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— We have a responsibility to explain to patients how policy changes may transform their care It's traditionally been frowned upon for us doctors to talk with patients about voting. But at a time of growing crisis in healthcare, clinicians now face an important decision in the exam room. Should we override the conventional prohibition against bringing up political issues with the people we're caring for? In these times, I'd argue that we can -- we must -- do so to fulfil our

The relentless campaign against U.S. residents who were born elsewhere continues to grow. It’s not just the aggressive ICE surges or Trump’s attempt to deport a sitting U.S. Congressperson: Moves against foreign-born students and young scientists have been particularly destructive. The administration has pushed for limits on the time non-U.S. doctoral students can stay here to work on their dissertations, and has tried to ban my own institution from accepting students from o

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded for elegant work on the “handedness” of molecules. The prize went to Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai for their pathfinding work on the creation of isomers – mirror-image versions of the same compound that can exist as either its “left-handed” or “right-handed” version, or isomer. It was an accomplishment never before achieved “other than [by] life itself,” in the words of the Nobel Committee. The former version of a molecule is often d

Jerry Avorn, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, presented an analysis of the U.S. healthcare system's challenges regarding medication affordability, highlighting three core areas: policy, payment, and prescribing (3:30-18:40). The Problem of "American Exceptionalism" (3:30-5:30): U.S. drug prices are approximately double those in other wealthy nations for the same products. This leads to significant non-adherence; roughly half of chronic medications are not take

Listen to the full interview on New England Journal of Medicine Dr. Jerry Avorn argues that when Congress and federal regulators fail to act on clear evidence that a widely used product harms health, litigation has repeatedly stepped in as a last resort to force accountability. He anchors this argument in three parallel cases: the 1990s tobacco litigation, in which 46 state attorneys general sued the four largest cigarette manufacturers; the early-2000s litigation against Mer

From HealthAffairs. By Aaron S. Kesselheim and Jerry Avorn. At a time of rapidly developing new medications and growing public health challenges, there is now no official leadership in place at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Office of the Surgeon General. Marty Makary's legacy will be that he undercut many of the key principles that had made the agency one of the most important public health institutions in the