AI chatbots and racism; bedbugs making France anxious

On this version of Hot off the Wire:

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Hospitals and health care systems are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence to help summarize doctors’ notes and analyze health records. But a new study led by Stanford School of Medicine researchers cautions that popular chatbots are also perpetuating racist, debunked medical ideas. That is prompting concerns the tools could worsen health disparities for Black patients. Powered by AI models trained on troves of text pulled from the internet, chatbots such as ChatGPT and Google’s Bard responded to the researchers’ questions with a range of misconceptions and falsehoods about Black patients, according to the study published Friday in the academic journal Digital Medicine.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A novel program in Tennessee aims to interest more Black and other minority medical students in organ transplants, to help ease troubling disparities. Six students from Meharry Medical College spent the summer shadowing specialists at Tennessee Donor Services for hands-on lessons in recovering organs, matching them to recipients — and the empathy needed to work with grieving families. Thousands die awaiting a transplant because there aren’t enough donated organs and some don’t get a fair chance, including Black Americans. Whatever their career paths, the students say they plan to educate others about organ donation.

Air conditioning has made life in many hot places possible, but the special fluids that make it work are extremely hazardous to the climate. Refrigerants used in fridges, freezers, and cars change from a fluid to gas to transport heat away from the place you want cooled. They can absorb several thousand times more heat than water or other common fluids, making them great for cooling systems, but bad for climate change when they escape. In 2016, the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol phased down the use of one damaging group of refrigerants 85% by 2036. According to the most recent report from Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, it will meaningfully prevent some warming of the Earth if fully enforced.

A pediatricians’ group is warning powdered drink mixes known as “toddler milks” are unregulated, unnecessary and nutritionally incomplete. The drinks are marketed for older babies and toddlers up to age 3. The American Academy of Pediatrics says the products often contain high amounts of added sugar and salt. A trade group for the manufacturers of the products say the drinks could fill nutritional gaps. Experts say babies and toddlers older than age 1 should eat a balanced diet of solid foods and drink breast milk, fortified whole cow’s milk and water.

PARIS (AP) — Bedbugs go wherever people go, and they have become a nightmare haunting France for weeks. The government has been forced to step in to calm an anxious nation that will host the Olympic Games in almost nine months — a prime venue for infestations of the crowd-loving insects. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne called a meeting of ministers for Friday to tackle the bedbug crisis. The country’s transport minister, Clement Beaune, met this week with transportation companies to draw up a plan for monitoring and disinfecting — and to try to ease what some have called a national psychosis inflamed by the media.

PARIS (AP) — The “Mona Lisa” has given up a secret. Scientists used X-rays to peer into the chemical structure of a tiny speck of the celebrated work of art. They came up with a new insight into the techniques used by Leonardo da Vinci when he painted his portrait of the woman with the enigmatic smile. Research published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Chemical Society says the oil-paint recipe he used as his base layer had a distinctive chemical signature. A rare compound in Leonardo’s first layer of paint suggests the famously inventive Italian Renaissance master may have been in an experimental mood when he started the “Mona Lisa” early in the 16th century.