HHS tech officers' uncertain future
The Department of Health and Human Services' newly hired tech officers' futures are in limbo as the Trump administration reshapes the government, according to seven people with knowledge of the situation granted anonymity to speak about on it.
Chief AI officer Meghan Dierks, chief technology officer Alicia Rouault and chief digital officer Kristen Honey were hired in January as part of an AI-focused reorganization at HHS. These positions are central to a Biden-era initiative to create pathways for AI innovation and safety in health care. They were announced shortly after HHS released its AI strategy roadmap earlier this year.
Dierks, Rouault and Honey are still listed among leadership on the assistant secretary for technology policy's website. However, when reached for comment at their agency addresses, emails to Dierks and Rouault bounced back. Honey's HHS email appears to be working.
None of the three people returned requests for comment. HHS also did not return multiple requests for comment.
Last summer, HHS renamed the Office of the National Coordinator, changing it to the Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, which was part of a wider effort to centralize rulemaking for technology, cybersecurity, data and artificial intelligence. It also added the three new positions to lead coordination on data, technology and artificial intelligence across HHS agencies.
WELCOME TO FUTURE PULSE
This is where we explore the ideas and innovators shaping health care.
Teenagers may be less likely to start smoking if they begin moderate to vigorous physical activity during childhood, a new study from several European universities suggests.
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, or Erin Schumaker at eschumaker@politico.com.
Send tips securely through SecureDrop, Signal, Telegram or WhatsApp.
WORKFORCE
Doctors are beginning to warm to the idea of artificial intelligence in health care.
A new American Medical Association survey of 1,183 physicians found that between 2023 and 2024, doctors whose enthusiasm outweighed their concern about health AI rose from 30 to 35 percent.
In both years, roughly 40 percent of doctors said they were equally excited and worried about health AI.
That enthusiasm could partly stem from more doctors using the technology: AI use cases nearly doubled from 38 percent to 66 percent between 2023 and 2024. Common uses included medical research, documenting clinical visits and writing discharge summaries and care plans.
What's next: Doctors in the 2024 survey pointed to the needs they'd like addressed before adopting AI tools:
— 88 percent wanted a designated feedback channel
— 87 percent wanted data privacy assurances
— 84 percent wanted electronic health record integration
Even so: While doctors are increasingly intrigued by AI, Dr. Jesse Ehrenfeld, the AMA's immediate past president, noted in a statement that they remain concerned about some of the technology's unaddressed risks.
'There remain unresolved physician concerns with the design of health AI and the potential of flawed AI-enabled tools to put privacy at risk, integrate poorly with EHR systems, offer incorrect conclusions or recommendations, and introduce new liability concerns,' Ehrenfeld said.
'Increased oversight ranked as the top regulatory action needed to increase physician confidence and adoption of AI.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNBC
an hour ago
- CNBC
Eli Lilly's 170% UK price hike for Mounjaro is just the start as pharma firms bow to Trump's pricing pressures
Eli Lilly 's move to raise the U.K. list price of its blockbuster diabetes drug Mounjaro marks the start of prices hikes across Europe, analysts say, as pharmaceutical firms respond to U.S. President Donald Trump's drug pricing demands. Lilly said Thursday that it had reached an agreement with the U.K. government to raise the list price of its weekly injection from Sept. 1, while maintaining access for patients covered by the publicly funded National Health Service (NHS). The U.S. pharma giant said it is now working with some other governments to adjust prices by the start of next month, without providing details of the specific countries involved. Analysts expect other firms to follow suit. "Lilly doing this isn't shocking and I think that we'll see more to come," Kavita Patel, NBC News & MSNBC medical contributor and Stanford University professor, told CNBC's "Fast Money" on Thursday. President Trump earlier this month delivered an ultimatum to pharma firms as part of his ongoing campaign to stamp out what he deems as unfair pricing practices in the U.S. In letters sent to 17 major pharmaceutical firms, the president outlined the steps they must take by Sept. 29 to lower the price of U.S. prescription drugs to "most favored nation" (MFN) levels. Lilly's pricing decision takes the U.K. list price of its popular treatment from a range of £92 (about $124.57) to £122 a month, depending on the dose size, to between £133 and £330 — a 170% price jump. That compares to its U.S. list price of $1,079.77 a month, before insurance and other rebates. The U.S. consistently pays the most in the world for many prescription drugs, due in part to the country's highly complex and fragmented reimbursement system, and a lack of the types of national pricing control prevalent in much of Europe. Several European pharma firms have spoken out in support of the White House's pricing demands, with AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot saying last month that Trump was "right" to push for price equalization. Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan has cited "productive" conversations with the administration, while Roche Chief Executive Thomas Schinecker has suggested that U.S. prices could be cut in half if the government removed intermediaries, known as pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs). Stanford University's Patel noted that firms like Eli Lilly may also be willing to accede to Trump's pricing demands as they seek coverage for their weight loss drugs under forthcoming changes to the U.S. government's Medicare and Medicaid health insurance systems for low-income people and retirees. "The United States is their big market and having that share in both Medicare and Medicaid is everything for drugs like Mounjaro. So this is important and I don't think they'll be the only one that we see," she said. Indeed, rival diabetes and obesity drug giant Novo Nordisk is seeking to regain ground in the lucrative U.S. market after a series of missteps and supply shortages have seen it lose market share to both Lily and other cheaper compounded weight loss drugs. Novo Nordisk 's Chief Financial Officer Karsten Munk Knudsen said earlier this month that Trump's drug pricing demands had "resonated" with the company and that it was already lowering the price of its Wegovy and Ozempic treatments stateside. The company said Monday that it would reduce the cost of Ozempic for cash-paying patients to $499 per month, less than half of its monthly U.S. list price. Nevertheless, Knudsen previously suggested that it could be difficult to simultaneously raise prices in other markets, given stretched public finances and strict pharmaceutical price caps across Europe. "If we look ex-U.S. markets, there's rather limited history in terms of raising prices … I believe it will be challenging to significantly raise prices outside the U.S.," he told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe." Industry bodies, meanwhile, have warned of the damaging impact sudden prices hikes could have on patient care if implemented to meet Trump's Sept. 29 deadline. Already, U.K. private pharmacies have reported a surge in orders for Lilly's Mounjaro following Thursday's announcement. "Short notice changes to pricing for medicines such as this also have a serious effect on access to an important public health service and pharmacy business themselves," Henry Gregg, chief executive of the U.K.'s National Pharmacy Association, said in a statement. "We are urging the manufacturers to ensure that pharmacies are treated equitably and that proper support is in place," he added.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
RFK Jr will not target ultra-processed foods or pesticides in latest MAHA efforts, report says
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr will not target ultra-processed foods or pesticides as part of his 'Make America Healthy Again' initiative, according to the draft of a new government report. The document, first seen by The New York Times and dated August 6, is described as 'pre-decisional' and addresses ultra-processed foods only in calling on the departments of HHS and Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration to agree on a government-wide definition for the term. It does not outline any plans to restrict their sale, despite low-nutrition junk foods accounting for 62 percent of the calories consumed by American children, according to the Times. The draft reportedly also calls for 'more targeted and precise pesticide applications' and for research programs examining decreasing pesticide volumes but again stops short of restricting their use. That would appear to represent a win for Agriculture Secretary Brook Rollins, who said earlier this month: 'There is no chance that our current system of agriculture can survive without those crop protection tools.' Elsewhere, the document reportedly calls for research into areas such as the impact of electromagnetic radiation, children's oral health, the role of the microbiome as well as the effects of exposure to poor air quality and microplastics. The report also recommends government action on increasing breastfeeding rates, infertility, encouraging physical activity, and educating the public on the dangers of vaping. However, the validity of the draft was dismissed by White House Deputy Press Secretary Kush Desai, who said in a statement: 'Unless officially released by the administration, any document purporting to be the MAHA report should be dismissed as speculative literature.' Kennedy's officials previously released a report in May detailing the factors that they believed were having a malign effect on the health of U.S. children, notably attacking chemical food additives that, its authors alleged, are tied to cancer and developmental disorders. Their publication was criticized as 'sloppy' and 'shoddy' by experts, however, who accused them of using AI to compile it after it was found to include citations from non-existent academic sources. Kennedy has long spoken out against processed foods. At his Senate confirmation hearings in January, he declared: 'Something is poisoning the American people, and we know that the primary culprits are changing food supply, a switch to highly chemical-intensive processed foods.' During the same hearings, he stressed the importance of making the public aware of the impact of unhealthy eating, but added, 'I don't want to take food away from anybody. If you like... a McDonald's cheeseburger, Diet Coke, which my boss loves, you should be able to get them. 