USC scientists have created the most detailed atlas yet of the brain's memory bank. (nevarpp/iStockphoto)
It was an audacious undertaking, even for one of the most storied American companies: With a single machine, IBM would tackle humanity’s most vexing diseases and revolutionize medicine.
Breathlessly promoting its signature brand — Watson — IBM sought to capture the world’s imagination, and it quickly zeroed in on a high-profile target: cancer.
But three years after IBM began selling Watson to recommend the best cancer treatments to doctors around the world, a STAT investigation has found that the supercomputer isn’t living up to the lofty expectations IBM created for it. It is still struggling with the basic step of learning about different forms of cancer. Only a few dozen hospitals have adopted the system, which is a long way from IBM’s goal of establishing dominance in a multibillion-dollar market. And at foreign hospitals, physicians complained its advice is biased toward American patients and methods of care.
STAT examined Watson for Oncology’s use, marketing, and performance in hospitals across the world, from South Korea to Slovakia to South Florida. Reporters interviewed dozens of doctors, IBM executives, artificial intelligence experts, and others familiar with the system’s underlying technology and rollout.
The interviews suggest that IBM, in its rush to bolster flagging revenue, unleashed a product without fully assessing the challenges of deploying it in hospitals globally. While it has emphatically marketed Watson for cancer care, IBM hasn’t published any scientific papers demonstrating how the technology affects physicians and patients. As a result, its flaws are getting exposed on the front lines of care by doctors and researchers who say that the system, while promising in some respects, remains undeveloped.
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“Watson for Oncology is in their toddler stage, and we have to wait and actively engage, hopefully to help them grow healthy,” said Dr. Taewoo Kang, a South Korean cancer specialist who has used the product.
At its heart, Watson for Oncology uses the cloud-based supercomputer to digest massive amounts of data — from doctor’s notes to medical studies to clinical guidelines. But its treatment recommendations are not based on its own insights from these data. Instead, they are based exclusively on training by human overseers, who laboriously feed Watson information about how patients with specific characteristics should be treated.
IBM executives acknowledged Watson for Oncology, which has been in development for nearly six years, is in its infancy. But they said it is improving rapidly, noting that by year’s end, the system will offer guidance about treatment for 12 cancers that account for 80 percent of the world’s cases. They said it’s saving doctors time and ensuring that patients get top-quality care.
“We’re seeing stories come in where patients are saying, ‘It gave me peace of mind,’” Watson Health general manager Deborah DiSanzo said. “That makes us feel extraordinarily good that what we’re doing is going to make a difference for patients and their physicians.”
But contrary to IBM’s depiction of Watson as a digital prodigy, the supercomputer’s abilities are limited.
Perhaps the most stunning overreach is in the company’s claim that Watson for Oncology, through artificial intelligence, can sift through reams of data to generate new insights and identify, as an IBM sales rep put it, “even new approaches” to cancer care. STAT found that the system doesn’t create new knowledge and is artificially intelligent only in the most rudimentary sense of the term.
While Watson became a household name by winning the TV game show “Jeopardy!”, its programming is akin to a different game-playing machine: the Mechanical Turk, a chess-playing robot of the 1700s, which dazzled audiences but hid a secret — a human operator shielded inside.
In the case of Watson for Oncology, those human operators are a couple dozen physicians at a single, though highly respected, U.S. hospital: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Doctors there are empowered to input their own recommendations into Watson, even when the evidence supporting those recommendations is thin.
The actual capabilities of Watson for Oncology are not well-understood by the public, and even by some of the hospitals that use it. It’s taken nearly six years of painstaking work by data engineers and doctors to train Watson in just seven types of cancer, and keep the system updated with the latest knowledge.
“It’s been a struggle to update, I’ll be honest,” said Dr. Mark Kris, Memorial Sloan Kettering’s lead Watson trainer. He noted that treatment guidelines for every metastatic lung cancer patient worldwide recently changed in the course of one week after a research presentation at a cancer conference. “Changing the system of cognitive computing doesn’t turn around on a dime like that,” he said. “You have to put in the literature, you have to put in cases.”
Watson grew out of an effort to transform IBM from an old-guard hardware company to one that operates in the cloud and along the cutting edge of artificial intelligence. Despite its use in an array of industries — from banking to manufacturing — it has failed to end a streak of 21 consecutive quarters of declining revenue at IBM. In the most recent quarter, revenue even slid from the same period last year in IBM’s cognitive solutions division — which is built around Watson and is supposed to be the future of its business.
In response to STAT’s questions, IBM said Watson, in health care and otherwise, remains on an upward trajectory and “is already an important part” of its $20 billion analytics business. Health care is a crucial part of the Watson enterprise. IBM employs 7,000 people in its Watson health division and sees the industry as a $200 billion market over the next several years. Only financial services, at $300 billion, is considered a bigger opportunity by the company.
At stake in the supercomputer’s performance is not just the fortunes of a famed global company. In the world of medicine, Watson is also something of a digital canary — the most visible attempt to use artificial intelligence to identify the best ways to prevent and treat disease. The system’s larger goal, IBM executives say, is to democratize medical knowledge so that every patient, no matter the person’s geography or income level, will be able to access the best care.
But in cancer treatment, the pursuit of that utopian ideal has faltered.
STAT’s investigation focused on Watson for Oncology because that product is the furthest along in clinical care, though Watson sells separate packages to analyze genomic information and match patients to clinical trials. It’s also applying Watson to other tasks, including honing preventive medicine practices and reading medical images.
Doctors’ reliance on Watson for Oncology varies among hospitals. While institutions with fewer specialists lean more heavily on its recommendations, others relegate the system to a background role, like a paralegal whose main skill is researching existing knowledge.
Hospitals pay a per-patient fee for Watson for Oncology and other products enabled by the supercomputer. The amount depends on the number of products a hospital buys, and ranges between $200 and $1,000 per patient, according to DiSanzo. The system sometimes comes with consulting costs and is expensive to link with electronic medical records. At hospitals that don’t link it with their medical records, more time must be spent typing in patient information.
At Jupiter Medical Center in Florida, that task falls to nurse Jean Thompson, who spends about 90 minutes a week feeding data into the machine. Once she has completed that work, she clicks the “Ask Watson” button to get the supercomputer’s advice for treating patients.
On a recent morning, the results for a 73-year-old lung cancer patient were underwhelming: Watson recommended a chemotherapy regimen the oncologists had already flagged.
“It’s fine,” Dr. Sujal Shah, a medical oncologist, said of Watson’s treatment suggestion while discussing the case with colleagues.
He said later that the background information Watson provided, including medical journal articles, was helpful, giving him more confidence that using a specific chemotherapy was a sound idea. But the system did not directly help him make that decision, nor did it tell him anything he didn’t already know.
Jupiter is one of two U.S. hospitals that have adopted Watson for Oncology. The system has generated more business in India and Southeast Asia. Many doctors in those countries said Watson is saving time and helping more patients get quality care. But they also said its accuracy and overall value is limited by differing medical practices and economic circumstances.
Despite IBM’s marketing blitz, with years of high-profile Watson commercials featuring celebrities from Serena Williams to Bob Dylan to Jon Hamm, the company’s executives are not always gushing. In interviews with STAT, they acknowledged the system faces challenges and needs better integration with electronic medical records and more data on real patients to find patterns and suggest cutting-edge treatments.
“The goal as Watson gets smarter is for it to make some of those recommendations in a more automated way, to sort of suggest now may be the time and let us flip the switch” when a promising treatment option emerges, said Dr. Andrew Norden, a former IBM deputy health chief who left the company in early August. “As I describe it, you’re probably getting a sense it’s really hard and nuanced.”
Such nuance is absent from the careful narrative IBM has constructed to sell Watson.
It is by design that there is not one independent, third-party study that examines whether Watson for Oncology can deliver. IBM has not exposed the product to critical review by outside scientists or conducted clinical trials to assess its effectiveness.
While it’s not unheard of for companies to avoid external vetting early on, IBM’s circumstances are unusual because Watson for Oncology is not in development — it has already been deployed around the world.
Yoon Sup Choi, a South Korean venture capitalist and researcher who wrote a book about artificial intelligence in health care, said IBM isn’t required by regulatory agencies to do a clinical trial in South Korea or America before selling the system to hospitals. And given that hospitals are already using the system, a clinical trial would be unlikely to improve business prospects.
“It’s too risky, right?” Choi said. “If the result of the clinical trial is not very good — [if] there’s a marginal clinical benefit from Watson — it’s really bad news to the whole IBM.”
Pilar Ossorio, a professor of law and bioethics at University of Wisconsin Law School, said Watson should be subject to tighter regulation because of its role in treating patients. “As an ethical matter, and as a scientific matter, you should have to prove that there’s safety and efficacy before you can just go do this,” she said.
Norden dismissed the suggestion IBM should have been required to conduct a clinical trial before commercializing Watson, noting that many practices in medicine are widely accepted even though they aren’t supported by a randomized controlled trial.
“Has there ever been a randomized trial of parachutes for paratroopers?” Norden asked. “And the answer is, of course not, because there is a very strong intuitive value proposition. … So I believe that bringing the best information to bear on medical decision making is a no-brainer.”
IBM said in its statement that it has collaborated with the research community and presented data on Watson at industry gatherings and in peer-reviewed journals. Some doctors said they didn’t need to see more research to know that the system is valuable. “Artificial intelligence will be adopted in all medical fields in the future,” said Dr. Uhn Lee, who runs the Watson program at Gachon University Gil Medical Center in South Korea. “If that trend, that change is inevitable, then why don’t we just start early?”
So far, the only studies about Watson for Oncology are conference abstracts. The full results haven’t been published in peer-reviewed journals — and every study, save one, was either conducted by a paying customer or included IBM staff on the author list, or both. Most trumpet positive results, showing that Watson saves doctors time and has a high concordance rate with their treatment recommendations.
The “concordance” studies comprise the vast majority of the public research on Watson for Oncology. Doctors will ask Watson for its advice for treating a slew of patients, and then compare its recommendations to those of oncologists. In an unpublished study from Denmark, the rate of agreement was about 33 percent — so the hospital decided not to buy the system. In other countries, the rate can be as high as 96 percent for some cancers. But showing that Watson agrees with the doctors proves only that it is competent in applying existing methods of care, not that it can improve them.
IBM executives said they are pursuing studies to examine the impact on doctors and patients, although none has been completed to date.
Questions about Watson have begun spilling into public view, including in a recent Gizmodo story headlined “Why Everyone is Hating on IBM Watson — Including the People Who Helped Make It.” The most prominent failure occurred last February when MD Anderson Cancer Center, part of the University of Texas, cancelled its partnership with Watson.
The MD Anderson alliance was essentially the early face of Watson in health care. The Houston hospital was among IBM’s first partners, and it was using the system to create its own expert oncology adviser, similar to the one IBM was developing with Memorial Sloan Kettering. But the project disintegrated amid internal allegations of overspending, delays, and mismanagement. In all, MD Anderson spent more than three years and $60 million — much of it on outside consultants — before shelving the effort.
The hospital declined to answer questions. But the project leader, Dr. Lynda Chin, in her first media interview on the subject, told STAT about the challenges she faced. Chin left MD Anderson before the project collapsed; a subsequent audit flagged several violations of procurement rules under her leadership.
Chin said that Watson is a powerful technology, but that it is exceedingly difficult to make functional in health care. She and her team encountered numerous roadblocks, some of which still have not been fully addressed by IBM — at MD Anderson or elsewhere.
The cancer hospital’s first major challenge involved getting the machine to deal with the idiosyncrasies of medical records: the acronyms, human errors, shorthand phrases, and different styles of writing. “Teaching a machine to read a record is a lot harder than anyone thought,” she said. Her team spent countless hours on that problem, trying to get Watson to extract valuable information from medical records so that it could apply them to its recommendations.
Chin said her team also wrestled with deploying the system in clinical practice. Watson, even if guided by doctors, is as close as medicine has ever gotten to allowing a machine to help decide the treatments delivered to human beings. That carries with it thorny questions, such as how to test the safety of a digital treatment adviser, how to ensure its compliance with regulations, and how to incorporate it into the daily work of doctors and nurses.
“Importantly,” Chin said. “How do we create an environment that can ensure the most important tenet in medicine: Do no harm?”
Finally, the project ran into a bigger obstacle: Even if you can get Watson to understand patient variables and make competent treatment recommendations, how do you get it access to enough patient data, from enough different sources, to derive insights that could significantly advance the standard of care?
Chin said that was a showstopper. Watson did not have a connected network of institutions feeding data about specific cohorts of patients. “You may have 10,000 patients for lung cancer. That is still not a very big number when you think about it,” she said.
With data from many more patients, Chin said, you could see patterns — “subsets [of patients] that respond a certain way, subsets that don’t, subsets that have a certain toxicity. That pattern would help with better personalized and precision medicine. But we can’t get there without the ability to actually have a way of aggregating them.”
IBM told STAT that Chin’s work was separate from the effort to create Watson for Oncology, which was validated by cancer specialists at Memorial Sloan Kettering prior to its deployment. The company said that Watson for Oncology can extract and summarize substantial text from patient records, though the information must be verified by a clinician, and that it has made significant progress in obtaining more data to improve Watson’s performance. It pointed to partnerships with the health care publisher Elsevier and the analytics firm Doctor Evidence.
To date, more than 50 hospitals on five continents have agreements with IBM, or intermediary technology companies, to use Watson for Oncology to treat patients, and others are using the genomics and clinical trials products.
But the partnership with Memorial Sloan Kettering, and the product that grew out of it, resulted in complications that IBM has papered over with carefully parsed statements and misleading marketing.
In its press releases, IBM celebrates Memorial Sloan Kettering’s role as the only trainer of Watson. After all, who better to educate the system than doctors at one of the world’s most renowned cancer hospitals?
But several doctors said Memorial Sloan Kettering’s training injects bias into the system, because the treatment recommendations it puts into Watson don’t always comport with the practices of doctors elsewhere in the world.
Given the same clinical scenario, doctors can — and often do — disagree about the best course of action, whether to recommend surgery or chemotherapy, or another treatment. Those discrepancies are especially wide for second- and third-line treatments given after an initial therapy fails, where evidence of benefits is slimmer and consensus more elusive.
Rather than acknowledge this dilemma, IBM executives, in marketing materials and interviews, have sought to downplay it. In an interview with STAT, DiSanzo, the head of Watson Health, rejected the idea that Memorial Sloan Kettering’s involvement creates any bias at all.
“The bias is taken out by the sheer amount of data we have,” she said, referring to patient cases and millions of articles and studies fed into Watson.
But that mischaracterizes how Watson for Oncology works. (IBM later claimed that DiSanzo was referring to Watson in general.)
The system is essentially Memorial Sloan Kettering in a portable box. Its treatment recommendations are based entirely on the training provided by doctors, who determine what information Watson needs to devise its guidance as well as what those recommendations should be.
When users ask Watson for advice, the system also searches published literature — some of which is curated by Memorial Sloan Kettering — to provide relevant studies and background information to support its recommendation. But the recommendation itself is derived from the training provided by the hospital’s doctors, not the outside literature.
Doctors at Memorial Sloan Kettering acknowledged their influence on Watson. “We are not at all hesitant about inserting our bias, because I think our bias is based on the next best thing to prospective randomized trials, which is having a vast amount of experience,” said Dr. Andrew Seidman, one of the hospital’s lead trainers of Watson. “So it’s a very unapologetic bias.”
Seidman said the hospital is careful to keep its training grounded in clinical evidence when the evidence exists, but it is not shy about giving its recommendations when it doesn’t. “We want cancer care to be democratized,” he said. “We don’t want doctors who don’t have the thousands and thousands of patients’ experience on a more rare cancer to be handicapped. We want to share that knowledge base.”
At a recent training session of Watson on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, the tensions involved in programming the system were on full display. STAT sat in as Memorial Sloan Kettering doctors, led by Seidman, gathered with IBM engineers to train Watson to treat bladder cancer. Five IBM engineers sat on one side of the table. Across from them were three oncologists — one specializing in surgery, another in radiation, and a third in chemotherapy and targeted medicines.
Several minutes into the discussion, the question arose of which treatment to recommend for patients whose cancers persisted through six rounds of chemotherapy. The options in such cases tend to be as slim as the evidence supporting them. Should Watson recommend a radical surgery to remove the bladder? Dr. Tim Donahue, the surgical oncologist, noted that such surgery seldom cures patients and is not associated with improved survival in his experience.
Then what about another course of chemotherapy combined with radiation?
When Watson gives its recommendations, it puts the top recommendation in green, alternative options in orange, and not recommended options in red.
But in some clinical scenarios, it’s difficult to tell the colors apart.
“This is the hard part of this whole game,” Dr. Marisa Kollmeier, the radiation oncologist, said during the training. “There’s a lack of evidence. And you don’t know if something should be in green without evidence. We don’t have a randomized trial to support every decision.”
But the task in front of them required the doctors to press ahead. And they did, rifling through an array of clinical scenarios. In some cases, a large body of evidence backed up their answers. But many others fell into a gray area or were clouded by the inevitable uncertainty of patient preferences.
The meeting was one of many in a months-long process to bring Watson up to speed in bladder cancer. Subsequent sessions would involve feeding it data on real patient cases at Memorial Sloan Kettering, so doctors could reinforce Watson’s training with repetition.
That training does not teach Watson to base its recommendations on the outcomes of these patients, whether they lived, or died or survived longer than similar patients. Rather, Watson makes its recommendations based on the treatment preferences of Memorial Sloan Kettering physicians.
At some institutions using Watson, IBM’s lack of clarity on the cancer center’s role causes confusion. Some seem to think they are getting advice from doctors around the world.
“As we tell the patients, it’s like another consultation, but it’s a worldwide consultation,” said Dr. K. Adam Lee, medical director of thoracic oncology at Jupiter Medical Center, when STAT visited in June.
“Really worldwide,” added Kerri Ward, an oncology nurse at the hospital. “It pulls from 300 journals, just for oncology, the clinical database, so the national clinical database, journals, textbooks, and then Sloan Kettering is the one that’s feeding in the clinical [information] currently.”
Robert Garrett, the CEO of Hackensack Meridian Health, a group in New Jersey that is using a version of Watson for Oncology, said the information in Watson is “global.”
“If you’re a patient that has colon cancer, they have in their database, as I understand it, how colon cancer is treated around the world, by different clinicians, what’s been the most effective treatment for different phases of colon cancer,” Garrett said. “That’s what IBM Watson brings to the table.”
None of that accurately depicts how Watson for Oncology works.
Several doctors who have examined Watson in other countries told STAT that Memorial Sloan Kettering’s role has given them pause. Researchers in Denmark and the Netherlands said hospitals in their countries have not signed on with Watson because it is too focused on the preferences of a few American doctors.
Martijn van Oijen, an epidemiologist and associate professor at Academic Medical Center in the Netherlands, said Memorial Sloan Kettering is packed with top specialists but doesn’t have a monopoly on cancer expertise. “The bad thing is, it’s a U.S.-based hospital with a different approach than some other hospitals in the world,” said van Oijen, who’s involved in a national initiative to evaluate technologies like Watson and is a strong believer in using artificial intelligence to help cancer doctors.
In Denmark, oncologists at one hospital said they have dropped the project altogether after finding that local doctors agreed with Watson in only about 33 percent of cases.
“We had a discussion with [IBM] that they had a very limited view on the international literature, basically, putting too much stress on American studies, and too little stress on big, international, European, and other-part-of-the-world studies,” said Dr. Leif Jensen, who directs the center at Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen that contains the oncology department.
In countries where doctors were trained in the United States, or they use similar treatment guidelines as the Memorial Sloan Kettering doctors, Watson for Oncology can be helpful. Taiwan uses the same guidelines as Americans, so Watson’s advice will be useful there, said Dr. Jeng-Fong Chiou, vice superintendent of the Taipei Cancer Center at Taipei Medical University, which started using Watson for Oncology with patients in July.
But he also said there are differences between American and Taiwanese patients — his patients often receive lower doses of drugs to minimize side effects — and that his oncologists will have to make adjustments from Watson’s recommendations.
The generally affluent population treated at Memorial Sloan Kettering doesn’t reflect the diversity of people around the world. The cases used to train Watson therefore don’t take into account the economic and social issues faced by patients in poorer countries, noted Ossorio, the University of Wisconsin law professor.
“What it’s going to be learning is race, gender, and class bias,” she said. “We’re baking those social stratifications in, and we’re making the biases even less apparent and even less easy for people to recognize.”
Sometimes, the recommendations Watson gives diverge sharply from what doctors would say for reasons that have nothing to do with science, such as medical insurance. In a poster presented at the Global Breast Cancer Conference 2017 in South Korea, researchers reported that the treatment Watson most often recommended for breast cancer patients simply wasn’t covered by the national insurance system.
IBM said it has convened an international group of advisers to gather input on Watson’s performance. It also said that the system can be customized to reflect variations in treatment practices, differences in drug availability and financial considerations, and that the company recently introduced tools reduce the time and cost of adapting Watson.
In a response to STAT’s questions, Memorial Sloan Kettering said international journals are part of the literature it provides to Watson, including the Lancet, the European Journal of Cancer, Annals of Oncology, and the BMJ. “As we do in all areas of cancer research, we will continue to observe and study how Watson for Oncology impacts care internationally, follow the evidence, and work with IBM to optimize the system,” the hospital said.
Some hospitals abroad are customizing the system for their patients, adding information about local treatments. Nan Chen, who manages the Watson for Oncology program at Bumrungrad International Hospital in Thailand, said his oncologists use Japanese guidelines, not American guidelines, for treating gastric cancer.
But he said doctors can find this localization redundant or unnecessary: They are not that interested in being told the same guidance they just taught Watson.
“Our doctors say, this treatment is our own treatment, we know that,” Chen said. “You don’t need to turn around and put those treatments in Watson, and let Watson tell us what kind of treatment that we are using here in the hospital.”
Chen said this modified system is incredibly beneficial, however — to a hospital in the capital of Mongolia that employs zero oncology specialists.
At UB Songdo Hospital, of which Chen’s company is a majority owner, doctors are following Watson’s suggestions nearly 100 percent of the time. Patients who otherwise would have been treated by generalists with little, if any, cancer training are now benefiting from top-level expertise.
“That is the kind of thing that IBM is dreaming about,” Chen said.
In South Korea, Dr. Taewoo Kang, a surgical oncologist at Pusan National University Hospital who specializes in breast cancer, pointed to another important problem that Watson needs to solve. Right now, it provides supporting evidence for the recommendations it makes, but doesn’t actually explain how it came to recommend that particular treatment for that particular patient.
Kang said that, sometimes, he will ask Watson for advice on a patient whose cancer has not spread to the lymph nodes, and Watson will recommend a type of chemotherapy drug called a taxane. But, he said, that therapy is normally used only if the cancer has spread to the lymph nodes. And, to support the recommendation, Watson will show a study demonstrating the effectiveness of the taxane for patients whose cancer did spread to their lymph nodes.
Kang is left confused as to why Watson recommended a drug that he does not normally use for patients like the one in front of him. And Watson can’t tell him why.
For all the concerns, some doctors around the world who use Watson insist that artificial intelligence will one day revolutionize health care. They say that clinicians are realizing concrete benefits — saving doctors valuable time searching for studies, better educating patients, and undercutting hierarchies in the clinic that might interfere with evidence-based treatment.
In Taiwan, Chiou said Watson immediately provides the “best data” from the literature about a treatment — survival rates, for example — relieving doctors of the task of searching the literature to compare each possible treatment.
Watson’s information also empowers patients, said Lee, the doctor who runs the Watson program at Gil Medical Center in South Korea. Previously, doctors verbally explained different treatment options to patients. Now, physicians can give patients a comprehensive packet prepared by Watson, which includes potential treatment plans along with relevant scientific articles. Patients can do their own research about these treatments, and maybe even disagree with the doctor about the right course of action.
“This is one of the most important and significant changes,” Lee said.
Watson also holds senior doctors accountable to the data. At Gil Medical Center, patients sit in a room with five doctors and Watson itself, the interface displayed on a flat-screen television in the so-called “Watson center.” Lee said that Watson’s presence has a huge influence on the doctors’ decision-making process, leveling the hierarchy that traditionally prioritized the opinion of the senior doctor over junior colleagues.
Watson gives the junior physicians quick and easy access to data that might prove their elders wrong, displaying on the screen information such as the survival rate right alongside a recommended treatment. It would be humiliating for senior doctors to continue to push for a different treatment in light of this evidence, Lee said.
At Manipal Hospitals in India, Dr. S.P. Somashekhar said that while there are some regional disparities in Watson’s recommendations for patients with rectal and breast cancer, those cases are outliers: For the vast majority of patients, the program matched the recommendations given to patients by the hospital’s tumor board — a group of 20 physicians that typically study their cases for a week and spend an hour discussing them.
That means that in a handful of seconds, Watson did what it takes 20 doctors over a week to accomplish. “That is so precious and very highly valuable,” Somashekhar said. “Our physicians cannot discuss every case. For every case we discuss in the tumor board, there are five cases which we cannot discuss.”
While those benefits are significant, they fall short of breakthrough discoveries that could predict or eradicate disease.
IBM executives said that doesn’t mean Watson can’t accomplish those feats. Norden, the former deputy health officer for Watson for Oncology and Genomics, said the goal is to ultimately bring together streams of clinical trial data and real-world patient data, so that Watson could begin to pinpoint the best treatments on its own.
“My own belief is that over time we will be better at measuring and reporting outcomes, and that data will be increasingly influential,” he said. “Where cancer care is today, I don’t think that any computing system is ready to be let out into the world without a measure of expert human oversight.”
The bigger question for IBM is not whether health care will see a revolution in artificial intelligence but who will drive it.
One former IBM employee says the company could become a victim of its own marketing success — the unrealistic expectations it set are obscuring real accomplishments.
“IBM ought to quit trying to cure cancer,” said Peter Greulich, a former IBM brand manager who has written several books about IBM’s history and modern challenges. “They turned the marketing engine loose without controlling how to build and construct a product.”
Greulich said IBM needs to invest more money in Watson and hire more people to make it successful. In the 1960s, he said, IBM spent about 11.5 times its annual earnings to develop its mainframe computer, a line of business that still accounts for much of its profitability today.
If it were to make an equivalent investment in Watson, it would need to spend $137 billion. “The only thing it’s spent that much money on is stock buybacks,” Greulich said.
IBM said it created the market for artificial intelligence and is pleased with the pace of Watson’s growth, noting that it and other new business units grew by more than $20 billion in the past three years. “It took Facebook and Amazon more than 13 years to grow $20 billion,” the company said in a statement.
Since Watson’s “Jeopardy!” demonstration in 2011, hundreds of companies have begun developing health care products using artificial intelligence. These include countless startups, but IBM also faces stiff competition from industry titans such as Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and the Optum division of UnitedHealth Group.
Google’s DeepMind, for example, recently displayed its own game-playing prowess, using its AlphaGo program to defeat a world champion in Go, a 3,000-year-old Chinese board game.
DeepMind is working with hospitals in London, where it is learning to detect eye disease and speed up the process of targeting treatments for head and neck cancers, although it has run into privacy concerns.
Meanwhile, Amazon has launched a health care lab, where it is exploring opportunities to mine data from electronic health records and potentially build a virtual doctor’s assistant.
A recent report by the financial firm Jefferies said IBM is quickly losing ground to competitors. “IBM appears outgunned in the war for AI talent and will likely see increasing competition,” the firm concluded.
While not specific to Watson’s health care products, the report said potential clients are backing away from the system because of significant consulting costs associated with its implementation. It also noted that Amazon has 10 times the job listings of IBM, which recently didn’t renew a small number of contractors that worked for the company following its acquisition of Truven, a company it bought for $2.6 billion last year to gain access to 100 million patient records.
In its statement, IBM said that the workers’ contracts ended and that it is continuing to hire aggressively in the Cambridge, Mass.-based Watson Health and other units, with more than 5,000 positions open in the U.S.
But the outlook for Watson for Oncology is challenging, say those who have worked closest with it. Kris, the lead trainer at Memorial Sloan Kettering, said the system has the potential to improve care and ensure more patients get expert treatment. But like a medical student, Watson is just learning to perform in the real world.
“Nobody wants to hear this,” Kris said. “All they want to hear is that Watson is the answer. And it always has the right answer, and you get it right away, and it will be cheaper. But like anything else, it’s kind of human.”
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This story was originally published by STAT, an online publication of Boston Globe Media that covers health, medicine, and scientific discovery.
