Opinion: Substituting genetic ancestry for race in research? Not so fast
Race, widely used as a variable across biomedical research and medicine, is an appropriate proxy…
Category: First Opinion
Opinion: Beyond awareness: The medical system needs to deeply reform its care of people with autism
I walked into the hospital room of a patient I had been assigned that morning….
Opinion: CMS needs to include measures for social drivers of health
Every day, physicians encounter patients in their practices who show the toll of skipping meals…
Opinion: HHS needs to step up so CDC’s new guidelines won’t be ‘a bridge to nowhere’ for most Americans living with chronic pain
To update its controversial 2016 guidelines for how to treat the millions of Americans living…
Opinion: Even when the pandemic fades, the depression it has wrought will linger
The masks are mostly off, group events have become almost normal, and many people believe…
Opinion: ‘Boards for All?’ Global health organizations and companies aren’t even close
The age, gender, and ethnic diversity of a company or organization’s board is fundamental to…
Opinion: Making Medicare, Medicaid innovation tests voluntary undermines evaluation opportunities
The U.S. health care system is often inefficient, ineffective, and inequitable. Compared to other high-income…
Opinion: Listen: A new hotline could save lives during mental health crises — if someone answers the phone
The rollout of a new mental health crisis line for the entire U.S. is scheduled…
Opinion: How hospitals and health systems can help patients avoid medical debt
While the goal of the American health care system is to improve health and well-being,…
Opinion: Wearable device data need to represent all of us
The growing uptake of wearable devices has sparked enthusiasm among health researchers, and for good…
Opinion: Expedited partner therapy is an effective way to treat sexually transmitted infections. Why aren’t doctors using it?
As emergency medicine and infectious disease physicians, we often see patients with chlamydia, gonorrhea, and…
Opinion: In mask mandate case, judge ruled on wordplay, not public health
When a Tampa-based federal judge voided the nationwide mandate on wearing masks in transportation venues…
Opinion: Access to kidney transplantation is improving for everyone, but more work remains to be done
Organ donation and transplantation are saving more lives in the United States than ever before,…
Opinion: It’s time for Congress to stop blocking mitochondrial replacement therapy
Australia has become the second country in the world to explicitly authorize and regulate mitochondrial…
Opinion: STAT+: Pharma’s role in value-based care starts with value-based research
Modern medicine has been sculpted by the ever-expanding knowledge of biological processes in conjunction with…
Opinion: Will the shadow of Aduhelm cloud FDA’s decision-making on an ALS therapy?
On March 30, an FDA advisory panel voted 6 to 4 against recommending approval of…
Opinion: Not going all in on the 988 hotline will ensure its failure
Time is not on our side. With fewer than 100 days until the scheduled rollout…
Opinion: Listen: Covid turned the nation’s eyes to nursing homes. Have we already looked away?
When the Covid-19 pandemic began tearing across the country, it hit nursing homes hard. More…
Opinion: If there is a digital health bubble, does it really matter for entrepreneurs?
For the better part of the last two-plus years, my colleagues and I at 7wireVentures…
Opinion: Medicine needs to do right by patients prescribed opioids
As a medical student, the prism of pain helped me begin seeing patients as people…
Opinion: Men and women may respond differently to vaccines. Research needs to account for that
Two days after getting my second dose of the Moderna mRNA vaccine as part of…
Opinion: FDA needs to follow through on its plan to ban carbadox in animal feed
An antibiotic known as carbadox can damage genes and cause cancer. The European Union, Canada,…
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Opinion: India’s drug regulator has ignored red alerts on Covaxin, imperiling millions of lives
In a shocking turn of events, the World Health Organization warned United Nations agencies against…
Opinion: Devastating separations continue for families seeking asylum, with dire health consequences
Maria was 37 weeks pregnant — at full term — when Customs and Border Protection…
Opinion: Listen: Mental health needs are soaring. Where are all the psychiatrists?
As a psychiatrist, Christin Drake often turns away potential new patients — there just aren’t…
Opinion: STAT+: Incentives to spur repurposing of existing generics for novel uses would open a new paradigm in drug R&D
The Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act of 1984, better known as the…
Opinion: Amid the nation’s mental health crisis, we need more psychiatrists now
Every day, people call my office looking for help: A loved one has not left…
Opinion: As a pain specialist, I may have caused more harm by underprescribing opioids
A reporter recently asked me about what harm I may have caused as a pain…
Opinion: The power of inclusion: Overturning the ‘white wall’ standard
Have you ever walked down a long hallway in a building and noticed the uniformity…
Opinion: The ‘successful failures’ of Apollo 13 and Covid-19 vaccination
Doomed from the start. That phrase neatly describes the Apollo 13 mission, which launched this…
Opinion: The ‘bot holiday’ and why clinicians can’t tackle disinformation alone
The war in Ukraine has had an unexpected side effect noted by many health care…
Opinion: CMS made the wrong decision on Aduhelm. But there might be a silver lining
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued on Thursday its hotly debated final…
Opinion: Averting the looming purge of people from Medicaid
Up to 16 million Americans on Medicaid, the federal-state program that provides health care to…
Opinion: 3 steps ARPA-H needs to take to accomplish its mission
Since its formation in the 1950s, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, better known as…
Opinion: The organ procurement system is failing people of color like me. It’s time for reform
I am a Black woman who has been waiting for seven years for a kidney…
Opinion: Report: U.S. nursing home care is ineffective, inefficient, inequitable, fragmented, and unsustainable
Nursing homes have been at the epicenter of the pandemic, though they have fallen off…
Opinion: STAT+: Reimagining R&D can cut drug development costs from billions to millions
In the course of our work advising biopharma companies, we are often asked how they…
Opinion: Listen: Should gender dysphoria be a required stop en route to gender euphoria?
For trans people who want to receive gender-affirming medical care such as hormone treatments or…
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Opinion: In the future, we should spend more on prescription drugs, not less
The conventional wisdom that we need to reduce spending on prescription drugs is all wrong….
Opinion: Home care instead of hospital care: Congress should extend a crucial waiver
Hospitals can be places of healing and, at times, harm, particularly for older adults with…
Opinion: Equal treatment for equal risk: Should race be included in allocation algorithms for Covid-19 therapies?
When the Omicron surge threatened to overwhelm hospitals and the number of infections greatly exceeded…
Opinion: Digital health is overlooking its biggest opportunity for disruption
For years, tech behemoths and digital health innovators have attempted to “reinvent” health care, but…
Opinion: Narrowing the vaccine gap as boosters begin for people over 50
The Food and Drug Administration this week authorized a second booster for individuals 50 and…
Opinion: What health care must learn from meteorology about the importance of R2O
Twenty years ago, a board of atmospheric experts published a report that revolutionized the meteorology…
Opinion: Listen: Tom Sequist on mirrored Covid tragedies — 2,000 miles apart
Like many of us, Tom Sequist had no idea what was about to happen as…
Opinion: There’s no return to normal for millions of children orphaned during Covid
Forgotten in the calls for a “new normal” and the shuffle toward it are the…
Opinion: How to fix the two-tier U.S. health payment system
How the U.S. pays for health care is neither efficient nor fair. Despite spending an…
Opinion: HHS’s failure to address the health harms of climate crisis constitutes environmental and institutional racism
The 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination against recipients of federal funding, including those covered…
Opinion: Unexpectedly united: The parallel plights of two communities 2,000 miles apart wracked by the pandemic
I constantly straddle two disparate worlds. One is in Boston, where I work for one…
Opinion: Digital health: the latest iteration of medicine’s knowledge problem
When I did my residency in internal medicine and primary care a few years ago,…