Opinion: The spread of Covid-19 and the Boston Marathon: We can run another day
It’s my job to think about the novel coronavirus. As a journalist at STAT, I’ve…
Category: First Opinion
Opinion: The U.S. needs a nationwide registry for traumatic brain injury
The congressional Brain Injury Task Force, co-chaired by Reps. Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-N.J.) and Don…
Opinion: Tackling drug shortages with data, AI, legislation, and more
Every quarter since 2014, roughly 150 to 300 drugs have been in short supply in…
Opinion: What does the coronavirus mean for the U.S. health care system? Some simple math offers alarming answers
Much of the current discourse on — and dismissal of — the Covid-19 outbreak focuses…
Opinion: If Covid-19 gets bad, triage will be needed. Are we ready for that?
The emergence of a new infectious disease that rapidly spreads around the world, like Covid-19,…
Opinion: I thought I understood the Sacklers’ opioid empire. Startling documents from a whistleblower and declassified government files proved me wrong
What could possibly be new about the Sackler family, the billionaire owners of Purdue Pharma?…
Opinion: Doctors working while sick is bad enough in ordinary times. During the Covid-19 outbreak it could be catastrophic
Earlier this winter, before the coronavirus outbreak, I spoke by phone with a colleague who…
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Opinion: Can you sue an algorithm for malpractice? It depends
The rapid entry of artificial intelligence is stretching the boundaries of medicine. It will also…
Opinion: Five years on, biosimilars need support from all health care players
Today marks a milestone for the U.S. biosimilar market: the FDA approved our first biosimilar,…
Opinion: Super Tuesday results suggest that Americans ‘aren’t looking for big structural changes’ in health care
Voters on Tuesday sent several messages, including a key one about health care. Big ideas…
Opinion: Coronavirus spending: an expense — or an investment?
In the context of a looming global pandemic, what does it mean to invest in…
Opinion: A coronavirus vaccine should be for everyone, not just those who can afford it
As the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 spreads in more than 60 countries, the race to…
Opinion: It will take a village to solve the epidemic of maternal deaths in the U.S.
The phrase “maternal deaths” tends to conjure up images of awful complications of delivery: uncontrollable…
Opinion: Trump’s immigration policies will make the coronavirus pandemic worse
Pandemics have a way of testing us. Throughout history, societies have responded to plagues by…
Opinion: How innovation is helping mitigate the coronavirus threat
The sudden emergence and rapid spread of a novel coronavirus, now called Covid-19, is a…
Opinion: Doctors need to embrace the ‘power of yet’
I believe in the power of yet. Doctors should, too, especially the one who used…
Opinion: Precision medicine: course correction urgently needed
An undeclared civil war is breaking out in biomedicine. On one side is precision medicine, with…
Opinion: Research in the time of coronavirus: keep it ethical
The sudden outbreak of Covid-19, a disease caused by a new coronavirus, is proving to…
Opinion: The coronavirus ‘infodemic’ is real. We rated the websites responsible for it
The coronavirus has spawned an infodemic. That’s the World Health Organization’s term for the conspiracies,…
Opinion: Women in medicine: unite (or at least stop repressing each other)
The #MeToo and #NeedHerScience movements have inspired women to take a stand against sexism in…
Opinion: Quarantine for coronavirus? Let’s make that unnecessary
Do you trust the government to protect you and your family from the novel coronavirus…
Opinion: For medicine regulators, reliance is a global imperative
It’s never been more challenging to make sure that medicines meet standards for quality, safety,…
Opinion: Physician practice consolidation: It’s only just begun
Disruption has redefined health care in the past decade. For private practice physicians, the biggest…
Opinion: The FDA in the 2020s: move forward, don’t stand still
Federal regulatory agencies can’t stand still. They must evolve with industries they regulate. No agency…
Opinion: Will the newest pill for HIV prevention fuel progress — or profits?
Four decades after the HIV epidemic began, there’s finally hope it might end. Indeed, “Getting…
Opinion: In the race for coronavirus vaccines, don’t leave pregnant women behind
As several thousand people become newly infected each day with the novel coronavirus Covid-19, and…
Opinion: To fight surprise medical bills, create a powerful united patient lobby
Physicians are taught to prioritize the interests of their patients, using their knowledge, preferences, and…
Opinion: Pharmacists, patients are stuck in the middle of a profit-before-all-else pharmacy racket
The news that chaos reigns inside chain pharmacies, putting patients at risk, may have come…
Opinion: A single-dose HPV vaccine would have a big impact on cancer prevention
As the father of three teenagers, as a son whose father lost his battle with…
Opinion: Human reproductive cloning: The curious incident of the dog in the night-time
Gregory: Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?Holmes:…
Opinion: Should ‘broken’ genes be fixed? My daughter changed the way I think about that question
I’m a doctor. I strive to fix things that are broken. Hearts, mostly. But my…
Opinion: Approaches to complex care innovation are ‘naïve and insufficient.’ We need systems and design thinking
I was a second-year medical school student when I encountered my first patient with GRID…
Opinion: Digital therapeutics vs. digital care: defining the landscape
The conversations I had at this year’s J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference were a microcosm of…
Opinion: We need to take steps toward building a consensus definition of biological aging
I’ve been committed to understanding the biology of aging since I was a teenager, and…
Opinion: Why we need mandatory labeling of GMO products
The conversation around genetic engineering and food is undermined by a lack of information that…
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Opinion: Without oversight, electronic prescribing can harm patients
The use of electronic health record systems in doctors’ offices and hospitals has hit a…
Opinion: FDA calls states’ bluffs on drug importation
For decades, critics of the U.S. drug pricing system have advocated importing drugs from Canada…
Opinion: For African women at risk of HIV, a woke world is still sound asleep
The arrival in 2012 of a daily pill to prevent HIV infection was widely hailed…
Opinion: Why medical school should start at age 28
American medicine is at a crossroads as doctors begin to reject a cruel, exhausting educational…
Opinion: Cheers and jeers as med school’s Step 1 test becomes pass/fail
Medical students around the country cheered and jeered this week’s announcement that the results of…
Opinion: The coronavirus outbreak exposes the U.S.’s pharma supply chain vulnerability
In the 21st century, Americans have found it far too easy to be complacent about…
Opinion: From bench to bedside, biologics require excellence at every stage
The Nobel Prize in Medicine will never be awarded for excellence in the formulation and…
Opinion: Federated learning: collaboration without compromise for health care research
What if we could learn from massive collections of data while avoiding the privacy and…
Opinion: STAT Plus: Why medtech is a different beast than biotech in the life sciences pack
Biotech innovations dominate the life science news cycle — think CRISPR for gene editing or…
Opinion: Paying gestational carriers should be legal in all states
Every year, hundreds of thousands of babies are born in the U.S. using assisted reproductive…
Opinion: A daughter’s plea: Doctors must stop shirking palliative care
The first time I lost my dad was in 2010, just a few weeks after…
Opinion: Hospitals, governments need more data to prepare for the new coronavirus outbreak
In the six weeks since an outbreak of a novel coronavirus was first recognized in…
Opinion: A strategy for securing religious freedom and tolerance in health care
A new rule proposed by the Department of Health and Human Services in mid-January, “Ensuring…
Opinion: What an 1890s opioid epidemic can teach us about ending addiction today
In the ’90s, chronic pain was rampant in America. Opioids, which had previously been taboo,…
Opinion: 10 reasons why health care startups fail
In our roles at MedTech Innovator, a global accelerator for medtech startups, we’ve worked with…