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FM","link":"/"}},"science_1992363":{"type":"posts","id":"science_1992363","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"science","id":"1992363","found":true},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"as-california-seeks-to-legalize-psychedelics-for-therapeutic-use-oregon-provides-key-lessons","title":"As California Seeks to Legalize Psychedelics for Therapy, Oregon Provides Key Lessons","publishDate":1712955643,"format":"standard","headTitle":"As California Seeks to Legalize Psychedelics for Therapy, Oregon Provides Key Lessons | KQED","labelTerm":{"site":"science"},"content":"\u003cp>California has an opportunity to massively expand places where people can use psychedelic drugs under supervision, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB1012\">new bill proposing to legalize substances\u003c/a> in approved service centers, including psilocybin, MDMA and mescaline for therapeutic use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a model similar to Oregon’s Psilocybin Services Act — the first law in the United States to establish a regulatory framework for receiving psilocybin, or psychedelic mushrooms — which went into effect in 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, as California lawmakers look to legalize the therapeutic use of psychedelics, uneven outcomes of that legal experiment in Oregon are surfacing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was billed by a lot of people as a solution to Oregon’s mental health problems, as a new option for mental health treatment,” said Mason Marks, a visiting professor of law at Harvard Law School who served on the advisory board for Oregon’s new psychedelics law. “Now, some years later, you have evidence to suggest the system is largely serving a psychedelic tourism of people flying in from out of state to pay very high prices.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If passed in California, \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB1012\">SB 1012\u003c/a> would create a professional licensing board to train facilitators, develop guidelines and regulate the therapeutic use of psychedelics. People could then use regulated psychedelic substances like magic mushrooms under the supervision of a facilitator.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill passed a critical and tense state committee hearing Monday afternoon. But only after lawmakers added an amendment that said facilitators must also hold at least one medical license, such as psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists, social workers and nurse practitioners.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California, the program would be overseen by a new department called the Division of Regulated Psychedelic Substances Control that would adopt rules over the coming years for the approved substances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We know psychedelic therapy saves lives, and safe and controlled access to these innovative treatments will be transformative for so many Californians seeking relief from mental health and addiction challenges,” San Francisco state Sen. Scott Wiener said upon announcing the bill. “When paired with therapeutic support, psychedelics show amazing promise for treating conditions that resist other forms of treatment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, Wiener pursued a different bill that would have broadly decriminalized personal use and possession of psychedelic substances. But Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed it and asked for a bill that focused on psychedelic therapy instead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"news_11974814,science_1982857,arts_13898354\"]“Both peer-reviewed science and powerful personal anecdotes lead me to support new opportunities to address mental health through psychedelic medicines like those addressed in this bill,” Newsom said in his veto message last year. “I urge the legislature to send me legislation next year that includes therapeutic guidelines.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01336-3\">Studies\u003c/a> have shown that MDMA-assisted therapy can help mitigate symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. Other \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8901083/\">studies\u003c/a> have also linked psilocybin as a tool for treating depression and LSD as an option for generalized anxiety disorder. However, a small portion of people have negative experiences using psychedelics, including anxiety, aggression and suicidal thoughts, particularly with recreational use outside of controlled studies where dosage is tightly controlled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The research literature points out the importance of a person’s mindset heading into a psychedelic experience, as well as their immediate environment, to preventing these negative outcomes, what Timothy Leary and his colleagues in the 1960s coined the “set and setting.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, clinical trials are underway at the Food and Drug Administration to approve several treatment courses with psychedelics, and an MDMA treatment course could be approved as early as August.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>A trip to the mushroom doctor\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For ages, psychedelic substances have been used across cultures and societies for healing and medicinal purposes, as well as for recreational use. And unlike daily medications or weekly counseling, treatment with psychedelics usually takes a day or two, typically followed by counseling, according to Jennifer Mitchell, the chief of staff for research at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs and professor of psychiatry at UCSF.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That different approach to treatment attracted Tobias Shea, a veteran who participated in one of Oregon’s programs in 2023 who was struggling with post-traumatic stress symptoms after two tours in Afghanistan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco)\"]‘We know psychedelic therapy saves lives, and safe and controlled access to these innovative treatments will be transformative for so many Californians seeking relief from mental health and addiction challenges.’[/pullquote]“I went through a big bout of depression in 2012 that I just couldn’t navigate,” he said. “I just suffered through it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before he went through with the therapy session in Oregon last fall, he had phone calls with a facilitator who asked him about his background and mental health to see if he would be a good candidate for the program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the day of his appointment, he arrived at the service center, which he described as a relaxed environment, similar to a massage parlor or spa. In a small, enclosed room, someone was assigned to give him the appropriate dosage. A different facilitator then entered the room, and the two went over his intentions for the session, which lasted seven hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For his first session, Shea said he sought to reflect on some of his experiences in the military and the grief he had struggled with following his father’s death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t want to sound cliche here when I say this, but it opened my mind again to the bigger picture of, like, not just being a soldier anymore and not being involved with the military,” he said. “It brought me back into what it means to be a human.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Setbacks in Oregon, teachings for California\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Shea’s success story comes alongside mixed perceptions about issues with Oregon’s program. It’s still in its infancy, so advocates say there’s still time for things to sort out. But already, the state had to bail out the program using tax dollars because it hadn’t made enough money from service fees and revenues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Educating and training new facilitators — who work directly with individuals with mental challenges and who could need emergency help — has also been a hurdle. Organizations like the Synthesis Institute, which trained people to deliver psilocybin therapy, promised to revolutionize psychedelic-assisted therapy in Oregon. However, the school abruptly closed down in 2023 after going bankrupt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“An issue there with Oregon that I think has come up is how well-trained the guides are and what they’re being used for,” said Mitchell of UCSF.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Marks, who served on the Oregon Psilocybin Advisory Board for a year, is also critical of how centers brand their services as “therapy” when, in fact, they are not yet FDA-approved. Instead of psychedelic-assisted therapy as it’s often branded, he said Oregon legalized “supported adult use of psilocybin” and points out that providers can’t diagnose medication conditions or make medical claims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s also proven to be unaffordable for many people who can’t pay out of pocket, reserving the new treatment approach for people who can pay for and travel to it. Several service centers have reported that the majority of their clients are \u003ca href=\"https://www.opb.org/article/2023/11/29/psilocybin-mushrooms-oregon-service-centers-price/\">visitors from out of state\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My estimation of the average cost of a psilocybin treatment course in Oregon is from about $1,500 to $3,500, and that’s for a single dose,” Marks said. “That obviously could get pretty expensive pretty quickly and is not affordable for a lot of people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sen. Wiener’s bill incorporates some of the critiques from Oregon’s model. It also creates a new public-private fund that will promote education and safety around psychedelic substances, as well as guardrails against conflicts of interest among officials crafting psychedelic laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the legislation, board members cannot have any immediate family with ownership or economic interest in any institution that’s engaged in psychedelic-assisted therapy education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As states roll out psilocybin decriminalization policies unevenly around the country, there’s increasingly room for inequitable opportunities and treatment outcomes, as well as drug enforcement challenges. But, believers say the inevitable kinks of the new policy will be worked out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Hindsight’s 2020, so we can use Oregon as the beta tester and say, ‘Oh, that didn’t work. Oh, that works really well,’” Mitchell said. “I want to laud them for trying it first.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"Following Gov. Gavin Newsom’s veto last year, lawmakers hope SB 1012 can finally regulate supervised use of psychedelics in California. ","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1713225945,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":32,"wordCount":1457},"headData":{"title":"As California Seeks to Legalize Psychedelics for Therapy, Oregon Provides Key Lessons | KQED","description":"Following Gov. Gavin Newsom’s veto last year, lawmakers hope SB 1012 can finally regulate supervised use of psychedelics in California. ","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":""},"sticky":false,"excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","articleAge":"0","path":"/science/1992363/as-california-seeks-to-legalize-psychedelics-for-therapeutic-use-oregon-provides-key-lessons","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>California has an opportunity to massively expand places where people can use psychedelic drugs under supervision, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB1012\">new bill proposing to legalize substances\u003c/a> in approved service centers, including psilocybin, MDMA and mescaline for therapeutic use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a model similar to Oregon’s Psilocybin Services Act — the first law in the United States to establish a regulatory framework for receiving psilocybin, or psychedelic mushrooms — which went into effect in 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, as California lawmakers look to legalize the therapeutic use of psychedelics, uneven outcomes of that legal experiment in Oregon are surfacing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was billed by a lot of people as a solution to Oregon’s mental health problems, as a new option for mental health treatment,” said Mason Marks, a visiting professor of law at Harvard Law School who served on the advisory board for Oregon’s new psychedelics law. “Now, some years later, you have evidence to suggest the system is largely serving a psychedelic tourism of people flying in from out of state to pay very high prices.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If passed in California, \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB1012\">SB 1012\u003c/a> would create a professional licensing board to train facilitators, develop guidelines and regulate the therapeutic use of psychedelics. People could then use regulated psychedelic substances like magic mushrooms under the supervision of a facilitator.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill passed a critical and tense state committee hearing Monday afternoon. But only after lawmakers added an amendment that said facilitators must also hold at least one medical license, such as psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists, social workers and nurse practitioners.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California, the program would be overseen by a new department called the Division of Regulated Psychedelic Substances Control that would adopt rules over the coming years for the approved substances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We know psychedelic therapy saves lives, and safe and controlled access to these innovative treatments will be transformative for so many Californians seeking relief from mental health and addiction challenges,” San Francisco state Sen. Scott Wiener said upon announcing the bill. “When paired with therapeutic support, psychedelics show amazing promise for treating conditions that resist other forms of treatment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, Wiener pursued a different bill that would have broadly decriminalized personal use and possession of psychedelic substances. But Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed it and asked for a bill that focused on psychedelic therapy instead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"label":"Related Stories ","postid":"news_11974814,science_1982857,arts_13898354"},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“Both peer-reviewed science and powerful personal anecdotes lead me to support new opportunities to address mental health through psychedelic medicines like those addressed in this bill,” Newsom said in his veto message last year. “I urge the legislature to send me legislation next year that includes therapeutic guidelines.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01336-3\">Studies\u003c/a> have shown that MDMA-assisted therapy can help mitigate symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. Other \u003ca href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8901083/\">studies\u003c/a> have also linked psilocybin as a tool for treating depression and LSD as an option for generalized anxiety disorder. However, a small portion of people have negative experiences using psychedelics, including anxiety, aggression and suicidal thoughts, particularly with recreational use outside of controlled studies where dosage is tightly controlled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The research literature points out the importance of a person’s mindset heading into a psychedelic experience, as well as their immediate environment, to preventing these negative outcomes, what Timothy Leary and his colleagues in the 1960s coined the “set and setting.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, clinical trials are underway at the Food and Drug Administration to approve several treatment courses with psychedelics, and an MDMA treatment course could be approved as early as August.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>A trip to the mushroom doctor\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For ages, psychedelic substances have been used across cultures and societies for healing and medicinal purposes, as well as for recreational use. And unlike daily medications or weekly counseling, treatment with psychedelics usually takes a day or two, typically followed by counseling, according to Jennifer Mitchell, the chief of staff for research at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs and professor of psychiatry at UCSF.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That different approach to treatment attracted Tobias Shea, a veteran who participated in one of Oregon’s programs in 2023 who was struggling with post-traumatic stress symptoms after two tours in Afghanistan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘We know psychedelic therapy saves lives, and safe and controlled access to these innovative treatments will be transformative for so many Californians seeking relief from mental health and addiction challenges.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"align":"right","size":"medium","citation":"State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco)","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“I went through a big bout of depression in 2012 that I just couldn’t navigate,” he said. “I just suffered through it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before he went through with the therapy session in Oregon last fall, he had phone calls with a facilitator who asked him about his background and mental health to see if he would be a good candidate for the program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the day of his appointment, he arrived at the service center, which he described as a relaxed environment, similar to a massage parlor or spa. In a small, enclosed room, someone was assigned to give him the appropriate dosage. A different facilitator then entered the room, and the two went over his intentions for the session, which lasted seven hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For his first session, Shea said he sought to reflect on some of his experiences in the military and the grief he had struggled with following his father’s death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t want to sound cliche here when I say this, but it opened my mind again to the bigger picture of, like, not just being a soldier anymore and not being involved with the military,” he said. “It brought me back into what it means to be a human.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Setbacks in Oregon, teachings for California\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Shea’s success story comes alongside mixed perceptions about issues with Oregon’s program. It’s still in its infancy, so advocates say there’s still time for things to sort out. But already, the state had to bail out the program using tax dollars because it hadn’t made enough money from service fees and revenues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Educating and training new facilitators — who work directly with individuals with mental challenges and who could need emergency help — has also been a hurdle. Organizations like the Synthesis Institute, which trained people to deliver psilocybin therapy, promised to revolutionize psychedelic-assisted therapy in Oregon. However, the school abruptly closed down in 2023 after going bankrupt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“An issue there with Oregon that I think has come up is how well-trained the guides are and what they’re being used for,” said Mitchell of UCSF.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Marks, who served on the Oregon Psilocybin Advisory Board for a year, is also critical of how centers brand their services as “therapy” when, in fact, they are not yet FDA-approved. Instead of psychedelic-assisted therapy as it’s often branded, he said Oregon legalized “supported adult use of psilocybin” and points out that providers can’t diagnose medication conditions or make medical claims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s also proven to be unaffordable for many people who can’t pay out of pocket, reserving the new treatment approach for people who can pay for and travel to it. Several service centers have reported that the majority of their clients are \u003ca href=\"https://www.opb.org/article/2023/11/29/psilocybin-mushrooms-oregon-service-centers-price/\">visitors from out of state\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My estimation of the average cost of a psilocybin treatment course in Oregon is from about $1,500 to $3,500, and that’s for a single dose,” Marks said. “That obviously could get pretty expensive pretty quickly and is not affordable for a lot of people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sen. Wiener’s bill incorporates some of the critiques from Oregon’s model. It also creates a new public-private fund that will promote education and safety around psychedelic substances, as well as guardrails against conflicts of interest among officials crafting psychedelic laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the legislation, board members cannot have any immediate family with ownership or economic interest in any institution that’s engaged in psychedelic-assisted therapy education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As states roll out psilocybin decriminalization policies unevenly around the country, there’s increasingly room for inequitable opportunities and treatment outcomes, as well as drug enforcement challenges. But, believers say the inevitable kinks of the new policy will be worked out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Hindsight’s 2020, so we can use Oregon as the beta tester and say, ‘Oh, that didn’t work. Oh, that works really well,’” Mitchell said. “I want to laud them for trying it first.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/science/1992363/as-california-seeks-to-legalize-psychedelics-for-therapeutic-use-oregon-provides-key-lessons","authors":["11840"],"categories":["science_39","science_3890","science_40","science_4450"],"tags":["science_4417","science_4414","science_4008","science_5269"],"featImg":"science_1992374","label":"science"},"science_1992380":{"type":"posts","id":"science_1992380","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"science","id":"1992380","found":true},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"watch-ferns-get-freaky","title":"Watch Ferns Get Freaky","publishDate":1713278865,"format":"video","headTitle":"Watch Ferns Get Freaky | KQED","labelTerm":{"term":1935,"site":"science"},"content":"\u003cp>[dl_subscribe]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Look at the underside of a fern leaf. Those rows of orange clusters aren’t tiny insects; they’re spores waiting to be catapulted away. Once a spore lands, it grows into a tiny plant, from which fern sperm swim away, searching for an egg to fertilize. Think of \u003cem>that \u003c/em>next time you’re hiking in the forest.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>TRANSCRIPT\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The undersides of ferns have many looks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But all these intricate structures do the same thing. They hold – and then launch – the fern’s spores.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Spores are the main way ferns make more ferns, but they’re not the eggs or sperm. Those come later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since before the dinosaurs roamed … and plants grew sex organs called flowers … ferns have been “doing it” through flying spores and swimming sperm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the spores mature, a fern leaf comes alive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Look how things are moving under there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Each of these clusters is called a sorus. And every worm-like thingy is a sporangium full of spores.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The sporangium has an outer ring filled with water. When it’s warm outside, that water starts to evaporate. The ring shrinks, making the sporangium crack open. The ring bends farther and farther back. The sporangium jerks forward … and catapults the spores out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A single fern launches millions of spores.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Each one grows into a gametophyte. But these pea-sized plants aren’t baby ferns. Where their fern parent was asexual, the gametophytes make eggs and sperm in specialized organs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yep, fern sperm. It’s a thing. Look at these little curlicues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the rains come, sperm swim away from the gametophyte that made them – a tiny puddle will do. They follow a trail of pheromones to find eggs stored in nearby gametophytes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When sperm meets egg, ta-da! A fern sprouts right out of its gametophyte mother, which it feeds on. Now, this is a baby fern. Finally. Awww.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ferns don’t need to wait around for some insect to help them with pollination.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They can go it alone, as long as there’s water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, next time you go on a walk through a damp forest, think of the ferns getting busy all around you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Happy Earth Month, everybody! Ferns aren’t the only ones that go it alone. Jellyfish can go through a “stack-of-pancakes” phase to clone themselves. You gotta see it to believe it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All this month PBS is dropping new videos celebrating our amazing planet, like this episode of “Reactions,” which takes a deep look at geoengineering one of the deepest places on Earth: the ocean. Links to that video and the full Earth Month playlist in the description.\u003c/p>\n\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"Look at the underside of a fern leaf. Those rows of orange clusters aren’t tiny insects; they’re spores waiting to be catapulted away. Once a spore lands, it grows into a tiny plant, from which fern sperm swim away, searching for an egg to fertilize. Think of that next time you’re hiking in the forest.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1713278825,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":22,"wordCount":464},"headData":{"title":"Watch Ferns Get Freaky | KQED","description":"Look at the underside of a fern leaf. Those rows of orange clusters aren’t tiny insects; they’re spores waiting to be catapulted away. Once a spore lands, it grows into a tiny plant, from which fern sperm swim away, searching for an egg to fertilize. Think of that next time you’re hiking in the forest.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":""},"videoEmbed":"https://youtu.be/waMtqP1U6-8?si=8yWsnVaJGVmm6hPy","sticky":false,"excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","articleAge":"0","path":"/science/1992380/watch-ferns-get-freaky","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"dl_subscribe","attributes":{"named":{"label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Look at the underside of a fern leaf. Those rows of orange clusters aren’t tiny insects; they’re spores waiting to be catapulted away. Once a spore lands, it grows into a tiny plant, from which fern sperm swim away, searching for an egg to fertilize. Think of \u003cem>that \u003c/em>next time you’re hiking in the forest.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>TRANSCRIPT\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The undersides of ferns have many looks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But all these intricate structures do the same thing. They hold – and then launch – the fern’s spores.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Spores are the main way ferns make more ferns, but they’re not the eggs or sperm. Those come later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since before the dinosaurs roamed … and plants grew sex organs called flowers … ferns have been “doing it” through flying spores and swimming sperm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the spores mature, a fern leaf comes alive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Look how things are moving under there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Each of these clusters is called a sorus. And every worm-like thingy is a sporangium full of spores.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The sporangium has an outer ring filled with water. When it’s warm outside, that water starts to evaporate. The ring shrinks, making the sporangium crack open. The ring bends farther and farther back. The sporangium jerks forward … and catapults the spores out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A single fern launches millions of spores.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Each one grows into a gametophyte. But these pea-sized plants aren’t baby ferns. Where their fern parent was asexual, the gametophytes make eggs and sperm in specialized organs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yep, fern sperm. It’s a thing. Look at these little curlicues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the rains come, sperm swim away from the gametophyte that made them – a tiny puddle will do. They follow a trail of pheromones to find eggs stored in nearby gametophytes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When sperm meets egg, ta-da! A fern sprouts right out of its gametophyte mother, which it feeds on. Now, this is a baby fern. Finally. Awww.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ferns don’t need to wait around for some insect to help them with pollination.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They can go it alone, as long as there’s water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, next time you go on a walk through a damp forest, think of the ferns getting busy all around you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Happy Earth Month, everybody! Ferns aren’t the only ones that go it alone. Jellyfish can go through a “stack-of-pancakes” phase to clone themselves. You gotta see it to believe it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All this month PBS is dropping new videos celebrating our amazing planet, like this episode of “Reactions,” which takes a deep look at geoengineering one of the deepest places on Earth: the ocean. Links to that video and the full Earth Month playlist in the description.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/science/1992380/watch-ferns-get-freaky","authors":["6186"],"series":["science_1935"],"categories":["science_30","science_40","science_4450","science_86"],"tags":["science_1970","science_4414","science_1097"],"featImg":"science_1992383","label":"science_1935"},"science_1992309":{"type":"posts","id":"science_1992309","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"science","id":"1992309","found":true},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"californias-commercial-salmon-season-is-closed-again-this-year","title":"California’s Commercial Salmon Season Is Closed Again This Year","publishDate":1712801467,"format":"standard","headTitle":"California’s Commercial Salmon Season Is Closed Again This Year | KQED","labelTerm":{},"content":"\u003cp>Not enough salmon will swim up the state’s rivers to spawn this year to make a commercial salmon season viable, the Pacific Fishery Management Council announced late Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“The number of fish that could be available for harvest was so small there was risk that we wouldn’t be able to conduct a fishery and stay within our limitations,” Robin Ehlke, a staff officer with the Salmon and Pacific Halibut Pacific Fishery Management Council, told KQED. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Matt Juanes, Bay Area fisher\"]‘I’d rather see the fish go back up the river.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is the second year in a row that the council voted to close the season, which hundreds of commercial fishers and tribes rely on for their livelihoods and food supplies. This year’s scarcity of Chinook salmon is tied to California’s last drought. The fish have a three-year lifecycle, so the returning fish were born when there wasn’t enough water to thrive. The issues threatening the species extend well beyond the recent dry years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We hope the decision gives the benefit to the fish so they can rebuild themselves and be available for fisheries in future years,” Ehlke said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s water management decisions have played a significant role in the species’ decline over the years — cutting off the fish from spawning grounds and decreasing the cold water the salmon need.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1984149/as-klamath-dams-come-down-a-once-in-a-generation-river-restoration-begins\">State leaders unveiled a blueprint to boost salmon populations\u003c/a> in January, including tearing down dams that block salmon from spawning grounds and restoring some river flows. However, scientists and environmental groups argue that the pace of the work is too slow and that some salmon runs may not exist by the time the state completes the projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘It comes down to water’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The closing of the salmon season will force Matt Juanes, who docks his green and white 36-foot-long boat, Plumeria, at San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf, to diversify his income this year. Juanes said he will likely lose nearly half his income. “This year is going to be very difficult,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1992315\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/2024/04/10/californias-commercial-salmon-season-is-closed-again-this-year/230607-salmon-closures-02-ks_qut-2/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1992315\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1992315 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/04/230607-salmon-closures-02-ks_qut-1.jpg\" alt=\"A man dressed in black jacket and a black beanie stands on a boat surrounded by orange and white boating supplies. The sky behind him is purple and pink\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1277\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/04/230607-salmon-closures-02-ks_qut-1.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/04/230607-salmon-closures-02-ks_qut-1-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/04/230607-salmon-closures-02-ks_qut-1-1020x678.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/04/230607-salmon-closures-02-ks_qut-1-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/04/230607-salmon-closures-02-ks_qut-1-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/04/230607-salmon-closures-02-ks_qut-1-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Commercial salmon fisher Matt Juanes prepares to set sail at Pier 47 in San Francisco on June 7, 2023. With California’s salmon season shut down this year, Juanes is pivoting to fish for crab and using his boat to charter tourists. (Kori Suzuki/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He’s fished salmon for six years, and the numbers seem to dwindle each season, he said. The closure of the fishery was a gut punch, but he agreed that it was a necessary step for the species to rebound.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’d rather see the fish go back up the river,” he said. “It comes down to water. If it had rained, we probably wouldn’t be in this predicament.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Drought isn’t the only factor contributing to the demise of California’s salmon.[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Robert Lusardi, UC Davis wetlands professor\"]‘That’s a beacon of hope for the future, but it has to happen at a faster rate. We need these habitats like yesterday.’[/pullquote]Also to blame is a \u003ca href=\"https://oehha.ca.gov/climate-change/epic-2022/impacts-vegetation-and-wildlife/chinook-salmon-abundance#:~:text=California%20Chinook%20salmon%20populations%20are,dramatically%20declined%20in%20recent%20years.\">warming and acidifying ocean\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1992122/toxic-dust-threatens-california-salmon-population-lawmaker-seeks-solution\">toxic dust from tires that kills the fish in hours\u003c/a>, dams blocking migration paths, managers diverting water flows for storage and climate-fueled storms complicating river systems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With all these challenges, \u003ca href=\"https://caltrout.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/SOS-II-Fish-in-Hot-Water-Report.pdf\">the state could lose nearly half of its native salmon and trout species\u003c/a> within 50 years, according to a study co-authored by UC Davis professor Robert Lusardi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lusardi, who studies freshwater ecology and wetlands, said the closure of the salmon season is a direct result of humans’ alteration of the salmon habitat. Nearly 2 million salmon historically swam up rivers within the Central Valley. This year, Lusardi expects just over 200,000 to spawn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we have left are small populations that I would argue are not diverse, which means they are incapable of acclimating to changing environments,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘We need these habitats like yesterday’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In January, \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2024/01/30/governor-newsom-launches-californias-salmon-strategy-for-a-hotter-drier-future/\">Gov. Gavin Newsom outlined his administration’s strategy to restore salmon populations\u003c/a> “amidst hotter and drier weather exacerbated by climate change.” The sprawling plan includes improving salmon migration pathways, tearing down dams that block fish from spawning, updating hatcheries and restoring flows in some waterways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California — alongside environmental groups, tribes and scientists — has started to restore floodplains where juvenile fish can grow into what conservationists call “\u003ca href=\"https://www.capradio.org/articles/2018/01/23/a-floating-fillet-rice-farmers-grow-bugs-to-help-restore-californias-salmon/\">floodplain fatties\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.capradio.org/articles/2018/01/23/a-floating-fillet-rice-farmers-grow-bugs-to-help-restore-californias-salmon/\">,\u003c/a>” a nickname for the well-fed salmon that feed off bugs in flooded areas. The state is \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1984149/as-klamath-dams-come-down-a-once-in-a-generation-river-restoration-begins\">removing four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River partly so fish have more room to spawn\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s a beacon of hope for the future, but it has to happen at a faster rate,” Lusardi said. “We need these habitats like yesterday.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State scientists, including Colin Purdy, environmental program manager for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, are tasked with implementing the governor’s plan. They have a considerable feat ahead of them. While some of the actions outlined in the state’s new blueprint are already underway, Purdy said changing how fisheries operate “takes years of doing pilot studies to flesh out the details” before hatchery managers can reintroduce the fish into habitats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The sooner we can get started on that stuff, the better,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Golden State Salmon Association and other groups critiqued the governor’s plan. They argue that while it has some suitable components, California is also pursuing projects — a new reservoir and a 45-mile water tunnel beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to divert more water south — that could decrease the amount of cold water in rivers where salmon need to live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re being distracted by this smoke and mirrors scenario,” said Scott Artis, the association’s executive director. “If we don’t address the water diversions, we’re going to continue to see salmon numbers decline, and we’re going to continue to be in a situation where there are closures.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"Fishery managers announced a closure of the state’s commercial salmon fishing season for the second year in a row due to low fish populations.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1712857008,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":23,"wordCount":1066},"headData":{"title":"California’s Commercial Salmon Season Is Closed Again This Year | KQED","description":"Fishery managers announced a closure of the state’s commercial salmon fishing season for the second year in a row due to low fish populations.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":""},"source":"Salmon","sticky":false,"excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","articleAge":"0","path":"/science/1992309/californias-commercial-salmon-season-is-closed-again-this-year","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Not enough salmon will swim up the state’s rivers to spawn this year to make a commercial salmon season viable, the Pacific Fishery Management Council announced late Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“The number of fish that could be available for harvest was so small there was risk that we wouldn’t be able to conduct a fishery and stay within our limitations,” Robin Ehlke, a staff officer with the Salmon and Pacific Halibut Pacific Fishery Management Council, told KQED. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘I’d rather see the fish go back up the river.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"size":"medium","align":"right","citation":"Matt Juanes, Bay Area fisher","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is the second year in a row that the council voted to close the season, which hundreds of commercial fishers and tribes rely on for their livelihoods and food supplies. This year’s scarcity of Chinook salmon is tied to California’s last drought. The fish have a three-year lifecycle, so the returning fish were born when there wasn’t enough water to thrive. The issues threatening the species extend well beyond the recent dry years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We hope the decision gives the benefit to the fish so they can rebuild themselves and be available for fisheries in future years,” Ehlke said.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s water management decisions have played a significant role in the species’ decline over the years — cutting off the fish from spawning grounds and decreasing the cold water the salmon need.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1984149/as-klamath-dams-come-down-a-once-in-a-generation-river-restoration-begins\">State leaders unveiled a blueprint to boost salmon populations\u003c/a> in January, including tearing down dams that block salmon from spawning grounds and restoring some river flows. However, scientists and environmental groups argue that the pace of the work is too slow and that some salmon runs may not exist by the time the state completes the projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘It comes down to water’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The closing of the salmon season will force Matt Juanes, who docks his green and white 36-foot-long boat, Plumeria, at San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf, to diversify his income this year. Juanes said he will likely lose nearly half his income. “This year is going to be very difficult,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1992315\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/2024/04/10/californias-commercial-salmon-season-is-closed-again-this-year/230607-salmon-closures-02-ks_qut-2/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1992315\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1992315 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/04/230607-salmon-closures-02-ks_qut-1.jpg\" alt=\"A man dressed in black jacket and a black beanie stands on a boat surrounded by orange and white boating supplies. The sky behind him is purple and pink\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1277\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/04/230607-salmon-closures-02-ks_qut-1.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/04/230607-salmon-closures-02-ks_qut-1-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/04/230607-salmon-closures-02-ks_qut-1-1020x678.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/04/230607-salmon-closures-02-ks_qut-1-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/04/230607-salmon-closures-02-ks_qut-1-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/04/230607-salmon-closures-02-ks_qut-1-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Commercial salmon fisher Matt Juanes prepares to set sail at Pier 47 in San Francisco on June 7, 2023. With California’s salmon season shut down this year, Juanes is pivoting to fish for crab and using his boat to charter tourists. (Kori Suzuki/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He’s fished salmon for six years, and the numbers seem to dwindle each season, he said. The closure of the fishery was a gut punch, but he agreed that it was a necessary step for the species to rebound.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’d rather see the fish go back up the river,” he said. “It comes down to water. If it had rained, we probably wouldn’t be in this predicament.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Drought isn’t the only factor contributing to the demise of California’s salmon.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘That’s a beacon of hope for the future, but it has to happen at a faster rate. We need these habitats like yesterday.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"size":"medium","align":"right","citation":"Robert Lusardi, UC Davis wetlands professor","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Also to blame is a \u003ca href=\"https://oehha.ca.gov/climate-change/epic-2022/impacts-vegetation-and-wildlife/chinook-salmon-abundance#:~:text=California%20Chinook%20salmon%20populations%20are,dramatically%20declined%20in%20recent%20years.