'If you want to eat Hostess Twinkies, you should be able to do that, but you should know what the impacts are on your family and on your health.' President Donald Trump is indeed well-known for his passion for fast food, famously serving a mountain of burgers to elite athletes at the White House during his first term and pulling a shift at a Pennsylvania branch of the Golden Arches as a campaign stunt late last year. Kennedy previously criticized Trump's diet, telling The Joe Polish Show last November: 'The stuff that he eats is really bad. 'Campaign food is always bad, but the food that goes onto that airplane is, like, just poison. You have a choice between – you don't have the choice, you're either given KFC or Big Macs. That's when you're lucky and then the rest of the stuff I consider kind of inedible.' Soon afterwards, Kennedy was pictured eating McDonald's on board Trump's plane in the company of the president, Donald Trump Jr, Elon Musk, and House Speaker Mike Johnson. He told Fox News host Sean Hannity in March he believed Trump had lost 30 pounds despite his questionable intake, attributing the miracle to the president's 'genetic system,' which Hannity agreed was 'second to none.'
Chicago Tribune
4 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
Editorial: Who's afraid of a healthy school lunch?
In Japan, most schools serve freshly prepared, nutritionally balanced lunches — often rice, fish or meat, soup and vegetables. French cafeterias typically offer multi-course meals that might include salad, a main dish, bread, cheese and dessert. By contrast, many Americans recall their own school lunches as far less appealing. Some of us remember rectangular pizza with cheese the consistency of plastic, topped with tiny cubes of what was described as 'pepperoni.' Wilted lettuce doused in watery dressing passed off as salads. Mashed potatoes out of a box and mystery meatloaf. It's hard to imagine there was much nutritional value in any of the food we were fed. So why not make it better? Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has launched an initiative to improve the nutritional quality of school lunches — a move that, despite his controversial reputation on other issues, deserves serious consideration. It's not as if this is a partisan notion, and people of all political persuasions have taken on the cause of championing better nutrition for school kids, which certainly encourages better cognitive function and makes it easier for kids to check in — rather than out — of the classroom during the school day. Over a decade ago, Chicago Public Schools kicked off its Farm to School initiative, incorporating produce and other products from local farms into the district's lunch program. 'The program influences food purchasing to allow students to gain access to healthy, local foods,' according to the district website. Around the same time, New York City piloted a 'Fruit and Vegetable Prescription Program' that let doctors give low-income patients vouchers for fresh produce — including pediatric patients — recognizing the role of diet in health and the barriers many families face in affording healthy food. These trends of the 2010s are also absolutely in keeping with the spirit of the current conversation about what kids should be eating in schools. The HHS secretary initially announced his school lunch initiative in the spring, but now with school starting across much of the country, administrators are grappling with what updated guidelines would mean for their meal programs and their bottom lines. His plan calls for removing processed foods and synthetic dyes from school meals, citing evidence that about 70% of the food served in these programs is ultra-processed. Research shows the stakes are high. In 2023, children were 15% to 20% more likely to have a chronic condition than in 2011, according to research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. And 1 in 5 young people in the U.S. are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control. This isn't about fat or skinny, this is about being healthy. And these numbers are alarming, which makes action worthwhile. Of course, idealism always hits a brick wall when it runs up against the harsh reality of budget constraints and sourcing difficulties. Moving to a school meal model centered on whole, locally sourced foods would likely demand major new investments in food, infrastructure and staffing. Securing that funding could be challenging. Yes, it will cost money, but a chronically unhealthy U.S. population is costly too. Past reforms — from eliminating trans fats to adding more fresh produce — once seemed impossible too. The payoff in healthier kids, sharper minds and fewer long-term health costs is worth the investment.
