In a head-to-head comparison, human doctors with access to the same information about medical history and symptoms as was put into a symptom checker got the diagnosis right 72 percent of the time, compared to 34 percent for the apps. The 23 online symptom checkers, some accessed via websites and others available as apps, included those offered by Web MD and the Mayo Clinic in the U.S. and the Isabel Symptom Checker in the U.K. "The current symptom checkers, I was not surprised do not outperform doctors," said senior author Dr. Ateev Mehrotra of Harvard Medical School in Boston. But in reality computers and human doctors may both be involved in a diagnosis, rather than pitted against each other, Mehrotra told Reuters Health. The researchers used a web platform called Human Dx to distribute 45 clinical vignettes - sets of medical history and symptom information - to 234 physicians. Doctors could not do a physical examination on the hypothetical patient or run tests, they had only the information provided.

A former Philippine militiaman testified before a Senate panel on Thursday that President Rodrigo Duterte, when he was mayor of a southern city, ordered him and other members of a liquidation squad to kill criminals and political opponents in gangland-style assaults that left about 1,000 dead. Edgar Matobato, 57, told the nationally televised Senate committee hearing that he heard Duterte order some of the killings and acknowledged that he himself carried out about 50 of the abductions and deadly assaults in Davao, including one in which they fed a man to a crocodile in 2007. The Senate committee inquiry was being led by Sen. Leila de Lima, a staunch critic of Duterte's antidrug campaign that is believed to have killed more than 3,000 suspected drug users and dealers since he assumed the presidency in June. Duterte has accused De Lima of involvement in illegal drugs, alleging that she used to have a driver who took money from detained drug lords. She has denied the allegations.