Opinion: Outdated rule increases Medicare’s costs for generic drugs by $26 billion a year
Public outcry about the shockingly high cost of brand-name drugs and a demand for new…
Category: First Opinion
Opinion: STAT+: Digital clinical trials can personalize patient engagement, accelerate therapy development
Biopharmaceutical companies were conducting more than 9,000 clinical trials in the U.S. in March 2020…
Opinion: Listen: A scientist-parent on heading back-to-school with Delta
Alicia Zhou was worried about sending her son, Davi, to in-person first grade this year,…
Opinion: To lower drug costs, define ‘cost’ to mean net cost after rebates
In what could be a turning point in the prescription drug debate, President Biden has…
Opinion: ‘Reentry’ after cancer treatment offers lessons for emerging from the pandemic
An interesting and important period in the life of cancer survivors begins when major treatments,…
Opinion: STAT+: A 10-point plan for sustaining the biopharma industrial base for a more secure nation
Covid-19 has underscored the critical role the biopharma industrial base plays in the U.S.’s national…
Opinion: Hospital mergers and acquisitions are a bad deal for patients. Why aren’t they being stopped?
Contrary to what health care executives advertise, hospital mergers and acquisitions aren’t good for patients….
Opinion: Hold insurers accountable for covering HIV prevention drugs at no cost to patients
Even before the Affordable Care Act reduced uninsured rates in our country, it required private…
Opinion: Listen: An ICU physician on the moral dilemmas mechanical ventilators can raise
On the day in 1928 when the inventors of the iron lung wheeled their contraption…
Opinion: Two insurance-based ways to get more Americans vaccinated
With 40% of Americans completely unvaccinated against Covid-19 — blame it on political polarization, virulent…
Opinion: Africa has a chance to help the world end polio for good. It needs to seize it now
One year ago, I joined African leaders, experts, and global partners to mark an extraordinary…
Opinion: Liquid biopsy: misplaced faith in early cancer detection?
The trial of Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes for defrauding investors about the company’s blood tests…
Opinion: ‘This Is My Story’: connecting clinicians with hospitalized patients who can’t speak for themselves
During the maelstrom of Covid-19 in April 2020, I assisted in a birth at Johns…
Opinion: 3 surprising trends in seniors’ telemedicine use during the pandemic
The explosive growth in telemedicine has been hailed by some as an important “silver lining”…
Opinion: A perfect storm: Climate disasters are magnifying the U.S.’s maternal health crisis
During every humanitarian disaster — whether it’s a war, a pandemic, or an extreme weather…
Opinion: I was once a hardcore anti-vaxxer. Now I try to nudge people to get the Covid-19 vaccine
I open the email from a Facebook friend who recently told me they were against…
Opinion: It’s easy to judge the unvaccinated. As a doctor, I see a better alternative
I don’t ask “Why?” when a patient with Covid-19 tells me they are unvaccinated for…
Opinion: My aunt’s ‘Kafkaesque journey’ to get the home care she needed
As an attorney who has concentrated in elder law and long-term care rights for more…
Opinion: Expanding the domestic public health supply chain is a matter of national security
One of the many hard lessons learned from Covid-19 has been that a robust and…
Opinion: Listen: A father describes the legacy of his son’s ultra-rare disease
Bertrand Might was born with a rare disease that had never before been diagnosed, an…
Opinion: New antivirals are sorely needed. A public-private partnership can get us there
The U.S. government’s announcement that it is investing $3 billion into research on antiviral medicines…
Opinion: Ivermectin for Covid-19: abundance of hype, dearth of evidence
Here’s a tip for navigating the constantly evolving data on treatments for Covid-19: Beware when…
Opinion: Florida doctor: This devastating Covid surge didn’t need to happen
I recently came across a photo of myself in late December 2020 getting my first…
Opinion: As Delta spreads, it’s time to put children’s health first
As pediatricians, we are committed to putting children’s health first. Last year, though, when hospitals…
Opinion: STAT+: Bringing clarity and consistency to CMS’s hospital price transparency rule will be a win for all
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) price transparency rule requiring U.S. hospitals to…
Opinion: FDA’s kratom ban would harm the public and damage the agency’s credibility
Trust in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) declined after its approval of the…
Opinion: Accountable care organizations don’t cut costs. It’s time to stop the managed care experiment
For the last half-century, Congress has endorsed essentially the same approach to cutting health care…
Opinion: We know how to keep kids safe from Covid-19 in school. Now we need to do it
I live with someone who hasn’t been vaccinated against Covid-19. He’s my first-grader. Like all…
Opinion: Delay of British chronic fatigue syndrome guidelines are a setback for people with long Covid
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), a British agency charged with developing…
Opinion: Covid-19 booster shot distribution must learn from vaccine roll-out mistakes
With news that Covid-19 booster shots are in Americans’ imminent future, the chaos and uncertainty…
Opinion: Look to nurses to help accelerate the transformation of health care
The chaos and crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic have forced remarkable transformations in the U.S….
