Opinion: Dearth of disability-related Covid-19 data can confound response efforts
After a few days of feeling feverish, exhausted, achy, and having an intermittent sore throat,…
Category: First Opinion
Opinion: What being stricken with Covid-19 taught a biotech CEO
On March 14, at 10 a.m., I got the call that I had tested positive…
Opinion: A pandemic, a funeral, and a chance to help heal the world
At the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference for biotech investors in San Francisco this January, I…
Opinion: Collective intelligence, not market competition, will deliver the best Covid-19 vaccine
Imagine mobilizing the world’s brightest and most creative minds — from biotech and pharmaceutical industries,…
Opinion: A national registry could help defeat sepsis, a big contributor to Covid-19 deaths
As doctors and paramedics who treat the victims of the Covid-19 pandemic, we have seen…
Opinion: To allocate remdesivir fairly, give it to communities that bear a disproportionate burden of Covid-19
As the federal government haphazardly distributed remdesivir, Gilead Sciences’ repurposed antiviral drug, to some of…
Opinion: The Bio Revolution is changing business and society
Imagine a world in which we can produce meat without animals, cure previously incurable diseases…
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Opinion: Beyond words: medical institutions must act to support black lives
Oleoresin capsicum spray, better known as pepper spray, is a chemical weapon made from concentrated…
Opinion: Contact tracing technology must protect people from discrimination as well as disease
South Korea confirmed dozens of new Covid-19 cases last month, most of them linked to…
Opinion: Covid-19 is changing the game for health care companies and investors
Even as the health care industry has stepped up with an unprecedented response to the…
Opinion: Physician advocacy against police brutality: #ThisIsOurLaneToo
Last week we found ourselves sharing yet again — first with anger, then with despair…
Opinion: Racism: The contagion in health care we need to eradicate
The virus persists in the bloodstream for years, often spanning generations. The warning signs aren’t…
Opinion: Oxford, AstraZeneca Covid-19 deal reinforces ‘vaccine sovereignty.’ We need a people’s vaccine instead
Sovereignty, in its most distilled form, is the power to decide who will live and…
Opinion: Create a health impact fund to spur development and equitable use of a Covid-19 vaccine
Calls for rethinking our pharmaceutical innovation system are swirling in the headwinds and tailwinds of…
Opinion: It’s time to bring generic drug manufacturing back to the U.S.
In a hearing Tuesday afternoon on Capitol Hill, policymakers will consider repatriating America’s drug supply…
Opinion: Covid-19 has exposed cracks in the global medicines supply chain. We need to fix them
The Covid-19 pandemic has upended the normal ways of doing everything from going to school…
Opinion: Optimism, not evidence, is driving America’s return-to-work strategy
Consensus seems to be emerging that businesses can safely reopen by checking the temperatures of…
Opinion: My nightmare: Covid-19 meets racism meets the killing of a Black American by police
This is my nightmare: Covid-19 meets racism meets the killing of yet another Black person…
Opinion: Cutting ties with WHO creates a scientific and leadership vacuum
In yet another example of brash finger-pointing, President Trump called out China last week as…
Opinion: Resident physicians should have a say in their working conditions
In Chicago’s South Loop, the nightly salutation to health care workers begins at 8 p.m.,…
Opinion: By cutting ties with the World Health Organization, Trump endangers global public health
President Trump’s announcement on Friday that the United States will cut ties with the World…
Opinion: Don’t use ‘deaths of despair’ as rationale for reopening the country too soon
Following congressional testimony last week about frontline workers’ experiences during the Covid-19 epidemic, members of…
Opinion: Early diagnosis, not cancer drug breakthroughs, is the best way to fix the global scourge of breast cancer
Covid-19 news could be nudged out of the spotlight this weekend as the American Society…
Opinion: In the face of Covid-19, the U.S. needs to change how it deals with mental illness
Before Covid-19 arrived in the U.S., the country was in the midst of a mental…
Opinion: He was a ‘force of nature’: Anthony Fauci, Tom Frieden, and others remember Larry Kramer
“AIDS changed everything,” Larry Kramer once said. So he made it his life’s work to…
Opinion: Challenge trials can speed development of a Covid-19 vaccine. Planning for them needs to start now
Human challenge trials, also known as controlled human infection models, are an essential tool for…
Opinion: Covid-19 is battering independent physician practices. They need help now
Autumn Road Family Practice is a small, six-doctor primary care practice that’s been caring for…
Opinion: Beating Covid-19 will change how new therapies are developed
The global Covid-19 pandemic has left families and communities around the globe grieving for lost…
Opinion: The data-free zone of Covid-19 complicates medical, family decision-making
“What would you do, doc?” It’s a question I get all the time as a…
Opinion: Biopharma companies are spreading misinformation — and taking advantage of it
As Covid-19 upends the world, people are putting their faith in the biopharma industry to…
Opinion: Hospitals are busier than ever — and going out of business
At various points over the last few weeks, news reports have told stories of booming…
Opinion: When bubonic plague hit France in 1720, officials dithered. Sound familiar?
