Tech Entrepreneur Bankrolls Startup Offering Preventative Full-Body MRIs, But Medical Experts Urge Caution on Widespread Scans
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Bryan Johnson, a tech founder, gets frequent full-body MRIs and is an enthusiastic customer of Ezra, an AI startup offering the scans. Ezra just raised $21 million in funding.
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Ezra's CEO believes regular full-body scans should be a preventative tool to catch conditions early, but medical experts warn they often lead to overtesting and unnecessary procedures.
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Ezra uses AI to speed up MRI scans and make them more affordable, with the goal of popularizing full-body screening.
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While customers like the scans, there's no evidence they effectively prolong life or are cost-efficient on a population level.
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Ezra plans to release data on false positives and strike deals with employers to make the $2500 scans more accessible. Critics remain skeptical of the benefit.