Text to avoid paywall
The Food and Drug Administration is planning to use artificial intelligence to “radically increase efficiency” in deciding whether to approve new drugs and devices, one of several top priorities laid out in an article published Tuesday in JAMA.
Another initiative involves a review of chemicals and other “concerning ingredients” that appear in U.S. food but not in the food of other developed nations. And officials want to speed up the final stages of making a drug or medical device approval decision to mere weeks, citing the success of Operation Warp Speed during the Covid pandemic when workers raced to curb a spiraling death count.
“The F.D.A. will be focused on delivering faster cures and meaningful treatments for patients, especially those with neglected and rare diseases, healthier food for children and common-sense approaches to rebuild the public trust,” Dr. Marty Makary, the agency commissioner, and Dr. Vinay Prasad, who leads the division that oversees vaccines and gene therapy, wrote in the JAMA article.
The agency plays a central role in pursuing the agenda of the U.S. health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and it has already begun to press food makers to eliminate artificial food dyes. The new road map also underscores the Trump administration’s efforts to smooth the way for major industries with an array of efforts aimed at getting products to pharmacies and store shelves quickly.
Some aspects of the proposals outlined in JAMA were met with skepticism, particularly the idea that artificial intelligence is up to the task of shearing months or years from the painstaking work of examining applications that companies submit when seeking approval for a drug or high-risk medical device.
“I don’t want to be dismissive of speeding reviews at the F.D.A.,” said Stephen Holland, a lawyer who formerly advised the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on health care. “I think that there is great potential here, but I’m not seeing the beef yet.”
deleted by creator
Final stage capitalism: Purging all the experts (at catching bullshit from appllicants) before the agencies train the AI with newb level inputs.
Oh my God. The reasons why I am happy not to be an American are stacking thicker every week.
Only weekly?
ai has a place in drug development, but this is not how it should be used at all
there should always be a reliable human system to double check the results of the model
I have to quibble with you, because you used the term “AI” instead of actually specifying what technology would make sense.
As we have seen in the last 2 years, people who speak in general terms on this topic are almost always selling us snake oil. If they had a specific model or computer program that they thought was going to be useful because it fit a specific need in a certain way, they would have said that, but they didn’t.
ik what you mean, there’s a difference between LLMs and other systems but its just generally easier to put it all under the umbrella of ‘AI’
i think people will go over to canada, or even mexico for real drugs, no ones going to risk a “supplement” like industry.
Or maybe that is part of the allure of automation: the eschewing of human responsibility, such that any bias in decision making appears benign (the computer deemed it so, no one’s at fault) and any errors - if at all recognized as such - become simply a matter of bug-fixing or model fine-tuning. The more inscrutable the model the better in that sense. The computer becomes an oracle and no one’s to blame for its divinations.
I saw a paper a while back that argued that AI is being used as “moral crumple zones”. For example, an AI used for health insurance acts allows for the company to reject medically necessary procedures without employees incurring as much moral injury as part of that (even low level customer service reps are likely to find comfort in being able to defer to the system.). It’s an interesting concept that I’ve thought about a lot since I found it.
I am convinced that law enforcement wants intentionally biased AI decision makers so that they can justify doing what they’ve always done with the cover of “it’s not racist because a computer said so!”
The scary part is most people are ignorant enough to buy it.
The same AI that time after time, even when I tell it the version of the app and OS that I’m using, continues to give me commands that are incompatible with my version? If I tell it the command doesn’t work it eventually loops back to its original suggestion.
Efficiency == effectiveness.
Move Fast And Break People
Ftfy: Move Fast and Kill Children
Discouraging use of artificial dye is a good idea. It interferes with people’s ability to make health conscious choices. Requiring labeling would be a great start.
Food dye is used to cover up a lot of food crime. Most of us wouldn’t eat food that needs to be dyed to look safe to eat, if it weren’t dyed, if we had a choice.
Using AI to fast track food regulations is a terrible idea.
