LAS VEGAS – The CES trade show is renowned for showcasing cutting-edge health tech gadgets, each promising to revolutionize personal health management. Among the innovations this year was a smart scale that claims to enhance your well-being by monitoring heart health through foot scans, and an AI-driven, egg-shaped hormone tracker designed to optimize conception timing.
However, both tech enthusiasts and health experts are raising eyebrows over the accuracy of such devices, expressing concerns about data privacy, especially in light of relaxed federal regulations.
During the Las Vegas event, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced plans to ease restrictions on “low-risk” wellness products, including heart monitors and wheelchairs. This decision aligns with the Trump administration’s broader initiative to reduce barriers to AI innovation. The administration previously revoked an executive order from the Biden era that sought to establish AI safeguards, and recently, the Department of Health and Human Services released a strategic plan to expand AI applications.
The trade show also featured technologies aimed at improving healthcare access in rural areas burdened by doctor shortages, advancing women’s health research, and assisting individuals with disabilities.
Marschall Runge, a professor of medical science at the University of Michigan, highlighted potential advantages of AI in the healthcare sector, which is valued at over $4.3 trillion. AI’s capability to analyze medical images and alleviate physicians’ workloads is promising. However, it also risks introducing biases and generating inaccuracies presented as truths.
Cindy Cohn, executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, cautioned, “It’s important to remember that technology should not be equated to a knowledgeable, research-oriented medical professional.”
Privacy protections like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act do not cover information collected by consumer devices, and the companies could be using the data to train their AI models, or selling it to other businesses, Cohn said.
With a lot of the gadgets at CES, it’s difficult to find out where your information is going, Cohn said.
“You have to dig down through the fine print to try to figure that out, and I just don’t think that’s fair or right for the people who might rely on it,” she said.
But the creators of the products say their innovations fill in health care gaps, and they maintain they protect their customers’ privacy.
Sylvia Kang, founder and CEO of Mira, said she created the egg-shaped hormone tracker because many of her friends were trying to conceive and realized they had no knowledge of their hormonal health. To use the “world’s mini hormone lab,” you dip a wand in urine, insert the wand into the monitor and look at the results on the app.
Kang said her company uses AI to analyze female hormone data and has one of the world’s biggest hormonal health banks. The data is stored on the cloud and is not shared with anyone, Kang said.
“There was no such thing before,” Kang said of her $250 product.
Many gadgets at CES focused on women’s health, which has been historically under-researched and underfunded. Before 1993, women were excluded from clinical trials, and there still is little research on areas like menopause.
While not every woman will have a baby, all women go through menopause, and “yet we know nothing about it,” said Amy Divaraniya, founder and CEO of the women’s health company Oova, during a session.
One gadget called Peri aims to better understand perimenopause — the transitional phase before menopause. The wearable device monitors hot flashes and night sweats and provides the data via an app.
Improving accessibility to health care
Other products at CES were promoted as a way to increase accessibility to health information. The free medicine-focused AI chatbot called 0xmd helps improve access to medical information in areas with doctor shortages and provides a cost-effective alternative, said its founder and architect Allen Au. People can ask the chatbot questions about medicine, upload photos of a mole or rash, and submit their doctors’ notes for an easier-to-understand translation, Au said.
“At the end of the day, I don’t think we will replace doctors,” but it can give people a second opinion, Au said.
OpenAI announced on Wednesday its launch of ChatGPT Health, a similar platform.
Cohn remains skeptical of consumer tech. She said they can help prepare people to ask the right questions of their medical professional, but they’re not going to be a substitute for a doctor.
“People need to remember that these are just tools; they’re not oracles who are delivering truths,” she said.
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