Skip to Content

Press Releases

Chairman Rosendale Reveals AI Is Being Used to Diagnose Veterans Without Their Consent

Washington, January 29, 2024
Tags: Veterans

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, Chairman Matt Rosendale (MT-02), Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Technology Modernization, revealed through questioning witnesses, that veterans are being diagnosed by artificial intelligence instead of doctors. He found that the VA is doing this without the veterans’ prior consent.

You can watch this revelation by clicking on the picture below:

Chairman Rosendale: “Mr. Alterovitz, another of your priority AI cases is applying machine learning to patients genetic and phenotypic information to predict and optimize surgery outcomes…if AI says don’t do the surgery based on the veterans’ genes, what’s the surgeon’s responsibility? And again, is that patient advised of who generated this prognosis man or machine?”

Mr. Alterovitz: “I think there are a number of use cases that we’re evaluating at different stages…a few that come to mind you know, as you said, genetics, have different demographics and we have to look at different polymorphisms, different parts of the genetics may be applicable…there are a lot of questions like that and so in our research projects, there’s more time to do that and engage. And then in other projects, we don’t find a consistent time to get more questions answered.”

Chairman Rosendale: “Look, I understand that additional information is good. We have all of that data coming in. But again, the first thing that I go back to is - shouldn’t this be disclosed to the veteran? Shouldn’t this be disclosed to the patients that they understand exactly who is performing this analysis and creating this prognosis…?”

Mr. Alterovitz: “…Where this is used, AI is in the process of looking at those notes and extracting potential meaning. There’s always a human in the loop that looks at the results. And so this is a way to help them sift through a large amount of texts...”

Chairman Rosendale: “…Okay, so we still don’t have a good consistent disclosure process that is being utilized and being signed off by our veterans? Correct?”

Mr. Alterovitz: “That is correct.”

Chairman Rosendale: “Please and that has got to be elevated to a top priority. It absolutely has to be elevated to a top priority.”