 2019, the latest data available, that count increased to 349 pounds per person.

The White House announced the strategy at the U.N. climate conference in Dubai, underscoring the potential for food-waste reduction efforts to decrease the greenhouse gas emissions that public health officials increasingly see as a danger to well-being.

What’s next? The draft strategy is open for public comment, which closes on Jan. 4.

SURVEY SAYS — Many people of color prepare for their health care appointments expecting insults from providers or staff, according to a survey out today by KFF.

Why it matters: Experiences with racism — which many respondents also reported in their daily life — are associated with worse health outcomes, researchers said.

The large, nationally representative survey sheds light on people’s negative experiences at the doctor’s office, such as encountering providers who assume something about them, refuse to prescribe a pain medication or ignore their direct requests or questions. About a quarter of Black adults and 1 in 5 American Indian and Alaska Native adults said the experiences were due to their race and ethnicity.

Other results: Sixty percent of Black adults, about half of American Indian and Alaska Native adults and Hispanic adults, and 42 percent of Asian adults said they feel they must be careful about their appearance to be treated fairly at their appointments. One-third of white adults reported the same.

People who experienced discrimination in their daily lives at least a few times a year were twice as likely as those who didn’t say they felt anxious, lonely or depressed, according to the study.

MORE NURSES ON STRIKE — Nurses at three hospitals in Texas and Kansas will strike Wednesday to protest what they say are unsafe working conditions.

The one-day strike, announced for nurses at three Ascension health care facilities by National Nurses United, follows similar strikes by health care workers, including one at the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in October that drew the attention of the Senate health committee. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who chairs the committee, teamed up with Kansas Republican Sen. Roger Marshall on a bill to reorganize primary care, including investing in the nursing workforce.

An Ascension spokesperson told Pulse in a statement that it was disappointed in National Nurses United for opting to strike, “once again creating unnecessary uncertainty for our associates and their families, and concern for our patients and their loved ones.” The company says it has a contingency plan and will continue to bargain with the union.

Many recent strikes by health care workers, including the one planned for Wednesday, have centered around understaffing, with providers saying a lack of available staff contributes to unsafe working conditions and burnout.

Two thousand nurses at Ascension facilities in Wichita, Kansas, and Austin, Texas, held a strike in June.

Rosemary Weldon has joined accountable care organization Aledade as chief product officer. She previously was VP of digital health product management at CVS Health.

Chelsea reports on the split in the Supreme Court on the Purdue Pharma settlement.

STAT reports on how sickle cell disease was the first disease treated by CRISPR.

NPR reports on how the nonprofit behind Sesame Street is using the muppets to educate young children on the opioid crisis.