The UK’s National Health Service will enroll nearly 700,000 women in a trial to study how artificial intelligence (AI) tools can aid in the diagnosis of breast cancer. In the EDITH trial, supported by £11 million (about $13.8 million) from the UK’s National Institute for Health Care and Research, women ages 50 to 71 will be screened every 3 years at one of 30 sites across the UK. Five distinct AI platforms will be used to analyze and diagnose about two thirds of the mammograms, which will be compared to the remaining one third of scans to be analyzed by two specialists, the current standard for mammograms in the UK. A recent study involving more than 460,000 women found that radiologists identified nearly 18% more breast tumors on mammograms when using AI assistance (Cancer Discov 2025 Feb 4 [Epub]), but no studies have yet investigated how AI fares in diagnosing breast cancer on its own…

The Senate Finance Committee voted today in favor of Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Jr.’s nomination for Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, setting up a Senate floor vote. While the 13 Democrats on the committee voted no, all the committee’s 14 Republicans voted to advance the nomination, including Bill Cassidy, MD (R-La.), a physician who implored RFK Jr. during last week’s hearing––to no avail––to reject theories that vaccines cause autism and said he was “struggling” with the nomination. Cassidy today wrote on X that “with the serious commitments I’ve received from the administration and the opportunity to make progress on the issues we agree on like healthy foods and a pro-American agenda, I will vote yes.” The full Senate is expected to vote within the next week.