| | | | |  | | By Ruth Reader, Carmen Paun, Daniel Payne and Erin Schumaker | | | | 
The health tech industry isn't losing sleep over President Donald Trump repealing former President Joe Biden’s executive order on AI. | Pool photo by Julia Demaree Nikhinson | The health tech industry is breathing a little sigh of relief after President Donald Trump revoked former President Joe Biden’s executive order on artificial intelligence Monday. The repeal isn’t likely to have a big impact. But some in the health industry had been worried about future implications of Biden's 2023 executive order, which, among other things, required companies with models trained using enormous computing power to regularly send detailed reports to federal regulators, regardless of the company's size. “What if, in 20 years, even a small startup has these capabilities? Should every small startup have the same reporting burden?” Punit Soni, CEO of Suki AI, an AI medical scribe company, previously told Ruth. Many in the industry felt Biden’s order set an arbitrary target around which models should be required to report details of their technology to regulators, Brian Anderson, CEO of the Coalition for Health AI, told Ruth. “Advances that we see every day are pushing the size needed for innovation,” he said. Repealing the executive order is more likely to affect biotech companies than health care providers, he added. Much of Biden’s executive order was focused on developing resources for regulating AI. It required the Department of Health and Human Services to create a taskforce to develop a strategic plan on AI, which it released last week, and to develop regulations guarding against potential discrimination and other risks. In an exit interview this month, former HHS’ Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy Micky Tripathi said he didn't expect much fallout from a repeal. “The executive order had a number of things in it that, at least from the department's perspective, that we were already doing,” he said, noting that Trump had already hired a chief AI officer at HHS. More important than the AI executive order is how the Trump administration will handle anti-discrimination provisions guarding against bias in health care delivery broadly — not just via AI.
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Torngat Mountains, Canada | Matt Bradley | This is where we explore the ideas and innovators shaping health care. More than a dozen states have sued the federal government over privacy rules for abortion records, Bloomberg reports. 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.
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U.S. withdrawal from the World Health Organization could make it harder to fight infectious disease threats. | Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images | President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday night withdrawing the U.S. from the World Health Organization, a move that could strain the WHO's budget and hinder its ability to respond to infectious disease threats. The widely anticipated change will see the U.S. leave the global health body within a year from the official notification to the United Nations and the WHO, which Trump tasked newly confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio to do. Why it matters: The withdrawal will generate a loss of hundreds of millions of dollars for the WHO’s core budget.The U.S. provides about a quarter of that budget as a mandatory membership fee but often gives more — with the figure ranging from $163 million to $816 million in recent years, according to health policy think tank KFF. The loss could hinder the WHO’s ability to swiftly and effectively respond to infectious disease outbreaks and other emergencies around the world. In exchange, the U.S. is expected to lose access to the global network that sets the flu vaccine’s composition every year. It will also weaken the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s ability to surveil and contain health threats abroad, according to global health experts. “There are places where we just can't send CDC epidemiologists, they wouldn't be safe,” said Dr. Tom Frieden, who headed the agency for eight years under the Obama administration. And American drugmakers could lose the WHO’s help in selling their products worldwide since the WHO system endorsing drugs, vaccines and medical devices for global use that many developing countries rely on could be impaired by the loss of U.S. funding. What's next: Congress doesn’t need to agree, but the U.S. must continue paying its dues, according to the 1948 U.S. resolution accepting WHO membership. However, Trump directed Rubio and the director of the Office of Management and Budget to “pause the future transfer of any United States Government funds, support, or resources to the WHO” with “practicable speed,” in a move reminiscent of the first withdrawal attempt in 2020. Trump also directed the two officials to “recall and reassign” U.S. government personnel or contractors working with the WHO and find “credible and transparent” U.S. and international partners to replace the “necessary activities previously undertaken by the WHO.”
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One of President Donald Trump's executives order says the government will recognize only two genders: male and female. | Jamie Kelter Davis for POLITICO | The federal government will recognize only two genders — male and female — according to an executive order President Donald Trump signed on Monday. The policy could impact health care for transgender and gender nonconforming patients, which, as Daniel has reported, has increasingly become the subject of political and legal debates from the courts to Congress to federal health agencies. The announcement also comes after Trump made the issue a cornerstone of his presidential campaign, repeatedly airing ads with the catchphrase: “Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you.” Big picture: Most U.S. medical organizations — through lengthy,independent review processes — back gender-affirming care, which can involve therapy, puberty-blocking hormones, transition drugs and, in rare cases, surgeries for kids with gender dysphoria. Even so: Opponents of providing such care to kids argue that it’s almost always harmful and warn that doctors and medical groups can’t be trusted. They point to cases in which young people have transitioned only to try later to reverse the process. They also cite reviews — such as last year’s from the U.K.’s National Health Service — that find treatment can negatively impact bone and brain development, sexual function and fertility. GOP vs. NIH: Senate Republicans, led by Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy, launched a probe into a National Institutes of Health-funded study of puberty blockers last month. Cassidy and five other GOP senators asked then-NIH Director Monica Bertagnolli to provide past annual progress reports on the study, which has come under fire from Republicans for allegedly withholding data about the study’s results. The Senate inquiry came on the heels of an investigation initiated in November by Republicans on the House Oversight and Accountability Health Care and Financial Services Subcommittee. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments in December challenging Tennessee’s ban on puberty blockers for minors, appears likely to uphold the state’s ban, with a decision expected to come by the end of June. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
