Highlights:
- Tackling pandemics: Slogan sans substance, piecemeal solutions, & blind eye to major gaps.
- AI facial scan will lead to mass neurosisdue to large number of false positives. Good business for diagnostic labs & corporate healthcare.
- SP leader Shri Akhilesh Yadav spreading “vaccine hesitancy” says Covid vaccine deaths should be counted.
Website: https://uho.org.in
Dr. Amitav Banerjee, Chairperson of the Universal Health Organisation (UHO), delivered a powerful address during the organisation’s weekly newsletter presentation, highlighting serious concerns about national pandemic preparedness strategies and the unchecked rise of artificial intelligence in healthcare diagnostics.
Tackling pandemics: Slogan sans substance, piecemeal solutions, & blind eye to major gaps.
Dr V K Paul, a senior member of the Niti-Ayog, directed scientist to focus on research on priority pathogens that have potential to cause future pandemics. He declared dramatically that “we prepare for war, when we are not at war.” Giving this analogy he said that a lot of work should be done in the labs while building partnerships with various stakeholders in order to be prepared for the next pandemic. He was talking to scientists of CSIR-Institute of Microbial Technology (IMTECH), Chandigarh on the occasion of their 42nd foundation day, last Saturday.
He emphasized on clinical trials, and early mobilization of resources as a countermeasure for future pandemics.
Talking through his hat, Dr Paul observed that during the Covid-19 pandemic, the entire efforts of the Central Government for mitigating the challenges posed by the virus were driven by “science and evidence,” with the nation and society being stakeholders of the action plan.
UHO has strong reservations about Dr Paul’s statements on two counts.
Firstly, while we agree that research in microbes and newer drugs and vaccines are important, such focus on individual “potential” pathogens misses the big picture and major gaps in our public health care infrastructure. While Dr Paul drew analogy from military strategy, i.e. that we must “prepare for war when there is no war,” he conveniently overlooks the fact that war cannot be won just by “mercenaries” without a strong standing armed forces. In the same way we cannot fight pandemics by labs and innovations alone, without having equitable distribution of public health infrastructure throughout the country. It is no secret that our public hospitals and primary health centres are in a pathetic state with large number of unfilled vacancies of vital medical personnel and equipments in the public health sector. Depending only on microbiology labs and private drug and vaccine manufacturers with their various conflicts of interests to fight future pandemics is like fighting future wars with the help of “mercenaries” without the support of a large professional army covering all our borders.
Our second reservation to Dr Paul’s statement is the declaration that all steps in the Covid-19 pandemic were taken based on “science and evidence” with the government, nation and society being stakeholders of the national plan. This statement is a distortion of the actual facts. We all know that the draconian measures, lockdowns, forced vaccination drives, mass mandates and other such “unscientific” measures were taken without any consultation of civil society. According to a peer reviewed paper in the journal of Industrial and business economics published by Springer Nature, the most destructive effects of Covid-19 in India have not been the result of the disease, but the nature of the government response.
The UHO too had written a detailed critique of the pandemic preparedness policies suggested by an expert group from Niti-ayog earlier (strangely with a disclaimer!). The prestigious British Medical Journal (BMJ) too had also commented that during the Covid-19 pandemic, science and evidence were suppressed and “politics, corruption, and commercial interests took over.”
It is unfortunate that a responsible member of the Niti-Ayog should push all these concerns under the carpet making the country vulnerable to mismanagement in future pandemics (real or imagined), as well. As the BMJ poignantly states in its editorial, “when good science is suppressed by the medical-political complex, people die.”
AI facial scan will lead to mass neurosis due to large number of false positives. Good business for diagnostic labs & corporate healthcare.
There is a lot of hype around use of Artificial Intelligence in medicine, particularly in diagnostics.
Recently, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released updates to two guidance documents reflecting a move towards a more hands-off approach to digital health product regulation. Both updated guidance documents allow for more technologies to be commercialized without FDA premarket review.
Smartwatches, rings, patches, and apps that track things like heart rate, sleep, activity – and now even blood pressure or glucose trends – can be treated as wellness tools. That means: No FDA clearance required!
Experts have warned that the indiscriminate use of AI in diagnostics can mislead both patients and doctors due to a high number of false positives leading to a battery of further tests and sometimes interventions which may harm rather than heal.
Diagnostics tests are not foolproof and can mislead if not clinically indicated. Five percent of normal persons have abnormal test results since the normal values are calculated statistically with a 5% margin of acceptable error. So one can imagine that if such AI powered screening devices are let loose in the open market and scaled up there will be thousands of perfectly healthy people facing undue anxiety and further investigations and procedures raising the cost of medical care.
Against this background there is news of a launch of AI-powered facial scan for instant wellness screening by Redcliffe labs in India. This will enable a “30 second” screening by facial scans using a Smartphone or camera device. The company claims this will promote preventive health awareness when over 500 million Indians are at risk of various chronic diseases. Though the company claims it is not a diagnostic test but a screening test and will give “30-second peace of mind,” we think it may lead to agitation and neurosis in at least 5% of those who test false positive for any disease, the statistical threshold of any screening/diagnostic test. But, of course, it would be good business for diagnostic labs and corporate model of health care.
UHO recommends that we shouldn’t trust AI algorithms that we don’t understand — particularly if their claims have not been tested independently.
SP leader Shri Akhilesh Yadav spreading “vaccine hesitancy” says Covid vaccine deaths should be counted.
Experts at the Global and National Level declared the Covid vaccines safe and effective. The former Drug Controller General of India, Dr V G Somani went overboard to reassure the people and gave a statement that the Covid-19 vaccines are 110% safe. He held a responsible and honourable appointment accountable for the safety and efficacy of medical products and shouldn’t people believe him?
The ICMR too, an honourable and apex research body, gave a clean chit to the vaccines in a hastily conducted, albeit, somewhat flawed study. Shouldn’t one trust the ICMR even though some critics raised concerns on the study? And the ICMR also went to the extent of pulling up researchers from the prestigious Banaras Hindu University (BHU) who reported adverse effects of the vaccines and dared to doubt their safety and create “vaccine hesitancy” among the people. Along with the vaccine manufacturer they threatened the researcher and the journal with litigation and got the offending paper retracted. UHO expressed concerns on the academic censorship which was reported by the Times of India. But the ICMR, being an honourable body, prevailed.
Against the background of clean chits from national and international experts and august institutions like the ICMR successfully silencing all critics, Mr Akhilesh Yadav, the SP party leader has shown the audacity to raise his concerns on the safety of the Covid-19 vaccines recently. In a recent press conferences, he demanded that the upcoming census should include data on deaths allegedly linked to COVID-19 vaccines. He questioned the rise in cancer and heart attack cases and claimed that many people had died after vaccination. He said the government should not fear criticism or defamation.
UHO recommends that to rebut him this information should be collected during the census and results of this survey should be put in the public domain. This would prove beyond doubt the safety of the Covid-19 vaccines, build trust among the people, eliminate vaccine hesitancy and would be a fitting reply to Mr Akhilesh Yadav. How dare he question experts who know better and spread “vaccine-hesitancy?”
The weekly newsletters bring the updates on the science, battered and bruised during the pandemic, legal updates and impact of activism for a just society, across the world. These are small steps to promote Transparency, Empowerment and Accountability – the ethos of the UHO.
Announcement: Membership & endorsements to the UHO invited: https://uho.org.in/member.php
Also Read:
Latest News: