Opinion: Waiving intellectual property rights is a flawed solution to achieving Covid-19 vaccine equity
When the history of the Covid-19 pandemic is written, readers will be as stunned by…
Category: First Opinion
Opinion: Pursuit of profits is driving drug companies to break the 340B law
Seventeen drug companies, including some of the world’s largest, are flouting a 30-year-old federal program…
Opinion: Wastewater monitoring: how to strengthen and sustain an important public health tool
Wastewater monitoring has gained visibility and credibility as an effective pandemic management tool. Yet despite…
Opinion: FDA user fee legislation needs to mitigate the pharmaceutical industry’s carbon pollution
As Congress works to reauthorize for the seventh time pharmaceutical user fee legislation, it is…
Opinion: STAT+: How the U.S. can mitigate and prevent medical device shortages
Just weeks after the U.S. declared Covid-19 to be a public health emergency in early…
Opinion: A growing gap in premature deaths along party lines underscores the collision of politics and public health
In an ideal world, public health would be independent of politics. Yet recent events in…
Opinion: It’s time to move past Aduhelm and focus on a broader Alzheimer’s drug pipeline
When Alzheimer’s disease was believed to be caused solely by the accumulation of amyloid protein…
Opinion: ‘Pink tape’ at the FDA is delaying access to contraception — again
As the crisis over access to reproductive health deepens in the U.S., the Food and…
Opinion: Monkeypox is recapitulating the stigma and structural inequity of HIV, Ebola, and other diseases
Pathogens have a way of shining a light on the darker facets of society. SARS-CoV-2…
Opinion: In Depp v. Heard, forensic psychiatry took the stand. We weren’t impressed
Like millions of people around the world, we’ve found ourselves drawn to the Depp v….
Opinion: Investing in women, children, and nutrition is not optional. The world’s future depends on it
The global health financing landscape has drastically changed since the end of 2019. The emergence…
Opinion: Beyond baby formula: advancing best practices in FDA’s efforts to prevent shortages
The firestorm over baby formula shortages offers an opportunity for the Food and Drug Administration…
Opinion: Kids and Covid-19: The urgency of equity should outweigh the urgency of normal
Across the United States, there’s a universal longing for the day when children no longer…
Opinion: The Access to Rare Indications Act could be a game changer for millions of Americans
The term “medically necessary” is the yardstick by which insurance companies, including Medicare and Medicaid,…
Opinion: Listen: Covid-19 is leaving millions of orphaned children behind
The number of children who become orphans because of Covid-19 rises each week: Over 10.5…
Opinion: Factoring in patients’ experiences is essential for moving the needle on health disparities
Three years ago, when cancer turned my life upside down, I never imagined I’d have…
Opinion: Preparing for the next pandemic: Time to follow a social business model for patent-free global medicine production
The World Health Assembly, which is meeting in Geneva for the first time since the…
Opinion: STAT+: QR codes can help pharmaceutical companies in two big ways
QR codes, which had begun a fall into obscurity, have come roaring back. Many restaurants…
Opinion: The often-overlooked connection between traumatic brain injury and domestic violence
Traumatic brain injury, long linked to military service and sports, has another more insidious source:…
Opinion: Listen: The double standard of discipline between nurses and physicians
For two decades, nurses have been considered the most trustworthy professionals in the country, above…
Opinion: STAT+: A market failure is preventing efficient diffusion of health care AI software
Artificial intelligence (AI) software can improve patient care, but a key market failure is preventing…
Opinion: ‘This Is Us’ should be remembered for its nuanced portraits of mental health, dementia, and identity
Coming out as a queer teenager. Fostering a child to adopt. Grappling with transracial adoption….