\">warming and acidifying ocean\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1992122/toxic-dust-threatens-california-salmon-population-lawmaker-seeks-solution\">toxic dust from tires that kills the fish in hours\u003c/a>, dams blocking migration paths, managers diverting water flows for storage and climate-fueled storms complicating river systems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With all these challenges, \u003ca href=\"https://caltrout.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/SOS-II-Fish-in-Hot-Water-Report.pdf\">the state could lose nearly half of its native salmon and trout species\u003c/a> within 50 years, according to a study co-authored by UC Davis professor Robert Lusardi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lusardi, who studies freshwater ecology and wetlands, said the closure of the salmon season is a direct result of humans’ alteration of the salmon habitat. Nearly 2 million salmon historically swam up rivers within the Central Valley. This year, Lusardi expects just over 200,000 to spawn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we have left are small populations that I would argue are not diverse, which means they are incapable of acclimating to changing environments,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘We need these habitats like yesterday’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In January, \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2024/01/30/governor-newsom-launches-californias-salmon-strategy-for-a-hotter-drier-future/\">Gov. Gavin Newsom outlined his administration’s strategy to restore salmon populations\u003c/a> “amidst hotter and drier weather exacerbated by climate change.” The sprawling plan includes improving salmon migration pathways, tearing down dams that block fish from spawning, updating hatcheries and restoring flows in some waterways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California — alongside environmental groups, tribes and scientists — has started to restore floodplains where juvenile fish can grow into what conservationists call “\u003ca href=\"https://www.capradio.org/articles/2018/01/23/a-floating-fillet-rice-farmers-grow-bugs-to-help-restore-californias-salmon/\">floodplain fatties\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.capradio.org/articles/2018/01/23/a-floating-fillet-rice-farmers-grow-bugs-to-help-restore-californias-salmon/\">,\u003c/a>” a nickname for the well-fed salmon that feed off bugs in flooded areas. The state is \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1984149/as-klamath-dams-come-down-a-once-in-a-generation-river-restoration-begins\">removing four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River partly so fish have more room to spawn\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s a beacon of hope for the future, but it has to happen at a faster rate,” Lusardi said. “We need these habitats like yesterday.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State scientists, including Colin Purdy, environmental program manager for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, are tasked with implementing the governor’s plan. They have a considerable feat ahead of them. While some of the actions outlined in the state’s new blueprint are already underway, Purdy said changing how fisheries operate “takes years of doing pilot studies to flesh out the details” before hatchery managers can reintroduce the fish into habitats.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The sooner we can get started on that stuff, the better,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Golden State Salmon Association and other groups critiqued the governor’s plan. They argue that while it has some suitable components, California is also pursuing projects — a new reservoir and a 45-mile water tunnel beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to divert more water south — that could decrease the amount of cold water in rivers where salmon need to live.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re being distracted by this smoke and mirrors scenario,” said Scott Artis, the association’s executive director. “If we don’t address the water diversions, we’re going to continue to see salmon numbers decline, and we’re going to continue to be in a situation where there are closures.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/science/1992309/californias-commercial-salmon-season-is-closed-again-this-year","authors":["11746"],"categories":["science_2874","science_31","science_35","science_36","science_4550","science_40","science_2873","science_4450","science_98"],"tags":["science_572","science_4417","science_4414","science_804"],"featImg":"science_1992343","label":"source_science_1992309"},"science_1992401":{"type":"posts","id":"science_1992401","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"science","id":"1992401","found":true},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"homeowners-insurance-market-stretched-even-thinner-as-2-more-companies-leave-california","title":"Homeowners Insurance Market Stretched Even Thinner as 2 More Companies Leave California","publishDate":1713481250,"format":"standard","headTitle":"Homeowners Insurance Market Stretched Even Thinner as 2 More Companies Leave California | KQED","labelTerm":{"site":"science"},"content":"\u003cp>Two additional insurance companies are pulling out of California. Tokio Marine America Insurance Co. and Trans Pacific Insurance Co., will not renew their customers’ home insurance policies, the California Department of Insurance confirmed to KQED in an email. The companies will begin mailing customers nonrenewal notices this summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Compared with some high-profile departures, these companies are relatively small, together insuring around 12,000 homeowners. “Given the companies’ minimal market share, we do not expect this to affect the California market as consumers have other options,” Jazmín Ortega, deputy press secretary for the state’s insurance department, wrote to KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, their departure could worsen the insurance availability crisis at a time when more than 90% of companies within the admitted California insurance market are either not offering new property insurance or have heavy restrictions. Even among the companies listed in the California Department of Insurance’s \u003ca href=\"https://interactive.web.insurance.ca.gov/apex_extprd/f?p=400:50\">Home Insurance Finder tool\u003c/a>, the majority — about 70% — are not currently offering new plans, according to data gathered by the Susman Insurance Agency and shared with KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The companies did not specify their reasons for withdrawal in filings made with the state’s Department of Insurance as opposed to some like State Farm and Allstate which have explicitly cited wildfire risk. Both are subsidiaries of Tokio Marine Holdings, Inc., a Japanese company, and plan to get out of both the homeowners and personal umbrella insurance markets. The fact that they’re not renewing personal liability insurance as well may indicate their interest is to leave California entirely, as opposed to rebalancing their risk exposure before wading back into the market.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is bad timing,” said broker and insurance expert Karl Susman. “Because there’s no place for [customers] to go other than the FAIR Plan that is already bloated and overexposed based on what they’re designed for and what they’re financed for.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The FAIR Plan is California’s insurer of last resort, where customers can buy a policy when no other company will offer coverage. It’s expensive insurance and the policies are generally pretty lousy. Its ranks have also swelled enormously in the last few years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The FAIR Plan is getting a thousand applications per 24 hours, which is outrageous to even conceive of,” Susman said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"news_11980757,science_1985175,news_11981609\"]The FAIR Plan has more than $300 billion of assets they’re insuring, about \u003ca href=\"https://www.cfpnet.com/key-statistics-data/\">three times more than it did four years ago\u003c/a>. It has a tiny fraction of that saved in the bank, so in the event of a large-scale disaster it could become insolvent which would have \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1985175/insurance-in-california-is-changing-heres-how-it-may-affect-you\">catastrophic ripple effects\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The timing of the latest insurance company departure is also bad and, to some observers, confusing because the state is in the midst of a large overhaul of insurance regulations that are projected to ease conditions on insurance companies. The state’s insurance department is leading the effort and dubbed it the \u003ca href=\"https://www.insurance.ca.gov/01-consumers/180-climate-change/SustainableInsuranceStrategy.cfm\">Sustainable Insurance Strategy\u003c/a>. The proposed changes, many of which are desired by the insurance industry, are halfway rolled out with more being announced soon, and will go into effect at the end of the year. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.insurance.ca.gov/0250-insurers/0500-legal-info/0300-workshop-insurers/upload/Catastrophe-Modeling-and-Ratemaking-Invitation-to-Workshop.pdf\">next hearing\u003c/a>, on April 23, will consider catastrophe modeling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We literally are at the tail end of all of this [instability] before the carriers have the ability to underwrite, price, discount and do all of those things, and are able to come back and start competing again,” said Susman.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"Tokio Marine America Insurance Co. and Trans Pacific Insurance Co. together insure around 12,000 homeowners, worsening California's insurance availability crisis.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1713487105,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":12,"wordCount":604},"headData":{"title":"Homeowners Insurance Market Stretched Even Thinner as 2 More Companies Leave California | KQED","description":"Tokio Marine America Insurance Co. and Trans Pacific Insurance Co. together insure around 12,000 homeowners, worsening California's insurance availability crisis.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":""},"sticky":false,"excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","articleAge":"0","path":"/science/1992401/homeowners-insurance-market-stretched-even-thinner-as-2-more-companies-leave-california","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Two additional insurance companies are pulling out of California. Tokio Marine America Insurance Co. and Trans Pacific Insurance Co., will not renew their customers’ home insurance policies, the California Department of Insurance confirmed to KQED in an email. The companies will begin mailing customers nonrenewal notices this summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Compared with some high-profile departures, these companies are relatively small, together insuring around 12,000 homeowners. “Given the companies’ minimal market share, we do not expect this to affect the California market as consumers have other options,” Jazmín Ortega, deputy press secretary for the state’s insurance department, wrote to KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, their departure could worsen the insurance availability crisis at a time when more than 90% of companies within the admitted California insurance market are either not offering new property insurance or have heavy restrictions. Even among the companies listed in the California Department of Insurance’s \u003ca href=\"https://interactive.web.insurance.ca.gov/apex_extprd/f?p=400:50\">Home Insurance Finder tool\u003c/a>, the majority — about 70% — are not currently offering new plans, according to data gathered by the Susman Insurance Agency and shared with KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The companies did not specify their reasons for withdrawal in filings made with the state’s Department of Insurance as opposed to some like State Farm and Allstate which have explicitly cited wildfire risk. Both are subsidiaries of Tokio Marine Holdings, Inc., a Japanese company, and plan to get out of both the homeowners and personal umbrella insurance markets. The fact that they’re not renewing personal liability insurance as well may indicate their interest is to leave California entirely, as opposed to rebalancing their risk exposure before wading back into the market.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is bad timing,” said broker and insurance expert Karl Susman. “Because there’s no place for [customers] to go other than the FAIR Plan that is already bloated and overexposed based on what they’re designed for and what they’re financed for.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The FAIR Plan is California’s insurer of last resort, where customers can buy a policy when no other company will offer coverage. It’s expensive insurance and the policies are generally pretty lousy. Its ranks have also swelled enormously in the last few years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The FAIR Plan is getting a thousand applications per 24 hours, which is outrageous to even conceive of,” Susman said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"label":"Related Stories ","postid":"news_11980757,science_1985175,news_11981609"},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The FAIR Plan has more than $300 billion of assets they’re insuring, about \u003ca href=\"https://www.cfpnet.com/key-statistics-data/\">three times more than it did four years ago\u003c/a>. It has a tiny fraction of that saved in the bank, so in the event of a large-scale disaster it could become insolvent which would have \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1985175/insurance-in-california-is-changing-heres-how-it-may-affect-you\">catastrophic ripple effects\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The timing of the latest insurance company departure is also bad and, to some observers, confusing because the state is in the midst of a large overhaul of insurance regulations that are projected to ease conditions on insurance companies. The state’s insurance department is leading the effort and dubbed it the \u003ca href=\"https://www.insurance.ca.gov/01-consumers/180-climate-change/SustainableInsuranceStrategy.cfm\">Sustainable Insurance Strategy\u003c/a>. The proposed changes, many of which are desired by the insurance industry, are halfway rolled out with more being announced soon, and will go into effect at the end of the year. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.insurance.ca.gov/0250-insurers/0500-legal-info/0300-workshop-insurers/upload/Catastrophe-Modeling-and-Ratemaking-Invitation-to-Workshop.pdf\">next hearing\u003c/a>, on April 23, will consider catastrophe modeling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We literally are at the tail end of all of this [instability] before the carriers have the ability to underwrite, price, discount and do all of those things, and are able to come back and start competing again,” said Susman.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/science/1992401/homeowners-insurance-market-stretched-even-thinner-as-2-more-companies-leave-california","authors":["11088"],"categories":["science_31","science_35","science_40","science_4450","science_3730"],"tags":["science_5275","science_5274","science_3779"],"featImg":"science_1992411","label":"science"},"science_1991791":{"type":"posts","id":"science_1991791","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"science","id":"1991791","found":true},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"hoping-for-a-2024-super-bloom-where-to-see-wildflowers-in-the-bay-area","title":"Hoping for a 2024 'Super Bloom'? Where to See Wildflowers in the Bay Area","publishDate":1710154846,"format":"image","headTitle":"Hoping for a 2024 ‘Super Bloom’? Where to See Wildflowers in the Bay Area | KQED","labelTerm":{"site":"science"},"content":"\u003cp>Spring is almost here. And with over 8,000 species of plants in California — more than half of them native to the state — it’s going to be an exciting place to experience the burst of colors from thousands of species of wildflowers the region has to offer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID='science_1981882,news_11733926,science_1982256' label='More guides from kqed']California’s biodiversity is thanks to our unique Mediterranean climate, geology, and geography. With a crescent of mountains, California is geographically isolated from the rest of North America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have the Cascade Mountains up in the north, the Sierra running along the east, and the transverse range in the south. And then, of course, bound by the ocean on the west,” said Lewis Reed, rangeland ecologist and botanist at Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This geographic isolation, Reed explained, essentially limits the dispersal of organisms and, more importantly, gene flow between related organisms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This means that over evolutionary history, we’ve ended up with a lot of unique things in California that are different than their ancestors elsewhere in North America,” Reed said, referring to the thousands of species of native plants in the state, including wildflowers.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Will we get a 2024 ‘super bloom’?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In 2023, nature lovers were thrilled by \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/outdoors/article/california-super-blooms-satellite-images-17891517.php\">images of Southern California’s “super blooms” visible from space\u003c/a>. But “super bloom” is not actually a scientific term, as Cameron Barrows, conservation ecologist at the Center for Conservation Biology at UC Riverside, told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, it’s used — mainly by the media — to describe incredible and uncommon bloom events, when many different species of wildflowers bloom at the same time. “There might be anywhere [between] 50 to 100 different species in bloom during a super bloom event,” Barrows said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While it’s still too early to tell if the Bay Area will be blessed in 2024 with \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1981882/where-to-see-wildflowers-near-you-in-the-bay-area-plus-the-science-behind-the-super-bloom\">the same amount of beautiful blooms we had in previous years\u003c/a>, the amount of rain and how that rain is distributed relative to temperatures are factors to consider when forecasting the intensity of wildflower blooms, Reed said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1984535\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1984535\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/10/04262023_ksuzuki_warmweather-103-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Purple wildflowers blossom.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1277\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/10/04262023_ksuzuki_warmweather-103-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/10/04262023_ksuzuki_warmweather-103-qut-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/10/04262023_ksuzuki_warmweather-103-qut-1020x678.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/10/04262023_ksuzuki_warmweather-103-qut-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/10/04262023_ksuzuki_warmweather-103-qut-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/10/04262023_ksuzuki_warmweather-103-qut-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Stems of purple lupine blossom along Grizzly Peak Boulevard in Berkeley on April 26, 2023. \u003ccite>(Kori Suzuki/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>One way to look for signs of a big bloom is to go out early in the season once flowers start to germinate. \u003ca href=\"https://calscape.org/loc-California/Lupine%20(all)/vw-list/np-0\">Lupines,\u003c/a> a common wildflower in our region, for example, have very distinctive leaves that develop as the plant grows and are easy to recognize.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you learn your habitat of the areas that you’d like to explore and learn what to look for, you can get some hints well before those plants are going to bloom,” Reed said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.openspace.org/stories/plants-not-seen-over-century-found-coastal-preserves\">Reed recently discovered a clustered tarweed (Deinandra fasciculata)\u003c/a> in the Peninsula — a yellow-flowered plant not seen in San Mateo County for over a century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s one of the neat things about living and working in our area,” Reed said. “There’s always discovery to be made. It’s never the same from year to year.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Where and when can you see blooms in the Bay Area?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When you’re heading out to enjoy the sight of these wildflower blooms, remember to respect the environment by staying on marked paths. Avoid picking any flowers or trampling on them — even accidentally. And remember to pack out anything you pack in on the trail.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want to encourage folks to feel welcome, and to come out to the preserve to see this beautiful gift of biodiversity that we have,” said Ryan McCauley, public affairs specialist at Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District. “But we also really want to encourage folks to be respectful.“\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McCauley also encouraged people to try to avoid visiting a bloom at peak times — like on the weekends. This way, you’ll be able to enjoy observing the different species of wildflowers without the large crowds, which could also raise the risk of accidentally stepping on the bright flowers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981883\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2121px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1981883\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/03/GettyImages-1141101456.jpg\" alt=\"Yellow and white wildflower blooms seen in a meadow.\" width=\"2121\" height=\"1414\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/03/GettyImages-1141101456.jpg 2121w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/03/GettyImages-1141101456-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/03/GettyImages-1141101456-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/03/GettyImages-1141101456-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/03/GettyImages-1141101456-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/03/GettyImages-1141101456-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/03/GettyImages-1141101456-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/03/GettyImages-1141101456-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2121px) 100vw, 2121px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">California poppy (Eschscholzia californica) and various other wildflowers blooming in a meadow in San José. \u003ccite>(Sundry Photography/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>While out enjoying the wildflower blooms, Reed said visitors should slow down. “We’re sometimes really eager to get out and find the big showy, super bloom,” he said, but you’ll see there’s so much going on around us if you’re able to slow down and look closely. “I think almost anyone who does that will find it to be rewarding.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some parks require advanced booking for tickets, so be sure to visit the park’s website to get the most updated information. For safety purposes, stay informed about park closures and weather conditions. For those with allergies, don’t forget to bring medicine and take preventative measures before you leave home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can share your \u003ca href=\"https://www.inaturalist.org/\">sightings on the iNaturalist app\u003c/a>. This data will help experts in the field of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1981882/where-to-see-wildflowers-near-you-in-the-bay-area-plus-the-science-behind-the-super-bloom#phenology\">phenology\u003c/a> to track invasive species or animals in places where they weren’t seen before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of the spots listed below will bloom during the spring and summer months, and the number of flowers that actually bloom will vary every year, depending on how much rain and dry weather we get. So, if you can’t make it out into nature soon, don’t worry: You’ve got time to spot some beautiful blooms over the next months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Wildflower guided tours and events:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ebparks.org/calendar/month?terms=wildflower\">Wildflower events at East Bay Regional Parks\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=30077\">Spring flower bloom updates by California State Parks\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.cnps-scv.org/events/wildflower-shows\">Wildflower shows at California Native Plant Society, Santa Clara Valley Chapter\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>San Francisco:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://sfrecpark.org/facilities/facility/details/Bernal-Heights-Park-151\">Bernal Heights\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://sfrecpark.org/facilities/facility/details/coronaheightspark-328\">Corona Heights\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://sfrecpark.org/facilities/facility/details/Grandview-Park-Trail-400\">Grandview Park\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sfparksalliance.org/our-parks/parks/tank-hill\">Tank Hill\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://sfrecpark.org/716/McLaren-Park\">McLaren Park\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nps.gov/goga/planyourvisit/landsend.htm\">Land’s End\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://presidio.gov/explore/attractions/batteries-to-bluffs-trail\">Batteries to Bluff Trail in Presidio\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://sfrecpark.org/511/Glen-Canyon-Park\">Glen Canyon Park\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://sfrecpark.org/facilities/facility/details/Balboa-Natural-Area-325\">Balboa Natural Area\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://sfrecpark.org/facilities/facility/details/Mt-Davidson-Park-190\">Mount Davidson\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>North Bay:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nps.gov/pore/\">Point Reyes National Seashore\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>East Bay:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Hills\">Berkeley Hills\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ebparks.org/parks/tilden\">Tilden Regional Park\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ebparks.org/parks/coyote-hills\">Coyote Hills Regional Park\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ebparks.org/parks/sunol\">Sunol Wilderness Regional Preserve\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>South Bay:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://parks.sccgov.org/santa-clara-county-parks/santa-teresa-county-park\">Stile Ranch Trail at Santa Teresa County Park\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://parks.sccgov.org/santa-clara-county-parks/calero-county-park\">Calero County Park\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://parks.sccgov.org/santa-clara-county-parks/coyote-lake-harvey-bear-ranch-park\">Coyote Lake Harvey Bear County Park\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://parks.sccgov.org/santa-clara-county-parks/almaden-quicksilver-county-park\">Almaden Quicksilver County Park\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://parks.sccgov.org/santa-clara-county-parks/joseph-d-grant-county-park\">Joseph D. Grant County Park\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://parks.sccgov.org/santa-clara-county-parks/uvas-canyon-county-park\">Uvas Canyon County Park\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://parks.ca.gov/henrycoe/\">Henry W. Coe State Park\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=517\">Mount Hamilton\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.openspaceauthority.org/preserves/rancho.html\">Rancho Cañada del Oro Open Space Preserve\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.openspaceauthority.org/preserves/coyotevalley.html\">Coyote Valley Open Space Preserve\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.openspace.org/preserves/sierra-azul\">Mount Umunhum, Sierra Azul Preserve\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.openspace.org/preserves/st-josephs-hill\">Manzanita Trail, St. Joseph’s Hill Preserve\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sanjoseca.gov/Home/Components/FacilityDirectory/FacilityDirectory/2088/2028\">Alum Rock Park\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Peninsula:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nps.gov/goga/planyourvisit/moripoint.htm\">Mori Point, Pacifica\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.smcgov.org/parks/san-bruno-mountain-state-county-park\">San Bruno Mountain Park\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.smcgov.org/parks/edgewood-park-natural-preserve\">Edgewood Park and Natural Preserve\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.openspace.org/preserves/pulgas-ridge\">Pulgas Ridge Reserve\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.openspace.org/preserves/russian-ridge\">Russian Ridge Preserve\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Further from the Bay Area:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nps.gov/pinn/\">Pinnacles National Park\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"While it's too soon know if California will get a 'super bloom' this year, there are still many options for beautiful wildflower hikes near you in the Bay Area. Here's where to find them, and what causes these seasonal blooms.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1710189648,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":28,"wordCount":1123},"headData":{"title":"Hoping for a 2024 'Super Bloom'? Where to See Wildflowers in the Bay Area | KQED","description":"While it's too soon know if California will get a 'super bloom' this year, there are still many options for beautiful wildflower hikes near you in the Bay Area. Here's where to find them, and what causes these seasonal blooms.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":""},"sticky":false,"excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","articleAge":"0","path":"/science/1991791/hoping-for-a-2024-super-bloom-where-to-see-wildflowers-in-the-bay-area","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Spring is almost here. And with over 8,000 species of plants in California — more than half of them native to the state — it’s going to be an exciting place to experience the burst of colors from thousands of species of wildflowers the region has to offer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"postid":"science_1981882,news_11733926,science_1982256","label":"More guides from kqed "},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>California’s biodiversity is thanks to our unique Mediterranean climate, geology, and geography. With a crescent of mountains, California is geographically isolated from the rest of North America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have the Cascade Mountains up in the north, the Sierra running along the east, and the transverse range in the south. And then, of course, bound by the ocean on the west,” said Lewis Reed, rangeland ecologist and botanist at Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This geographic isolation, Reed explained, essentially limits the dispersal of organisms and, more importantly, gene flow between related organisms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This means that over evolutionary history, we’ve ended up with a lot of unique things in California that are different than their ancestors elsewhere in North America,” Reed said, referring to the thousands of species of native plants in the state, including wildflowers.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Will we get a 2024 ‘super bloom’?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In 2023, nature lovers were thrilled by \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/outdoors/article/california-super-blooms-satellite-images-17891517.php\">images of Southern California’s “super blooms” visible from space\u003c/a>. But “super bloom” is not actually a scientific term, as Cameron Barrows, conservation ecologist at the Center for Conservation Biology at UC Riverside, told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, it’s used — mainly by the media — to describe incredible and uncommon bloom events, when many different species of wildflowers bloom at the same time. “There might be anywhere [between] 50 to 100 different species in bloom during a super bloom event,” Barrows said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While it’s still too early to tell if the Bay Area will be blessed in 2024 with \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1981882/where-to-see-wildflowers-near-you-in-the-bay-area-plus-the-science-behind-the-super-bloom\">the same amount of beautiful blooms we had in previous years\u003c/a>, the amount of rain and how that rain is distributed relative to temperatures are factors to consider when forecasting the intensity of wildflower blooms, Reed said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1984535\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1984535\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/10/04262023_ksuzuki_warmweather-103-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Purple wildflowers blossom.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1277\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/10/04262023_ksuzuki_warmweather-103-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/10/04262023_ksuzuki_warmweather-103-qut-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/10/04262023_ksuzuki_warmweather-103-qut-1020x678.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/10/04262023_ksuzuki_warmweather-103-qut-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/10/04262023_ksuzuki_warmweather-103-qut-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/10/04262023_ksuzuki_warmweather-103-qut-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Stems of purple lupine blossom along Grizzly Peak Boulevard in Berkeley on April 26, 2023. \u003ccite>(Kori Suzuki/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>One way to look for signs of a big bloom is to go out early in the season once flowers start to germinate. \u003ca href=\"https://calscape.org/loc-California/Lupine%20(all)/vw-list/np-0\">Lupines,\u003c/a> a common wildflower in our region, for example, have very distinctive leaves that develop as the plant grows and are easy to recognize.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you learn your habitat of the areas that you’d like to explore and learn what to look for, you can get some hints well before those plants are going to bloom,” Reed said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.openspace.org/stories/plants-not-seen-over-century-found-coastal-preserves\">Reed recently discovered a clustered tarweed (Deinandra fasciculata)\u003c/a> in the Peninsula — a yellow-flowered plant not seen in San Mateo County for over a century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s one of the neat things about living and working in our area,” Reed said. “There’s always discovery to be made. It’s never the same from year to year.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Where and when can you see blooms in the Bay Area?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When you’re heading out to enjoy the sight of these wildflower blooms, remember to respect the environment by staying on marked paths. Avoid picking any flowers or trampling on them — even accidentally. And remember to pack out anything you pack in on the trail.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want to encourage folks to feel welcome, and to come out to the preserve to see this beautiful gift of biodiversity that we have,” said Ryan McCauley, public affairs specialist at Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District. “But we also really want to encourage folks to be respectful.“\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McCauley also encouraged people to try to avoid visiting a bloom at peak times — like on the weekends. This way, you’ll be able to enjoy observing the different species of wildflowers without the large crowds, which could also raise the risk of accidentally stepping on the bright flowers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981883\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2121px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1981883\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/03/GettyImages-1141101456.jpg\" alt=\"Yellow and white wildflower blooms seen in a meadow.\" width=\"2121\" height=\"1414\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/03/GettyImages-1141101456.jpg 2121w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/03/GettyImages-1141101456-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/03/GettyImages-1141101456-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/03/GettyImages-1141101456-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/03/GettyImages-1141101456-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/03/GettyImages-1141101456-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/03/GettyImages-1141101456-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/03/GettyImages-1141101456-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2121px) 100vw, 2121px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">California poppy (Eschscholzia californica) and various other wildflowers blooming in a meadow in San José. \u003ccite>(Sundry Photography/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>While out enjoying the wildflower blooms, Reed said visitors should slow down. “We’re sometimes really eager to get out and find the big showy, super bloom,” he said, but you’ll see there’s so much going on around us if you’re able to slow down and look closely. “I think almost anyone who does that will find it to be rewarding.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some parks require advanced booking for tickets, so be sure to visit the park’s website to get the most updated information. For safety purposes, stay informed about park closures and weather conditions. For those with allergies, don’t forget to bring medicine and take preventative measures before you leave home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can share your \u003ca href=\"https://www.inaturalist.org/\">sightings on the iNaturalist app\u003c/a>. This data will help experts in the field of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1981882/where-to-see-wildflowers-near-you-in-the-bay-area-plus-the-science-behind-the-super-bloom#phenology\">phenology\u003c/a> to track invasive species or animals in places where they weren’t seen before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of the spots listed below will bloom during the spring and summer months, and the number of flowers that actually bloom will vary every year, depending on how much rain and dry weather we get. So, if you can’t make it out into nature soon, don’t worry: You’ve got time to spot some beautiful blooms over the next months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Wildflower guided tours and events:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ebparks.org/calendar/month?terms=wildflower\">Wildflower events at East Bay Regional Parks\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=30077\">Spring flower bloom updates by California State Parks\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.cnps-scv.org/events/wildflower-shows\">Wildflower shows at California Native Plant Society, Santa Clara Valley Chapter\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>San Francisco:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://sfrecpark.org/facilities/facility/details/Bernal-Heights-Park-151\">Bernal Heights\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://sfrecpark.org/facilities/facility/details/coronaheightspark-328\">Corona Heights\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://sfrecpark.org/facilities/facility/details/Grandview-Park-Trail-400\">Grandview Park\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sfparksalliance.org/our-parks/parks/tank-hill\">Tank Hill\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://sfrecpark.org/716/McLaren-Park\">McLaren Park\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nps.gov/goga/planyourvisit/landsend.htm\">Land’s End\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://presidio.gov/explore/attractions/batteries-to-bluffs-trail\">Batteries to Bluff Trail in Presidio\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://sfrecpark.org/511/Glen-Canyon-Park\">Glen Canyon Park\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://sfrecpark.org/facilities/facility/details/Balboa-Natural-Area-325\">Balboa Natural Area\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://sfrecpark.org/facilities/facility/details/Mt-Davidson-Park-190\">Mount Davidson\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>North Bay:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nps.gov/pore/\">Point Reyes National Seashore\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>East Bay:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Hills\">Berkeley Hills\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ebparks.org/parks/tilden\">Tilden Regional Park\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ebparks.org/parks/coyote-hills\">Coyote Hills Regional Park\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ebparks.org/parks/sunol\">Sunol Wilderness Regional Preserve\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>South Bay:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://parks.sccgov.org/santa-clara-county-parks/santa-teresa-county-park\">Stile Ranch Trail at Santa Teresa County Park\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://parks.sccgov.org/santa-clara-county-parks/calero-county-park\">Calero County Park\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://parks.sccgov.org/santa-clara-county-parks/coyote-lake-harvey-bear-ranch-park\">Coyote Lake Harvey Bear County Park\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://parks.sccgov.org/santa-clara-county-parks/almaden-quicksilver-county-park\">Almaden Quicksilver County Park\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://parks.sccgov.org/santa-clara-county-parks/joseph-d-grant-county-park\">Joseph D. Grant County Park\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://parks.sccgov.org/santa-clara-county-parks/uvas-canyon-county-park\">Uvas Canyon County Park\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"http://parks.ca.gov/henrycoe/\">Henry W. Coe State Park\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=517\">Mount Hamilton\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.openspaceauthority.org/preserves/rancho.html\">Rancho Cañada del Oro Open Space Preserve\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.openspaceauthority.org/preserves/coyotevalley.html\">Coyote Valley Open Space Preserve\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.openspace.org/preserves/sierra-azul\">Mount Umunhum, Sierra Azul Preserve\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.openspace.org/preserves/st-josephs-hill\">Manzanita Trail, St. Joseph’s Hill Preserve\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sanjoseca.gov/Home/Components/FacilityDirectory/FacilityDirectory/2088/2028\">Alum Rock Park\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Peninsula:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nps.gov/goga/planyourvisit/moripoint.htm\">Mori Point, Pacifica\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.smcgov.org/parks/san-bruno-mountain-state-county-park\">San Bruno Mountain Park\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.smcgov.org/parks/edgewood-park-natural-preserve\">Edgewood Park and Natural Preserve\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.openspace.org/preserves/pulgas-ridge\">Pulgas Ridge Reserve\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.openspace.org/preserves/russian-ridge\">Russian Ridge Preserve\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Further from the Bay Area:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nps.gov/pinn/\">Pinnacles National Park\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/science/1991791/hoping-for-a-2024-super-bloom-where-to-see-wildflowers-in-the-bay-area","authors":["11631"],"categories":["science_40","science_4450"],"tags":["science_4992","science_4417","science_4414","science_179","science_3338","science_2371"],"featImg":"science_1991798","label":"science"},"science_1992348":{"type":"posts","id":"science_1992348","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"science","id":"1992348","found":true},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"is-it-time-for-an-essential-california-energy-code-to-get-a-climate-edit","title":"Is It Time for an Essential California Energy Code to Get a Climate Edit?","publishDate":1712878384,"format":"standard","headTitle":"Is It Time for an Essential California Energy Code to Get a Climate Edit? | KQED","labelTerm":{"site":"science"},"content":"\u003cp>Reducing gas use in buildings is tricky for lots of reasons. One of them is a California public utility code that you’ve probably never given much thought to. It’s referred to as the “\u003ca href=\"https://law.justia.com/codes/california/2022/code-puc/division-1/part-1/chapter-3/article-1/section-451/\">obligation to serve.\u003c/a>”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California requires that its public utilities provide service — whether that’s gas or electricity — to every customer who wants it at rates regulated by the California Public Utilities Commission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The crux of the code is only a few words: “Every public utility shall furnish and maintain such adequate, efficient, just, and reasonable service.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Sen. Dave Min (D-Irvine)\"]‘It allows utilities, when reasonable, to phase out natural gas provision and switch over to all-electric when that makes economic sense when most of the residents want that.’[/pullquote]But it’s important because even if you live far from other homes, in a high-wildfire-risk area, for example, utilities must serve you, despite how much it will cost them. In turn, the state grants utilities a monopoly in a specific region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as the state races to cut greenhouse gas emissions from homes and commercial buildings, this code — born of good intention — has become a roadblock.