Doctors rally behind autonomous vehicles as public health issue
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Two high-profile doctors are urging policymakers to support autonomous vehicle deployment, arguing the technology is already saving lives and should be a public health imperative.
Why it matters: It adds a public health voice to a broader policy push by the AV industry as state legislation stalls and debate over long-delayed federal regulations heats up in Congress.
Driving the news: Doctors Jonathan Slotkin and Eric Topol, both champions of AI-enabled health tech, have organized an open letter from doctors and nurses, urging government leaders to clear a regulatory path for AVs.
- Their letter, initially signed by 18 other clinicians, points to data showing material reductions in serious-injury crashes and crashes involving pedestrians and cyclists.
- It urges state and federal authorities "to responsibly act on the growing safety evidence around autonomous vehicles."
- AVs aren't a replacement for other safety enforcement efforts, they write, "but their safety data has reached a threshold we cannot responsibly ignore."
The data they cite is a 2025 peer-reviewed study, which examined 56.7 million fully driverless miles on public roads, and found an 85% reduction in serious-injury-or-worse crashes compared with human drivers on the same streets.
The intrigue: That data comes from Waymo, the AV industry leader, and the study was authored by the company's employees.
- So far, Waymo is the only AV developer publishing the kind of data clinicians need to evaluate health impacts — and the doctors say that's a problem.
The letter calls for standardized, enhanced federal data-reporting requirements for all AV companies to enable safety comparisons.
- It calls on state and local governments to replace "unwarranted regulatory barriers" with evidence-based frameworks that encourage deployment where the data supports it.
- They specifically cite efforts in New York, Massachusetts, Washington, Minnesota and Washington, D.C., to block robotaxis in their states.
Between the lines: Slotkin is a neurosurgeon and chief medical officer for strategy and growth at Geisinger Health System in Pennsylvania.
- He's also co-founder at Scrub Capital, an early-stage healthcare-focused venture firm.
- Over the past year, he has emerged as an outspoken advocate for AVs from a public-health perspective, including a recent guest essay in The New York Times that some criticized as being pro-Waymo.
What they're saying: Slotkin says neither he nor Topol — a cardiologist, author and healthtech commentator — is being paid for their advocacy and neither has a financial interest in any AV company.
- Slotkin says his underlying motivation is that "I'm a neurosurgeon that practices and frequently have blood on my hand from car crashes, including of children."
