The Hill (8/7, Klar) reports, “Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered tools provided responses that promoted harmful eating disorder content in response to queries tested by researchers,” investigators concluded in the findings of a report release Aug. 7 by the Center for Countering Digital Hate. The report found that “popular AI tools, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot and Google’s rival tool Bard, provided responses that gave guides or advice on how to take part in harmful disordered eating behavior, such as stimulating vomiting or how to hide food from parents, according to the report.”

In an ethics column in the Washington Post (8/7), Geoffrey A. Fowler observes that “with eating disorders, the problem isn’t just AI making things up.” Rather, “AI is perpetuating very sick stereotypes we’ve hardly confronted in our culture.” Not only is it “disseminating misleading health information,” but it is also “fueling mental illness by pretending to be an authority or even a friend.”

Related Links:

— “AI chatbots provided harmful eating disorder content: report,”Rebecca Klar, The Hill , August 7, 2023

mHealth Intelligence (8/8, Melchionna) reports, “Using survey data on patient attitudes toward mental health services and depression screening,” research published online July 19 in the Journal of Medical Internet Research “indicated that Black American women are comfortable with using voice or video calls to communicate with mental health” clinicians. The 395-participant study also suggested that “Black American women are commonly affected by depression.

Related Links:

— “Black Women are Open to Mental Health Services Via Mobile Technology,”Mark Melchionna, mHealth Intelligence, August 8, 2023

According to CNN (8/7, McPhillips), “only about a third of adults with opioid use disorder” (OUD) “received any type of treatment for substance use,” and only about one in five “received medication to treat” the disorder, according to findings published online Aug. 7 in JAMA Network Open. The study also “supports previous research that has found telehealth to improve rates of treatment,” in that “those receiving substance use treatment via telehealth were nearly 40 times more likely to receive medications for opioid use disorder than those who did not receive telehealth treatment, the researchers found.”

According to HealthDay (8/7, Mann), after analyzing “data from the 2021 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, an annual survey by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration,” investigators found that “only 36% received any substance use treatment, and only 22% received medications for opioid use disorder.” Bloomberg (8/7, Jones, Griffin, Subscription Publication) also covers the story.

Related Links:

— “Only 1 in 5 adults with an opioid use disorder received medication to treat it in 2021,” Deidre McPhillips, CNN, August 7, 2023

MedPage Today (8/7, Henderson) reports, “For young people with opioid use disorder (OUD), buprenorphine costs have declined overall but with drastic variation by payer type,” researchers concluded in findingspublished online Aug. 7 in a research letter in JAMA Pediatrics. After “examining buprenorphine prescriptions dispensed for U.S. youth ages 12 to 19,” investigators found that “mean daily out-of-pocket costs declined 57.6% from 2015 through 2020 (from $4.03 to $1.71), with an increasing percentage of prescriptions paid by Medicaid.” Nevertheless, “those costs were approximately 24 times higher with commercial payers and 119 times higher for self-pay than with Medicaid in 2020,” the study team concluded.

Related Links:

— MedPage Today (requires login and subscription)

HealthDay (8/4, Solomon) reported, “Approximately one-third of patients 50 years or younger with sudden cardiac death (SCD) have positive toxicology for illicit drugs,” investigators concluded in findings published online ahead of print in the journal Heart Rhythm. The study, which “identified rates of illicit drug use in younger patients with SCD using data from 523 patients with confirmed out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (ages 18 to 50 years) with a toxicological assessment (April 2019 to April 2021),” revealed that “32.5% of patients had either positive toxicology for illicit drugs (138 patients) or negative toxicology but reported regular drug use (32 patients).”

Related Links:

— “Illicit Drug Use Seen in One-Third of Sudden Cardiac Deaths in Younger Adults,”Lori Solomon, HealthDay, August 4, 2023