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the simple reason of the holdout, if nearly an entire neighborhood wants to go electric and swap their gas appliances for equivalent electric ones, but one person does not, utilities will maintain the entire gas line for this community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=\"science_1991664,science_1992085,forum_2010101894437\" label=\"Related Stories\"]That’s because utilities worry courts will interpret the obligation to serve to mean that they must offer both gas and electricity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://law.stanford.edu/publications/removing-legal-barriers-to-building-electrification/\">Stanford legal scholars wrote, \u003c/a>“Precedent in California has not precisely outlined whether and how utilities can substitute electricity service for natural gas service.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[The obligation to serve] is a major impediment to electrification, or at least trying to do it in an orderly way that avoids unneeded new investments in gas pipelines,” Matt Vespa, senior attorney at Earthjustice, told KQED in an email.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How do we address this challenge?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>“The legislature probably needs to pass a law to clarify it,” said lawyer Michael Wara, Director of the Climate and Energy Policy Program at Stanford, “to create the kind of certainty that you’re going to need for companies to be okay abandoning [gas] infrastructure in the way that they’re going to have to.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1992352\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 683px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/04/GettyImages-1495707498.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1992352\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/04/GettyImages-1495707498.jpg\" alt=\"An aerial view of gas and oil pipelines by a small body of water and grassy landscape.\" width=\"683\" height=\"1024\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/04/GettyImages-1495707498.jpg 683w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/04/GettyImages-1495707498-160x240.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Oil and gas pipelines run through the Delta near the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers as viewed from the air on May 22, 2023, near Rio Vista. \u003ccite>(George Rose/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For the past two years, Senator Dave Min (D-Irvine) has introduced \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB1221\">legislation \u003c/a>to do just that. The bill he introduced last year started broadly but narrowed its scope as it went through the legislature and ultimately died.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB1221\">This year’s newly introduced bill\u003c/a>, in its current form, would add a specific line to the state’s public utility code saying that a gas corporation could “cease providing service if adequate substitute energy service is reasonably available” that would support the end use the customer wants, like heating or cooling their home or cooking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It phases out some of the regulatory obstacles of switching to all-electric,” Min said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This basically allows us to start shifting over,” Min said. “It allows utilities, when reasonable, to phase out natural gas provision and switch over to all-electric when that makes economic sense when most of the residents want that. But it addresses the holdout problem.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The background\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>California homes and buildings are typically powered in two ways: by electricity and gas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But those systems are increasingly duplicative. Electric heat pumps can replace gas-powered space and water heaters. Electric clothes dryers can do the job of gas-powered ones. And electric and induction stoves, though wrapped up in the whirlwind of a culture war, are an alternative to their gas counterparts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/our-work/programs/building-decarbonization\">A quarter of California’s carbon emissions come from homes\u003c/a>, businesses and the energy used to power them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the state moves towards its goal of \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2022/11/16/california-releases-worlds-first-plan-to-achieve-net-zero-carbon-pollution/\">carbon neutrality by 2045\u003c/a>, researchers and advocates are advising policymakers, regulators and utilities to facilitate significant reductions in the use of gas to power buildings.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A haphazard approach to electrification will lead to higher gas bills… mostly for low-income people\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Building electrification is mostly happening disjointedly right now. It’s based on the desires and finances of building owners. There have been a few projects where \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1984963/electric-avenue-one-oakland-blocks-improbable-journey-to-ditch-gas\">communities have tried to ditch gas altogether\u003c/a>, but these efforts are nascent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As more people electrify, fewer people use the gas system, which operates at a high, fixed cost that consumers pay. A high cost spread across fewer people means more enormous bills, largely for low-income people who rent or cannot afford to electrify their homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One approach to managing costs for ratepayers on the gas system is to strategically retire gas lines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If every other home in California is electrified, you would still have to have the same size gas system,” said Mike Florio, former CPUC Commissioner and current energy consultant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But if you can electrify an entire neighborhood or community, then those pipes can be retired and you shrink the system and lower the cost of the system,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Each year, hundreds of miles of gas pipelines must be replaced for safety. And in some cases, it would be cheaper for the utility to pay the full cost of electrifying homes along that line rather than spend millions to replace it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sound like something that will never happen? PG&E has quietly executed more than a hundred of these projects since 2018. The idea is called “targeted electrification” and has been mostly limited to a small number of homes or businesses in rural locations at the end of long gas lines in need of repair. In most cases, it is cheaper for PG&E, and therefore their ratepayers, if the company pays to fully electrify customers on these lines and retire rather than replace them.\u003c/p>\n\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"California’s 'obligation to serve' requires utilities to supply people with energy. However, in its current form, some think this code stands in the way of rapid, equitable and cost-effective decarbonization. New legislation may be the answer.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1712937464,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":27,"wordCount":1049},"headData":{"title":"Is It Time for an Essential California Energy Code to Get a Climate Edit? | KQED","description":"California’s 'obligation to serve' requires utilities to supply people with energy. However, in its current form, some think this code stands in the way of rapid, equitable and cost-effective decarbonization. New legislation may be the answer.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":""},"sticky":false,"excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","articleAge":"0","path":"/science/1992348/is-it-time-for-an-essential-california-energy-code-to-get-a-climate-edit","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Reducing gas use in buildings is tricky for lots of reasons. One of them is a California public utility code that you’ve probably never given much thought to. It’s referred to as the “\u003ca href=\"https://law.justia.com/codes/california/2022/code-puc/division-1/part-1/chapter-3/article-1/section-451/\">obligation to serve.\u003c/a>”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California requires that its public utilities provide service — whether that’s gas or electricity — to every customer who wants it at rates regulated by the California Public Utilities Commission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The crux of the code is only a few words: “Every public utility shall furnish and maintain such adequate, efficient, just, and reasonable service.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘It allows utilities, when reasonable, to phase out natural gas provision and switch over to all-electric when that makes economic sense when most of the residents want that.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"size":"medium","align":"right","citation":"Sen. Dave Min (D-Irvine)","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>But it’s important because even if you live far from other homes, in a high-wildfire-risk area, for example, utilities must serve you, despite how much it will cost them. In turn, the state grants utilities a monopoly in a specific region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But as the state races to cut greenhouse gas emissions from homes and commercial buildings, this code — born of good intention — has become a roadblock.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the simple reason of the holdout, if nearly an entire neighborhood wants to go electric and swap their gas appliances for equivalent electric ones, but one person does not, utilities will maintain the entire gas line for this community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"postid":"science_1991664,science_1992085,forum_2010101894437","label":"Related Stories "},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>That’s because utilities worry courts will interpret the obligation to serve to mean that they must offer both gas and electricity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://law.stanford.edu/publications/removing-legal-barriers-to-building-electrification/\">Stanford legal scholars wrote, \u003c/a>“Precedent in California has not precisely outlined whether and how utilities can substitute electricity service for natural gas service.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[The obligation to serve] is a major impediment to electrification, or at least trying to do it in an orderly way that avoids unneeded new investments in gas pipelines,” Matt Vespa, senior attorney at Earthjustice, told KQED in an email.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How do we address this challenge?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>“The legislature probably needs to pass a law to clarify it,” said lawyer Michael Wara, Director of the Climate and Energy Policy Program at Stanford, “to create the kind of certainty that you’re going to need for companies to be okay abandoning [gas] infrastructure in the way that they’re going to have to.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1992352\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 683px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/04/GettyImages-1495707498.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1992352\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/04/GettyImages-1495707498.jpg\" alt=\"An aerial view of gas and oil pipelines by a small body of water and grassy landscape.\" width=\"683\" height=\"1024\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/04/GettyImages-1495707498.jpg 683w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2024/04/GettyImages-1495707498-160x240.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Oil and gas pipelines run through the Delta near the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers as viewed from the air on May 22, 2023, near Rio Vista. \u003ccite>(George Rose/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For the past two years, Senator Dave Min (D-Irvine) has introduced \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB1221\">legislation \u003c/a>to do just that. The bill he introduced last year started broadly but narrowed its scope as it went through the legislature and ultimately died.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB1221\">This year’s newly introduced bill\u003c/a>, in its current form, would add a specific line to the state’s public utility code saying that a gas corporation could “cease providing service if adequate substitute energy service is reasonably available” that would support the end use the customer wants, like heating or cooling their home or cooking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It phases out some of the regulatory obstacles of switching to all-electric,” Min said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This basically allows us to start shifting over,” Min said. “It allows utilities, when reasonable, to phase out natural gas provision and switch over to all-electric when that makes economic sense when most of the residents want that. But it addresses the holdout problem.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The background\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>California homes and buildings are typically powered in two ways: by electricity and gas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But those systems are increasingly duplicative. Electric heat pumps can replace gas-powered space and water heaters. Electric clothes dryers can do the job of gas-powered ones. And electric and induction stoves, though wrapped up in the whirlwind of a culture war, are an alternative to their gas counterparts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/our-work/programs/building-decarbonization\">A quarter of California’s carbon emissions come from homes\u003c/a>, businesses and the energy used to power them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the state moves towards its goal of \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2022/11/16/california-releases-worlds-first-plan-to-achieve-net-zero-carbon-pollution/\">carbon neutrality by 2045\u003c/a>, researchers and advocates are advising policymakers, regulators and utilities to facilitate significant reductions in the use of gas to power buildings.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A haphazard approach to electrification will lead to higher gas bills… mostly for low-income people\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Building electrification is mostly happening disjointedly right now. It’s based on the desires and finances of building owners. There have been a few projects where \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1984963/electric-avenue-one-oakland-blocks-improbable-journey-to-ditch-gas\">communities have tried to ditch gas altogether\u003c/a>, but these efforts are nascent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As more people electrify, fewer people use the gas system, which operates at a high, fixed cost that consumers pay. A high cost spread across fewer people means more enormous bills, largely for low-income people who rent or cannot afford to electrify their homes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One approach to managing costs for ratepayers on the gas system is to strategically retire gas lines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If every other home in California is electrified, you would still have to have the same size gas system,” said Mike Florio, former CPUC Commissioner and current energy consultant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But if you can electrify an entire neighborhood or community, then those pipes can be retired and you shrink the system and lower the cost of the system,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Each year, hundreds of miles of gas pipelines must be replaced for safety. And in some cases, it would be cheaper for the utility to pay the full cost of electrifying homes along that line rather than spend millions to replace it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sound like something that will never happen? PG&E has quietly executed more than a hundred of these projects since 2018. The idea is called “targeted electrification” and has been mostly limited to a small number of homes or businesses in rural locations at the end of long gas lines in need of repair. In most cases, it is cheaper for PG&E, and therefore their ratepayers, if the company pays to fully electrify customers on these lines and retire rather than replace them.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/science/1992348/is-it-time-for-an-essential-california-energy-code-to-get-a-climate-edit","authors":["8648"],"categories":["science_33","science_35","science_40","science_4450"],"tags":["science_135","science_4417","science_4414","science_2164","science_1041"],"featImg":"science_1992354","label":"science"},"science_1985175":{"type":"posts","id":"science_1985175","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"science","id":"1985175","found":true},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"insurance-in-california-is-changing-heres-how-it-may-affect-you","title":"Insurance In California Is Changing. Here's How It May Affect You","publishDate":1699887607,"format":"image","headTitle":"Insurance In California Is Changing. Here’s How It May Affect You | KQED","labelTerm":{},"content":"\u003cp>\u003cem>This story is part of the third season of KQED’s podcast Sold Out: Rethinking Housing in America. You can \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/soldout\">find that series here\u003c/a> and read about why \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1984697/why-kqed-focused-a-season-of-its-housing-podcast-on-climate-change#:~:text=Sold%20Out%20Is%20Back%20With%20Season%203&text=Host%20Erin%20Baldassari%20leads%20a,an%20affordable%20place%20to%20live.\">KQED chose to focus a season of its housing podcast on climate change\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For most people, insurance is the first line of defense against climate change. When struck by wildfire, flooding or other calamity, an adequate insurance policy can come to the rescue. It’s like a financial first responder, an ambulance full of money to help people back onto their feet. Insurance is the reason something bad happening to you, like losing your home in a wildfire, doesn’t guarantee a slide into poverty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the industry is in serious trouble. Climate disasters around the state, especially worsening wildfires, threaten the current business model and millions of middle-class Californians. Climate risks exist everywhere. However, California is notable for companies racing out of Dodge. Seven of the top 12 insurance companies in the state, including Allstate, State Farm, Farmers Insurance and American International Group (AIG), have left California or pulled back from offering new policies in the last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the Golden State grapples with the devastating consequences of increasingly frequent and intense wildfires, California officials are crafting a major overhaul to insurance regulations. It is meant to stop the exodus of companies and promote market stability, but it will almost certainly mean that insurance premiums will rise. Here is what we know, what to expect, and how it may affect you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC3046460401&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Jump straight to:\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"list-style-type: none\">\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\n\u003ch5>\u003ca href=\"#action\">\u003cstrong>California announces action, at last\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/h5>\n\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\n\u003ch5>\u003ca href=\"#trouble\">\u003cstrong>Why the insurance market is in trouble\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/h5>\n\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\n\u003ch5>\u003ca href=\"#afoot\">\u003cstrong>Change is afoot\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/h5>\n\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\n\u003ch5>\u003ca href=\"#deep\">\u003cstrong>Dive deep: How insurance works\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/h5>\n\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\n\u003ch5>\u003ca href=\"#fair\">\u003cstrong>The FAIR plan: California’s least-loved insurer\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/h5>\n\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\n\u003ch5>\u003ca href=\"#mean\">\u003cstrong>What will the changes mean?\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/h5>\n\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\n\u003ch5>\u003ca href=\"#next\">\u003cstrong>What comes next\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/h5>\n\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch3>\u003ca id=\"action\">\u003c/a>California announces action, at last\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>For the better part of the last year, California did not make any structural changes to its insurance marketplace despite the ballooning crisis and the urgency of the problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Structural changes are not sexy,” said Sashi Sabaratnam, former mayor of Mill Valley and manager of Sonoma County’s UC Cooperative Extension wildfire vegetation mitigation program. “Making those changes [won’t] win anybody big fans or win elections. You need somebody with the kind of political courage to look at the problem and really be able to take the heat for making those structural changes.”[pullquote align='right' citation='State Sen. Bill Dodd']‘To state the obvious, we do not have a stable insurance market. And when you don’t have that, a lot of things can go awfully wrong.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some members of the state legislature considered putting forth a bill to fix some of the many problems. But the effort dissolved at the last minute before the close of the legislative session. Some officials were reportedly afraid they would not be seen as being tough enough on insurance companies and felt that maintaining the status quo would be politically safer.[pullquote align='right' citation='Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara']‘Modernizing our insurance market is not going to be easy or happen overnight. We are in really unchartered territory, and we must make difficult choices when the world is changing rapidly.’[/pullquote]State Sen. Bill Dodd (D-Napa) said he was disappointed when the legislative effort fell through.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To state the obvious, we do not have a stable insurance market. And when you don’t have that, a lot of things can go awfully wrong,” he said in the hours after the legislative collapse. “High costs force people to go naked without insurance. That’s happening all over my district. It’s going to affect home and business mortgages because if you can’t get insurance, your mortgages will get called in.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the state legislature stepped back from the problem, it placed increased pressure on California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara, who had mostly avoided talking about making big regulatory changes all year. Instead, he largely focused on talking about reducing the risk of wildfire through mitigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As important as mitigation is, Sabaratnam said, “It means nothing if you do not deal with those structural issues.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Insurance commissioner is an elected position, but Lara was re-elected in 2022, so his seat is secure until his term ends in 2026. That ought to give him a little room to breathe, suggested Sabaratnam.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, an \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2023/09/21/governor-newsom-signs-executive-order-to-strengthen-property-insurance-market/\">executive order from Gov. Gavin Newsom urging the insurance commission to take swift action\u003c/a> to strengthen the property market apparently gave Lara enough political cover to announce changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In September, he announced that a significant regulatory overhaul would be in place by the end of next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California’s current regulatory framework does not meet our needs,” Lara said. “We need to update regulations.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All that is to say, policymakers felt strongly that someone needed to do something. Just who would do what took the better part of a year to figure out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, as anticipated by policy experts, few people cheered. Some TV news outlets framed the announced changes as a win for the insurance industry. Advocacy groups personally attacked Lara. The powerful Consumer Watchdog even attacked other advocacy groups who expressed some support for Lara’s changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985224\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985224\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/IMG_9350-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A couple embraces next to a Weed Community Center sign made of wood.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/IMG_9350-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/IMG_9350-qut-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/IMG_9350-qut-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/IMG_9350-qut-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/IMG_9350-qut-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/IMG_9350-qut-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">After losing two homes in the Mill Fire of 2022, Chester and Denise Hopkins are working to help the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of Weed rebuild. Many of their neighbors were underinsured or had no insurance. That’s part of what’s determining who can stay and rebuild. They’re committed to staying but don’t know how many of their neighbors will. “We’re putting our trust in God that we have at least 50 % [coming back],” Denise Hopkins said. \u003ccite>(Danielle Venton/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>\u003ca id=\"trouble\">\u003c/a>Why the insurance market is in trouble\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Perhaps curiously, home insurance in California \u003ca href=\"https://www.forbes.com/advisor/homeowners-insurance/average-cost-homeowners-insurance/\">actually costs less than in other states with the same sorts of climate risks\u003c/a>. From the insurance industry’s point of view, this is a sign that risk in California is not priced accurately.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Companies trace this situation back to 1988, when voters approved a law limiting how much insurance companies could raise rates and said the state has to approve. It was a voter-backed initiative that attempted to improve insurance for consumers, protecting them from arbitrary insurance rate hikes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Groups that did not like a proposed rate hike could intervene and recoup the legal and administrative costs of doing so. Insurance companies had to set rates tied to historical data from the past 20 years of losses, but they could not look forward to estimates of future losses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 1988 measure — Proposition 103 — was prompted by skyrocketing auto insurance, but it also worked on home insurance. The \u003ca href=\"https://consumerfed.org/press_release/30-years-and-154-billion-of-savings-californias-proposition-103-insurance-reforms-still-saving-drivers-money/\">law has saved Californians billions of dollars\u003c/a>, but insurance companies, who have had to shell out tens of billions of dollars to cover losses from the Camp, Tubbs, Thomas, LNU Lightning Complex, Dixie and other major fires in recent years, hate this rule. Many have effectively said, ‘Hey, we are not doing this anymore.’\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parr Schoolman, Allstate’s chief risk officer, told California insurance officials at a hearing this year that the company needs to be able to raise prices or else it would drop more individual customers or even totally leave the state’s home insurance market.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The current system makes it very difficult for insurance companies to get rate increases of anything more than 7%. It can take years. Typically, the state does not grant requests in total.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, from an insurance company’s perspective, their rates lag years behind the actual price of the risk they are insuring. Meanwhile, reinsurance, which is insurance for insurers, has skyrocketed, along with construction costs and other expenses impacted by inflation. That is all laid against the backdrop of jaw-slackening wildfire losses, which have wiped out decades of profits, particularly in 2017 and 2018.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003ca id=\"afoot\">\u003c/a>Change is afoot\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The big elements of Lara’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.insurance.ca.gov/0400-news/0100-press-releases/2023/release051-2023.cfm\">announced changes\u003c/a> include:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"list-style-type: none\">\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>An agreement with insurance companies to write more policies and collectively offer coverage to at least 85% of homeowners in high wildfire-risk areas. This would allow homeowners currently on the state’s insurer of last resort, the FAIR plan, to transition back to the normal market.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Allowing insurance companies to use forward-looking climate catastrophe models instead of historical data about risk.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Letting companies pass on California-related reinsurance costs.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Increase California Department of Insurance staffing to allow rate increases to be approved faster.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Some consumer advocates and ensuing news coverage suggested it was a victory and bailout for the insurance industry. One of the most strident opposing voices comes from Consumer Watchdog, which has spent years attacking not only the insurance industry but the insurance commissioner himself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The consumer protection organizations painted Lara as an industry insider and said the deal would not guarantee coverage and would increase premiums. In response, the commission pointed out in recently released data that Consumer Watchdog has also benefited from collecting $8.9 million over a decade in compensation for its work-challenging rate increases. Proposition 103 allows members of the public to intervene on behalf of ratepayers and apply for compensation for the expenses of doing so. That money \u003ca href=\"https://www.insurance.ca.gov/01-consumers/150-other-prog/01-intervenor/upload/CDI_Public-Chart_Total-Compensations-Awarder-to-Intervenors.pdf\">comes from insurers, who pass those costs on to their customers\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amy Bach, executive director of United Policyholders, an organization that advocates for insurance customers, dismissed Consumer Watchdog’s view as ignoring the very real threats to the market. Some of the announced changes will likely mean higher premiums. But what is most important, Bach said, was that a compromise would be workable for both consumers and insurers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t like [all the changes],” Bach said. “Using catastrophe models and passing on some reinsurance costs? As far as I know, every other state in the union does that — it is not the end of the world. But what is the end of the world if [the insurance flight] keeps going on like this?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While public utilities are legally required to serve customers, insurance companies can do business in the state or not, as they please.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To stop selling insurance entirely the way that [insurance companies are] doing suggests to me that they are genuinely worried about the adequacy of their rates,” Bach said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the insurance market collapses in the state, people can’t buy homes or sell homes. Most homes have mortgages, and banks won’t lend money unless it’s insured. If the real estate industry collapses, it will reverberate through the entire economy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California is not the only market with insurance troubles. Around the nation, climate-driven disasters are accelerating price hikes, coverage withdrawals and instability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If insurance market trends continue on the current path, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island), speaking at a congressional hearing this year, said it puts the global economy at systemic risk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The term “global systemic risk,” he said, “has a rather bland quality to it. But it describes something that is anything but bland.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is bland in the way talking about subprime mortgages seemed in 2007, just before they triggered a global financial meltdown. The current insurance market situation poses the same kind of risk to the economy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1983896\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1983896\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/08/230810-JASON-MAJORS-DV-KQED_1.jpg\" alt=\"A man in sunglasses stands in an outdoor setting.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/08/230810-JASON-MAJORS-DV-KQED_1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/08/230810-JASON-MAJORS-DV-KQED_1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/08/230810-JASON-MAJORS-DV-KQED_1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/08/230810-JASON-MAJORS-DV-KQED_1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/08/230810-JASON-MAJORS-DV-KQED_1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/08/230810-JASON-MAJORS-DV-KQED_1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/08/230810-JASON-MAJORS-DV-KQED_1-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jason Majors in front of the creek bordering his former property. His home outside Santa Rosa survived nearly half a dozen fires in recent years. Despite his efforts to mitigate hazards around his house, Majors was dropped by insurance carriers numerous times. And when he decided to sell his house, prospective buyers had trouble finding insurance coverage. He had to drop the price four times before the home was sold. \u003ccite>(Danielle Venton/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>\u003ca id=\"deep\">\u003c/a>Dive deep: How insurance works\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>There are three different ways you can get home insurance in California. By way of a high school lunchroom analogy: You can eat with the “the cool kids,” the “not-cool kids,” or the vice principal, who is your last choice, but it might be better than having lunch alone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cool kids are the “admitted market.” They are licensed to sell in the state, California has to approve rate increases, and if the company fails, California will pay out the claims. Being a cool kid comes with a lot of rules, but if you are a company that wants to sell in bulk to Californians, this is the route you need to go. These companies, like Allstate, State Farm or Farmers, are generally best to have your insurance with. But they have scaled back their offerings in wildfire-prone parts of the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then there’s the “not-cool-kids.” These are specialty or surplus lines of coverage from companies such as Lloyds of London, Chubb Custom Insurance Company or Spinnaker Specialty Insurance. They’ll write riskier policies for homeowners or businesses, but they are also more high-risk themselves. They’re not guaranteed if they fail, which means more exposure for a consumer. And they can basically charge what they want. These rates are typically more expensive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The vice principal is the FAIR Plan, the state’s insurer of last resort. It is expensive, and the coverage is lousy. But you can get some coverage when no one else will take you.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003ca id=\"fair\">\u003c/a>The FAIR plan: California’s least-loved insurer\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.cfpnet.com/about-fair-plan/\">FAIR plan\u003c/a> stands for Fair Access to Insurance Requirements, and it’s derisively known as “the un-fair plan” by some of its customers, who feel frustrated they have to use it. It was one of those well-intentioned solutions created to fill a need, but it has ballooned and taken on the dimensions of its own problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The FAIR plan now has 330,000 policyholders. That’s up from 140,000 in 2018 before insurance companies began their flight from California. More people are using it today than were ever intended to. This places the financial foundation of the plan on really shaky ground. And the more people who join, the worse it gets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The FAIR plan is regulated by the state but it’s funding is guaranteed by private insurers. California\u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-watts-riots-explainer-20150715-htmlstory.html\"> created it after the Watts Riots in the 1960s\u003c/a>, when years of simmering anger and distrust had built up between mostly Black residents of the Watts neighborhood and police around Los Angeles exploded for days of unrest. Following those days, \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/1992/05/04/business/riots-raise-concerns-about-insurance-redlining.html\">insurance companies began canceling policies for homeowners and businesses\u003c/a>. The FAIR plan was crafted to provide homeowners and businesses some coverage when nothing else was available. Most states have their own version.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Fair Plan, which is supposed to be sort of a temporary last resort insurance policy, is becoming a permanent insurance policy for many people in high fire risk areas in California,” said Michael Wara, a climate and energy lawyer and researcher at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The economic structure of the FAIR plan is that homeowners pay a lot more money for less insurance,” he added. “And hopefully that’s enough. The reality is it’s not.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Apart from offering fairly poor coverage, the FAIR plan is just about one big disaster away from not having enough money to pay claims to its customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If the FAIR plan were a regular insurer, the insurance department would have to step in and shut it down because it’s so undercapitalized,” Wara said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If there were a big fire, something on the scale of the Tubbs Fire or Camp Fire, in an area where the FAIR Plan covered many homes, the plan would then charge insurers in the admitted market, aka the “cool kids,” for the rest of the money. In insurance jargon, this is called “levying an assessment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here is the scary thing: insurance companies do not have the money saved for this, and they are not allowed to make up the deficit by charging their customers more, so many of them would probably go bankrupt. Other companies would offload policies, basically firing their customers, to try to become financially stable again. The whole market could collapse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That would stop the buying and selling of homes and also the building of any new ones. California is doing a lot to build more houses, but if the insurance market collapses, that progress will evaporate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One entity that is going to sell a lot of houses is a builder,” Wara said. “And if they can’t sell their houses because the people that want to buy them with a mortgage can’t get insurance. It threatens everything that we’re trying to do to make the state more affordable and more equitable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985222\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985222\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230815-BlueForestInitiative-29-BL-qut.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230815-BlueForestInitiative-29-BL-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230815-BlueForestInitiative-29-BL-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230815-BlueForestInitiative-29-BL-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230815-BlueForestInitiative-29-BL-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230815-BlueForestInitiative-29-BL-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230815-BlueForestInitiative-29-BL-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An area of the National Forest is thinned as a fuel management technique, removing brush and understory vegetation and allowing water to go into ground storage rather than feeding vegetation, near Camptonville, Calif., on Aug. 15, 2023. Fuel management includes thinning, chipping, burning, and removing fuels to reduce the amount of burnable vegetation. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>\u003ca id=\"mean\">\u003c/a>What will the changes mean?\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The changes coming to California’s market are a start, but no one seems to think they’re sufficient on their own, least of all officials at the state’s insurance department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Modernizing our insurance market is not going to be easy or happen overnight,” Lara said. “We are in really unchartered territory, and we must make difficult choices when the world is changing rapidly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While no consumers, elected officials, or consumer advocates want to see prices increase, there is a sense that the era of cheap insurance is over for good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Do I like the days when people were paying a thousand bucks a year for their home insurance? Of course, everybody liked it,” said Bach from United Policyholders. “But we don’t have that option anymore, so something has to change.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, how much rates may increase is an open question. One of the few people who has studied how rates rise using historical data versus catastrophic data is \u003ca href=\"https://www.milliman.com/en/insight/wildfire-catastrophe-models-california-ratemaking\">Nancy Watkins, an actuary at Milliman, an independent consulting firm\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://www.milliman.com/-/media/milliman/pdfs/2022-articles/10-19-22_pci-pifc-cdi-summary.ashx\">2022 study she did indicated that using catastrophic models did not necessarily mean higher rates\u003c/a>. Her work also found that rates were more stable using modeling and, crucially, that models could incorporate wildfire preparation into risk estimates — something historic data fails at.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That can \u003ca href=\"https://www.carriermanagement.com/features/2023/08/29/252411.htm?bypass=9c98e38eb4bd3d9fa4d836afcadbaa24\">incentivize home- and community-level fire mitigation work\u003c/a>, something she and many fire and insurance experts hope is the way of the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985179\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985179\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Bear-Trap-Prescribed-Burn_Nevada-County_05-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A person in a yellow jacket brings a hand tool down in a sweeping motion to the ground. \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Bear-Trap-Prescribed-Burn_Nevada-County_05-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Bear-Trap-Prescribed-Burn_Nevada-County_05-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Bear-Trap-Prescribed-Burn_Nevada-County_05-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Bear-Trap-Prescribed-Burn_Nevada-County_05-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Bear-Trap-Prescribed-Burn_Nevada-County_05-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Bear-Trap-Prescribed-Burn_Nevada-County_05-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Crewmembers from the Fire Safe Council of Nevada County walk to the site where they performed ” mop-up” after a prescribed burn on June 21, 2023. Controlled burns like this are one of the best ways communities can reduce the risk from megafire. \u003ccite>(Erin Baldassari/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>\u003ca id=\"next\">\u003c/a>What comes next\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>In the coming months, the state’s insurance department will shape the new regulations and implement reforms. Michael Soller, spokesperson for the department, said this work would focus on a couple of fronts, with some tasks being administrative in nature and some taking place through public meetings and hearings. The state will:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"list-style-type: none\">\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Create maps of where they will require insurance companies to write more policies, offering coverage to 85% of homeowners.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Evaluate catastrophe models and consider the creation of a new public model, owned by the state, versus adopting existing models made by companies.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Consider incorporating some California-related reinsurance costs into rates.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Hire more staff.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Deny intervenor petitions by advocacy groups that replicate the work already being done by staff.