On May 25, 1720, a ship named the Grand Saint-Antoine arrived in the port of…
Opinion: We need a national holiday to honor health policy
Let’s create a holiday for health policy. Not now. But eventually. A holiday that celebrates…
Opinion: When a Covid-19 vaccine becomes available, who should get it first?
The ethical challenges that have arisen so far in the coronavirus pandemic largely boil down…
Opinion: When a Covid-19 vaccine become available, who should get it first?
The ethical challenges that have arisen so far in the coronavirus pandemic largely boil down…
Opinion: We need one response — not 50 — to fight Covid-19
In ordinary times, states handle the public health crises that affect their residents. That usually…
Opinion: All women should have access to the at-home test that can provide early detection of cervical cancer
My husband, our first-grade child, and I managed to get on what was likely one…
Opinion: To test our way out of the Covid-19 nightmare, focus on nursing homes
Less than 1% of Americans live in nursing homes, yet these facilities account for between…
Opinion: Recovery from Covid-19 is filled with uncertainty. An antibody test offered me a little comfort
There have been approximately 5 million confirmed cases of Covid-19 around the world. I’m one…
Opinion: The growing global appetite for meat increases the risk of future ‘spillover’ pandemics. We can do something about it
I was a pandemic specialist for 15 years, leading projects under the emerging pandemic threats…
Opinion: Calling all health care workers ‘heroes’ harms all of us
Here’s an unjust fact: Some of the frontline health care workers we’ve been celebrating with…
Opinion: Life with lupus: Trump’s hydroxychloroquine hype puts my treatment — and himself — at risk
President Trump’s revelation this week that he’s taking hydroxychloroquine to ward off Covid-19 sent shivers…
Opinion: Lessons from the military on how to balance caring for patients against the risk of personal harm
“If not me, then who?” That was the answer Marine Corps First Lieutenant Travis Manion…
Opinion: Real-time data are essential for Covid-19. They’re just as important for the opioid overdose crisis
As the Covid-19 epidemic sweeps across the country leaving death and confusion in its wake,…
Opinion: Covid-19 has exposed the limits of the pharmaceutical market model
That so much hope is being pinned on remdesivir, the drug Gilead is testing for…
Opinion: Ventilators can save people with serious Covid-19. The people behind them are even more important
In mid-March, the day before I flew back to New York City to return to…
Opinion: Hospitals shouldn’t be exempt from reporting faulty radioisotope injections
Medical imaging has experienced tremendous growth since the discovery of X-rays: the x-ray-based CT scanner,…
Opinion: If J&J really wants to support nurses, it should make the TB drug bedaquiline affordable
As nurses who worked in 5B, the first U.S. hospital ward dedicated HIV/AIDS, which opened…
Opinion: A pandemic plan was in place. Trump abandoned it — and science — in the face of Covid-19
President Obama was bothered. It was the summer of 2009 and he was in a…
Opinion: Contact tracing must balance privacy and public health
Contact tracing armies in California and New Jersey. Rapid-response contact tracing in Washington. Track and…