‘Oh, It Gets Worse. We’ve Seen Worse’: What We Heard This Week

“At one point one of the doctors said, “It doesn’t get worse than that.” I’m like, oh, it gets worse. We’ve seen worse.” — Nikki Zite, MD, MPH, of the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville, discussing complications experienced by a patient with undiagnosed preeclampsia on the TV show The Pitt.

“We think it is completely inappropriate for a number of reasons.” — Michelle McOmber, CEO of the Utah Medical Association, denouncing a state-run pilot program that would allow artificial intelligence (AI) to handle prescription renewals.

“My benchmark is that if the out-of-pocket payment is less than the base model Kia, then we’re okay.” — Stephen Parente, MD, MPH, of the University of Minnesota, defending high-deductible health plans.

“We have a lot of industries that make money by keeping people’s face in front of a screen as late at night as possible.” — American Academy of Sleep Medicine spokesperson Jennifer Martin, PhD, of Florida International University in Miami, discussing persistent sleep problems in the U.S.

“This is not a theoretical.” — FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, MD, MPH, announcing the launch of the first “real-time” clinical trial.

“You can transparently say, ‘I am certain the MMR [measles-mumps-rubella] vaccine does not cause autism.'” — Lori Handy, MD, of the Vaccine Education Center in Philadelphia, discussing public health messaging about vaccines.

“This paper just kept surprising me.” — Arjun Manrai, PhD, of Harvard Medical School in Boston, reacting to a study about experiments in which AI matched or beat expert physicians in diagnostic and management reasoning tasks.

“It’s hard not to see this as … a way of firing a shot across the bow, saying if you do something inappropriate, be prepared to be prosecuted.” — Jeremy Berg, PhD, a former director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, discussing federal charges against a former top NIH employee aide.

“This procedure could fundamentally change how we think about GLP-1 therapy.” — Shelby Sullivan, MD, of the Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine in New Hampshire, highlighting an investigational endoscopic procedure that showed a trend for reducing weight rebounds after patients with obesity discontinued a GLP-1 agonist.