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Bach said following the announcement of coming reforms, she hoped the exodus would be staunched. But she said many companies still seem wary of offering coverage. She thinks they’re afraid advocates, like Consumer Watchdog, will sue to block the changes. “I think that’s part of the problem of why nothing has really shifted since the announcement,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The nature of hard problems is that there are no easy, short-term wins, policy expert Sabratnam said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If these changes are made and people’s rates go up and some people still lose their insurance and some people still go on the FAIR Plan, people will then turn around and say, ‘Well look, you didn’t succeed, you failed,’” Sabaratnam said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, she added, structural change is what is needed, even if it is unpopular.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everything else is just a Band-Aid,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"California insurance officials are crafting a major overhaul to regulations following an exodus of companies fleeing the state as climate change amplifies wildfire risk.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1704845835,"stats":{"hasAudio":true,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":66,"wordCount":3490},"headData":{"title":"Insurance In California Is Changing. Here's How It May Affect You | KQED","description":"California insurance officials are crafting a major overhaul to regulations following an exodus of companies fleeing the state as climate change amplifies wildfire risk.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":""},"source":"Sold Out","sticky":false,"excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","articleAge":"0","path":"/science/1985175/insurance-in-california-is-changing-heres-how-it-may-affect-you","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This story is part of the third season of KQED’s podcast Sold Out: Rethinking Housing in America. You can \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/soldout\">find that series here\u003c/a> and read about why \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1984697/why-kqed-focused-a-season-of-its-housing-podcast-on-climate-change#:~:text=Sold%20Out%20Is%20Back%20With%20Season%203&text=Host%20Erin%20Baldassari%20leads%20a,an%20affordable%20place%20to%20live.\">KQED chose to focus a season of its housing podcast on climate change\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For most people, insurance is the first line of defense against climate change. When struck by wildfire, flooding or other calamity, an adequate insurance policy can come to the rescue. It’s like a financial first responder, an ambulance full of money to help people back onto their feet. Insurance is the reason something bad happening to you, like losing your home in a wildfire, doesn’t guarantee a slide into poverty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the industry is in serious trouble. Climate disasters around the state, especially worsening wildfires, threaten the current business model and millions of middle-class Californians. Climate risks exist everywhere. However, California is notable for companies racing out of Dodge. Seven of the top 12 insurance companies in the state, including Allstate, State Farm, Farmers Insurance and American International Group (AIG), have left California or pulled back from offering new policies in the last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the Golden State grapples with the devastating consequences of increasingly frequent and intense wildfires, California officials are crafting a major overhaul to insurance regulations. It is meant to stop the exodus of companies and promote market stability, but it will almost certainly mean that insurance premiums will rise. Here is what we know, what to expect, and how it may affect you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC3046460401&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Jump straight to:\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"list-style-type: none\">\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\n\u003ch5>\u003ca href=\"#action\">\u003cstrong>California announces action, at last\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/h5>\n\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\n\u003ch5>\u003ca href=\"#trouble\">\u003cstrong>Why the insurance market is in trouble\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/h5>\n\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\n\u003ch5>\u003ca href=\"#afoot\">\u003cstrong>Change is afoot\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/h5>\n\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\n\u003ch5>\u003ca href=\"#deep\">\u003cstrong>Dive deep: How insurance works\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/h5>\n\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\n\u003ch5>\u003ca href=\"#fair\">\u003cstrong>The FAIR plan: California’s least-loved insurer\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/h5>\n\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\n\u003ch5>\u003ca href=\"#mean\">\u003cstrong>What will the changes mean?\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/h5>\n\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\n\u003ch5>\u003ca href=\"#next\">\u003cstrong>What comes next\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003c/h5>\n\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch3>\u003ca id=\"action\">\u003c/a>California announces action, at last\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>For the better part of the last year, California did not make any structural changes to its insurance marketplace despite the ballooning crisis and the urgency of the problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Structural changes are not sexy,” said Sashi Sabaratnam, former mayor of Mill Valley and manager of Sonoma County’s UC Cooperative Extension wildfire vegetation mitigation program. “Making those changes [won’t] win anybody big fans or win elections. You need somebody with the kind of political courage to look at the problem and really be able to take the heat for making those structural changes.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘To state the obvious, we do not have a stable insurance market. And when you don’t have that, a lot of things can go awfully wrong.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"align":"right","citation":"State Sen. Bill Dodd","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some members of the state legislature considered putting forth a bill to fix some of the many problems. But the effort dissolved at the last minute before the close of the legislative session. Some officials were reportedly afraid they would not be seen as being tough enough on insurance companies and felt that maintaining the status quo would be politically safer.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘Modernizing our insurance market is not going to be easy or happen overnight. We are in really unchartered territory, and we must make difficult choices when the world is changing rapidly.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"align":"right","citation":"Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>State Sen. Bill Dodd (D-Napa) said he was disappointed when the legislative effort fell through.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To state the obvious, we do not have a stable insurance market. And when you don’t have that, a lot of things can go awfully wrong,” he said in the hours after the legislative collapse. “High costs force people to go naked without insurance. That’s happening all over my district. It’s going to affect home and business mortgages because if you can’t get insurance, your mortgages will get called in.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the state legislature stepped back from the problem, it placed increased pressure on California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara, who had mostly avoided talking about making big regulatory changes all year. Instead, he largely focused on talking about reducing the risk of wildfire through mitigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As important as mitigation is, Sabaratnam said, “It means nothing if you do not deal with those structural issues.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Insurance commissioner is an elected position, but Lara was re-elected in 2022, so his seat is secure until his term ends in 2026. That ought to give him a little room to breathe, suggested Sabaratnam.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, an \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2023/09/21/governor-newsom-signs-executive-order-to-strengthen-property-insurance-market/\">executive order from Gov. Gavin Newsom urging the insurance commission to take swift action\u003c/a> to strengthen the property market apparently gave Lara enough political cover to announce changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In September, he announced that a significant regulatory overhaul would be in place by the end of next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California’s current regulatory framework does not meet our needs,” Lara said. “We need to update regulations.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All that is to say, policymakers felt strongly that someone needed to do something. Just who would do what took the better part of a year to figure out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, as anticipated by policy experts, few people cheered. Some TV news outlets framed the announced changes as a win for the insurance industry. Advocacy groups personally attacked Lara. The powerful Consumer Watchdog even attacked other advocacy groups who expressed some support for Lara’s changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985224\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985224\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/IMG_9350-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A couple embraces next to a Weed Community Center sign made of wood.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/IMG_9350-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/IMG_9350-qut-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/IMG_9350-qut-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/IMG_9350-qut-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/IMG_9350-qut-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/IMG_9350-qut-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">After losing two homes in the Mill Fire of 2022, Chester and Denise Hopkins are working to help the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of Weed rebuild. Many of their neighbors were underinsured or had no insurance. That’s part of what’s determining who can stay and rebuild. They’re committed to staying but don’t know how many of their neighbors will. “We’re putting our trust in God that we have at least 50 % [coming back],” Denise Hopkins said. \u003ccite>(Danielle Venton/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>\u003ca id=\"trouble\">\u003c/a>Why the insurance market is in trouble\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Perhaps curiously, home insurance in California \u003ca href=\"https://www.forbes.com/advisor/homeowners-insurance/average-cost-homeowners-insurance/\">actually costs less than in other states with the same sorts of climate risks\u003c/a>. From the insurance industry’s point of view, this is a sign that risk in California is not priced accurately.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Companies trace this situation back to 1988, when voters approved a law limiting how much insurance companies could raise rates and said the state has to approve. It was a voter-backed initiative that attempted to improve insurance for consumers, protecting them from arbitrary insurance rate hikes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Groups that did not like a proposed rate hike could intervene and recoup the legal and administrative costs of doing so. Insurance companies had to set rates tied to historical data from the past 20 years of losses, but they could not look forward to estimates of future losses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 1988 measure — Proposition 103 — was prompted by skyrocketing auto insurance, but it also worked on home insurance. The \u003ca href=\"https://consumerfed.org/press_release/30-years-and-154-billion-of-savings-californias-proposition-103-insurance-reforms-still-saving-drivers-money/\">law has saved Californians billions of dollars\u003c/a>, but insurance companies, who have had to shell out tens of billions of dollars to cover losses from the Camp, Tubbs, Thomas, LNU Lightning Complex, Dixie and other major fires in recent years, hate this rule. Many have effectively said, ‘Hey, we are not doing this anymore.’\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parr Schoolman, Allstate’s chief risk officer, told California insurance officials at a hearing this year that the company needs to be able to raise prices or else it would drop more individual customers or even totally leave the state’s home insurance market.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The current system makes it very difficult for insurance companies to get rate increases of anything more than 7%. It can take years. Typically, the state does not grant requests in total.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, from an insurance company’s perspective, their rates lag years behind the actual price of the risk they are insuring. Meanwhile, reinsurance, which is insurance for insurers, has skyrocketed, along with construction costs and other expenses impacted by inflation. That is all laid against the backdrop of jaw-slackening wildfire losses, which have wiped out decades of profits, particularly in 2017 and 2018.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003ca id=\"afoot\">\u003c/a>Change is afoot\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The big elements of Lara’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.insurance.ca.gov/0400-news/0100-press-releases/2023/release051-2023.cfm\">announced changes\u003c/a> include:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"list-style-type: none\">\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>An agreement with insurance companies to write more policies and collectively offer coverage to at least 85% of homeowners in high wildfire-risk areas. This would allow homeowners currently on the state’s insurer of last resort, the FAIR plan, to transition back to the normal market.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Allowing insurance companies to use forward-looking climate catastrophe models instead of historical data about risk.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Letting companies pass on California-related reinsurance costs.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Increase California Department of Insurance staffing to allow rate increases to be approved faster.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Some consumer advocates and ensuing news coverage suggested it was a victory and bailout for the insurance industry. One of the most strident opposing voices comes from Consumer Watchdog, which has spent years attacking not only the insurance industry but the insurance commissioner himself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The consumer protection organizations painted Lara as an industry insider and said the deal would not guarantee coverage and would increase premiums. In response, the commission pointed out in recently released data that Consumer Watchdog has also benefited from collecting $8.9 million over a decade in compensation for its work-challenging rate increases. Proposition 103 allows members of the public to intervene on behalf of ratepayers and apply for compensation for the expenses of doing so. That money \u003ca href=\"https://www.insurance.ca.gov/01-consumers/150-other-prog/01-intervenor/upload/CDI_Public-Chart_Total-Compensations-Awarder-to-Intervenors.pdf\">comes from insurers, who pass those costs on to their customers\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amy Bach, executive director of United Policyholders, an organization that advocates for insurance customers, dismissed Consumer Watchdog’s view as ignoring the very real threats to the market. Some of the announced changes will likely mean higher premiums. But what is most important, Bach said, was that a compromise would be workable for both consumers and insurers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t like [all the changes],” Bach said. “Using catastrophe models and passing on some reinsurance costs? As far as I know, every other state in the union does that — it is not the end of the world. But what is the end of the world if [the insurance flight] keeps going on like this?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While public utilities are legally required to serve customers, insurance companies can do business in the state or not, as they please.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To stop selling insurance entirely the way that [insurance companies are] doing suggests to me that they are genuinely worried about the adequacy of their rates,” Bach said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the insurance market collapses in the state, people can’t buy homes or sell homes. Most homes have mortgages, and banks won’t lend money unless it’s insured. If the real estate industry collapses, it will reverberate through the entire economy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California is not the only market with insurance troubles. Around the nation, climate-driven disasters are accelerating price hikes, coverage withdrawals and instability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If insurance market trends continue on the current path, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island), speaking at a congressional hearing this year, said it puts the global economy at systemic risk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The term “global systemic risk,” he said, “has a rather bland quality to it. But it describes something that is anything but bland.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is bland in the way talking about subprime mortgages seemed in 2007, just before they triggered a global financial meltdown. The current insurance market situation poses the same kind of risk to the economy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1983896\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1983896\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/08/230810-JASON-MAJORS-DV-KQED_1.jpg\" alt=\"A man in sunglasses stands in an outdoor setting.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/08/230810-JASON-MAJORS-DV-KQED_1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/08/230810-JASON-MAJORS-DV-KQED_1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/08/230810-JASON-MAJORS-DV-KQED_1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/08/230810-JASON-MAJORS-DV-KQED_1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/08/230810-JASON-MAJORS-DV-KQED_1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/08/230810-JASON-MAJORS-DV-KQED_1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/08/230810-JASON-MAJORS-DV-KQED_1-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jason Majors in front of the creek bordering his former property. His home outside Santa Rosa survived nearly half a dozen fires in recent years. Despite his efforts to mitigate hazards around his house, Majors was dropped by insurance carriers numerous times. And when he decided to sell his house, prospective buyers had trouble finding insurance coverage. He had to drop the price four times before the home was sold. \u003ccite>(Danielle Venton/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>\u003ca id=\"deep\">\u003c/a>Dive deep: How insurance works\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>There are three different ways you can get home insurance in California. By way of a high school lunchroom analogy: You can eat with the “the cool kids,” the “not-cool kids,” or the vice principal, who is your last choice, but it might be better than having lunch alone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cool kids are the “admitted market.” They are licensed to sell in the state, California has to approve rate increases, and if the company fails, California will pay out the claims. Being a cool kid comes with a lot of rules, but if you are a company that wants to sell in bulk to Californians, this is the route you need to go. These companies, like Allstate, State Farm or Farmers, are generally best to have your insurance with. But they have scaled back their offerings in wildfire-prone parts of the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then there’s the “not-cool-kids.” These are specialty or surplus lines of coverage from companies such as Lloyds of London, Chubb Custom Insurance Company or Spinnaker Specialty Insurance. They’ll write riskier policies for homeowners or businesses, but they are also more high-risk themselves. They’re not guaranteed if they fail, which means more exposure for a consumer. And they can basically charge what they want. These rates are typically more expensive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The vice principal is the FAIR Plan, the state’s insurer of last resort. It is expensive, and the coverage is lousy. But you can get some coverage when no one else will take you.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003ca id=\"fair\">\u003c/a>The FAIR plan: California’s least-loved insurer\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.cfpnet.com/about-fair-plan/\">FAIR plan\u003c/a> stands for Fair Access to Insurance Requirements, and it’s derisively known as “the un-fair plan” by some of its customers, who feel frustrated they have to use it. It was one of those well-intentioned solutions created to fill a need, but it has ballooned and taken on the dimensions of its own problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The FAIR plan now has 330,000 policyholders. That’s up from 140,000 in 2018 before insurance companies began their flight from California. More people are using it today than were ever intended to. This places the financial foundation of the plan on really shaky ground. And the more people who join, the worse it gets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The FAIR plan is regulated by the state but it’s funding is guaranteed by private insurers. California\u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-watts-riots-explainer-20150715-htmlstory.html\"> created it after the Watts Riots in the 1960s\u003c/a>, when years of simmering anger and distrust had built up between mostly Black residents of the Watts neighborhood and police around Los Angeles exploded for days of unrest. Following those days, \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/1992/05/04/business/riots-raise-concerns-about-insurance-redlining.html\">insurance companies began canceling policies for homeowners and businesses\u003c/a>. The FAIR plan was crafted to provide homeowners and businesses some coverage when nothing else was available. Most states have their own version.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Fair Plan, which is supposed to be sort of a temporary last resort insurance policy, is becoming a permanent insurance policy for many people in high fire risk areas in California,” said Michael Wara, a climate and energy lawyer and researcher at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The economic structure of the FAIR plan is that homeowners pay a lot more money for less insurance,” he added. “And hopefully that’s enough. The reality is it’s not.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Apart from offering fairly poor coverage, the FAIR plan is just about one big disaster away from not having enough money to pay claims to its customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If the FAIR plan were a regular insurer, the insurance department would have to step in and shut it down because it’s so undercapitalized,” Wara said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If there were a big fire, something on the scale of the Tubbs Fire or Camp Fire, in an area where the FAIR Plan covered many homes, the plan would then charge insurers in the admitted market, aka the “cool kids,” for the rest of the money. In insurance jargon, this is called “levying an assessment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here is the scary thing: insurance companies do not have the money saved for this, and they are not allowed to make up the deficit by charging their customers more, so many of them would probably go bankrupt. Other companies would offload policies, basically firing their customers, to try to become financially stable again. The whole market could collapse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That would stop the buying and selling of homes and also the building of any new ones. California is doing a lot to build more houses, but if the insurance market collapses, that progress will evaporate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One entity that is going to sell a lot of houses is a builder,” Wara said. “And if they can’t sell their houses because the people that want to buy them with a mortgage can’t get insurance. It threatens everything that we’re trying to do to make the state more affordable and more equitable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985222\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985222\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230815-BlueForestInitiative-29-BL-qut.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230815-BlueForestInitiative-29-BL-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230815-BlueForestInitiative-29-BL-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230815-BlueForestInitiative-29-BL-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230815-BlueForestInitiative-29-BL-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230815-BlueForestInitiative-29-BL-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/230815-BlueForestInitiative-29-BL-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An area of the National Forest is thinned as a fuel management technique, removing brush and understory vegetation and allowing water to go into ground storage rather than feeding vegetation, near Camptonville, Calif., on Aug. 15, 2023. Fuel management includes thinning, chipping, burning, and removing fuels to reduce the amount of burnable vegetation. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>\u003ca id=\"mean\">\u003c/a>What will the changes mean?\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The changes coming to California’s market are a start, but no one seems to think they’re sufficient on their own, least of all officials at the state’s insurance department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Modernizing our insurance market is not going to be easy or happen overnight,” Lara said. “We are in really unchartered territory, and we must make difficult choices when the world is changing rapidly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While no consumers, elected officials, or consumer advocates want to see prices increase, there is a sense that the era of cheap insurance is over for good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Do I like the days when people were paying a thousand bucks a year for their home insurance? Of course, everybody liked it,” said Bach from United Policyholders. “But we don’t have that option anymore, so something has to change.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, how much rates may increase is an open question. One of the few people who has studied how rates rise using historical data versus catastrophic data is \u003ca href=\"https://www.milliman.com/en/insight/wildfire-catastrophe-models-california-ratemaking\">Nancy Watkins, an actuary at Milliman, an independent consulting firm\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://www.milliman.com/-/media/milliman/pdfs/2022-articles/10-19-22_pci-pifc-cdi-summary.ashx\">2022 study she did indicated that using catastrophic models did not necessarily mean higher rates\u003c/a>. Her work also found that rates were more stable using modeling and, crucially, that models could incorporate wildfire preparation into risk estimates — something historic data fails at.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That can \u003ca href=\"https://www.carriermanagement.com/features/2023/08/29/252411.htm?bypass=9c98e38eb4bd3d9fa4d836afcadbaa24\">incentivize home- and community-level fire mitigation work\u003c/a>, something she and many fire and insurance experts hope is the way of the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1985179\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1985179\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Bear-Trap-Prescribed-Burn_Nevada-County_05-qut.jpg\" alt=\"A person in a yellow jacket brings a hand tool down in a sweeping motion to the ground. \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Bear-Trap-Prescribed-Burn_Nevada-County_05-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Bear-Trap-Prescribed-Burn_Nevada-County_05-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Bear-Trap-Prescribed-Burn_Nevada-County_05-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Bear-Trap-Prescribed-Burn_Nevada-County_05-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Bear-Trap-Prescribed-Burn_Nevada-County_05-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/11/Bear-Trap-Prescribed-Burn_Nevada-County_05-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Crewmembers from the Fire Safe Council of Nevada County walk to the site where they performed ” mop-up” after a prescribed burn on June 21, 2023. Controlled burns like this are one of the best ways communities can reduce the risk from megafire. \u003ccite>(Erin Baldassari/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>\u003ca id=\"next\">\u003c/a>What comes next\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>In the coming months, the state’s insurance department will shape the new regulations and implement reforms. Michael Soller, spokesperson for the department, said this work would focus on a couple of fronts, with some tasks being administrative in nature and some taking place through public meetings and hearings. The state will:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"list-style-type: none\">\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Create maps of where they will require insurance companies to write more policies, offering coverage to 85% of homeowners.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Evaluate catastrophe models and consider the creation of a new public model, owned by the state, versus adopting existing models made by companies.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Consider incorporating some California-related reinsurance costs into rates.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Hire more staff.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Deny intervenor petitions by advocacy groups that replicate the work already being done by staff.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Bach said following the announcement of coming reforms, she hoped the exodus would be staunched. But she said many companies still seem wary of offering coverage. She thinks they’re afraid advocates, like Consumer Watchdog, will sue to block the changes. “I think that’s part of the problem of why nothing has really shifted since the announcement,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The nature of hard problems is that there are no easy, short-term wins, policy expert Sabratnam said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If these changes are made and people’s rates go up and some people still lose their insurance and some people still go on the FAIR Plan, people will then turn around and say, ‘Well look, you didn’t succeed, you failed,’” Sabaratnam said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, she added, structural change is what is needed, even if it is unpopular.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Everything else is just a Band-Aid,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/science/1985175/insurance-in-california-is-changing-heres-how-it-may-affect-you","authors":["11088"],"categories":["science_31","science_40","science_4450"],"tags":["science_194","science_4417","science_4414","science_5072","science_5094","science_5073","science_113"],"featImg":"science_1985180","label":"source_science_1985175"},"science_1982750":{"type":"posts","id":"science_1982750","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"science","id":"1982750","found":true},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"blue-jellyfish-like-creatures-ride-california-waves-a-climate-change-indicator","title":"Blue Jellyfish-Like Creatures Ride California Waves: A Climate Change Indicator?","publishDate":1684529976,"format":"standard","headTitle":"Blue Jellyfish-Like Creatures Ride California Waves: A Climate Change Indicator? | KQED","labelTerm":{"site":"science"},"content":"\u003cp>Surfers and beachgoers across the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/california-coast\">California coast\u003c/a> have recently been treated to a mesmerizing spectacle: countless blue jellyfish-like creatures riding waves and washing up on sandy beaches.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These captivating organisms, known as “by-the-wind sailors,” are Velella velella and they possess striking blue translucent bodies. They thrive in large numbers, primarily in the northern hemisphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They have a little stiff sail that sticks up from their floats and they use these little sails to capture the wind,” said Chrissy Piotrowski, senior collections manager of invertebrate zoology at the California Academy of Sciences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[ad fullwidth]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They are related to the fearsome Portuguese man o’ war, often mistakenly identified as jellyfish. Still, unlike their notorious cousins, Velella velella stings are relatively mild, according to Steven Haddock, a senior scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“From our human point of view, we think of them as invading our shorelines, but that doesn’t necessarily reflect the actual populations that are offshore,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1982754\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1982754\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/05/003_KQED_OBVelellaVelella_05182023.jpg\" alt=\"A shot of a sandy beach with scattered seaweed and shells. Nearby, a blue, translucent organism similar to a jellyfish rests on the sand. Two people in the distance walk along the ocean.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/05/003_KQED_OBVelellaVelella_05182023.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/05/003_KQED_OBVelellaVelella_05182023-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/05/003_KQED_OBVelellaVelella_05182023-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/05/003_KQED_OBVelellaVelella_05182023-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/05/003_KQED_OBVelellaVelella_05182023-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/05/003_KQED_OBVelellaVelella_05182023-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Blue, translucent Velella velella is seen washed ashore on Ocean Beach in San Francisco on May 18, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>These ethereal beings resemble little sailboats and wash up on shore when ocean temperatures warm up and onshore wind events occur. The recent surge in the strandings of the see-through blue sea creatures could be a consequence of human-caused climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When we see them a lot, it’s sort of like they’re putting up a huge billboard that says, ‘Hey, pay attention, things are changing,’” said Julia K. Parrish, a marine biologist and a professor at the University of Washington, who examined the creatures in a 2021 study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her research utilized community science data, analyzed stranding reports and found a potential association between rising ocean temperatures and the frequency of these events. Although concrete proof is yet to emerge, the warming trend in sea surface temperatures with links to human-caused climate change could mean more sightings of these azure, disc-like creatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A warmer ocean along the coastline means that those organisms that normally live around California are going to start to move north,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1982760\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2048px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1982760\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/05/iStock-531994550.jpg\" alt=\"Dozens of light blue, translucent organisms comparable to jellyfish are washed ashore a sandy beach. Droplets of water and sand are sprinkled over the beings.\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1536\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/05/iStock-531994550.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/05/iStock-531994550-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/05/iStock-531994550-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/05/iStock-531994550-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/05/iStock-531994550-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/05/iStock-531994550-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/05/iStock-531994550-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Stranded Velella velella on the Oregon Coast on June 13, 2016. \u003ccite>((jsseattle/iStock))\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>She said one instance of a mass stranding isn’t enough to attach climate change as the reason behind the organism washing ashore. But when looking at an increase in strandings over the past two decades, Parrish said the case for the climate link is growing and more research is warranted to gain a greater understanding of the impact anthropogenic climate change has on the species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Julia K. Parrish, marine biologist, professor University of Washington\"]‘When we see signals coming from the ocean to the coast, we should pay attention. The Velella velella is an early-warning bell that we may be seeing some shifts.’[/pullquote]\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When we see signals coming from the ocean to the coast, we should pay attention,” she said. “The Velella velella is an early-warning bell that we may be seeing some shifts.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Conditions for Velella velella strandings may increase over the next year. Brian Garcia, warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service Bay Area and Monterey regions, said the current onshore wind events would likely become more robust.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you just pull back a little bit and blur your eyes, it’s been pretty much onshore for months,” he said. “We’ll see warm waters sticking around with us probably until next spring into next summer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">KQED’s Sarah Mohamad contributed to this story.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"Mesmerizing blue creatures, known as \"by-the-wind sailors,\" ride waves along the California coast. Their presence hints at climate change's impact on marine ecosystems, urging us to pay attention to these subtle indicators of environmental shifts.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1704846007,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":17,"wordCount":626},"headData":{"title":"Blue Jellyfish-Like Creatures Ride California Waves: A Climate Change Indicator? | KQED","description":"Mesmerizing blue creatures, known as "by-the-wind sailors," ride waves along the California coast. Their presence hints at climate change's impact on marine ecosystems, urging us to pay attention to these subtle indicators of environmental shifts.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":""},"sticky":false,"excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","articleAge":"0","path":"/science/1982750/blue-jellyfish-like-creatures-ride-california-waves-a-climate-change-indicator","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Surfers and beachgoers across the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/california-coast\">California coast\u003c/a> have recently been treated to a mesmerizing spectacle: countless blue jellyfish-like creatures riding waves and washing up on sandy beaches.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These captivating organisms, known as “by-the-wind sailors,” are Velella velella and they possess striking blue translucent bodies. They thrive in large numbers, primarily in the northern hemisphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They have a little stiff sail that sticks up from their floats and they use these little sails to capture the wind,” said Chrissy Piotrowski, senior collections manager of invertebrate zoology at the California Academy of Sciences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They are related to the fearsome Portuguese man o’ war, often mistakenly identified as jellyfish. Still, unlike their notorious cousins, Velella velella stings are relatively mild, according to Steven Haddock, a senior scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“From our human point of view, we think of them as invading our shorelines, but that doesn’t necessarily reflect the actual populations that are offshore,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1982754\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1982754\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/05/003_KQED_OBVelellaVelella_05182023.jpg\" alt=\"A shot of a sandy beach with scattered seaweed and shells. Nearby, a blue, translucent organism similar to a jellyfish rests on the sand. Two people in the distance walk along the ocean.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/05/003_KQED_OBVelellaVelella_05182023.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/05/003_KQED_OBVelellaVelella_05182023-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/05/003_KQED_OBVelellaVelella_05182023-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/05/003_KQED_OBVelellaVelella_05182023-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/05/003_KQED_OBVelellaVelella_05182023-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/05/003_KQED_OBVelellaVelella_05182023-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Blue, translucent Velella velella is seen washed ashore on Ocean Beach in San Francisco on May 18, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>These ethereal beings resemble little sailboats and wash up on shore when ocean temperatures warm up and onshore wind events occur. The recent surge in the strandings of the see-through blue sea creatures could be a consequence of human-caused climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When we see them a lot, it’s sort of like they’re putting up a huge billboard that says, ‘Hey, pay attention, things are changing,’” said Julia K. Parrish, a marine biologist and a professor at the University of Washington, who examined the creatures in a 2021 study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her research utilized community science data, analyzed stranding reports and found a potential association between rising ocean temperatures and the frequency of these events. Although concrete proof is yet to emerge, the warming trend in sea surface temperatures with links to human-caused climate change could mean more sightings of these azure, disc-like creatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A warmer ocean along the coastline means that those organisms that normally live around California are going to start to move north,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1982760\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2048px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1982760\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2023/05/iStock-531994550.jpg\" alt=\"Dozens of light blue, translucent organisms comparable to jellyfish are washed ashore a sandy beach. Droplets of water and sand are sprinkled over the beings.\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1536\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/05/iStock-531994550.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/05/iStock-531994550-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/05/iStock-531994550-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/05/iStock-531994550-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/05/iStock-531994550-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/05/iStock-531994550-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/05/iStock-531994550-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Stranded Velella velella on the Oregon Coast on June 13, 2016. \u003ccite>((jsseattle/iStock))\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>She said one instance of a mass stranding isn’t enough to attach climate change as the reason behind the organism washing ashore. But when looking at an increase in strandings over the past two decades, Parrish said the case for the climate link is growing and more research is warranted to gain a greater understanding of the impact anthropogenic climate change has on the species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘When we see signals coming from the ocean to the coast, we should pay attention. The Velella velella is an early-warning bell that we may be seeing some shifts.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"size":"medium","align":"right","citation":"Julia K. Parrish, marine biologist, professor University of Washington","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When we see signals coming from the ocean to the coast, we should pay attention,” she said. “The Velella velella is an early-warning bell that we may be seeing some shifts.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Conditions for Velella velella strandings may increase over the next year. Brian Garcia, warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service Bay Area and Monterey regions, said the current onshore wind events would likely become more robust.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you just pull back a little bit and blur your eyes, it’s been pretty much onshore for months,” he said. “We’ll see warm waters sticking around with us probably until next spring into next summer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">KQED’s Sarah Mohamad contributed to this story.