Opinion: That ‘damn machine’: the dark side of mechanical ventilators in the ICU
I walk in to Mr. W’s room to say hello. He is 73 years old…
Opinion: To vaccinate more Americans, lean into outbreaks
As the Delta variant surges across almost all states in the U.S. causing local outbreaks,…
Opinion: A natural pandemic has been terrible. A synthetic one would be even worse
In 1988, as Russian scientist Nikolai Ustinov worked in the VECTOR lab, part of a…
Opinion: Booster shots alone won’t protect immunocompromised people from Covid-19
Covid-19 taught me something about second chances: In March 2020, I fought the virus and…
Opinion: Listen: An ENT physician & an advocate on the high monetary and social costs of hearing loss
Although hearing loss is a common aging-related problem, affecting two in three Americans over age…
Opinion: Waiving intellectual property rights would compromise global vaccination efforts
The resurgence of Covid-19 cases in the United States and around the world, in large…
Opinion: Scientific, moral imperatives underlie the ARPA-H mandate to include rare disorders
The response to Covid-19 by the biomedical research community in the U.S. and around the…
Opinion: A ‘great listening’ to patients could be a powerful legacy of the pandemic
A lasting memorial may be emerging for the millions of people who will have tragically…
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Opinion: Cannabis legalization must address medical use, not just recreational use
Legislation to legalize cannabis at the federal level recently proposed by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)…
Opinion: The pandemic made clear who doesn’t get to breathe clean air. Now what?
The Covid-19 pandemic exposed deep-seated inequities in everything from safe working conditions and affordable health…
Opinion: A country-wide collaboration to address the maternal health crisis
After languishing in the background for far too long, the shockingly high rate of complications…
Opinion: To protect from lab leaks, we need ‘banal’ safety rules, not anti-terrorism measures
“How did it start?” is among the many questions raised by the Covid-19 pandemic. Answering…
Opinion: Medically, legally, and morally, emergency departments cannot ignore addiction care
“My son Michael asked for help with his addiction to heroin,” a mother wrote in…
Opinion: Congress should fix FDA’s accelerated approval program for the next 30 years
The Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm has sparked a broader…
Opinion: STAT+: To ensure equity and accuracy, clinical research must reflect the diversity of patients
In the journey from lab to label for a new and promising treatment, clinical research…
Opinion: Doctors pledge to do no harm. The entire health care sector should do the same by battling climate change
The alarming new report, “Climate Change 2021,” from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change…
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Opinion: Listen: Two physicians, one of whom had a ‘breakthrough infection,’ on Covid-19 among the vaccinated
In this week’s episode of the “First Opinion Podcast,” psychiatrist Stephen Tourjee shares his experience…
Opinion: Harm-reduction programs acknowledge the difference between ‘do no harm’ and ‘protect from harm’
Brian, a patient at my clinic in Scott County, Ind., is one of many who…
Opinion: Algorithmic bias is pervasive in health care. It needn’t be
The World Health Organization issued its first global report on artificial intelligence in late June,…