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Presented by Kidney Care Access Coalition:: The ideas and innovators shaping health care | | | | |  | | By Carmen Paun, Daniel Payne, Erin Schumaker and Evan Peng | Presented by Kidney Care Access Coalition | PROGRAMMING NOTE: We’ll be off this Monday for Indigenous Peoples' Day but will be back in your inboxes on Tuesday.
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Sunak's targeting young smokers with a new proposal. | Peter Cziborra/Pool Photo via AP | British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has proposed to ban the sale of cigarettes in the U.K., but it won’t fully take effect until the country’s 15 year-olds pass on. How’s that? Sunak will ask Parliament to ban people born in 2009 — who turn 14 this year — and those younger from ever buying a smoke legally. Those born in 2008 and earlier would still be able to buy cigarettes, Sunak promised, and lighting up would remain legal. It would make the U.K. the second country in the world, after New Zealand, to try a prohibition strategy for younger generations. Why it matters: Smoking causes 1 in 4 cancer deaths in the U.K., Sunak wrote on X, the former Twitter. It costs the country’s publicly funded health system some $20 billion a year, he added. The point of his plan is to stop kids from taking up the habit. Four in 5 people start smoking before age 20, according to Sunak. “We have a chance to cut cancer deaths by a quarter and significantly ease huge pressures on the [National Health Service]. We should take it,” he added. Even so: The U.K. bars cigarette sales to those under 18, but younger people still manage to procure them, raising a potential enforcement issue if Sunak gets his way. No vaping either: Sunak also plans to restrict the availability of e-cigarettes for children. The U.K. has embraced vaping as a harm-reduction method for smoking adults, but Sunak wants to ensure minors don’t end up using vapes. “We’ll look at flavors, packaging, point-of-sale displays as well as disposable vapes,” Sunak posted on X. What’s next? Parliament must approve the proposal.
| | | | A message from Kidney Care Access Coalition: Dialysis patients and their families are being harmed. Learn more from the Kidney Care Access Coalition. | | | | | | | 
Nationals Park, Washington, D.C. | Evan Peng | | This is where we explore the ideas and innovators shaping health care. We can't stop watching this sweet video of mRNA vaccine scientist Drew Weissman sharing his Nobel Prize win with his parents. Share any thoughts, news, tips and feedback with Carmen Paun at cpaun@politico.com, Daniel Payne at dpayne@politico.com, Evan Peng at epeng@politico.com or Erin Schumaker at eschumaker@politico.com. Send tips securely through SecureDrop, Signal, Telegram or WhatsApp. Today on our Pulse Check podcast, host Alice Miranda Ollstein talks with POLITICO labor reporter Nick Niedzwiadek about what the nearly 75,000 Kaiser Permanente health care workers on strike want and how the strike could affect the health care system.
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Talkspace CEO Cohen is high on AI. | Talkspace | | Behavioral health company Talkspace uses artificial intelligence to help therapists identify patients at risk of suicide. It says its approach is roughly 83 percent accurate. That’s significant, given a rise in suicides that’s driven rates to modern highs. CEO Jon Cohen, who’s also a vascular surgeon, talked with Daniel about the new technology’s possibilities and limits. This interview was edited for length and clarity. How does your method work? We have the ability through large language models — AI — to actually monitor, essentially in real time, the conversation that is going on privately between you and your therapist. We run that through the engine, and then our proprietary algorithm will actually tell the therapist based on the model we built that the person is at risk for either suicide or self-harm. What does the therapist do then? It's an alerting mechanism. We don’t tell the therapist what to do. We don’t tell them they have to use the information. We don’t tell them how to treat. But we raise a red flag and say, "Listen, you need to know that, based on what’s going on here, this patient is at risk." Could this go beyond suicide prevention to help flag or diagnose other issues? There are a bunch of other diagnoses that we believe, at some point, we will be able to help the therapist as they move through the conversations. I’m calling it therapy-assist — so the answer is yes. There’s no timeline, but we’re leaning in on it.
| | | | A message from Kidney Care Access Coalition:   | | | | | | | GO INSIDE THE CAPITOL DOME: From the outset, POLITICO has been your eyes and ears on Capitol Hill, providing the most thorough Congress coverage — from political characters and emerging leaders to leadership squabbles and policy nuggets during committee markups and hearings. We're stepping up our game to ensure you’re fully informed on every key detail inside the Capitol Dome, all day, every day. Start your day with Playbook AM, refuel at midday with our Playbook PM halftime report and enrich your evening discussions with Huddle. Plus, stay updated with real-time buzz all day through our brand new Inside Congress Live feature. Learn more and subscribe here. | | | | | | | | |  AI could ease the load in the ER, a new report says. | AP | Artificial intelligence may be as good as radiologists at reading X-rays, according to new research published in JAMA Network Open. How so? Northwestern University researchers analyzed scanned images from 500 patients taken during emergency room visits and used AI to review them. The researchers then compared the AI’s analysis with diagnoses from teleradiologists and radiologists. Emergency medicine doctors then compared the original diagnoses with the AI’s findings and rated all the reports. The researchers found that the AI produced reports similar in accuracy to radiologists — and of higher quality than teleradiologists. Why it matters: The results suggest AI could eventually speed the diagnosis of time-sensitive pathologies and ease documentation delays. Some emergency departments don’t have dedicated radiologists and rely on remote facilities. They could potentially see improvements in accuracy, access and speed of results and serve more patients by using AI, the researchers wrote.
| | | | A message from Kidney Care Access Coalition: Employer health plans can now discriminate against patients with kidney failure. Prevent that tragedy.
Congress: Restore what’s right – protect dialysis patients and their families.
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