The human language artificial intelligence ‘chatbot’ ChatGPT scored higher on empathy than its human counterparts in a recent study of medical questions and answers. When compared to human doctors the AI chatbots answers were preferred 80% of the time. The study appeared in JAMA Internal Medicine. The study used questions from Reddit’s AskDocs social media forum. One possible weakness about…
Category: Direct Primary Care
Dental Therapists are Key to Dental Care in Underserved Areas
I’m seeing my dentist tomorrow for a cleaning. I go two or three times a year. Last year I even wrote about going to Costa Rica for a dental visit to have an implant finished. While I was there, I had some aging veneers that were deteriorating replaced with crowns. I see my dentist far more than I see my primary care physician. Whereas I can have lab tests performed even if I don’t see my physician, the same is not true of dental visits. Dental visits are hands-on. There are no substitutes for dental examinations or dental hygienist cleanings. Yet, many people neglect dental care due to the cost, often made less convenient by a lack of dentists in their immediate area.
Why We Need an FDA
I often criticize the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for being stodgy, slow to react and overly risk averse. However, the agency has an important purpose. The forerunner of the FDA dates back to the 1906 Pure Food and Drugs Act. At the time unscrupulous food manufacturers would use red dye to make spoiled beef appear fresh and used formaldehyde as a preservative to make foods last longer. Only a few years prior, Heroin was considered a wonder drug, as a treatment for morphine addiction and as a cough suppressant. Morphine was also once used as an elixir for teething pain in babies.
Wednesday Links
- Florida had one of the nation’s least restrictive COVID responses, but its age-adjusted COVID mortality rate was 8% lower than the median state. Florida’s in-person schooling rate, which positively correlates with better test scores, was among the best in the country.
- Republicans want people who get Food Stamps and Medicaid to work.
- Senate report: Covid probably came from lab.
- Former DNI John Ratcliffe: A lab leak is the “only explanation” for Covid.
- Biden’s taxes on investment could reach 86%.
- Study: Hospital cash prices were lower than the median commercial (insurance company) negotiated rate 47 percent of the time.
- Should AI bot workers be taxed – just like humans?