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Last Posted: Mar 24, 2023
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Overcoming and mitigating ethical issues raised by artificial intelligence in health and medicine: The search continues
N Liu et al, BMC Blog, December 2022

Besides potential bias and inequalities, already well-established as ethical concerns associated with the use of AI in health care, there are also numerous other challenges that may have significant impact on patient care. AI has the potential to impact not only diagnosis but also prevention, treatment, and disease management on systems-scale, thus raising broader questions about its role in public health, for example in anticipating epidemics and providing patient support. AI is data-driven and health care data are often difficult (or even impossible) to anonymise, raising worries about privacy and data protection for patients.

Wastewater-based Disease Surveillance for Public Health Action
National Academies Consensus Report, January 2023

The report concludes that wastewater surveillance is and will continue to be a valuable component of infectious disease management. This report presents a vision for a national wastewater surveillance system that would track multiple pathogens simultaneously and pivot quickly to detect emerging pathogens, and it offers recommendations to ensure that the system is flexible, equitable, and economically sustainable for informing public health actions. The report also recommends approaches to address ethical and privacy concerns and develop a more representative wastewater surveillance system. Predictable and sustained federal funding as well as ongoing coordination and collaboration among many partners will be critical to the effectiveness of efforts moving forward.

Managing expectations, rights, and duties in large-scale genomics initiatives: a European comparison.
Horn Ruth et al. European journal of human genetics : EJHG 2022 12

This article reports on the findings of an international workshop in 2021. We focus specifically on how collection, storage and sharing of genomic data may pose challenges to established principles and values such as trust, confidentiality, and privacy in countries that have implemented, or are about to implement, large-scale national genomic initiatives. These challenges impact the relationships between patients/citizens and medicine/science, and on each party’s rights and duties towards each other.

Direct-to-consumer genetic testing in the news: a descriptive analysis.
Basch Corey H et al. Journal of community genetics 2022 10

Only 10.0% of online news articles mentioned testing confidentiality and privacy protection. Articles that mentioned?>?5 commercial DTC DNA products more often discussed how DTC DNA testing provides personalized information about health and link to family disease risk and other traits (85.7% vs. 61.1%, p?=?0.02), can lead to the location of family members or ancestors (78.6% vs. 55.63%, p?=?0.03), and that the testing results housed in DNA databases can be utilized by law enforcement to track suspects or their relatives.


Disclaimer: Articles listed in the Public Health Genomics and Precision Health Knowledge Base are selected by the CDC Office of Public Health Genomics to provide current awareness of the literature and news. Inclusion in the update does not necessarily represent the views of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention nor does it imply endorsement of the article's methods or findings. CDC and DHHS assume no responsibility for the factual accuracy of the items presented. The selection, omission, or content of items does not imply any endorsement or other position taken by CDC or DHHS. Opinion, findings and conclusions expressed by the original authors of items included in the update, or persons quoted therein, are strictly their own and are in no way meant to represent the opinion or views of CDC or DHHS. References to publications, news sources, and non-CDC Websites are provided solely for informational purposes and do not imply endorsement by CDC or DHHS.

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