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A constellation of social media wellness influencers, YouTubers, and podcasters have been extolling the health benefits of peptides. There seems to be a peptide for just about anything you could dream of. Want to lose weight? There are GLP-1s, of course. Would you like to have a year-round tan? You could give melanotan a shot. […]

I recently sat with a young scientist in my office, tears in her eyes, who was asking for advice: Her grant had been canceled by the government. Years of hard work and training seemed to vanish in an instant. She was — is — an exceptional scientist, having earned one of the most prestigious early-career […]

In “We’ve Got You Covered,” Liran Einav and Amy Finkelstein describe America’s existing patchwork of health care payment arrangements as a “teardown.” I agree. I support downsizing the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), eliminating many programs, rolling back regulations, and creating a new system modeled on Social Security that will be simpler, less […]

MILAN — For more than three decades, a charity here has funded research aimed at developing medicines for genetic diseases. Recently, though, it added an unusual new role — as a gene therapy company of sorts.  The charity, the Telethon Foundation, took ownership from a small biotech of a drug that has been approved in […]

When word broke this week that the Department of Health and Human Services was investing half-a-billion dollars on a National Institutes of Health project to develop a vaccine platform for pathogens that could trigger pandemics, a number of scientists who work in the field of vaccinology had decidedly mixed feelings. That HHS and NIH are […]

Angus Chen covers all issues broadly related to cancer including drugs, policy, science, and equity. He joined STAT in 2021 after covering health and science at NPR and NPR affiliate stations. His work has been recognized by national Edward R. Murrow awards, the June L. Biedler prize for cancer journalism, and more. You can reach […]

The fifth anniversary of President Trump’s March 2020 declaration of a national Covid-19 emergency has prompted a surge of retrospective assessments. Government agencies, expert panels, think tanks, and media outlets  all contributed to a sprawling postmortem. The goal was to draw lessons from the pandemic’s devastating toll in hopes of better preparing for future crises. Much of this analysis is […]

The recent news that the NIH will require universities to certify their diversity programs comply with federal civil rights law created understandable anxiety in the academic community. The confusion is partly due to coverage that suggested NIH is terminating support for any universities that operate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. But reading the actual […]

Nearly 12% of Americans still smoke cigarettes, the leading cause of preventable death nationwide. Yet there are only two medications authorized by the Food and Drug Administration to help them quit — the more effective of which, varenicline, can come with unsavory side effects like nausea that make people less likely to stick with treatment. […]