Opinion: Uterine fibroids affect millions of women. Why has this condition been overlooked for decades?
In 2007, the late Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Ohio) wrote an op-ed calling for passage…
Category: First Opinion
Opinion: Listen: A biostatistician on the ‘gold mine’ in our sewers
What if every time we went to the bathroom, we could say we contributed to…
Opinion: Aduhelm’s accelerated approval offers a promising roadmap for rare neurological diseases
The FDA’s decision to grant accelerated approval to Biogen’s aducanumab (Aduhelm) for the treatment of…
Opinion: Why aren’t diseases like HIV and malaria, which still kill millions of people a year, called pandemics?
The furor about vaccine nationalism and sharing doses of Covid-19 overshadows a fundamental issue: What…
Opinion: Patient advocacy groups and innovators must partner to advance new treatments
People living with debilitating conditions and life-threatening diseases are often put in the terrible position…
Opinion: Outdated Medicare rules threaten older Americans’ access to home medical equipment
Pandemic-related breaks in global supply chains for drugs and essential medical supplies are affecting the…
Opinion: The health care workforce is understaffed for life after Covid-19
As the U.S. gradually unburies itself from the Covid-19 pandemic, some people have been sounding…
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Opinion: Something to celebrate: delivering vaccines to essential workers
Covid-19 vaccines are cause for celebration. Family members are reuniting, people are traveling and returning…
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Opinion: Listen: A sister on watching the mental health care system fail her brother
In this week’s episode of the “First Opinion Podcast,” Lizzy Feliciano talks about her brother,…
Opinion: Copay assistance should count as part of patients’ cost sharing for medications
The Biden administration has made health equity a priority and it has been a constant…
Opinion: If Covid-19 vaccines can cause heart inflammation, caution should be warranted in those at risk
The remarkable development and rollout of Covid-19 vaccines will be hailed as a triumph of…
Opinion: Public reporting: the first step in addressing the health care industry’s bloated carbon footprint
The health care industry focuses on healing. Yet its pursuit of that mission can cause…
Opinion: Florence Nightingale in the age of Covid-19
Last May marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of Florence Nightingale. That her bicentennial…
Opinion: Biden won’t end cancer — or any other disease — by importing drug price controls from Europe
In his first budget, President Biden set aggressive health goals. “Let’s end cancer as we…
Opinion: Confronting a legacy of scarcity: a plan for reinvesting in U.S. public health
Public health in America is in crisis, a sad fact that the Covid-19 pandemic has…
Opinion: An open letter to 2021 medical school graduates
To the medical school graduating class of 2021: As I write this, I imagine a…
Opinion: India’s doctors — at home and abroad — face Covid’s unrelenting toll
Ravaged by Covid-19, India is desperately trying to contain a pandemic that has infected nearly…
Opinion: The PASTEUR Act can help win the war against superbugs
Look no further than the coronavirus pandemic to see an immediate and high-profile example of…
Opinion: For now, stem cells for Covid-19 are mostly a shot in the dark
The uncertainty over how to effectively treat Covid-19 is proving to be an opportunity for…
Opinion: The Covid-19 relief bill created 1,000 more residency slots for new doctors. Wealthy hospitals should be last in line to get them
The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan that President Biden signed into law in March includes…
Opinion: Next steps for wastewater testing to help end this pandemic — and prevent the next one
Essential data can be found in the most unexpected places, including the wastewater flowing freely…
Opinion: Breaths, deaths, and missed breaks: How counting defined my days as a pandemic nurse
I woke myself up the other morning counting out loud. Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine. Thirty. Rhythmic,…
Opinion: Listen: Priscilla Chan on pediatric biology and research: ‘Children are not tiny adults’
For this week’s episode of the “First Opinion Podcast,” I spoke with Priscilla Chan, co-founder…
Opinion: Health care is a human right in times of crisis. Why not every day?