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/science/1982750/blue-jellyfish-like-creatures-ride-california-waves-a-climate-change-indicator","authors":["11746"],"categories":["science_40","science_2873","science_4450"],"tags":["science_986","science_2455","science_194","science_2409","science_813","science_5183"],"featImg":"science_1982755","label":"science"},"science_1941506":{"type":"posts","id":"science_1941506","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"science","id":"1941506","found":true},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"these-face-mites-really-grow-on-you","title":"These Face Mites Really Grow on You","publishDate":1558443627,"format":"video","headTitle":"These Face Mites Really Grow on You | KQED","labelTerm":{"term":1935,"site":"science"},"content":"\u003cp>[dl_subscribe]I hate to break this to you, but you almost certainly have tiny mites living in the pores in your face right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’re called Demodex. And pretty much every adult human alive has a population of these mites living on them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Also called eyelash mites, they’re too small to see with the naked eye. They’re mostly transparent, and at about .3 millimeters long, it would take about five face adult mites laid end to end to stretch across the head of a pin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They look like kind of like stubby little worms,” said Michelle Trautwein, an entomologist at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trautwein studies our relationship with these microscopic stowaways by looking at their DNA. Her findings so far show that people in different parts of the world have different face mites living in the skin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They tell a story of your own ancestry and also a story of more ancient human history and migration,” said Trautwein.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1941539\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 500px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/DL610_FaceMites_MichelleTrautwein_microscope.gif\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1941539\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/DL610_FaceMites_MichelleTrautwein_microscope.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Michelle Trautwein of the California Academy of Sciences studies face mites using microscopes and genetic testing. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We use a little spoon and scrape it across the kind of greasier parts of someone’s face — which isn’t as bad as it sounds,” said Trautwein.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once she has collected the samples, she takes them back to the lab to look at the genetics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trautwein has found DNA evidence of face mites on every one of more than 2,000 people she has tested, including tourists from all around the world who make their way to the California Academy of Sciences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“No one is thrilled at the initial notion that they have arachnids on their face,” Trautwein said. “But people are often curious — even in their revulsion.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But how could these creatures live on so many people and still go unnoticed?\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1941533\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/DL610_FaceMites_PeachFuzz_male.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1941533 size-large\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/DL610_FaceMites_PeachFuzz_male-1020x574.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/DL610_FaceMites_PeachFuzz_male-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/DL610_FaceMites_PeachFuzz_male-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/DL610_FaceMites_PeachFuzz_male-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/DL610_FaceMites_PeachFuzz_male-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/DL610_FaceMites_PeachFuzz_male-1200x675.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/DL610_FaceMites_PeachFuzz_male-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/DL610_FaceMites_PeachFuzz_male.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Face mites make their home in the follicles found at the root of the peach fuzz that covers most human skin. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Look closely and you’ll see that in addition to the more obvious body and head hair, human skin is covered in a thin, barely visible layer of peach fuzz called vellus hairs. There are a few notable exceptions, such as the palms of our hands and soles of our feet, but other than that our entire bodies are covered in that fuzz. The shaft of each one of those tiny hairs grows out of its own follicle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Face mites spend their days face-down inside your hair follicles nestled up against the hair shaft.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They eat sebum, that greasy oil your skin makes to protect itself and keep it from drying out. The sebum is produced in sebaceous glands, which empty into the hair follicles, coating both the hair shaft and face mites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s why the greasiest parts of your body — like around the eyes, nose and mouth — likely harbor a higher concentration of mites than other areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They live about two weeks. They spend most of their time tucked inside our pores. But while we’re sleeping, they crawl out onto the surface of our skin to mate before crawling back into our pores to lay their eggs. Fun!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since they live inside your pores, you can’t scrub them off by washing. It’s basically impossible to get rid of all of your face mites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So how does Trautwein study them? With glue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1941540\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 500px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/DL610_FaceMites_SlideCollection_LindsayPalaima.gif\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1941540\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/DL610_FaceMites_SlideCollection_LindsayPalaima.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lindsay Palaima bravely volunteers to have a slide covered in glue stuck to her forehead in order to capture face mites growing in her pores. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I actually put glue on a glass microscope slide and stick it onto a person’s forehead,” she said. “Then I slowly peel it off. I look under a microscope for mites that are stuck in the follicles that stick up from the thin layer of skin that got peeled off.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It can be pretty addictive and exciting,” she added. “It’s sort of a meditative process of looking through this microforest of follicles and hairs, and looking for just the right potential movement or shape.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1941538\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 500px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/DL610_FaceMites_InFollicle.gif\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1941538 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/DL610_FaceMites_InFollicle.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Demodex face mite seen writhing around in the root of a human hair follicle, observed under a microscope. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>These Demodex face mites got their name from the Greek words for “fat” and “boring worm,” but they’re not really worms at all. They’re actually arachnids — related to ticks — and more distantly to spiders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most people have face mites on them and never notice. It seems that our immune system is able to keep their numbers in check. But some people can experience problems with them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you tell patients that they have face mites, first of all, they freak out,” said Dr. Kanade Shinkai, a dermatologist at UCSF.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shinkai occasionally treats patients who have an overload of face mites, which results in a condition called demodicosis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is a very particular look to people suffering from demodicosis. We call it the Demodex frost,” she said. “It’s sort of a white sheen on the skin. And if you look really closely, you can see coming out of every pore. If you scrape those pores, you can see it frothing with little Demodex face mites.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a pretty rare condition and it’s often connected to a change in someone’s immune system, such as receiving immunosuppressive drugs after transplant surgery, chemotherapy or immunodeficiency diseases like HIV.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Demodicosis can also be triggered by local suppression of the immune system, like when itch-relieving hydrocortisone cream is used on the face.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When it does happen, demodicosis usually comes on fast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Patients almost universally describe this explosive development of pustules like whiteheads on their face. It’s really dramatic,” Shinkai said. “And what’s really dramatic about it is that they’re often fine the day before, and then they develop it, overnight.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for the vast majority of people, face mites are nothing to worry about. While some studies have found loose connections between Demodex and diseases like rosacea, the evidence hasn’t shown a strong link.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What’s really confusing is that if you go into your office and scrape everyone’s face, you would find Demodex probably on everybody,” Shinkai said. “And people who have low burden of Demodex may have no or very severe disease and vice versa.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trautwein also sees face mites as more of a source of interest than fear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re not dangerous in a broad sense because we all have them and most of us seem to be cohabiting quite well with them,” Trautwein said. “We mostly share them within family units and it seems like you are probably initially colonized soon after birth, most likely by your mother, traditionally speaking in human history.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Looking at these mites, researchers like Trautwein can usually tell something about your geographical ancestry — what part of the world your ancestors came from.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1941715\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/Map_Follic_migration_nonumbers.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1941715 size-large\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/Map_Follic_migration_nonumbers-1020x496.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"311\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/Map_Follic_migration_nonumbers-1020x496.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/Map_Follic_migration_nonumbers-160x78.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/Map_Follic_migration_nonumbers-800x389.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/Map_Follic_migration_nonumbers-768x374.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/Map_Follic_migration_nonumbers-1200x584.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/Map_Follic_migration_nonumbers.jpg 1285w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Michelle Trautwein has found that several genetically distinct groups of Demodex face mites (represented by different colors on this map) exist in different geographic areas. \u003ccite>(Michelle Trautwein/California Academy of Sciences)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Face mites are definitely the species of animal that we have the closest connection with as humans, even though most of us don’t know about them or ever see one in our lifetime,” she said. “We still have this very ancient and intimate relationship, and it seems clear that we’ve had these face mite species with us for all of our history. So they are as old as our species, as old as homo sapiens.”\u003c/p>\n\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"Yep, you probably have Demodex mites living on your face. These tiny arachnids feast on sebum, the greasy oil in your pores. But should you be worried about your eight-legged guests? ","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1704848665,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":37,"wordCount":1341},"headData":{"title":"These Face Mites Really Grow on You | KQED","description":"Yep, you probably have Demodex mites living on your face. These tiny arachnids feast on sebum, the greasy oil in your pores. But should you be worried about your eight-legged guests? ","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":""},"videoEmbed":"https://youtu.be/YW2eGaUzq7E","sticky":false,"path":"/science/1941506/these-face-mites-really-grow-on-you","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"dl_subscribe","attributes":{"named":{"label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>I hate to break this to you, but you almost certainly have tiny mites living in the pores in your face right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’re called Demodex. And pretty much every adult human alive has a population of these mites living on them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Also called eyelash mites, they’re too small to see with the naked eye. They’re mostly transparent, and at about .3 millimeters long, it would take about five face adult mites laid end to end to stretch across the head of a pin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They look like kind of like stubby little worms,” said Michelle Trautwein, an entomologist at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trautwein studies our relationship with these microscopic stowaways by looking at their DNA. Her findings so far show that people in different parts of the world have different face mites living in the skin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They tell a story of your own ancestry and also a story of more ancient human history and migration,” said Trautwein.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1941539\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 500px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/DL610_FaceMites_MichelleTrautwein_microscope.gif\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1941539\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/DL610_FaceMites_MichelleTrautwein_microscope.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Michelle Trautwein of the California Academy of Sciences studies face mites using microscopes and genetic testing. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We use a little spoon and scrape it across the kind of greasier parts of someone’s face — which isn’t as bad as it sounds,” said Trautwein.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once she has collected the samples, she takes them back to the lab to look at the genetics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trautwein has found DNA evidence of face mites on every one of more than 2,000 people she has tested, including tourists from all around the world who make their way to the California Academy of Sciences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“No one is thrilled at the initial notion that they have arachnids on their face,” Trautwein said. “But people are often curious — even in their revulsion.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But how could these creatures live on so many people and still go unnoticed?\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1941533\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/DL610_FaceMites_PeachFuzz_male.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1941533 size-large\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/DL610_FaceMites_PeachFuzz_male-1020x574.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/DL610_FaceMites_PeachFuzz_male-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/DL610_FaceMites_PeachFuzz_male-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/DL610_FaceMites_PeachFuzz_male-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/DL610_FaceMites_PeachFuzz_male-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/DL610_FaceMites_PeachFuzz_male-1200x675.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/DL610_FaceMites_PeachFuzz_male-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/DL610_FaceMites_PeachFuzz_male.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Face mites make their home in the follicles found at the root of the peach fuzz that covers most human skin. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Look closely and you’ll see that in addition to the more obvious body and head hair, human skin is covered in a thin, barely visible layer of peach fuzz called vellus hairs. There are a few notable exceptions, such as the palms of our hands and soles of our feet, but other than that our entire bodies are covered in that fuzz. The shaft of each one of those tiny hairs grows out of its own follicle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Face mites spend their days face-down inside your hair follicles nestled up against the hair shaft.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They eat sebum, that greasy oil your skin makes to protect itself and keep it from drying out. The sebum is produced in sebaceous glands, which empty into the hair follicles, coating both the hair shaft and face mites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s why the greasiest parts of your body — like around the eyes, nose and mouth — likely harbor a higher concentration of mites than other areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They live about two weeks. They spend most of their time tucked inside our pores. But while we’re sleeping, they crawl out onto the surface of our skin to mate before crawling back into our pores to lay their eggs. Fun!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since they live inside your pores, you can’t scrub them off by washing. It’s basically impossible to get rid of all of your face mites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So how does Trautwein study them? With glue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1941540\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 500px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/DL610_FaceMites_SlideCollection_LindsayPalaima.gif\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1941540\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/DL610_FaceMites_SlideCollection_LindsayPalaima.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lindsay Palaima bravely volunteers to have a slide covered in glue stuck to her forehead in order to capture face mites growing in her pores. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I actually put glue on a glass microscope slide and stick it onto a person’s forehead,” she said. “Then I slowly peel it off. I look under a microscope for mites that are stuck in the follicles that stick up from the thin layer of skin that got peeled off.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It can be pretty addictive and exciting,” she added. “It’s sort of a meditative process of looking through this microforest of follicles and hairs, and looking for just the right potential movement or shape.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1941538\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 500px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/DL610_FaceMites_InFollicle.gif\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1941538 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/DL610_FaceMites_InFollicle.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Demodex face mite seen writhing around in the root of a human hair follicle, observed under a microscope. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>These Demodex face mites got their name from the Greek words for “fat” and “boring worm,” but they’re not really worms at all. They’re actually arachnids — related to ticks — and more distantly to spiders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most people have face mites on them and never notice. It seems that our immune system is able to keep their numbers in check. But some people can experience problems with them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you tell patients that they have face mites, first of all, they freak out,” said Dr. Kanade Shinkai, a dermatologist at UCSF.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shinkai occasionally treats patients who have an overload of face mites, which results in a condition called demodicosis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is a very particular look to people suffering from demodicosis. We call it the Demodex frost,” she said. “It’s sort of a white sheen on the skin. And if you look really closely, you can see coming out of every pore. If you scrape those pores, you can see it frothing with little Demodex face mites.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a pretty rare condition and it’s often connected to a change in someone’s immune system, such as receiving immunosuppressive drugs after transplant surgery, chemotherapy or immunodeficiency diseases like HIV.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Demodicosis can also be triggered by local suppression of the immune system, like when itch-relieving hydrocortisone cream is used on the face.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When it does happen, demodicosis usually comes on fast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Patients almost universally describe this explosive development of pustules like whiteheads on their face. It’s really dramatic,” Shinkai said. “And what’s really dramatic about it is that they’re often fine the day before, and then they develop it, overnight.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for the vast majority of people, face mites are nothing to worry about. While some studies have found loose connections between Demodex and diseases like rosacea, the evidence hasn’t shown a strong link.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What’s really confusing is that if you go into your office and scrape everyone’s face, you would find Demodex probably on everybody,” Shinkai said. “And people who have low burden of Demodex may have no or very severe disease and vice versa.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trautwein also sees face mites as more of a source of interest than fear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re not dangerous in a broad sense because we all have them and most of us seem to be cohabiting quite well with them,” Trautwein said. “We mostly share them within family units and it seems like you are probably initially colonized soon after birth, most likely by your mother, traditionally speaking in human history.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Looking at these mites, researchers like Trautwein can usually tell something about your geographical ancestry — what part of the world your ancestors came from.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1941715\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/Map_Follic_migration_nonumbers.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1941715 size-large\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/Map_Follic_migration_nonumbers-1020x496.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"311\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/Map_Follic_migration_nonumbers-1020x496.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/Map_Follic_migration_nonumbers-160x78.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/Map_Follic_migration_nonumbers-800x389.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/Map_Follic_migration_nonumbers-768x374.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/Map_Follic_migration_nonumbers-1200x584.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/05/Map_Follic_migration_nonumbers.jpg 1285w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Michelle Trautwein has found that several genetically distinct groups of Demodex face mites (represented by different colors on this map) exist in different geographic areas. \u003ccite>(Michelle Trautwein/California Academy of Sciences)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Face mites are definitely the species of animal that we have the closest connection with as humans, even though most of us don’t know about them or ever see one in our lifetime,” she said. “We still have this very ancient and intimate relationship, and it seems clear that we’ve had these face mite species with us for all of our history. So they are as old as our species, as old as homo sapiens.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/science/1941506/these-face-mites-really-grow-on-you","authors":["6219"],"series":["science_1935"],"categories":["science_2874","science_30","science_3890","science_86"],"tags":["science_3370"],"featImg":"science_1942008","label":"science_1935"},"science_1949166":{"type":"posts","id":"science_1949166","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"science","id":"1949166","found":true},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"photos-what-san-franciscos-marina-looked-like-after-loma-prieta-and-now","title":"Photos: What San Francisco's Marina District Looked Like After Loma Prieta and Now","publishDate":1571321069,"format":"aside","headTitle":"Photos: What San Francisco’s Marina District Looked Like After Loma Prieta and Now | KQED","labelTerm":{},"content":"\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On Tuesday, Oct. 17, 1989, as evening rush hour was getting underway, a 6.9 magnitude earthquake with an epicenter near the Loma Prieta peak of the Santa Cruz Mountains shook the entire Bay Area. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The quake killed at least 63 people and injured about 3,700. After the quake, thousands of buildings became uninhabitable, including dozens in \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">San Francisco’s \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Marina District\u003c/span>.\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Below are photos of what four locations in the neighborhood looked like both after the quake and today.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ctable border=\"0\" width=\"98%\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n\u003ctbody>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd>\n\u003ctable border=\"0\" width=\"98%\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n\u003ctbody>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd style=\"text-align: left;\">\n\u003ch3> Divisadero north of Beach Street\u003c/h3>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/01A.jpg\" alt=\"Loma Prieta 1989\" width=\"98%\">\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd style=\"text-align: left;\">Oct. 21, 1989. \u003cem>Photo by Getty\u003c/em>\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/01B.jpg\" alt=\"Loma Prieta 2019\" width=\"98%\">\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd style=\"text-align: left;\">Oct. 4, 2019. \u003cem>Photo by Lindsey Moore\u003c/em>\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003c/tbody>\n\u003c/table>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003c/tbody>\n\u003c/table>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003ctable border=\"0\" width=\"98%\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n\u003ctbody>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd>\n\u003ctable border=\"0\" width=\"98%\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n\u003ctbody>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd style=\"text-align: left;\">\n\u003ch3>Fillmore Street near Cervantes Boulevard\u003c/h3>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/02A.jpg\" alt=\"Loma Prieta 1989\" width=\"98%\">\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd style=\"text-align: left;\">Oct. 17, 1989. \u003cem>Photo by Getty\u003c/em>\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/02B.jpg\" alt=\"Loma Prieta 2019\" width=\"98%\">\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd style=\"text-align: left;\">Oct. 4, 2019. \u003cem>Photo by Lindsey Moore\u003c/em>\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003c/tbody>\n\u003c/table>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003c/tbody>\n\u003c/table>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003ctable border=\"0\" width=\"98%\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n\u003ctbody>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd>\n\u003ctable border=\"0\" width=\"98%\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n\u003ctbody>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd style=\"text-align: left;\">\n\u003ch3>Corner of Jefferson and Divisadero streets\u003c/h3>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/03A.jpg\" alt=\"Loma Prieta 1989\" width=\"98%\">\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd style=\"text-align: left;\">Oct. 21, 1989. \u003cem>Photo by Getty\u003c/em>\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/03B.jpg\" alt=\"Loma Prieta 2019\" width=\"98%\">\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd style=\"text-align: left;\">Oct. 4 2019. \u003cem>Photo by Lindsey Moore\u003c/em>\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003c/tbody>\n\u003c/table>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003c/tbody>\n\u003c/table>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003ctable border=\"0\" width=\"98%\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n\u003ctbody>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd>\n\u003ctable border=\"0\" width=\"98%\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n\u003ctbody>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd style=\"text-align: left;\">\n\u003ch3>Corner of Beach and Divisadero streets\u003c/h3>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/G01A.jpg\" alt=\"Loma Prieta 1989\" width=\"98%\">\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd style=\"text-align: left;\">Oct. 17, 1989. \u003cem>Photo by Getty\u003c/em>\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/G01B.jpg\" alt=\"Loma Prieta 2019\" width=\"98%\">\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd style=\"text-align: left;\">Oct. 15, 2019. \u003cem>Photo by Getty\u003c/em>.\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003c/tbody>\n\u003c/table>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003c/tbody>\n\u003c/table>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"Afer the quake, thousands of buildings became uninhabitable, including dozens in San Francisco’s Marina District.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1704848232,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":3,"wordCount":165},"headData":{"title":"Photos: What San Francisco's Marina District Looked Like After Loma Prieta and Now | KQED","description":"Afer the quake, thousands of buildings became uninhabitable, including dozens in San Francisco’s Marina District.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":""},"source":"Loma Prieta Anniversary","sticky":false,"path":"/science/1949166/photos-what-san-franciscos-marina-looked-like-after-loma-prieta-and-now","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On Tuesday, Oct. 17, 1989, as evening rush hour was getting underway, a 6.9 magnitude earthquake with an epicenter near the Loma Prieta peak of the Santa Cruz Mountains shook the entire Bay Area. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The quake killed at least 63 people and injured about 3,700. After the quake, thousands of buildings became uninhabitable, including dozens in \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">San Francisco’s \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Marina District\u003c/span>.\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Below are photos of what four locations in the neighborhood looked like both after the quake and today.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ctable border=\"0\" width=\"98%\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n\u003ctbody>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd>\n\u003ctable border=\"0\" width=\"98%\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n\u003ctbody>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd style=\"text-align: left;\">\n\u003ch3> Divisadero north of Beach Street\u003c/h3>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/01A.jpg\" alt=\"Loma Prieta 1989\" width=\"98%\">\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd style=\"text-align: left;\">Oct. 21, 1989. \u003cem>Photo by Getty\u003c/em>\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/01B.jpg\" alt=\"Loma Prieta 2019\" width=\"98%\">\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd style=\"text-align: left;\">Oct. 4, 2019. \u003cem>Photo by Lindsey Moore\u003c/em>\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003c/tbody>\n\u003c/table>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003c/tbody>\n\u003c/table>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003ctable border=\"0\" width=\"98%\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n\u003ctbody>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd>\n\u003ctable border=\"0\" width=\"98%\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n\u003ctbody>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd style=\"text-align: left;\">\n\u003ch3>Fillmore Street near Cervantes Boulevard\u003c/h3>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/02A.jpg\" alt=\"Loma Prieta 1989\" width=\"98%\">\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd style=\"text-align: left;\">Oct. 17, 1989. \u003cem>Photo by Getty\u003c/em>\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/02B.jpg\" alt=\"Loma Prieta 2019\" width=\"98%\">\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd style=\"text-align: left;\">Oct. 4, 2019. \u003cem>Photo by Lindsey Moore\u003c/em>\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003c/tbody>\n\u003c/table>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003c/tbody>\n\u003c/table>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003ctable border=\"0\" width=\"98%\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n\u003ctbody>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd>\n\u003ctable border=\"0\" width=\"98%\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n\u003ctbody>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd style=\"text-align: left;\">\n\u003ch3>Corner of Jefferson and Divisadero streets\u003c/h3>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/03A.jpg\" alt=\"Loma Prieta 1989\" width=\"98%\">\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd style=\"text-align: left;\">Oct. 21, 1989. \u003cem>Photo by Getty\u003c/em>\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/03B.jpg\" alt=\"Loma Prieta 2019\" width=\"98%\">\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd style=\"text-align: left;\">Oct. 4 2019. \u003cem>Photo by Lindsey Moore\u003c/em>\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003c/tbody>\n\u003c/table>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003c/tbody>\n\u003c/table>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003ctable border=\"0\" width=\"98%\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n\u003ctbody>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd>\n\u003ctable border=\"0\" width=\"98%\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n\u003ctbody>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd style=\"text-align: left;\">\n\u003ch3>Corner of Beach and Divisadero streets\u003c/h3>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/G01A.jpg\" alt=\"Loma Prieta 1989\" width=\"98%\">\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd style=\"text-align: left;\">Oct. 17, 1989. \u003cem>Photo by Getty\u003c/em>\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2019/10/G01B.jpg\" alt=\"Loma Prieta 2019\" width=\"98%\">\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003ctr>\n\u003ctd style=\"text-align: left;\">Oct. 15, 2019. \u003cem>Photo by Getty\u003c/em>.\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003c/tbody>\n\u003c/table>\n\u003c/td>\n\u003c/tr>\n\u003c/tbody>\n\u003c/table>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/science/1949166/photos-what-san-franciscos-marina-looked-like-after-loma-prieta-and-now","authors":["11577"],"categories":["science_38","science_40"],"tags":["science_427"],"featImg":"science_1949150","label":"source_science_1949166"},"futureofyou_435315":{"type":"posts","id":"futureofyou_435315","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"futureofyou","id":"435315","found":true},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"ibm-pitched-its-watson-supercomputer-as-a-revolution-in-cancer-care-its-nowhere-close","title":"IBM Pitched Its Watson Supercomputer as a Revolution in Cancer Care. It’s Nowhere Close","publishDate":1504722796,"format":"standard","headTitle":"KQED Future of You | KQED Science","labelTerm":{"term":1097,"site":"futureofyou"},"content":"\u003cp>It was an audacious undertaking, even for one of the most storied American companies: With a single machine, IBM would tackle humanity’s most vexing diseases and revolutionize medicine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Breathlessly promoting its signature brand — Watson — IBM sought to capture the world’s imagination, and it quickly zeroed in on a high-profile target: cancer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But three years after IBM began selling Watson to recommend the best cancer treatments to doctors around the world, a STAT investigation has found that the supercomputer isn’t living up to the lofty expectations IBM created for it. It is still struggling with the basic step of learning about different forms of cancer. Only a few dozen hospitals have adopted the system, which is a long way from IBM’s goal of establishing dominance in a multibillion-dollar market. And at foreign hospitals, physicians complained its advice is biased toward American patients and methods of care.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">IBM has not exposed the product to critical review by outside scientists or conducted clinical trials to assess its effectiveness.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>STAT examined Watson for Oncology’s use, marketing, and performance in hospitals across the world, from South Korea to Slovakia to South Florida. Reporters interviewed dozens of doctors, IBM executives, artificial intelligence experts, and others familiar with the system’s underlying technology and rollout.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The interviews suggest that IBM, in its rush to bolster flagging revenue, unleashed a product without fully assessing the challenges of deploying it in hospitals globally. While it has \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=au4kzyJUlrA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">emphatically marketed\u003c/a> Watson for cancer care, IBM hasn’t published any scientific papers demonstrating how the technology affects physicians and patients. As a result, its flaws are getting exposed on the front lines of care by doctors and researchers who say that the system, while promising in some respects, remains undeveloped.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Watson for Oncology is in their toddler stage, and we have to wait and actively engage, hopefully to help them grow healthy,” said Dr. Taewoo Kang, a South Korean cancer specialist who has used the product.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At its heart, Watson for Oncology uses the cloud-based supercomputer to digest massive amounts of data — from doctor’s notes to medical studies to clinical guidelines. But its treatment recommendations are not based on its own insights from these data. Instead, they are based exclusively on training by human overseers, who laboriously feed Watson information about how patients with specific characteristics should be treated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>IBM executives acknowledged \u003ca href=\"https://www.ibm.com/watson/health/oncology-and-genomics/oncology/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Watson for Oncology\u003c/a>, which has been in development for nearly six years, is in its infancy. But they said it is improving rapidly, noting that by year’s end, the system will offer guidance about treatment for 12 cancers that account for 80 percent of the world’s cases. They said it’s saving doctors time and ensuring that patients get top-quality care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re seeing stories come in where patients are saying, ‘It gave me peace of mind,’” Watson Health general manager Deborah DiSanzo said. “That makes us feel extraordinarily good that what we’re doing is going to make a difference for patients and their physicians.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But contrary to IBM’s depiction of Watson as a digital prodigy, the supercomputer’s abilities are limited.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Perhaps the most stunning overreach is in the company’s claim that Watson for Oncology, through artificial intelligence, can sift through reams of data to generate new insights and identify, as an IBM sales rep put it, “even new approaches” to cancer care. STAT found that the system doesn’t create new knowledge and is artificially intelligent only in the most rudimentary sense of the term.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Watson became a household name by winning the TV game show “Jeopardy!”, its programming is akin to a different game-playing machine: the Mechanical Turk, a chess-playing robot of the 1700s, which dazzled audiences but hid a secret — a human operator shielded inside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the case of Watson for Oncology, those human operators are a couple dozen physicians at a single, though highly respected, U.S. hospital: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Doctors there are empowered to input their own recommendations into Watson, even when the evidence supporting those recommendations is thin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The actual capabilities of Watson for Oncology are not well-understood by the public, and even by some of the hospitals that use it. It’s taken nearly six years of painstaking work by data engineers and doctors to train Watson in just seven types of cancer, and keep the system updated with the latest knowledge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been a struggle to update, I’ll be honest,” said Dr. Mark Kris, Memorial Sloan Kettering’s lead Watson trainer. He noted that treatment guidelines for every metastatic lung cancer patient worldwide recently changed in the course of one week after a research presentation at a cancer conference. “Changing the system of cognitive computing doesn’t turn around on a dime like that,” he said. “You have to put in the literature, you have to put in cases.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Watson grew out of an effort to transform IBM from an old-guard hardware company to one that operates in the cloud and along the cutting edge of artificial intelligence. Despite its use in an array of industries — from banking to manufacturing — it has failed to end a streak of 21 consecutive quarters of declining revenue at IBM. In the most recent quarter, revenue even slid from the same period last year in IBM’s cognitive solutions division — which is built around Watson and is supposed to be the future of its business.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"Z4v10mXX1qddzeH6LkJrk48aWafwbS4D\"]In response to STAT’s questions, IBM said Watson, in health care and otherwise, remains on an upward trajectory and “is already an important part” of its $20 billion analytics business. Health care is a crucial part of the Watson enterprise. IBM employs 7,000 people in its Watson health division and sees the industry as a \u003ca href=\"https://www.ibm.com/investor/att/pdf/2017_Investor_Briefing_Financial_Discussion_charts.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">$200 billion market\u003c/a> over the next several years. Only financial services, at $300 billion, is considered a bigger opportunity by the company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At stake in the supercomputer’s performance is not just the fortunes of a famed global company. In the world of medicine, Watson is also something of a digital canary — the most visible attempt to use artificial intelligence to identify the best ways to prevent and treat disease. The system’s larger goal, IBM executives say, is to democratize medical knowledge so that every patient, no matter the person’s geography or income level, will be able to access the best care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in cancer treatment, the pursuit of that utopian ideal has faltered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>STAT’s investigation focused on Watson for Oncology because that product is the furthest along in clinical care, though Watson sells separate packages to analyze genomic information and match patients to clinical trials. It’s also applying Watson to other tasks, including honing \u003ca href=\"https://www.ibm.com/watson/health/value-based-care/population-health-management/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">preventive medicine practices\u003c/a> and reading \u003ca href=\"https://www.ibm.com/watson/health/imaging/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">medical images\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Doctors’ reliance on Watson for Oncology varies among hospitals. While institutions with fewer specialists lean more heavily on its recommendations, others relegate the system to a background role, like a paralegal whose main skill is researching existing knowledge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"AqsguTTnUCDkh8FM62DUnHUeMNt65aa2\"]Hospitals pay a per-patient fee for Watson for Oncology and other products enabled by the supercomputer. The amount depends on the number of products a hospital buys, and ranges between $200 and $1,000 per patient, according to DiSanzo. The system sometimes comes with consulting costs and is expensive to link with electronic medical records. At hospitals that don’t link it with their medical records, more time must be spent typing in patient information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Jupiter Medical Center in Florida, that task falls to nurse Jean Thompson, who spends about 90 minutes a week feeding data into the machine. Once she has completed that work, she clicks the “Ask Watson” button to get the supercomputer’s advice for treating patients.