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Senate committee hears mixed views on bill to enshrine neurological rights and regulate AI in health care
Summary
On April 9 the Senate Health and Welfare Committee took testimony on H.814, which would add 'neurological rights' to state law and expand AI oversight in health and human services; patient-rights advocates backed protections for neural data, while medical groups warned the statutory rights language is vague and could conflict with HIPAA.
The Vermont Senate Health and Welfare Committee heard testimony April 9 on H.814, legislation that would recognize "neurological rights" in state law and expand the role of an artificial intelligence advisory council in health and human services.
Supporters told the committee neural data — signals originating in the brain and nervous system — raise distinct privacy and ethical questions that existing health privacy rules may not cover. Dr. Sean Pazowski, medical director at the Neuro Rights Foundation and a practicing neurologist, said neural signals can reveal attention, fatigue and other internal states, and that "neural data is fundamentally different from other forms of health data." He urged the committee to distinguish clinical uses covered by HIPAA from consumer neurotechnology.
Legal advisers and advocates framed the proposal as a human-rights issue. "These technologies can reveal intimate information about mental states and neural processing," said Ashley Collins, a legal adviser to the Neuro Rights Foundation, urging the committee to consider the American Medical Association guidance and examples from other states when shaping protections.
Medical and professional groups expressed support for study and for expanding advisory expertise but cautioned that Section 2 — which would add affirmative neurological rights into statute — is broad and undefined. Jessa Barnard, executive director of the Vermont Medical Society, said the terms "freedom of thought" and "mental and neural data privacy" in the draft lack definitions and could inadvertently sweep in clinical tests and devices that already are governed by HIPAA and professional standards. "As written, [these provisions] read as applying to entities and technologies that already follow HIPAA, creating a duplicative regulatory scheme or even inadvertently exposing medical professionals to additional liability," she said.
Witnesses recommended two paths forward: remove the standalone statutory-rights language and defer to the AI advisory council for definitions and recommendations, or explicitly limit the statutory rights to unregulated consumer products and exclude HIPAA‑covered clinical care. Several witnesses offered to supply the committee with AMA policy text and examples from Colorado, California, Montana and Connecticut that treat neural data as sensitive personal information under consumer-privacy laws.
Committee members probed how a statutory declaration of rights would be enforced. Counsel and witnesses noted that a statute can create rights that are enforced by declaratory or injunctive relief in court even when it does not create a new administrative enforcement mechanism.
The committee asked witnesses to file written testimony and materials. No formal vote occurred; the hearing paused so members could take up an amendment on a different bill and schedule further review of H.814 and related language.
What’s next: Witnesses offered to return to help draft definitions and advisory-council membership language. Committee members signaled they want more precise definitions of "neural data," clear limits that do not inadvertently extend to HIPAA‑covered clinical practices, and details on the advisory council’s scope and membership.
