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Opinion: Why the aspartame in Diet Coke and Coke Zero probably isn’t worth worrying about
This essay was originally published on Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz’s Medium blog. Aspartame is an artificial sweetener…
Category: First Opinion
Opinion: California should become the first state to offer a special minimum wage to health care workers
Lawmakers in California may finally offer a raise to the state’s woefully underpaid health care…
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Opinion: We finally have new Alzheimer’s drugs. How do we decide who gets them?
The recent FDA approval of Leqembi, the latest anti-amyloid drug, is undoubtedly a breakthrough for…
Opinion: Biden promised a ‘war on cancer’ — but declared war on the cure instead
When then-Vice President Biden launched the Cancer Moonshot in 2016, there was reason to be…
Opinion: Listen: Is the medical system ready for Alzheimer’s drugs that work?
An effective treatment for Alzheimer’s disease has long been a holy grail in the pharmaceutical…
Opinion: Sen. Bill Cassidy: Smart, practical ways to lower drug prices
In the 1952 Oscar-winning movie “High Noon,” Gary Cooper’s face was tense and pained as…
Opinion: Pharma can’t let Big Tech win the race for medical AI
Five years from now, when patients walk into a doctor’s office presenting symptoms of almost…
Opinion: The Supreme Court’s affirmative action decision puts lives at risk
The past several months have been grim for health in the U.S. In December, the…
Opinion: CMS must protect access to the ‘gold standard of breast reconstruction’
In 1983, I flew home from college to be with my mother as she woke…
Opinion: The love my daughter and I found in the PICU
The ventilator alarm woke me at 3 a.m. It was the fourth alarm in the…
Opinion: Smoke from Canadian wildfires shows outdoor workers need air quality protections
In 20 states, people are once again breathing in hazardous smoke from Canadian wildfires. The…
Opinion: Listen: Cancer drug shortages should be causing more outrage
Drug shortages are a growing problem in the U.S., and a shortage of livesaving cancer…
Opinion: It’s past time to address the problem of indoor air quality. A new technology can help
Until the early 20th century, America regularly experienced brutally destructive urban fires. Conflagrations like the…
Opinion: A seemingly small semantic issue is a major roadblock to develop treatments for rare diseases
Finding a new medicine is never easy. But developing treatments for patients with rare diseases…
Opinion: CMS change could slow the crucial growth of ‘food as medicine’
Sometimes, an apple a day really is just what the doctor ordered. And for the…
Opinion: Health misinformation is rampant in youth baseball. Why isn’t MLB doing more to help?
“We all know that we are in the middle of an epidemic with our youth…
Opinion: OB-GYNs could have solidified abortion as health care after Roe. They missed their chance
Reflecting on this first anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs to overturn Roe…
Opinion: Peter Hotez is not alone: Online harassment of doctors is a public health issue
Father’s Day weekend was anything but calm on Twitter, which erupted as vaccine expert Peter…
Opinion: The staggering financial burden of giving birth — even with insurance
The burden of high health care costs and medical debt in the U.S. is no…
Opinion: The FDA’s approval of a new gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy won’t help me — but it gives me hope
When I was diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy 20 years ago, there was no hope….
Opinion: Former Surgeon General Jerome Adams: Prioritize new antivirals for Covid
The U.S. Covid-19 Public Health Emergency declaration may have ended, but the virus remains. Now is…
Opinion: Listen: How to save PrEP access — and even expand it
Under the Affordable Care Act, health insurers are required to cover all costs associated with…
Opinion: Pregnancy-related death, like Tori Bowie’s, is a far too common occurrence among Black women
The horror stories of Black women dying or coming close to death in childbirth never…
Opinion: Bloated patient records are filled with false information, thanks to copy-paste
I recently took care of a patient whose medical records included multiple notes about her…
Opinion: Cancer drug shortages should have patients rioting in the streets
Cancer patients, like those I treat in San Diego and thousands more across the country,…
Opinion: How to separate sound wellness solutions from seductive snake oil
When pandemic lockdowns prevented access to traditional health care facilities, the demand for alternative and…
Opinion: The DNA from dog tumors may hold the secret to better human cancer drugs
This year, nearly 6 million dogs in the U.S. will receive a cancer diagnosis. That’s…
Opinion: The FDA needs a risk evaluation and mitigation strategy for Alzheimer’s drug lecanemab
Over the past several months, my conversations with colleagues in the Alzheimer’s field have featured…
Opinion: STAT+: How I’m helping companies think through whether they should cover GLP-1s like Ozempic for employees
We have a knack in the U.S. for blurring behavior and medicine. Look at weight….