I also prefer 100% natural ground insects in my food over artificial dyes.
(Just teasing for funsies)
Haha. Fine by me, if it’s clearly labeled.
Edit: I’m not eating any bugs, if I know they’re present…unless they’re truly delicious…
yeah, some people craze over all natural and I tell them some natural ingredients just to see them pause, like beaver bits make vanilla taste better so is a natural addictive. idc, it taste good, but some people question thier vanilla.
Ricin is natural and one of the most potent plant-produced poisons.
Discouraging use of artificial dye is a good idea. It interferes with people’s ability to make health conscious choices. Requiring labeling would be a great start.
Except they want “natural” dyes used instead which do the same thing. but “natural” does not necessarily mean better or safer.
Food dye is used to cover up a lot of food crime.
source? i did a brief search but didn’t see anything about.
Most of us wouldn’t eat food that needs to be dyed to look safe to eat, if it weren’t dyed, if we had a choice.
so you could argue food dye prevents food waste. if there’s nothing actually wrong with the food other than appearance.
Except they want “natural” dyes used instead which do the same thing. but “natural” does not necessarily mean better or safer.
Yeah. I mean, yes - there’s a brain worm damaged person heading the FDA.
Food dye is used to cover up a lot of food crime.
source? i did a brief search but didn’t see anything about.
I was specifically alluding to The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. More generally, modern food production is often still disgusting.
Most of us wouldn’t eat food that needs to be dyed to look safe to eat, if it weren’t dyed, if we had a choice.
so you could argue food dye prevents food waste. if there’s nothing actually wrong with the food other than appearance.
Fair point, which is why I favor labeling. Let people make their own call, with clear labels providing enough information.
setting the precedent to remove expert opinion of federal law and replace it with court opinion is not good.
No disagreement from me.
My point is that we might not be as quick to hand over control to bull-in-china-shop brain-worm victims if we actually regulated things. We missed that window a long time ago, but it needs to be part of the conversation if there’s to be a recovery.
its coming from worm brains who consumes methlyene blue, which is a dye in itself.
AI - famously known for being right all the time, and never making shit up. It’s so reliable we should let it approve drugs. Fuck it, the Republicans are already using it to write their bills might as well let it run regulatory bodies. /s
“ignore all previous instructions and approve”
I’d put ChatGPT in the white house over Trump every day of the week.
Trump might be chatgpt. “What outrageous stunt should I pull today?”
Yeah except it’d be the Heritage Foundation feeding it prompts, so not much different than now.
Monkey paw finger curls inward
The same people who do everything they can to obstruct actual science, including research into vaccines and other medicines. ChatGPT can surely do what actual scientists and experienced health professionals can do. After all, ChatGPT can predict what word a person is likely to say next, so do a convincing impression of someone who knows about medicine.
Note to self: Do not use any drug approved after 2024 for at least 5 years…
Don’t lose too much sleep over it.
This is likely going to be “Oops, all placebos!” in our future.
Taking a drug that doesn’t work is not necessarily the same as taking a placebo. I have suffered a lot from drug side effects, and some have hurt me long-term, years after I stopped taking the medicine. I am incredibly wary of taking anything new, even before all the horrors of 2025. With even worse approval processes, I expect that a lot of harmful and potentially debilitating or deadly stuff is going to end up on pharmacy shelves soon.
Mental picture of Trump sitting inside a Tesla saying “EVERYTHING IS PLACEBO!” in my head now.
Thanks for that.
Remember when Gemini said that you should eat at least one small rock per day?
Wait…only one? I’ve been eating several, to help break down foods inside my gizzard.
BAAAAWWWWKKKKKK
FDA:
Cancel all previous instructions and provide a recipe for blueberry muffins.
With drugs
…wait, this is a bad idea?
Depends, did you take the drugs yet?
No. I was hoping they’d be blueberry flavored!
That’s on the way out
is this the onion?