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a recent morning, the results for a 73-year-old lung cancer patient were underwhelming: Watson recommended a chemotherapy regimen the oncologists had already flagged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s fine,” Dr. Sujal Shah, a medical oncologist, said of Watson’s treatment suggestion while discussing the case with colleagues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said later that the background information Watson provided, including medical journal articles, was helpful, giving him more confidence that using a specific chemotherapy was a sound idea. But the system did not directly help him make that decision, nor did it tell him anything he didn’t already know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jupiter is one of two U.S. hospitals that have adopted Watson for Oncology. The system has generated more business in India and Southeast Asia. Many doctors in those countries said Watson is saving time and helping more patients get quality care. But they also said its accuracy and overall value is limited by differing medical practices and economic circumstances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite IBM’s marketing blitz, with years of high-profile Watson commercials featuring celebrities from Serena Williams to Bob Dylan to Jon Hamm, the company’s executives are not always gushing. In interviews with STAT, they acknowledged the system faces challenges and needs better integration with electronic medical records and more data on real patients to find patterns and suggest cutting-edge treatments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The goal as Watson gets smarter is for it to make some of those recommendations in a more automated way, to sort of suggest now may be the time and let us flip the switch” when a promising treatment option emerges, said Dr. Andrew Norden, a former IBM deputy health chief who left the company in early August. “As I describe it, you’re probably getting a sense it’s really hard and nuanced.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Such nuance is absent from the careful narrative IBM has constructed to sell Watson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpFHNGF4F8o\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is by design that there is not one independent, third-party study that examines whether Watson for Oncology can deliver. IBM has not exposed the product to critical review by outside scientists or conducted clinical trials to assess its effectiveness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While it’s not unheard of for companies to avoid external vetting early on, IBM’s circumstances are unusual because Watson for Oncology is not in development — it has already been deployed around the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yoon Sup Choi, a South Korean venture capitalist and researcher who wrote a book about artificial intelligence in health care, said IBM isn’t required by regulatory agencies to do a clinical trial in South Korea or America before selling the system to hospitals. And given that hospitals are already using the system, a clinical trial would be unlikely to improve business prospects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s too risky, right?” Choi said. “If the result of the clinical trial is not very good — [if] there’s a marginal clinical benefit from Watson — it’s really bad news to the whole IBM.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pilar Ossorio, a professor of law and bioethics at University of Wisconsin Law School, said Watson should be subject to tighter regulation because of its role in treating patients. “As an ethical matter, and as a scientific matter, you should have to prove that there’s safety and efficacy before you can just go do this,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">'Artificial intelligence will be adopted in all medical fields in the future. If that trend, that change is inevitable, then why don’t we just start early?'\u003ccite> Dr. Uhn Lee, Watson program, Gachon University Gil Medical Center, South Korea\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Norden dismissed the suggestion IBM should have been required to conduct a clinical trial before commercializing Watson, noting that many practices in medicine are widely accepted even though they aren’t supported by a randomized controlled trial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Has there ever been a randomized trial of parachutes for paratroopers?” Norden asked. “And the answer is, of course not, because there is a very strong intuitive value proposition. … So I believe that bringing the best information to bear on medical decision making is a no-brainer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>IBM said in its statement that it has collaborated with the research community and presented data on Watson at industry gatherings and in peer-reviewed journals. Some doctors said they didn’t need to see more research to know that the system is valuable. “Artificial intelligence will be adopted in all medical fields in the future,” said Dr. Uhn Lee, who runs the Watson program at Gachon University Gil Medical Center in South Korea. “If that trend, that change is inevitable, then why don’t we just start early?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, the only studies about Watson for Oncology are conference abstracts. The full results haven’t been published in peer-reviewed journals — and every study, save one, was either conducted by a paying customer or included IBM staff on the author list, or both. Most trumpet positive results, showing that Watson saves doctors time and has a high concordance rate with their treatment recommendations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The “concordance” studies comprise the vast majority of the public research on Watson for Oncology. Doctors will ask Watson for its advice for treating a slew of patients, and then compare its recommendations to those of oncologists. In an unpublished study from Denmark, the rate of agreement was about 33 percent — so the hospital decided not to buy the system. In other countries, the rate can be as high as \u003ca href=\"http://meetinglibrary.asco.org/record/145389/abstract\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">96 percent\u003c/a> for some cancers. But showing that Watson agrees with the doctors proves only that it is competent in applying existing methods of care, not that it can improve them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>IBM executives said they are pursuing studies to examine the impact on doctors and patients, although none has been completed to date.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Questions about Watson have begun spilling into public view, including in a \u003ca href=\"http://gizmodo.com/why-everyone-is-hating-on-watson-including-the-people-w-1797510888\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">recent Gizmodo story\u003c/a> headlined “Why Everyone is Hating on IBM Watson — Including the People Who Helped Make It.” The most prominent failure occurred last February when MD Anderson Cancer Center, part of the University of Texas, cancelled its partnership with Watson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The MD Anderson alliance was essentially the \u003ca href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2015/06/27/watsons-next-feat-taking-on-cancer/?utm_term=.ada22b3eefb7\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">early face\u003c/a> of Watson in health care. The Houston hospital was among IBM’s first partners, and it was using the system to create its own expert oncology adviser, similar to the one IBM was developing with Memorial Sloan Kettering. But the project disintegrated amid internal allegations of overspending, delays, and mismanagement. In all, MD Anderson spent more than three years and $60 million — much of it on outside consultants — before shelving the effort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The hospital declined to answer questions. But the project leader, Dr. Lynda Chin, in her first media interview on the subject, told STAT about the challenges she faced. Chin left MD Anderson before the project collapsed; a subsequent audit flagged several violations of procurement rules under her leadership.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">How do we ensure the most important tenet in medicine: Do no harm?\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Chin said that Watson is a powerful technology, but that it is exceedingly difficult to make functional in health care. She and her team encountered numerous roadblocks, some of which still have not been fully addressed by IBM — at MD Anderson or elsewhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cancer hospital’s first major challenge involved getting the machine to deal with the idiosyncrasies of medical records: the acronyms, human errors, shorthand phrases, and different styles of writing. “Teaching a machine to read a record is a lot harder than anyone thought,” she said. Her team spent countless hours on that problem, trying to get Watson to extract valuable information from medical records so that it could apply them to its recommendations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chin said her team also wrestled with deploying the system in clinical practice. Watson, even if guided by doctors, is as close as medicine has ever gotten to allowing a machine to help decide the treatments delivered to human beings. That carries with it thorny questions, such as how to test the safety of a digital treatment adviser, how to ensure its compliance with regulations, and how to incorporate it into the daily work of doctors and nurses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Importantly,” Chin said. “How do we create an environment that can ensure the most important tenet in medicine: Do no harm?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Finally, the project ran into a bigger obstacle: Even if you can get Watson to understand patient variables and make competent treatment recommendations, how do you get it access to enough patient data, from enough different sources, to derive insights that could significantly advance the standard of care?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chin said that was a showstopper. Watson did not have a connected network of institutions feeding data about specific cohorts of patients. “You may have 10,000 patients for lung cancer. That is still not a very big number when you think about it,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With data from many more patients, Chin said, you could see patterns — “subsets [of patients] that respond a certain way, subsets that don’t, subsets that have a certain toxicity. That pattern would help with better personalized and precision medicine. But we can’t get there without the ability to actually have a way of aggregating them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>IBM told STAT that Chin’s work was separate from the effort to create Watson for Oncology, which was validated by cancer specialists at Memorial Sloan Kettering prior to its deployment. The company said that Watson for Oncology can extract and summarize substantial text from patient records, though the information must be verified by a clinician, and that it has made significant progress in obtaining more data to improve Watson’s performance. It pointed to partnerships with the health care publisher Elsevier and the analytics firm \u003ca href=\"https://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/47031.wss\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Doctor Evidence\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To date, more than 50 hospitals on five continents have agreements with IBM, or intermediary technology companies, to use Watson for Oncology to treat patients, and others are using the genomics and clinical trials products.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the partnership with Memorial Sloan Kettering, and the product that grew out of it, resulted in complications that IBM has papered over with carefully parsed statements and misleading marketing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In its press releases, IBM celebrates \u003ca href=\"https://www.mskcc.org/about/innovative-collaborations/watson-oncology\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Memorial Sloan Kettering’s role\u003c/a> as the only trainer of Watson. After all, who better to educate the system than doctors at one of the world’s most renowned cancer hospitals?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But several doctors said Memorial Sloan Kettering’s training injects bias into the system, because the treatment recommendations it puts into Watson don’t always comport with the practices of doctors elsewhere in the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Given the same clinical scenario, doctors can — and often do — disagree about the best course of action, whether to recommend surgery or chemotherapy, or another treatment. Those discrepancies are especially wide for second- and third-line treatments given after an initial therapy fails, where evidence of benefits is slimmer and consensus more elusive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rather than acknowledge this dilemma, IBM executives, in marketing materials and interviews, have sought to downplay it. In an interview with STAT, DiSanzo, the head of Watson Health, rejected the idea that Memorial Sloan Kettering’s involvement creates any bias at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The bias is taken out by the sheer amount of data we have,” she said, referring to patient cases and millions of articles and studies fed into Watson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that mischaracterizes how Watson for Oncology works. (IBM later claimed that DiSanzo was referring to Watson in general.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The system is essentially Memorial Sloan Kettering in a portable box. Its treatment recommendations are based entirely on the training provided by doctors, who determine what information Watson needs to devise its guidance as well as what those recommendations should be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When users ask Watson for advice, the system also searches published literature — some of which is curated by Memorial Sloan Kettering — to provide relevant studies and background information to support its recommendation. But the recommendation itself is derived from the training provided by the hospital’s doctors, not the outside literature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Doctors at Memorial Sloan Kettering acknowledged their influence on Watson. “We are not at all hesitant about inserting our bias, because I think our bias is based on the next best thing to prospective randomized trials, which is having a vast amount of experience,” said Dr. Andrew Seidman, one of the hospital’s lead trainers of Watson. “So it’s a very unapologetic bias.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Seidman said the hospital is careful to keep its training grounded in clinical evidence when the evidence exists, but it is not shy about giving its recommendations when it doesn’t. “We want cancer care to be democratized,” he said. “We don’t want doctors who don’t have the thousands and thousands of patients’ experience on a more rare cancer to be handicapped. We want to share that knowledge base.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At a recent training session of Watson on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, the tensions involved in programming the system were on full display. STAT sat in as Memorial Sloan Kettering doctors, led by Seidman, gathered with IBM engineers to train Watson to treat bladder cancer. Five IBM engineers sat on one side of the table. Across from them were three oncologists — one specializing in surgery, another in radiation, and a third in chemotherapy and targeted medicines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Several minutes into the discussion, the question arose of which treatment to recommend for patients whose cancers persisted through six rounds of chemotherapy. The options in such cases tend to be as slim as the evidence supporting them. Should Watson recommend a radical surgery to remove the bladder? Dr. Tim Donahue, the surgical oncologist, noted that such surgery seldom cures patients and is not associated with improved survival in his experience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then what about another course of chemotherapy combined with radiation?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Watson gives its recommendations, it puts the top recommendation in green, alternative options in orange, and not recommended options in red.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in some clinical scenarios, it’s difficult to tell the colors apart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is the hard part of this whole game,” Dr. Marisa Kollmeier, the radiation oncologist, said during the training. “There’s a lack of evidence. And you don’t know if something should be in green without evidence. We don’t have a randomized trial to support every decision.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the task in front of them required the doctors to press ahead. And they did, rifling through an array of clinical scenarios. In some cases, a large body of evidence backed up their answers. But many others fell into a gray area or were clouded by the inevitable uncertainty of patient preferences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The meeting was one of many in a months-long process to bring Watson up to speed in bladder cancer. Subsequent sessions would involve feeding it data on real patient cases at Memorial Sloan Kettering, so doctors could reinforce Watson’s training with repetition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That training does not teach Watson to base its recommendations on the outcomes of these patients, whether they lived, or died or survived longer than similar patients. Rather, Watson makes its recommendations based on the treatment preferences of Memorial Sloan Kettering physicians.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At some institutions using Watson, IBM’s lack of clarity on the cancer center’s role causes confusion. Some seem to think they are getting advice from doctors around the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As we tell the patients, it’s like another consultation, but it’s a worldwide consultation,” said Dr. K. Adam Lee, medical director of thoracic oncology at Jupiter Medical Center, when STAT visited in June.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">Oncologists at one hospital said they have dropped the project altogether after finding that local doctors agreed with Watson in only about 33 percent of cases.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>“Really worldwide,” added Kerri Ward, an oncology nurse at the hospital. “It pulls from 300 journals, just for oncology, the clinical database, so the national clinical database, journals, textbooks, and then Sloan Kettering is the one that’s feeding in the clinical [information] currently.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Robert Garrett, the CEO of Hackensack Meridian Health, a group in New Jersey that is using a version of Watson for Oncology, said the information in Watson is “global.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you’re a patient that has colon cancer, they have in their database, as I understand it, how colon cancer is treated around the world, by different clinicians, what’s been the most effective treatment for different phases of colon cancer,” Garrett said. “That’s what IBM Watson brings to the table.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>None of that accurately depicts how Watson for Oncology works.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Several doctors who have examined Watson in other countries told STAT that Memorial Sloan Kettering’s role has given them pause. Researchers in Denmark and the Netherlands said hospitals in their countries have not signed on with Watson because it is too focused on the preferences of a few American doctors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Martijn van Oijen, an epidemiologist and associate professor at Academic Medical Center in the Netherlands, said Memorial Sloan Kettering is packed with top specialists but doesn’t have a monopoly on cancer expertise. “The bad thing is, it’s a U.S.-based hospital with a different approach than some other hospitals in the world,” said van Oijen, who’s involved in a national initiative to evaluate technologies like Watson and is a strong believer in using artificial intelligence to help cancer doctors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Denmark, oncologists at one hospital said they have dropped the project altogether after finding that local doctors agreed with Watson in only about 33 percent of cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had a discussion with [IBM] that they had a very limited view on the international literature, basically, putting too much stress on American studies, and too little stress on big, international, European, and other-part-of-the-world studies,” said Dr. Leif Jensen, who directs the center at Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen that contains the oncology department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In countries where doctors were trained in the United States, or they use similar treatment guidelines as the Memorial Sloan Kettering doctors, Watson for Oncology can be helpful. Taiwan uses the same guidelines as Americans, so Watson’s advice will be useful there, said Dr. Jeng-Fong Chiou, vice superintendent of the Taipei Cancer Center at Taipei Medical University, which started using Watson for Oncology with patients in July.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But he also said there are differences between American and Taiwanese patients — his patients often receive lower doses of drugs to minimize side effects — and that his oncologists will have to make adjustments from Watson’s recommendations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The generally affluent population treated at Memorial Sloan Kettering doesn’t reflect the diversity of people around the world. The cases used to train Watson therefore don’t take into account the economic and social issues faced by patients in poorer countries, noted Ossorio, the University of Wisconsin law professor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What it’s going to be learning is race, gender, and class bias,” she said. “We’re baking those social stratifications in, and we’re making the biases even less apparent and even less easy for people to recognize.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sometimes, the recommendations Watson gives diverge sharply from what doctors would say for reasons that have nothing to do with science, such as medical insurance. In a poster presented at the Global Breast Cancer Conference 2017 in South Korea, researchers reported that the treatment Watson most often recommended for breast cancer patients simply wasn’t covered by the national insurance system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>IBM said it has convened an international group of advisers to gather input on Watson’s performance. It also said that the system can be customized to reflect variations in treatment practices, differences in drug availability and financial considerations, and that the company recently introduced tools reduce the time and cost of adapting Watson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a response to STAT’s questions, Memorial Sloan Kettering said international journals are part of the literature it provides to Watson, including the Lancet, the European Journal of Cancer, Annals of Oncology, and the BMJ. “As we do in all areas of cancer research, we will continue to observe and study how Watson for Oncology impacts care internationally, follow the evidence, and work with IBM to optimize the system,” the hospital said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some hospitals abroad are customizing the system for their patients, adding information about local treatments. Nan Chen, who manages the Watson for Oncology program at Bumrungrad International Hospital in Thailand, said his oncologists use Japanese guidelines, not American guidelines, for treating gastric cancer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But he said doctors can find this localization redundant or unnecessary: They are not that interested in being told the same guidance they just taught Watson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our doctors say, this treatment is our own treatment, we know that,” Chen said. “You don’t need to turn around and put those treatments in Watson, and let Watson tell us what kind of treatment that we are using here in the hospital.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chen said this modified system is incredibly beneficial, however — to a hospital in the capital of Mongolia that employs zero oncology specialists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At UB Songdo Hospital, of which Chen’s company is a majority owner, doctors are following Watson’s suggestions nearly 100 percent of the time. Patients who otherwise would have been treated by generalists with little, if any, cancer training are now benefiting from top-level expertise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That is the kind of thing that IBM is dreaming about,” Chen said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In South Korea, Dr. Taewoo Kang, a surgical oncologist at Pusan National University Hospital who specializes in breast cancer, pointed to another important problem that Watson needs to solve. Right now, it provides supporting evidence for the recommendations it makes, but doesn’t actually explain how it came to recommend that particular treatment for that particular patient.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kang said that, sometimes, he will ask Watson for advice on a patient whose cancer has not spread to the lymph nodes, and Watson will recommend a type of chemotherapy drug called a taxane. But, he said, that therapy is normally used only if the cancer has spread to the lymph nodes. And, to support the recommendation, Watson will show a study demonstrating the effectiveness of the taxane for patients whose cancer did spread to their lymph nodes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kang is left confused as to why Watson recommended a drug that he does not normally use for patients like the one in front of him. And Watson can’t tell him why.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For all the concerns, some doctors around the world who use Watson insist that artificial intelligence will one day revolutionize health care. They say that clinicians are realizing concrete benefits — saving doctors valuable time searching for studies, better educating patients, and undercutting hierarchies in the clinic that might interfere with evidence-based treatment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Taiwan, Chiou said Watson immediately provides the “best data” from the literature about a treatment — survival rates, for example — relieving doctors of the task of searching the literature to compare each possible treatment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Watson’s information also empowers patients, said Lee, the doctor who runs the Watson program at \u003ca href=\"http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2017/02/129_216534.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Gil Medical Center\u003c/a> in South Korea. Previously, doctors verbally explained different treatment options to patients. Now, physicians can give patients a comprehensive packet prepared by Watson, which includes potential treatment plans along with relevant scientific articles. Patients can do their own research about these treatments, and maybe even disagree with the doctor about the right course of action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is one of the most important and significant changes,” Lee said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Watson also holds senior doctors accountable to the data. At Gil Medical Center, patients sit in a room with five doctors and Watson itself, the interface displayed on a flat-screen television in the so-called “Watson center.” Lee said that Watson’s presence has a huge influence on the doctors’ decision-making process, leveling the hierarchy that traditionally prioritized the opinion of the senior doctor over junior colleagues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"N3UBaH9vbepyeyhmYce1xcyzU851QDHX\"]Watson gives the junior physicians quick and easy access to data that might prove their elders wrong, displaying on the screen information such as the survival rate right alongside a recommended treatment. It would be humiliating for senior doctors to continue to push for a different treatment in light of this evidence, Lee said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Manipal Hospitals in India, Dr. S.P. Somashekhar said that while there are some regional disparities in Watson’s recommendations for patients with rectal and breast cancer, those cases are outliers: For the vast majority of patients, the program matched the recommendations given to patients by the hospital’s tumor board — a group of 20 physicians that typically study their cases for a week and spend an hour discussing them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That means that in a handful of seconds, Watson did what it takes 20 doctors over a week to accomplish. “That is so precious and very highly valuable,” Somashekhar said. “Our physicians cannot discuss every case. For every case we discuss in the tumor board, there are five cases which we cannot discuss.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While those benefits are significant, they fall short of breakthrough discoveries that could predict or eradicate disease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>IBM executives said that doesn’t mean Watson can’t accomplish those feats. Norden, the former deputy health officer for Watson for Oncology and Genomics, said the goal is to ultimately bring together streams of clinical trial data and real-world patient data, so that Watson could begin to pinpoint the best treatments on its own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My own belief is that over time we will be better at measuring and reporting outcomes, and that data will be increasingly influential,” he said. “Where cancer care is today, I don’t think that any computing system is ready to be let out into the world without a measure of expert human oversight.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bigger question for IBM is not whether health care will see a revolution in artificial intelligence but who will drive it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One former IBM employee says the company could become a victim of its own marketing success — the unrealistic expectations it set are obscuring real accomplishments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“IBM ought to quit trying to cure cancer,” said Peter Greulich, a former IBM brand manager who has written several books about IBM’s history and modern challenges. “They turned the marketing engine loose without controlling how to build and construct a product.”\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">'All they want to hear is that Watson is the answer. And it always has the right answer, and you get it right away, and it will be cheaper. But like anything else, it’s kind of human.'\u003ccite>Dr. Mark Kris, Memorial Sloan Kettering’s lead Watson trainer\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Greulich said IBM needs to invest more money in Watson and hire more people to make it successful. In the 1960s, he said, IBM spent about 11.5 times its annual earnings to develop its mainframe computer, a line of business that still accounts for much of its profitability today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If it were to make an equivalent investment in Watson, it would need to spend $137 billion. “The only thing it’s spent that much money on is stock buybacks,” Greulich said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>IBM said it created the market for artificial intelligence and is pleased with the pace of Watson’s growth, noting that it and other new business units grew by more than $20 billion in the past three years. “It took Facebook and Amazon more than 13 years to grow $20 billion,” the company said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since Watson’s “Jeopardy!” demonstration in 2011, hundreds of companies have begun developing health care products using artificial intelligence. These include countless startups, but IBM also faces stiff competition from industry titans such as Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and the Optum division of UnitedHealth Group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google’s DeepMind, for example, recently displayed its own game-playing prowess, using its AlphaGo program to defeat a world champion in Go, a 3,000-year-old Chinese board game.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DeepMind is working with hospitals in London, where it is learning to detect eye disease and speed up the process of targeting treatments for head and neck cancers, although it has run into \u003ca href=\"http://www.wired.co.uk/article/ai-healthcare-gp-deepmind-privacy-problems\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">privacy concerns\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, Amazon has launched a health care lab, where it is exploring opportunities to mine data from electronic health records and potentially build a virtual doctor’s assistant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A recent \u003ca href=\"https://javatar.bluematrix.com/pdf/fO5xcWjc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">report \u003c/a>by the financial firm Jefferies said IBM is quickly losing ground to competitors. “IBM appears outgunned in the war for AI talent and will likely see increasing competition,” the firm concluded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While not specific to Watson’s health care products, the report said potential clients are backing away from the system because of significant consulting costs associated with its implementation. It also noted that Amazon has 10 times the job listings of IBM, which recently didn’t renew a small number of contractors that worked for the company following its acquisition of Truven, a company it bought for $2.6 billion last year to gain access to 100 million patient records.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In its statement, IBM said that the workers’ contracts ended and that it is continuing to hire aggressively in the Cambridge, Mass.-based Watson Health and other units, with more than 5,000 positions open in the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the outlook for Watson for Oncology is challenging, say those who have worked closest with it. Kris, the lead trainer at Memorial Sloan Kettering, said the system has the potential to improve care and ensure more patients get expert treatment. But like a medical student, Watson is just learning to perform in the real world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nobody wants to hear this,” Kris said. “All they want to hear is that Watson is the answer. And it always has the right answer, and you get it right away, and it will be cheaper. But like anything else, it’s kind of human.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/2017/09/05/watson-ibm-cancer/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">story \u003c/a>was originally published by STAT, an online publication of Boston Globe Media that covers health, medicine, and scientific discovery.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"Three years after IBM began selling 'Watson for Oncology' to recommend cancer treatments, it's falling short of the lofty expectations IBM created for it.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1504727318,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":true,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":128,"wordCount":6511},"headData":{"title":"IBM Pitched Its Watson Supercomputer as a Revolution in Cancer Care. It’s Nowhere Close | KQED","description":"Three years after IBM began selling 'Watson for Oncology' to recommend cancer treatments, it's falling short of the lofty expectations IBM created for it.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","authorsData":[{"type":"authors","id":"byline_futureofyou_435315","meta":{"override":true},"slug":"byline_futureofyou_435315","name":"Casey Ross and Ike Swetlitz\u003c/br>\u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/2017/09/05/watson-ibm-cancer/\">STAT\u003c/a>","isLoading":false}],"imageData":{"ogImageSize":{"file":"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/13/2017/09/iStock-629782518-1020x676.jpg","width":1020,"height":676,"mimeType":"image/jpeg"},"twImageSize":{"file":"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/13/2017/09/iStock-629782518-1020x676.jpg","width":1020,"height":676,"mimeType":"image/jpeg"},"twitterCard":"summary_large_image"},"tagData":{"tags":["artificial intelligence","cancer","featured","hospitals","IBM Watson"]}},"disqusIdentifier":"435315 https://ww2.kqed.org/futureofyou/?p=435315","disqusUrl":"https://ww2.kqed.org/futureofyou/2017/09/06/ibm-pitched-its-watson-supercomputer-as-a-revolution-in-cancer-care-its-nowhere-close/","disqusTitle":"IBM Pitched Its Watson Supercomputer as a Revolution in Cancer Care. It’s Nowhere Close","nprByline":"Casey Ross and Ike Swetlitz\u003c/br>\u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/2017/09/05/watson-ibm-cancer/\">STAT\u003c/a>","path":"/futureofyou/435315/ibm-pitched-its-watson-supercomputer-as-a-revolution-in-cancer-care-its-nowhere-close","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>It was an audacious undertaking, even for one of the most storied American companies: With a single machine, IBM would tackle humanity’s most vexing diseases and revolutionize medicine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Breathlessly promoting its signature brand — Watson — IBM sought to capture the world’s imagination, and it quickly zeroed in on a high-profile target: cancer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But three years after IBM began selling Watson to recommend the best cancer treatments to doctors around the world, a STAT investigation has found that the supercomputer isn’t living up to the lofty expectations IBM created for it. It is still struggling with the basic step of learning about different forms of cancer. Only a few dozen hospitals have adopted the system, which is a long way from IBM’s goal of establishing dominance in a multibillion-dollar market. And at foreign hospitals, physicians complained its advice is biased toward American patients and methods of care.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">IBM has not exposed the product to critical review by outside scientists or conducted clinical trials to assess its effectiveness.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>STAT examined Watson for Oncology’s use, marketing, and performance in hospitals across the world, from South Korea to Slovakia to South Florida. Reporters interviewed dozens of doctors, IBM executives, artificial intelligence experts, and others familiar with the system’s underlying technology and rollout.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The interviews suggest that IBM, in its rush to bolster flagging revenue, unleashed a product without fully assessing the challenges of deploying it in hospitals globally. While it has \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=au4kzyJUlrA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">emphatically marketed\u003c/a> Watson for cancer care, IBM hasn’t published any scientific papers demonstrating how the technology affects physicians and patients. As a result, its flaws are getting exposed on the front lines of care by doctors and researchers who say that the system, while promising in some respects, remains undeveloped.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Watson for Oncology is in their toddler stage, and we have to wait and actively engage, hopefully to help them grow healthy,” said Dr. Taewoo Kang, a South Korean cancer specialist who has used the product.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At its heart, Watson for Oncology uses the cloud-based supercomputer to digest massive amounts of data — from doctor’s notes to medical studies to clinical guidelines. But its treatment recommendations are not based on its own insights from these data. Instead, they are based exclusively on training by human overseers, who laboriously feed Watson information about how patients with specific characteristics should be treated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>IBM executives acknowledged \u003ca href=\"https://www.ibm.com/watson/health/oncology-and-genomics/oncology/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Watson for Oncology\u003c/a>, which has been in development for nearly six years, is in its infancy. But they said it is improving rapidly, noting that by year’s end, the system will offer guidance about treatment for 12 cancers that account for 80 percent of the world’s cases. They said it’s saving doctors time and ensuring that patients get top-quality care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re seeing stories come in where patients are saying, ‘It gave me peace of mind,’” Watson Health general manager Deborah DiSanzo said. “That makes us feel extraordinarily good that what we’re doing is going to make a difference for patients and their physicians.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But contrary to IBM’s depiction of Watson as a digital prodigy, the supercomputer’s abilities are limited.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Perhaps the most stunning overreach is in the company’s claim that Watson for Oncology, through artificial intelligence, can sift through reams of data to generate new insights and identify, as an IBM sales rep put it, “even new approaches” to cancer care. STAT found that the system doesn’t create new knowledge and is artificially intelligent only in the most rudimentary sense of the term.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Watson became a household name by winning the TV game show “Jeopardy!”, its programming is akin to a different game-playing machine: the Mechanical Turk, a chess-playing robot of the 1700s, which dazzled audiences but hid a secret — a human operator shielded inside.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the case of Watson for Oncology, those human operators are a couple dozen physicians at a single, though highly respected, U.S. hospital: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Doctors there are empowered to input their own recommendations into Watson, even when the evidence supporting those recommendations is thin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The actual capabilities of Watson for Oncology are not well-understood by the public, and even by some of the hospitals that use it. It’s taken nearly six years of painstaking work by data engineers and doctors to train Watson in just seven types of cancer, and keep the system updated with the latest knowledge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been a struggle to update, I’ll be honest,” said Dr. Mark Kris, Memorial Sloan Kettering’s lead Watson trainer. He noted that treatment guidelines for every metastatic lung cancer patient worldwide recently changed in the course of one week after a research presentation at a cancer conference. “Changing the system of cognitive computing doesn’t turn around on a dime like that,” he said. “You have to put in the literature, you have to put in cases.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Watson grew out of an effort to transform IBM from an old-guard hardware company to one that operates in the cloud and along the cutting edge of artificial intelligence. Despite its use in an array of industries — from banking to manufacturing — it has failed to end a streak of 21 consecutive quarters of declining revenue at IBM. In the most recent quarter, revenue even slid from the same period last year in IBM’s cognitive solutions division — which is built around Watson and is supposed to be the future of its business.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>In response to STAT’s questions, IBM said Watson, in health care and otherwise, remains on an upward trajectory and “is already an important part” of its $20 billion analytics business. Health care is a crucial part of the Watson enterprise. IBM employs 7,000 people in its Watson health division and sees the industry as a \u003ca href=\"https://www.ibm.com/investor/att/pdf/2017_Investor_Briefing_Financial_Discussion_charts.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">$200 billion market\u003c/a> over the next several years. Only financial services, at $300 billion, is considered a bigger opportunity by the company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At stake in the supercomputer’s performance is not just the fortunes of a famed global company. In the world of medicine, Watson is also something of a digital canary — the most visible attempt to use artificial intelligence to identify the best ways to prevent and treat disease. The system’s larger goal, IBM executives say, is to democratize medical knowledge so that every patient, no matter the person’s geography or income level, will be able to access the best care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in cancer treatment, the pursuit of that utopian ideal has faltered.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>STAT’s investigation focused on Watson for Oncology because that product is the furthest along in clinical care, though Watson sells separate packages to analyze genomic information and match patients to clinical trials. It’s also applying Watson to other tasks, including honing \u003ca href=\"https://www.ibm.com/watson/health/value-based-care/population-health-management/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">preventive medicine practices\u003c/a> and reading \u003ca href=\"https://www.ibm.com/watson/health/imaging/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">medical images\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Doctors’ reliance on Watson for Oncology varies among hospitals. While institutions with fewer specialists lean more heavily on its recommendations, others relegate the system to a background role, like a paralegal whose main skill is researching existing knowledge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>Hospitals pay a per-patient fee for Watson for Oncology and other products enabled by the supercomputer. The amount depends on the number of products a hospital buys, and ranges between $200 and $1,000 per patient, according to DiSanzo. The system sometimes comes with consulting costs and is expensive to link with electronic medical records. At hospitals that don’t link it with their medical records, more time must be spent typing in patient information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Jupiter Medical Center in Florida, that task falls to nurse Jean Thompson, who spends about 90 minutes a week feeding data into the machine. Once she has completed that work, she clicks the “Ask Watson” button to get the supercomputer’s advice for treating patients.