The Verge - Healths |
| Facebook will no longer stop the spread of a theory that COVID-19 was manufactured Posted: 26 May 2021 06:08 PM PDT  Facebook won't remove claims that COVID-19 was man-made anymore, according to a report from Politico that cites a Facebook spokesperson. The company altered its policy because of a renewed focus on the origins of the virus, including an order from President Joe Biden to his intelligence agencies to investigate the so-called lab-leak hypothesis. Facebook's policy change was made "in consultation with public health experts," that spokesperson told Politico. The social network's policy mandates that false claims and conspiracy theories about the virus be removed. Misinformation has often circulated on Facebook, including during the Ebola crisis in 2014. The company is under pressure from lawmakers to clean up its act. Early in the pandemic, dangerous hoaxes — falsely suggesting that drinking bleach might cure the coronavirus, for instance — circulated widely on Facebook, and were shared thousands of times, despite Facebook's January 2020 announcement that it would be applying its misinformation policies to posts about the coronavirus and its subsequent efforts. Since then, Facebook has updated its list of statements that will be removed to include anti-vaccination propaganda as well. To try to stem the tide of misinformation, the company created notifications about where to get information about vaccines across its platforms. It's also attempted to warn users if they've interacted with posts that were found to contain misinformation. Earlier today, Biden released a statement saying that the intelligence community believes that two scenarios are possible: that the virus started spreading when a human contacted an infected animal, or that the spread was the result of a lab accident. Most in the intelligence community believe there isn't enough evidence to determine which scenario is more likely, according to the statement. The renewed interest and discussion of the "lab leak" theory has raised concerns about anti-Asian hate. Anti-Asian violence has risen since since the beginning of the pandemic, fueled by former president Donald Trump's use of terms such as "China virus" and "kung flu." YouTube and Twitter did not immediately respond to request for comment on whether they would implement similar policy updates. Facebook also did not respond to a request for comment.  |
| Google to use patient data to develop healthcare algorithms for hospital chain Posted: 26 May 2021 08:46 AM PDT  Google has made a deal for access to patient records from HCA, which which operates 181 hospitals and more than 2,000 healthcare sites in 21 states, so the tech company can develop healthcare algorithms, The Wall Street Journal reports. Google will store anonymized data from patient health records and internet-connected medical devices. That data will be used to build programs that could inform medical decisions made by doctors. The deal is described as "multiyear" by the WSJ, without specifying how many years. As health records moved online over the past few years, hospitals and tech companies jumped at opportunities to take advantage of the glut of digitized medical information collected at each doctor's visit. Microsoft and Amazon also have deals with hospitals to analyze their patient information. Google previously partnered with healthcare system Ascension to gather patient records in a secretive project called "Project Nightingale." The company was criticized for starting in on the project without disclosing the work to patients and doctors. HCA is a major win for Google, since its facilities handle 5 percent of the hospital services provided in the US — around 30 million patient interactions each year. Along with using that data to develop algorithms, Google could also build healthcare tools independently and then pass them off to HCA to test on its own. "We want to push the boundaries of what the clinician can do in real time with data," Chris Sakalosky, managing director of healthcare and life sciences at Google Cloud, told The Wall Street Journal. Healthcare privacy laws in the US allow hospitals to share information with contractors and allow researchers to analyze patient data without express permission from those patients. Healthcare companies can use that information in any way they see fit, including to boost profits. HCA made $3.75 billion in profits during 2020, despite the COVID-19 pandemic. National Nurses United said in February that the company prioritized income over patient and staff safety. Nurses reported staff shortages and cutbacks on personal protective equipment.  |
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