Much of the world has settled the matter of whether health care ought to be…
Opinion: The quest for thermostable vaccines and other innovations during Covid-19
The unprecedented rapid development and distribution of Covid-19 vaccines worldwide has brought new visibility to…
Opinion: FDA should lead the way on new ALS treatments, not Canada and Europe
Following the Food and Drug Administration’s recent decision to give the green light to aducanumab,…
Opinion: Why we need to simulate the entire U.S. health system
Facebook unveiled a remarkable piece of internal infrastructure in the spring of 2020. Called Web-Enabled…
Opinion: 3D bioprinting can help end organ transplant waitlists — if the FDA stops delaying
Right now, more than 100,000 Americans are waiting for organ transplants. Due to a lack…
Opinion: Why a controversial decision won’t stop me from serving on FDA advisory committees
Last week’s controversial decision by the FDA to give aducanumab, Biogen’s Alzheimer’s drug, accelerated approval…
Opinion: A surprising pandemic side effect: People are more engaged with their health
About a month ago, one of our patients, a man in his mid-40s, came to…
Opinion: Listen: Two Alzheimer’s experts with opposing viewpoints on Aduhelm
This week’s “First Opinion Podcast” is a special two-part episode focusing on the controversial —…
Opinion: 6 ways the FDA’s approval of Aduhelm does more harm than good
Like many people, I was shocked when the Food and Drug Administration ignored the advice…
Opinion: The approval of aducanumab isn’t the end of the story. It’s just the beginning
People living with Alzheimer’s dementia — the forgetfulness, the confusion, and the ultimate erasure of…
Opinion: A resilience prescription for Covid-19 and other traumatic events
One morning almost five years ago, a disgruntled former employee tried to kill me with…
Opinion: America’s broken PPE supply chain must be fixed now
Almost everyone knows by now that the U.S. was ill-prepared to combat Covid-19. But few…
Opinion: Are five decades of progress in women’s health in peril?
Reviewing 50 years of progress on medical issues relevant to women can be a daunting…
Opinion: If vaccine apartheid exists, vaccine billionaires shouldn’t
To understand why billionaires are a sign of moral and economic failure, look no further…
Opinion: Unaffordable treatment for severe malaria highlights U.S. drug market pitfalls
When Eli Lilly announced in 2017 that it would stop producing quinidine, it was the…
Opinion: Lessons about marijuana edibles from youth vaping
When it comes to children’s health, parents — and public activism — can make a…
Opinion: The future of pandemic preparedness: agile coordination around clinical trials
The SARS-CoV-2 virus presented the world with a host of clinical challenges, not least its…
Opinion: Listen: Healing the healers: An advocate and a psychiatrist on clinicians’ mental health and burnout
This week on the “First Opinion Podcast,” I’m joined by Corey Feist and Wendy Dean…
Opinion: If pediatrics board can’t lead with its maternity leave policy, it should at least follow
When my daughter started to reveal just how comfortable she was in utero, and wasn’t…
Opinion: Bad medicine: aducanumab is a lackluster drug with a high price tag
Controversy has swirled around aducanumab, an experimental drug developed by Biogen, long before the FDA…
Opinion: Scientific publishing’s new weapon for the next crisis: the rapid correction
Some observers have hailed the response to Covid-19 as a triumph for science. A hesitant…
Opinion: FDA’s approval of aducanumab paves the way for ‘more momentous’ Alzheimer’s breakthroughs
The Food and Drug Administration yanked the fight against Alzheimer’s out of the mire with…
Opinion: With Covid-19, as with HIV, science and partnerships with communities lead the way
Like so many of her generation, Josephine Nabukenya wasn’t aware of her HIV status during…
Opinion: 40 years of AIDS should have taught us epidemiologic humility
Forty years later, I can still recall my visceral reaction to reading an article in…
Opinion: Listen: A nurse and a physician on harnessing the full potential of nurses
This week on the “First Opinion Podcast,” I’m joined by two members of the National…
Opinion: NIH: It’s time to make your mark on the renaissance of medicinal psychedelics
Just a few years ago, investments in medicinal psychedelic research were rare in even the…
Opinion: Closing an Indiana county’s syringe services program would be a public health disaster
A 6-year-old program that has reduced overdose deaths while simultaneously preventing new cases of HIV…