Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told a MAHA summit audience that Americans should “become the CEOs of their own health,” pointing to artificial intelligence and expanded access to medical records as key forces he says are reshaping medicine.
“Medicine is completely going to change,” Kennedy said in an interview with Armstrong Williams.
RFK Jr. said he recently met with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and argued that AI tools have advanced to the point that clinicians should be using them as part of patient care.
“You know, I met with Sam Altman this week, who’s the head of OpenAI, and he said two years ago he would not have advised anybody to take medical advice from AI, from CHAT GPT, or any of the other companies.
But at this point in history it would be malpractice for a doctor not to consult them…,” Kennedy insisted.
This does not suggest that A.I. will displace the role of physicians. As such, A.I. systems may continue to generate false information, fail to recognize critical contextual information and rely heavily on professional judgement – particularly when diagnosing illnesses or developing treatment plans. However, Kennedy’s overall premise suggests that A.I. will be used by both doctors and patients to assist them in understanding medical data and develop better informed decisions about their respective healthcare.
In addition to the notion of A.I. becoming a common tool used by physicians and patients, Kennedy also expressed a belief that many Americans are experiencing a significant increase in accessibility to their personal medical records. He indicated that the number of medical records available for sharing among all entities within the healthcare system has experienced a dramatic increase during his tenure as secretary; and thus reflects a larger trend toward putting patients at the center of their healthcare experiences rather than other health care entities.
Overall, Kennedy’s key point was quite straightforward: Medicine is rapidly evolving; and A.I. represents an opportunity for patients to gain access to medical information previously reserved primarily for healthcare professionals.
Gray market peptides weren’t stressed in the meeting, but should have been
Kennedy has previously embraced some experimental peptide therapies as more and more Americans are purchasing them and other substances without a prescription from an exploding online gray market; many times acting as their own physician. While Kennedy has warned against buying unknown medications online or through unregulated sources—acknowledging that consumers often have no idea what they are actually getting—he has personally used some experimental peptide therapies and has advocated expanding legal access to such treatments through licensed physicians and regulated compounding pharmacies.
An FDA advisory panel voted in July to recommend broader access to six such peptides through compounding pharmacies, although the compounds have not been FDA-approved as drugs and concerns (even by Kennedy) remain about insufficient evidence on safety and effectiveness.
Opinion: RFK, Jr is right. Medicine has already changed a lot just in the past five years, and a lot more change is coming. People will have more control over their own care. And that’s beneficial. What we don’t know is what’ll happen when lay people use their expanded access to push the envelope too far and misdiagnose their situations or overmedicate.