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a recent morning, the results for a 73-year-old lung cancer patient were underwhelming: Watson recommended a chemotherapy regimen the oncologists had already flagged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s fine,” Dr. Sujal Shah, a medical oncologist, said of Watson’s treatment suggestion while discussing the case with colleagues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said later that the background information Watson provided, including medical journal articles, was helpful, giving him more confidence that using a specific chemotherapy was a sound idea. But the system did not directly help him make that decision, nor did it tell him anything he didn’t already know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jupiter is one of two U.S. hospitals that have adopted Watson for Oncology. The system has generated more business in India and Southeast Asia. Many doctors in those countries said Watson is saving time and helping more patients get quality care. But they also said its accuracy and overall value is limited by differing medical practices and economic circumstances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite IBM’s marketing blitz, with years of high-profile Watson commercials featuring celebrities from Serena Williams to Bob Dylan to Jon Hamm, the company’s executives are not always gushing. In interviews with STAT, they acknowledged the system faces challenges and needs better integration with electronic medical records and more data on real patients to find patterns and suggest cutting-edge treatments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The goal as Watson gets smarter is for it to make some of those recommendations in a more automated way, to sort of suggest now may be the time and let us flip the switch” when a promising treatment option emerges, said Dr. Andrew Norden, a former IBM deputy health chief who left the company in early August. “As I describe it, you’re probably getting a sense it’s really hard and nuanced.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Such nuance is absent from the careful narrative IBM has constructed to sell Watson.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/UpFHNGF4F8o'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/UpFHNGF4F8o'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>It is by design that there is not one independent, third-party study that examines whether Watson for Oncology can deliver. IBM has not exposed the product to critical review by outside scientists or conducted clinical trials to assess its effectiveness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While it’s not unheard of for companies to avoid external vetting early on, IBM’s circumstances are unusual because Watson for Oncology is not in development — it has already been deployed around the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yoon Sup Choi, a South Korean venture capitalist and researcher who wrote a book about artificial intelligence in health care, said IBM isn’t required by regulatory agencies to do a clinical trial in South Korea or America before selling the system to hospitals. And given that hospitals are already using the system, a clinical trial would be unlikely to improve business prospects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s too risky, right?” Choi said. “If the result of the clinical trial is not very good — [if] there’s a marginal clinical benefit from Watson — it’s really bad news to the whole IBM.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pilar Ossorio, a professor of law and bioethics at University of Wisconsin Law School, said Watson should be subject to tighter regulation because of its role in treating patients. “As an ethical matter, and as a scientific matter, you should have to prove that there’s safety and efficacy before you can just go do this,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">'Artificial intelligence will be adopted in all medical fields in the future. If that trend, that change is inevitable, then why don’t we just start early?'\u003ccite> Dr. Uhn Lee, Watson program, Gachon University Gil Medical Center, South Korea\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Norden dismissed the suggestion IBM should have been required to conduct a clinical trial before commercializing Watson, noting that many practices in medicine are widely accepted even though they aren’t supported by a randomized controlled trial.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Has there ever been a randomized trial of parachutes for paratroopers?” Norden asked. “And the answer is, of course not, because there is a very strong intuitive value proposition. … So I believe that bringing the best information to bear on medical decision making is a no-brainer.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>IBM said in its statement that it has collaborated with the research community and presented data on Watson at industry gatherings and in peer-reviewed journals. Some doctors said they didn’t need to see more research to know that the system is valuable. “Artificial intelligence will be adopted in all medical fields in the future,” said Dr. Uhn Lee, who runs the Watson program at Gachon University Gil Medical Center in South Korea. “If that trend, that change is inevitable, then why don’t we just start early?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, the only studies about Watson for Oncology are conference abstracts. The full results haven’t been published in peer-reviewed journals — and every study, save one, was either conducted by a paying customer or included IBM staff on the author list, or both. Most trumpet positive results, showing that Watson saves doctors time and has a high concordance rate with their treatment recommendations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The “concordance” studies comprise the vast majority of the public research on Watson for Oncology. Doctors will ask Watson for its advice for treating a slew of patients, and then compare its recommendations to those of oncologists. In an unpublished study from Denmark, the rate of agreement was about 33 percent — so the hospital decided not to buy the system. In other countries, the rate can be as high as \u003ca href=\"http://meetinglibrary.asco.org/record/145389/abstract\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">96 percent\u003c/a> for some cancers. But showing that Watson agrees with the doctors proves only that it is competent in applying existing methods of care, not that it can improve them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>IBM executives said they are pursuing studies to examine the impact on doctors and patients, although none has been completed to date.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Questions about Watson have begun spilling into public view, including in a \u003ca href=\"http://gizmodo.com/why-everyone-is-hating-on-watson-including-the-people-w-1797510888\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">recent Gizmodo story\u003c/a> headlined “Why Everyone is Hating on IBM Watson — Including the People Who Helped Make It.” The most prominent failure occurred last February when MD Anderson Cancer Center, part of the University of Texas, cancelled its partnership with Watson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The MD Anderson alliance was essentially the \u003ca href=\"http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2015/06/27/watsons-next-feat-taking-on-cancer/?utm_term=.ada22b3eefb7\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">early face\u003c/a> of Watson in health care. The Houston hospital was among IBM’s first partners, and it was using the system to create its own expert oncology adviser, similar to the one IBM was developing with Memorial Sloan Kettering. But the project disintegrated amid internal allegations of overspending, delays, and mismanagement. In all, MD Anderson spent more than three years and $60 million — much of it on outside consultants — before shelving the effort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The hospital declined to answer questions. But the project leader, Dr. Lynda Chin, in her first media interview on the subject, told STAT about the challenges she faced. Chin left MD Anderson before the project collapsed; a subsequent audit flagged several violations of procurement rules under her leadership.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">How do we ensure the most important tenet in medicine: Do no harm?\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Chin said that Watson is a powerful technology, but that it is exceedingly difficult to make functional in health care. She and her team encountered numerous roadblocks, some of which still have not been fully addressed by IBM — at MD Anderson or elsewhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cancer hospital’s first major challenge involved getting the machine to deal with the idiosyncrasies of medical records: the acronyms, human errors, shorthand phrases, and different styles of writing. “Teaching a machine to read a record is a lot harder than anyone thought,” she said. Her team spent countless hours on that problem, trying to get Watson to extract valuable information from medical records so that it could apply them to its recommendations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chin said her team also wrestled with deploying the system in clinical practice. Watson, even if guided by doctors, is as close as medicine has ever gotten to allowing a machine to help decide the treatments delivered to human beings. That carries with it thorny questions, such as how to test the safety of a digital treatment adviser, how to ensure its compliance with regulations, and how to incorporate it into the daily work of doctors and nurses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Importantly,” Chin said. “How do we create an environment that can ensure the most important tenet in medicine: Do no harm?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Finally, the project ran into a bigger obstacle: Even if you can get Watson to understand patient variables and make competent treatment recommendations, how do you get it access to enough patient data, from enough different sources, to derive insights that could significantly advance the standard of care?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chin said that was a showstopper. Watson did not have a connected network of institutions feeding data about specific cohorts of patients. “You may have 10,000 patients for lung cancer. That is still not a very big number when you think about it,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With data from many more patients, Chin said, you could see patterns — “subsets [of patients] that respond a certain way, subsets that don’t, subsets that have a certain toxicity. That pattern would help with better personalized and precision medicine. But we can’t get there without the ability to actually have a way of aggregating them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>IBM told STAT that Chin’s work was separate from the effort to create Watson for Oncology, which was validated by cancer specialists at Memorial Sloan Kettering prior to its deployment. The company said that Watson for Oncology can extract and summarize substantial text from patient records, though the information must be verified by a clinician, and that it has made significant progress in obtaining more data to improve Watson’s performance. It pointed to partnerships with the health care publisher Elsevier and the analytics firm \u003ca href=\"https://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/47031.wss\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Doctor Evidence\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To date, more than 50 hospitals on five continents have agreements with IBM, or intermediary technology companies, to use Watson for Oncology to treat patients, and others are using the genomics and clinical trials products.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the partnership with Memorial Sloan Kettering, and the product that grew out of it, resulted in complications that IBM has papered over with carefully parsed statements and misleading marketing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In its press releases, IBM celebrates \u003ca href=\"https://www.mskcc.org/about/innovative-collaborations/watson-oncology\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Memorial Sloan Kettering’s role\u003c/a> as the only trainer of Watson. After all, who better to educate the system than doctors at one of the world’s most renowned cancer hospitals?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But several doctors said Memorial Sloan Kettering’s training injects bias into the system, because the treatment recommendations it puts into Watson don’t always comport with the practices of doctors elsewhere in the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Given the same clinical scenario, doctors can — and often do — disagree about the best course of action, whether to recommend surgery or chemotherapy, or another treatment. Those discrepancies are especially wide for second- and third-line treatments given after an initial therapy fails, where evidence of benefits is slimmer and consensus more elusive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rather than acknowledge this dilemma, IBM executives, in marketing materials and interviews, have sought to downplay it. In an interview with STAT, DiSanzo, the head of Watson Health, rejected the idea that Memorial Sloan Kettering’s involvement creates any bias at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The bias is taken out by the sheer amount of data we have,” she said, referring to patient cases and millions of articles and studies fed into Watson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that mischaracterizes how Watson for Oncology works. (IBM later claimed that DiSanzo was referring to Watson in general.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The system is essentially Memorial Sloan Kettering in a portable box. Its treatment recommendations are based entirely on the training provided by doctors, who determine what information Watson needs to devise its guidance as well as what those recommendations should be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When users ask Watson for advice, the system also searches published literature — some of which is curated by Memorial Sloan Kettering — to provide relevant studies and background information to support its recommendation. But the recommendation itself is derived from the training provided by the hospital’s doctors, not the outside literature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Doctors at Memorial Sloan Kettering acknowledged their influence on Watson. “We are not at all hesitant about inserting our bias, because I think our bias is based on the next best thing to prospective randomized trials, which is having a vast amount of experience,” said Dr. Andrew Seidman, one of the hospital’s lead trainers of Watson. “So it’s a very unapologetic bias.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Seidman said the hospital is careful to keep its training grounded in clinical evidence when the evidence exists, but it is not shy about giving its recommendations when it doesn’t. “We want cancer care to be democratized,” he said. “We don’t want doctors who don’t have the thousands and thousands of patients’ experience on a more rare cancer to be handicapped. We want to share that knowledge base.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At a recent training session of Watson on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, the tensions involved in programming the system were on full display. STAT sat in as Memorial Sloan Kettering doctors, led by Seidman, gathered with IBM engineers to train Watson to treat bladder cancer. Five IBM engineers sat on one side of the table. Across from them were three oncologists — one specializing in surgery, another in radiation, and a third in chemotherapy and targeted medicines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Several minutes into the discussion, the question arose of which treatment to recommend for patients whose cancers persisted through six rounds of chemotherapy. The options in such cases tend to be as slim as the evidence supporting them. Should Watson recommend a radical surgery to remove the bladder? Dr. Tim Donahue, the surgical oncologist, noted that such surgery seldom cures patients and is not associated with improved survival in his experience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then what about another course of chemotherapy combined with radiation?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Watson gives its recommendations, it puts the top recommendation in green, alternative options in orange, and not recommended options in red.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in some clinical scenarios, it’s difficult to tell the colors apart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is the hard part of this whole game,” Dr. Marisa Kollmeier, the radiation oncologist, said during the training. “There’s a lack of evidence. And you don’t know if something should be in green without evidence. We don’t have a randomized trial to support every decision.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the task in front of them required the doctors to press ahead. And they did, rifling through an array of clinical scenarios. In some cases, a large body of evidence backed up their answers. But many others fell into a gray area or were clouded by the inevitable uncertainty of patient preferences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The meeting was one of many in a months-long process to bring Watson up to speed in bladder cancer. Subsequent sessions would involve feeding it data on real patient cases at Memorial Sloan Kettering, so doctors could reinforce Watson’s training with repetition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That training does not teach Watson to base its recommendations on the outcomes of these patients, whether they lived, or died or survived longer than similar patients. Rather, Watson makes its recommendations based on the treatment preferences of Memorial Sloan Kettering physicians.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At some institutions using Watson, IBM’s lack of clarity on the cancer center’s role causes confusion. Some seem to think they are getting advice from doctors around the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As we tell the patients, it’s like another consultation, but it’s a worldwide consultation,” said Dr. K. Adam Lee, medical director of thoracic oncology at Jupiter Medical Center, when STAT visited in June.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">Oncologists at one hospital said they have dropped the project altogether after finding that local doctors agreed with Watson in only about 33 percent of cases.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>“Really worldwide,” added Kerri Ward, an oncology nurse at the hospital. “It pulls from 300 journals, just for oncology, the clinical database, so the national clinical database, journals, textbooks, and then Sloan Kettering is the one that’s feeding in the clinical [information] currently.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Robert Garrett, the CEO of Hackensack Meridian Health, a group in New Jersey that is using a version of Watson for Oncology, said the information in Watson is “global.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you’re a patient that has colon cancer, they have in their database, as I understand it, how colon cancer is treated around the world, by different clinicians, what’s been the most effective treatment for different phases of colon cancer,” Garrett said. “That’s what IBM Watson brings to the table.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>None of that accurately depicts how Watson for Oncology works.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Several doctors who have examined Watson in other countries told STAT that Memorial Sloan Kettering’s role has given them pause. Researchers in Denmark and the Netherlands said hospitals in their countries have not signed on with Watson because it is too focused on the preferences of a few American doctors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Martijn van Oijen, an epidemiologist and associate professor at Academic Medical Center in the Netherlands, said Memorial Sloan Kettering is packed with top specialists but doesn’t have a monopoly on cancer expertise. “The bad thing is, it’s a U.S.-based hospital with a different approach than some other hospitals in the world,” said van Oijen, who’s involved in a national initiative to evaluate technologies like Watson and is a strong believer in using artificial intelligence to help cancer doctors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Denmark, oncologists at one hospital said they have dropped the project altogether after finding that local doctors agreed with Watson in only about 33 percent of cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had a discussion with [IBM] that they had a very limited view on the international literature, basically, putting too much stress on American studies, and too little stress on big, international, European, and other-part-of-the-world studies,” said Dr. Leif Jensen, who directs the center at Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen that contains the oncology department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In countries where doctors were trained in the United States, or they use similar treatment guidelines as the Memorial Sloan Kettering doctors, Watson for Oncology can be helpful. Taiwan uses the same guidelines as Americans, so Watson’s advice will be useful there, said Dr. Jeng-Fong Chiou, vice superintendent of the Taipei Cancer Center at Taipei Medical University, which started using Watson for Oncology with patients in July.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But he also said there are differences between American and Taiwanese patients — his patients often receive lower doses of drugs to minimize side effects — and that his oncologists will have to make adjustments from Watson’s recommendations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The generally affluent population treated at Memorial Sloan Kettering doesn’t reflect the diversity of people around the world. The cases used to train Watson therefore don’t take into account the economic and social issues faced by patients in poorer countries, noted Ossorio, the University of Wisconsin law professor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What it’s going to be learning is race, gender, and class bias,” she said. “We’re baking those social stratifications in, and we’re making the biases even less apparent and even less easy for people to recognize.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sometimes, the recommendations Watson gives diverge sharply from what doctors would say for reasons that have nothing to do with science, such as medical insurance. In a poster presented at the Global Breast Cancer Conference 2017 in South Korea, researchers reported that the treatment Watson most often recommended for breast cancer patients simply wasn’t covered by the national insurance system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>IBM said it has convened an international group of advisers to gather input on Watson’s performance. It also said that the system can be customized to reflect variations in treatment practices, differences in drug availability and financial considerations, and that the company recently introduced tools reduce the time and cost of adapting Watson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a response to STAT’s questions, Memorial Sloan Kettering said international journals are part of the literature it provides to Watson, including the Lancet, the European Journal of Cancer, Annals of Oncology, and the BMJ. “As we do in all areas of cancer research, we will continue to observe and study how Watson for Oncology impacts care internationally, follow the evidence, and work with IBM to optimize the system,” the hospital said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some hospitals abroad are customizing the system for their patients, adding information about local treatments. Nan Chen, who manages the Watson for Oncology program at Bumrungrad International Hospital in Thailand, said his oncologists use Japanese guidelines, not American guidelines, for treating gastric cancer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But he said doctors can find this localization redundant or unnecessary: They are not that interested in being told the same guidance they just taught Watson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our doctors say, this treatment is our own treatment, we know that,” Chen said. “You don’t need to turn around and put those treatments in Watson, and let Watson tell us what kind of treatment that we are using here in the hospital.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chen said this modified system is incredibly beneficial, however — to a hospital in the capital of Mongolia that employs zero oncology specialists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At UB Songdo Hospital, of which Chen’s company is a majority owner, doctors are following Watson’s suggestions nearly 100 percent of the time. Patients who otherwise would have been treated by generalists with little, if any, cancer training are now benefiting from top-level expertise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That is the kind of thing that IBM is dreaming about,” Chen said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In South Korea, Dr. Taewoo Kang, a surgical oncologist at Pusan National University Hospital who specializes in breast cancer, pointed to another important problem that Watson needs to solve. Right now, it provides supporting evidence for the recommendations it makes, but doesn’t actually explain how it came to recommend that particular treatment for that particular patient.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kang said that, sometimes, he will ask Watson for advice on a patient whose cancer has not spread to the lymph nodes, and Watson will recommend a type of chemotherapy drug called a taxane. But, he said, that therapy is normally used only if the cancer has spread to the lymph nodes. And, to support the recommendation, Watson will show a study demonstrating the effectiveness of the taxane for patients whose cancer did spread to their lymph nodes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kang is left confused as to why Watson recommended a drug that he does not normally use for patients like the one in front of him. And Watson can’t tell him why.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For all the concerns, some doctors around the world who use Watson insist that artificial intelligence will one day revolutionize health care. They say that clinicians are realizing concrete benefits — saving doctors valuable time searching for studies, better educating patients, and undercutting hierarchies in the clinic that might interfere with evidence-based treatment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Taiwan, Chiou said Watson immediately provides the “best data” from the literature about a treatment — survival rates, for example — relieving doctors of the task of searching the literature to compare each possible treatment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Watson’s information also empowers patients, said Lee, the doctor who runs the Watson program at \u003ca href=\"http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2017/02/129_216534.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Gil Medical Center\u003c/a> in South Korea. Previously, doctors verbally explained different treatment options to patients. Now, physicians can give patients a comprehensive packet prepared by Watson, which includes potential treatment plans along with relevant scientific articles. Patients can do their own research about these treatments, and maybe even disagree with the doctor about the right course of action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is one of the most important and significant changes,” Lee said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Watson also holds senior doctors accountable to the data. At Gil Medical Center, patients sit in a room with five doctors and Watson itself, the interface displayed on a flat-screen television in the so-called “Watson center.” Lee said that Watson’s presence has a huge influence on the doctors’ decision-making process, leveling the hierarchy that traditionally prioritized the opinion of the senior doctor over junior colleagues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>Watson gives the junior physicians quick and easy access to data that might prove their elders wrong, displaying on the screen information such as the survival rate right alongside a recommended treatment. It would be humiliating for senior doctors to continue to push for a different treatment in light of this evidence, Lee said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Manipal Hospitals in India, Dr. S.P. Somashekhar said that while there are some regional disparities in Watson’s recommendations for patients with rectal and breast cancer, those cases are outliers: For the vast majority of patients, the program matched the recommendations given to patients by the hospital’s tumor board — a group of 20 physicians that typically study their cases for a week and spend an hour discussing them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That means that in a handful of seconds, Watson did what it takes 20 doctors over a week to accomplish. “That is so precious and very highly valuable,” Somashekhar said. “Our physicians cannot discuss every case. For every case we discuss in the tumor board, there are five cases which we cannot discuss.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While those benefits are significant, they fall short of breakthrough discoveries that could predict or eradicate disease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>IBM executives said that doesn’t mean Watson can’t accomplish those feats. Norden, the former deputy health officer for Watson for Oncology and Genomics, said the goal is to ultimately bring together streams of clinical trial data and real-world patient data, so that Watson could begin to pinpoint the best treatments on its own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My own belief is that over time we will be better at measuring and reporting outcomes, and that data will be increasingly influential,” he said. “Where cancer care is today, I don’t think that any computing system is ready to be let out into the world without a measure of expert human oversight.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bigger question for IBM is not whether health care will see a revolution in artificial intelligence but who will drive it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One former IBM employee says the company could become a victim of its own marketing success — the unrealistic expectations it set are obscuring real accomplishments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“IBM ought to quit trying to cure cancer,” said Peter Greulich, a former IBM brand manager who has written several books about IBM’s history and modern challenges. “They turned the marketing engine loose without controlling how to build and construct a product.”\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">'All they want to hear is that Watson is the answer. And it always has the right answer, and you get it right away, and it will be cheaper. But like anything else, it’s kind of human.'\u003ccite>Dr. Mark Kris, Memorial Sloan Kettering’s lead Watson trainer\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Greulich said IBM needs to invest more money in Watson and hire more people to make it successful. In the 1960s, he said, IBM spent about 11.5 times its annual earnings to develop its mainframe computer, a line of business that still accounts for much of its profitability today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If it were to make an equivalent investment in Watson, it would need to spend $137 billion. “The only thing it’s spent that much money on is stock buybacks,” Greulich said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>IBM said it created the market for artificial intelligence and is pleased with the pace of Watson’s growth, noting that it and other new business units grew by more than $20 billion in the past three years. “It took Facebook and Amazon more than 13 years to grow $20 billion,” the company said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since Watson’s “Jeopardy!” demonstration in 2011, hundreds of companies have begun developing health care products using artificial intelligence. These include countless startups, but IBM also faces stiff competition from industry titans such as Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and the Optum division of UnitedHealth Group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google’s DeepMind, for example, recently displayed its own game-playing prowess, using its AlphaGo program to defeat a world champion in Go, a 3,000-year-old Chinese board game.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DeepMind is working with hospitals in London, where it is learning to detect eye disease and speed up the process of targeting treatments for head and neck cancers, although it has run into \u003ca href=\"http://www.wired.co.uk/article/ai-healthcare-gp-deepmind-privacy-problems\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">privacy concerns\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, Amazon has launched a health care lab, where it is exploring opportunities to mine data from electronic health records and potentially build a virtual doctor’s assistant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A recent \u003ca href=\"https://javatar.bluematrix.com/pdf/fO5xcWjc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">report \u003c/a>by the financial firm Jefferies said IBM is quickly losing ground to competitors. “IBM appears outgunned in the war for AI talent and will likely see increasing competition,” the firm concluded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While not specific to Watson’s health care products, the report said potential clients are backing away from the system because of significant consulting costs associated with its implementation. It also noted that Amazon has 10 times the job listings of IBM, which recently didn’t renew a small number of contractors that worked for the company following its acquisition of Truven, a company it bought for $2.6 billion last year to gain access to 100 million patient records.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In its statement, IBM said that the workers’ contracts ended and that it is continuing to hire aggressively in the Cambridge, Mass.-based Watson Health and other units, with more than 5,000 positions open in the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the outlook for Watson for Oncology is challenging, say those who have worked closest with it. Kris, the lead trainer at Memorial Sloan Kettering, said the system has the potential to improve care and ensure more patients get expert treatment. But like a medical student, Watson is just learning to perform in the real world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nobody wants to hear this,” Kris said. “All they want to hear is that Watson is the answer. And it always has the right answer, and you get it right away, and it will be cheaper. But like anything else, it’s kind of human.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This \u003ca href=\"https://www.statnews.com/2017/09/05/watson-ibm-cancer/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">story \u003c/a>was originally published by STAT, an online publication of Boston Globe Media that covers health, medicine, and scientific discovery.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/futureofyou/435315/ibm-pitched-its-watson-supercomputer-as-a-revolution-in-cancer-care-its-nowhere-close","authors":["byline_futureofyou_435315"],"categories":["futureofyou_1062"],"tags":["futureofyou_849","futureofyou_103","futureofyou_1275","futureofyou_177","futureofyou_1014"],"collections":["futureofyou_1097"],"featImg":"futureofyou_435325","label":"futureofyou_1097","isLoading":false,"hasAllInfo":true}},"programsReducer":{"possible":{"id":"possible","title":"Possible","info":"Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.","airtime":"SUN 2pm","imageSrc":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Possible-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg","officialWebsiteLink":"https://www.possible.fm/","meta":{"site":"news","source":"Possible"},"link":"/radio/program/possible","subscribe":{"apple":"https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/possible/id1677184070","spotify":"https://open.spotify.com/show/730YpdUSNlMyPQwNnyjp4k"}},"1a":{"id":"1a","title":"1A","info":"1A is home to the national conversation. 1A brings on great guests and frames the best debate in ways that make you think, share and engage.","airtime":"MON-THU 11pm-12am","imageSrc":"https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/1a.jpg","officialWebsiteLink":"https://the1a.org/","meta":{"site":"news","source":"npr"},"link":"/radio/program/1a","subscribe":{"npr":"https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/RBrW","apple":"https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=1188724250&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory","tuneIn":"https://tunein.com/radio/1A-p947376/","rss":"https://feeds.npr.org/510316/podcast.xml"}},"all-things-considered":{"id":"all-things-considered","title":"All Things Considered","info":"Every weekday, \u003cem>All Things Considered\u003c/em> hosts Robert Siegel, Audie Cornish, Ari Shapiro, and Kelly McEvers present the program's trademark mix of news, interviews, commentaries, reviews, and offbeat features. 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But is this once sleepy suburb ready for them?","imageSrc":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/American-Suburb-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg","officialWebsiteLink":"/news/series/american-suburb-podcast","meta":{"site":"news","source":"kqed","order":"13"},"link":"/news/series/american-suburb-podcast/","subscribe":{"npr":"https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/RBrW","apple":"https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?mt=2&id=1287748328","tuneIn":"https://tunein.com/radio/American-Suburb-p1086805/","rss":"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/series/american-suburb-podcast/feed/podcast","google":"https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkMzMDExODgxNjA5"}},"baycurious":{"id":"baycurious","title":"Bay Curious","tagline":"Exploring the Bay Area, one question at a time","info":"KQED’s new podcast, Bay Curious, gets to the bottom of the mysteries — both profound and peculiar — that give the Bay Area its unique identity. And we’ll do it with your help! You ask the questions. You decide what Bay Curious investigates. And you join us on the journey to find the answers.","imageSrc":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Bay-Curious-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg","imageAlt":"\"KQED Bay Curious","officialWebsiteLink":"/news/series/baycurious","meta":{"site":"news","source":"kqed","order":"4"},"link":"/podcasts/baycurious","subscribe":{"apple":"https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bay-curious/id1172473406","npr":"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/500557090/bay-curious","rss":"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/category/bay-curious-podcast/feed/podcast","google":"https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93dzIua3FlZC5vcmcvbmV3cy9jYXRlZ29yeS9iYXktY3VyaW91cy1wb2RjYXN0L2ZlZWQvcG9kY2FzdA","stitcher":"https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/bay-curious","spotify":"https://open.spotify.com/show/6O76IdmhixfijmhTZLIJ8k"}},"bbc-world-service":{"id":"bbc-world-service","title":"BBC World Service","info":"The day's top stories from BBC News compiled twice daily in the week, once at weekends.","airtime":"MON-FRI 9pm-10pm, TUE-FRI 1am-2am","imageSrc":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/BBC-World-Service-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg","officialWebsiteLink":"https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live:bbc_world_service","meta":{"site":"news","source":"BBC World Service"},"link":"/radio/program/bbc-world-service","subscribe":{"apple":"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/global-news-podcast/id135067274?mt=2","tuneIn":"https://tunein.com/radio/BBC-World-Service-p455581/","rss":"https://podcasts.files.bbci.co.uk/p02nq0gn.rss"}},"code-switch-life-kit":{"id":"code-switch-life-kit","title":"Code Switch / Life Kit","info":"\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />","airtime":"SUN 9pm-10pm","imageSrc":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Code-Switch-Life-Kit-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg","meta":{"site":"radio","source":"npr"},"link":"/radio/program/code-switch-life-kit","subscribe":{"apple":"https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/1112190608?mt=2&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory","google":"https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubnByLm9yZy9yc3MvcG9kY2FzdC5waHA_aWQ9NTEwMzEy","spotify":"https://open.spotify.com/show/3bExJ9JQpkwNhoHvaIIuyV","rss":"https://feeds.npr.org/510312/podcast.xml"}},"commonwealth-club":{"id":"commonwealth-club","title":"Commonwealth Club of California Podcast","info":"The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. 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You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>","imageSrc":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg","imageAlt":"KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn","officialWebsiteLink":"/mindshift/","meta":{"site":"news","source":"kqed","order":"2"},"link":"/podcasts/mindshift","subscribe":{"apple":"https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mindshift-podcast/id1078765985","google":"https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5","npr":"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/464615685/mind-shift-podcast","stitcher":"https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/stories-teachers-share","spotify":"https://open.spotify.com/show/0MxSpNYZKNprFLCl7eEtyx"}},"morning-edition":{"id":"morning-edition","title":"Morning Edition","info":"\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. 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On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. 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For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us","airtime":"SUN 2pm-3pm, MON 12am-1am","imageSrc":"https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/onTheMedia.png","officialWebsiteLink":"https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/otm","meta":{"site":"news","source":"wnyc"},"link":"/radio/program/on-the-media","subscribe":{"apple":"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-media/id73330715?mt=2","tuneIn":"https://tunein.com/radio/On-the-Media-p69/","rss":"http://feeds.wnyc.org/onthemedia"}},"our-body-politic":{"id":"our-body-politic","title":"Our Body Politic","info":"Presented by KQED, KCRW and KPCC, and created and hosted by award-winning journalist Farai Chideya, Our Body Politic is unapologetically centered on reporting on not just how women of color experience the major political events of today, but how they’re impacting those very issues.","airtime":"SAT 6pm-7pm, SUN 1am-2am","imageSrc":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Our-Body-Politic-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg","officialWebsiteLink":"https://our-body-politic.simplecast.com/","meta":{"site":"news","source":"kcrw"},"link":"/radio/program/our-body-politic","subscribe":{"apple":"https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/our-body-politic/id1533069868","google":"https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9feGFQaHMxcw","spotify":"https://open.spotify.com/show/4ApAiLT1kV153TttWAmqmc","rss":"https://feeds.simplecast.com/_xaPhs1s","tuneIn":"https://tunein.com/podcasts/News--Politics-Podcasts/Our-Body-Politic-p1369211/"}},"pbs-newshour":{"id":"pbs-newshour","title":"PBS NewsHour","info":"Analysis, background reports and updates from the PBS NewsHour putting today's news in context.","airtime":"MON-FRI 3pm-4pm","imageSrc":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PBS-News-Hour-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg","officialWebsiteLink":"https://www.pbs.org/newshour/","meta":{"site":"news","source":"pbs"},"link":"/radio/program/pbs-newshour","subscribe":{"apple":"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/pbs-newshour-full-show/id394432287?mt=2","tuneIn":"https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/","rss":"https://www.pbs.org/newshour/feeds/rss/podcasts/show"}},"perspectives":{"id":"perspectives","title":"Perspectives","tagline":"KQED's series of of daily listener commentaries since 1991","info":"KQED's series of of daily listener commentaries since 1991.","imageSrc":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Perspectives-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg","officialWebsiteLink":"/perspectives/","meta":{"site":"radio","source":"kqed","order":"15"},"link":"/perspectives","subscribe":{"apple":"https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id73801135","npr":"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/432309616/perspectives","rss":"https://ww2.kqed.org/perspectives/category/perspectives/feed/","google":"https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93dzIua3FlZC5vcmcvcGVyc3BlY3RpdmVzL2NhdGVnb3J5L3BlcnNwZWN0aXZlcy9mZWVkLw"}},"planet-money":{"id":"planet-money","title":"Planet Money","info":"The economy explained. 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In the Radiolab world, information sounds like music and science and culture collide. Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, the show is designed for listeners who demand skepticism, but appreciate wonder. 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The result is stories that inform and inspire, arming our listeners with information to right injustices, hold the powerful accountable and improve lives.Reveal is hosted by Al Letson and showcases the award-winning work of CIR and newsrooms large and small across the nation. In a radio and podcast market crowded with choices, Reveal focuses on important and often surprising stories that illuminate the world for our listeners.","airtime":"SAT 4pm-5pm","imageSrc":"https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/reveal300px.png","officialWebsiteLink":"https://www.revealnews.org/episodes/","meta":{"site":"news","source":"npr"},"link":"/radio/program/reveal","subscribe":{"apple":"https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/reveal/id886009669","tuneIn":"https://tunein.com/radio/Reveal-p679597/","rss":"http://feeds.revealradio.org/revealpodcast"}},"says-you":{"id":"says-you","title":"Says You!","info":"Public radio's game show of bluff and bluster, words and whimsy. 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