Opinion: Immersion in innovation should be part of every health care professionals’ training
When it comes to fostering innovation, most academic medical centers, medical schools, and health systems…
Opinion: To improve safety, hospitals should make ‘radical transparency’ real — and accessible
Covid-19 may be receding, but it’s leaving a quiet menace lurking in hospitals in its…
Opinion: Hopelessness around youth mental health is creating a ‘nihilistic contagion’
I have been a child psychiatrist for more than 20 years. I’ve worked in the…
Opinion: NEJM, other journals: provide more transparency about conflicts of interest or don’t publish conflicted articles
Are medical journals reliable sources of objective information, or do they, at times, act as…
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Opinion: Take a stand for those who can’t with the Promising Pathway Act
Every five years since 1992, Congress has reauthorized the Food and Drug Administration user fee…
Opinion: Does Paxlovid help people who have been vaccinated against Covid-19? Show us the data!
As a primary care doctor in New York City, I am grateful to drug companies…
Opinion: Listen: The faces of Covid at 1 million deaths and counting
When Covid-19 began tearing across the U.S. in March 2020, Alex Goldstein started posting on…
Opinion: Omitting long Covid from pandemic messaging is harmful for public health
Public health messaging about Covid-19 has focused almost exclusively on hospitalizations and deaths. The omission…
Opinion: Russian aggression underscores the U.S.’s need for greater investment in medical countermeasures
The U.S. government has warned that Russia could use chemical weapons against Ukraine. Russia’s president,…
Opinion: One million reasons to reimagine end-of-life care
The magnitude of loss from Covid-19 — 1 million-plus deaths, many millions more grieving loved…
Opinion: The case of RaDonda Vaught highlights a double standard for nurses and physicians
RaDonda Vaught, a former nurse in Tennessee, was sentenced on Friday to three years of…
Opinion: Turn off the spigot for hospitals’ Covid-19 relief funding
Hospitals are calling on Congress for more Covid-19 relief even though they had higher profit…
Opinion: A consultant wrote the playbook on drug pricing — then distanced himself from it
When Biogen announced the price for Aduhelm, its controversial Alzheimer’s drug, the explanation the company…
Opinion: Covid-19 deaths in the United States: Reinforcing the notion of ‘two Americas’
The notion of Covid-19 causing two Americas was on many minds in the summer of…
Opinion: The danger of letting primary care be a rescue path for burned-out specialists
One of the best-known effects of the Covid-19 pandemic has been the stress and sense…
Opinion: Listen: Get sick, go to the doctor, incur debt, repeat
Sickness can beget debt, which can then turn around and beget more sickness. That’s the…
Opinion: The faces of Covid
Across the United States, more than 1 million of our family members, friends, neighbors, co-workers,…
Opinion: Strengthening Gavi is a way forward for global vaccine equity
The Biden administration’s upcoming Covid-19 summit will shine a spotlight on the global failure to…
Opinion: Building scientific talent in the Global South can help prevent future public health crises
There’s a clamor around the world to return to the pre-pandemic “normal.” In reality, though,…
Opinion: Building scientific talent in the Global South can help prevent future public health crises
There’s a clamor around the world to return to the pre-pandemic “normal.” In reality, though,…
Opinion: Health care workers need rescuing. It’s time for a Dunkirk moment
In the late spring of 1940, thousands of soldiers stranded on the beaches of northern…
Opinion: Exploitation in the name of biomedical innovation cannot be tolerated
Biogen’s announcement on Tuesday that it is “substantially eliminating” its spending on Aduhelm caps a…
Opinion: Flawed FDA safety requirements are hamstringing a highly effective treatment for severe schizophrenia
For medications with serious safety concerns the Food and Drug Administration mandates a Risk Evaluation…
Opinion: Should clinicians use emojis when they communicate with each other?
When a colleague of mine wanted to discuss a new and somewhat out-of-left-field research project…
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Opinion: Listen: How should doctors treat chronic pain in the wake of the opioid crisis?
Clinicians walk a tightrope when trying to help their patients with chronic pain. They want…
Opinion: Global health should not be determined by pharma investors and shareholders
What could go wrong when pharmaceutical company shareholders and investors shape the public health response…
Opinion: The roots of burnout start early. See: Applying to medical school
Approximately 60,000 medical school applicants will be finishing a nearly year-long admissions process this month,…
Opinion: Medicare at 60 would have harmful unintended consequences
In an era of rising inflation and trillion-dollar deficits, there appears to be growing bipartisan…