Opinion: Rebuilding the nation’s health care workforce during and after Covid-19: Lessons from disaster management
As an emergency medicine physician and director of emergency management, I have taken part in…
Category: First Opinion
.jpg)
Opinion: Historic yet imperfect: Malaria vaccine brings hope but the fight is far from over
Historic yet imperfect. That’s how I think of the World Health Organization’s recent endorsement of…
Opinion: The National Academy of Medicine’s climate crisis effort must turn words into action
With little fanfare and even less notice, the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) recently launched…
Opinion: In the calm before the superbug storm, the world needs to prepare
Failing to plan, it’s been said, is planning to fail. By this standard, the United…
Opinion: Feeling guilty about getting a booster shot? Here’s something you can do
The same week that Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and…
Opinion: Health care workers: catalysts for improvement, not costs to the system
The White House Covid Summit recently convened world leaders, multilateral organizations, global health experts, and…
Opinion: The hidden cost of Covid-19: years of life lost among the young
Body counts appear to support the common perception that Covid-19 does its worst damage among…
Opinion: Listen: A family physician on making medical abortion more accessible
Abortion access is being threatened across the country: Texas has come close to banning abortion as…
Opinion: Applying HIPAA would help Facebook transform mental health for good
Facebook and other social media companies have accurate information about the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors…
Opinion: The U.S. deserves the best public health doctors. They needn’t be medical doctors
The Covid-19 lockdown began in Massachusetts the week I submitted my dissertation to become a…
Opinion: Much Adu(helm) about nothing: New Alzheimer’s drug threatens state Medicaid budgets
A new drug that was supposed to be a lifeline for thousands of individuals and…
Opinion: Health disparities for Filipinxs in health care are disguised by data aggregation
As some nurses across the country choose to stop working rather than comply with vaccine…
Opinion: Biosimilars competition helps patients more than generic competition
Much of the current drug-pricing agenda proposed by President Biden and by Congress is based…
Opinion: A federal drug purchasing program could save billions
When Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan announced they were creating a new health care company…
Opinion: Covid-19 keeps delivering lessons about health care worker burnout. Will we learn them?
With the authorizations for several effective vaccines against Covid-19 and a strong vaccination program in…
Opinion: The AMA needs to declare a national mental health emergency
As the pandemic continues to disrupt life across the U.S., a staggering number of Americans…
Opinion: Why U.S. pandemic management has failed: lack of attention to America’s epidemic engines
Few U.S. journalists, politicians, or public health officials expressed any extraordinary concern when reports of…
Opinion: A likely new treatment for Covid-19 was made possible by government-funded innovation
Last week, Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics announced Phase 3 results of molnupiravir, an oral antiviral…
Opinion: FDA’s naming rule for biosimilars has undermined Congress and health care
I recently tried to order white blood cell growth factor (pegfilgrastim) biosimilar for one of…
Opinion: On a day to celebrate the Nobel in medicine, a stain still mars the institute that awards it
As the Nobel Assembly at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute announces the winners of the 2021 Nobel…
Opinion: Enough pink: We’re doing Breast Cancer Awareness Month all wrong
October is upon us, which means the world is about get a whole lot more…
Opinion: For abortion care, physicians may need to step aside to support patients
I have come to think that people who provide abortion care are models of the…
Opinion: Repurposing drugs can speed new treatments for Covid-19
As the summer of 2021 started to unfold, many Americans thought the pandemic was beginning…
Opinion: Covid-19 has revealed the hazards of blocking physician-owned hospitals
Covid-19 caught the U.S. flatfooted. With supply shortages, the availability of intensive care unit beds,…
Opinion: Listen: Revisiting Uché Blackstock on leaving academic medicine
This week, “First Opinion Podcast” returns to a conversation with emergency physician Uché Blackstock about…
Opinion: Overdose prevention sites can save lives and promote recovery. We must be willing to try them
The latest statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are simply staggering:…
Opinion: Paying participants isn’t the way to improve clinical trial recruitment
It’s notoriously difficult to recruit people to participate in clinical trials. It’s even harder to…
Opinion: Building resilience and well-being: keys to avoiding the worst of a looming shortage of health care workers
During the marathon of Covid-19, nurses and other health care workers have faced unprecedented levels…
Opinion: I fear Covid-19 is pushing young physicians out of medicine
During more than 30 years as a physician and an officer in the U.S. Air…
Opinion: Space-bound billionaires can help make the world a healthier place through research
SpaceX Inspiration4, funded by billionaire Jared Isaacman, recently orbited the Earth for three days with…
Opinion: Even me-too drugs matter when it comes to new medicines
As the government wrestles with lowering health care costs, one strategy gaining momentum is allowing…
Opinion: The brain health paradox: Dementia rates have fallen even as drugs have failed
Billions of dollars have been spent in pursuit of a pharmaceutical treatment for Alzheimer’s and…
Opinion: Biden’s global summit Covid-19 targets are woefully inadequate and must be corrected
As part of President Biden’s plan to address the global Covid-19 pandemic and inequitable distribution…
Opinion: Proposals to cap Medicare Part B payments will limit outpatient access to CAR-T
The revolutionary life-extending approach to treating cancer known as CAR-T is under threat from a…
Opinion: Do we need vaccine exemption boards?
When I was a senior in college, the U.S. government tried to draft me —…
Opinion: Data from routine Covid testing can help schools stay open this year
With recent spikes in Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations across the country — including in children…
Opinion: Virtual medical school: Burnout and a path forward
We started medical school at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons in August…
Opinion: Seeing the butterfly effect in hospital transfers for Covid-19 patients
Can a young man with Covid-19 pneumonia in the emergency department of an Oklahoma hospital…
Opinion: President Biden: Don’t misuse Bayh-Dole march-in rights
In a misguided attempt to control drug costs, some Congressional leaders are urging the Biden…
Opinion: Start now to prevent the next Purdue Pharma debacle
The judgment finalizing the Purdue Pharma bankruptcy case is a likely bitter end to litigation…
Opinion: STAT+: Rewriting the playbook for digital therapeutics
The acceleration of investment in digital health and adoption of health-related apps triggered by the…
Opinion: Beyond ‘vaccinopia’: Rapid tests should play a larger role in Biden’s Covid-19 plan
America is suffering from a serious case of vaccinopia: an inability to look beyond shots…
Opinion: Congress is about to legislate a future without new medicines. We have a better plan
One of the fundamental principles on which the U.S. economy is based is that the…
Opinion: Listen: An organizer and a physician on how climate change will worsen maternal health inequities
The country is in a climate crisis. California is experiencing its second-largest fire, on the…
Opinion: NIH needs to create a National Institute of Surgery
I recently received the 42nd grant rejection of my academic career, bringing my overall success…
Opinion: Aduhelm backlash threatens to reverse progress in FDA’s reviews of rare and ultra-rare disease drugs
The FDA’s approval of Aduhelm to treat Alzheimer’s disease has unleashed criticism about the decision…
Opinion: Medicine must ‘widen the doors’ to people of color
The pandemic and the death of George Floyd put a glaring spotlight on the gross…
Opinion: STAT+: Combating the burnout bottleneck among clinical research workers
Health care professionals of all stripes were battling burnout and mental illness before the pandemic…
Opinion: How a ‘fatally, tragically flawed’ paradigm has derailed the science of obesity
I’ve been a science reporter for 40 years. I’ve wanted to assume that the experts…
Opinion: Covid-19 trauma complicates the 9/11 ‘anniversary effect’
Trauma caused by violence or tragic events can have a huge impact on individuals’ lives….