First Opinion

Perspective and opinion on medicine, biotechnology, and the life sciences writ large, curated by Patrick Skerrett. Please send submissions to first.opinion@statnews.com. View the Author Agreement here. Sign up for the weekly First Opinion newsletter here.

First Opinion

Finding new treatments for Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s shouldn’t be up to pharma alone

By Allan Hugh Cole Jr.

Doug Hirsch and Zade

First Opinion

A bygone pre-existing condition shouldn’t keep my son from getting health insurance

By Doug Hirsch

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Mifepristone

First Opinion

FDA shouldn’t allow politics to hurt women suffering miscarriage

By Dorothy Novick

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Elderly Immunotherapy

First Opinion

We need more answers about immunotherapy for the elderly

By Ankur Parikh

Tired Medical Student

First Opinion

Medical training programs need to care about physician burnout. Should the rest of us?

By Timothy J. Hoff

IV Drip Patient Safety

First Opinion

A new approach can take patient safety to the next level

By Jenna Merandi and Thomas Bartman

Wong Maye-E/AP

First Opinion

Barriers to genomic testing get in the way of precision medicine

By Chadi Nabhan

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Border Family Separation

First Opinion

Separating families at the border isn’t just bad policy — it’s horrible for children’s health

By Oscar J. Benavidez

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Diabetes Transplants

First Opinion

Why does my health insurer sabotage my efforts to manage my diabetes?

By Kylah Goodfellow Klinge

Hospital medicaid

First Opinion

An insider’s view of the myths and misconceptions behind 340B ‘reform’

By Bradford R. Lang

European Union

First Opinion

Look to the EU’s new privacy law as a model for replacing the ‘confusing patchwork’ in the U.S.

By Joseph Jerome

First Opinion

New Gardasil ad campaign gets it (mostly) right. It shouldn’t have taken a decade

By Ashley Andreou

US Disaster Prep

First Opinion

Congress needs to back legislation supporting disaster preparedness

By Nicolette Louissaint

Pandemic Prevention

First Opinion

Do we keep waiting for the next pandemic or try to prevent it?

By Seth Berkley

Group-B Streptococcus - Sepsis

First Opinion

Current efforts to fight sepsis aren’t working. We need a bolder approach

By Derek Angus

Genetic Frontiers Million Person Study

First Opinion

I handed over my genetic data to the NIH. Here’s why you should, too

By Eric Dishman

Women Clinical Trial

First Opinion

Studying sex differences will improve health for women and men

By Amy M. Miller and Rebecca Nebel

Invisible Nurses

First Opinion

Nurses play vital roles in health care. Why are they invisible in the media?

By Carole R. Myers

First Opinion

Website offers a living laboratory for examining health care prices and quality

By Robin Gelburd

Health

Lobotomies were once used to treat this gut disease, part of a shameful medical history

By Jim Carrier

Retail Health Clinics

First Opinion

How early retail health clinics set the stage for today’s mega-mergers

By Hal Rosenbluth and Peter Miller

American Medical Student Protest

First Opinion

Is this the year the AMA finally joins the single-payer movement?

By Jonathan Michels, Robertha Barnes, and Sydney Russell Leed

Medical school

First Opinion

Taking risks in pursuit of innovation is good. So is preparing for it

By Christopher Hartnick

Speeding Up Development

First Opinion

30 years is too long to wait for new medicines. There are ways to speed up drug development

By Fred D. Ledley

opioid overdose memorial

First Opinion

Reviving an old book to tell a new story about OxyContin, Purdue, and the Sackler family

By Barry Meier

First Opinion

Every state needs a database with all health insurance claims, not just some

By John Freedman

First Opinion

The ‘cruel joke’ of compassionate use and right to try: Pharma companies don’t have to comply

By Vibhav Rangarajan

First Opinion

Biohackers are about open-access to science, not DIY pandemics. Stop misrepresenting us

By Daniel Grushkin

Kendall Square 1987

First Opinion

Boston: the best city in the world to fail in biotech

By Bill Sibold

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