I know what you ate this summer
Something’s happening in Michigan's food supply: the state typically identifies around 50 cases of cyclosporiasis (an intestinal illness caused by foodborne parasite, Cyclospora) each year; as of last Tuesday, it had reported over 4,300—with cases continuing to climb nationally. Last week, the FDA briefly traced the outbreak to “shredduce,” then retracted the finding as a false positive. The investigation comes at an interesting moment for public health. Six years after the COVID-19 pandemic drew accelerated investment in innovative approaches to disease surveillance, a subsequent pullback in resources is presenting new outbreak challenges.
Even as public health resources tighten, advancements in sensing technologies and AI are expanding the toolkit for digital disease surveillance. Companies like Biobot Analytics, for example, are scaling wastewater surveillance analytics to track pathogens and substance use trends across communities before they become widespread. At home, connected devices—including smart toilet offerings like Throne, Kohler Health, and Withings’ U-Scan—are generating longitudinal urinary and digestive health data that could help identify meaningful health changes earlier. Public health practice is evolving alongside these sensing technologies. Last week, the Coalition for Health AI (CHAI) launched PULSE, a national initiative to help state and local public health agencies implement generative AI. Early areas of focus include biosurveillance and public communication, with the aim to pilot key programs and translate learnings into vendor-agnostic playbooks for broader adoption.
As disease surveillance gains new data inputs and public health agencies take on new efforts to implement AI, the time between the first biological signal and a public health response could shrink from weeks to days. Unfortunately, none of those innovations can un-eat a contaminated salad. So maybe this week, skip your mom's advice…and don't eat your greens.
Headlines
Medicare Proposes To Ban Vendors From Providing Remote Monitoring Services
Proposed rule would upend third-party remote patient monitoring STAT
Doc Pay, Price Transparency On Congress’ Healthcare Agenda
Lawmakers race to advance bills before the August recess Healthcare Dive
Anthropic Bets Bigger On Healthcare With Optum Tie-Up, UST Integration
Claude moves into claims, care coordination, and member services Fierce Healthcare
Kleiner Perkins, John Doerr, And UCSF Health Launch Healthcare AI Accelerator
Building and proving AI inside the health system itself Fortune
Eli Lilly Invests In Oura To Support Patients On GLP-1 Drugs
Pharma reaches for wearables to keep GLP-1 patients engaged Endpoints News
Kalshi Comes For Clinical Trials And FDA Approvals
Prediction markets meet biopharma, raising fresh conflict-of-interest concerns STAT
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