Opinion: What happens when patients beat their doctors to their test results
Not so long ago, a father broke down in tears with me over Zoom —…
Opinion: Listen: Physicians have a moral and professional obligation to get into ‘good trouble’
Just days after the end of Roe v. Wade, Caitlin Bernard, an OB-GYN in Indiana,…
Opinion: Medicaid adult dental benefits are shamefully — and dangerously — inadequate in most states
In the middle of the night, you’re jolted awake by a throbbing pain in your…
Opinion: How predominantly white hospital leadership teams hurt care for people of color
Last year, my father, a Jamaican immigrant with Medicaid insurance, passed away from a heart…
Opinion: The court system is not ready for child custody disputes over gender-affirming care
The fight over how doctors should treat transgender children is threatening to tear apart an…
Opinion: Why we created a chatbot to help people at risk for eating disorders
In May, a National Public Radio story asked, “Can a chatbot help people with eating…
Opinion: Your health insurance may not be as good your state requires — and it’s perfectly legal
In 2017, the Massachusetts state Legislature passed a law to ensure ease of access to…
Opinion: Why brain decoding is not mind reading — and why that matters
Recently, my colleagues and I published a study on decoding language from brain recordings made…
Opinion: How the conversation about moral injury in health care is changing
In the new book “If I Betray These Words,” I tell the story, with Simon…
Opinion: Listen: Why forced treatment can’t fix substance use disorder
When a loved one is living with serious substance use disorder and refuses to get…
Opinion: Want to help with medical breakthroughs? Donate some extra cells to a biobank
Right now, it’s possible that cells from my body are growing in a lab somewhere…
Opinion: When should hospitals require masks?
Is the pandemic over? On the one hand, Covid-19 is clearly still with us. In…
Opinion: Four communication lessons we learned the hard way during the pandemic
Now that the Covid-19 public health emergency has ended, it’s awfully tempting to put the…
Opinion: How to protect PrEP coverage, no matter what happens in Braidwood v. Becerra
Since a Texas judge’s decision dropped earlier this spring, Braidwood v. Becerra has sent shudders…
Opinion: PAs need a new name, but ‘physician associate’ won’t cut it. Here’s a better idea
I’m standing over an operating table, excising a skin cancer from the forehead of an…
Opinion: The agony of finding decent health care for my young-adult daughter with Down syndrome
Several years ago, a local artist asked if she could paint my younger daughter, then…
Opinion: The DEA needs to officially allow telehealth prescribing for opioid use disorder
The statistics are dismal, though they bear repeating: 81% of overdose deaths in the U.S….
Opinion: Doctors think “advocate” is a dirty word. But it’s our ethical responsibility
Last Thursday, after 15 hours of deliberation, the Indiana State Licensing board ruled that our…
Opinion: Newly diagnosed cancer patients need help navigating the system
“Hey, I’m sorry to bother you, but I could really use your advice on something.”…
Opinion: Listen: Ezekiel Emanuel explains why cancer patients shouldn’t pay out-of-pocket costs
The high cost of cancer treatment in the U.S. is literally killing people. “Over a…
Opinion: More hospitals are offering child care. But they shouldn’t have to
Since the pandemic began, thousands of child care locations have closed, exacerbating an already acute…