Nancy Cox, who for decades was a global leader in influenza research, has died. Cox headed the influenza team at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for 22 years, shepherding it from a branch of 14 people to a division of over 100. She was also director of the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Center […]

Since I was 7, my goal has been to become a doctor. But life had other plans. I grew up in a blue-collar family in Levittown, N.Y., in the 1950s and ’60s, so it often felt like the world ended in Jersey. When I landed in Lansing, Mich., to attend Michigan State, I expected the […]

The phone rings on the evening of Feb. 28, 2020. “We need you to deploy to Seattle. Meet your team at Roybal tomorrow and additional details will be provided.” For weeks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had been tracking the spread of the novel coronavirus closely. The disease detectives of the Epidemic Intelligence […]

SAVANNAH, Ga. — For Nikolas Indigo, the road to freedom was lined with warnings against a life of sin. Neither the road nor the message was a metaphor. Along nearly 250 miles of highway from Savannah to Atlanta, billboards preached: “turn from sin,” “Jesus is the way,” “repent.” It’s a common pilgrimage for transgender people, […]

Adam Feuerstein is a senior writer and biotech columnist, reporting on the crossroads of drug development, business, Wall Street, and biotechnology. He is also a co-host of the weekly biotech podcast The Readout Loud and author of the newsletter Adam’s Biotech Scorecard. You can reach Adam on Signal at stataf.54. Allison DeAngelis is the East […]

WASHINGTON — Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a delicate task ahead of him as he heads to Capitol Hill to testify about the fiscal 2027 budget request: Stick to the White House’s script on Make America Healthy Again “wins” while avoiding politically divisive topics like vaccines.  How he navigates lawmakers’ questions over at […]

For most of my life, my family has been advocating for therapies to help my twin brother. While the recent approval of a new drug should give us reason to celebrate, there is still more work to do. My twin brother is 28 years old and has severe Hunter syndrome, also known as mucopolysaccharidosis (MPS) […]

First Opinion is STAT’s platform for interesting, illuminating, and provocative articles about the life sciences writ large, written by biotech insiders, health care workers, researchers, and others. To encourage robust, good-faith discussion about issues raised in First Opinion essays, STAT publishes selected Letters to the Editor received in response to them. You can submit a […]

The past few weeks have been nothing but discouraging for those of us who helped create the Make America Healthy Again movement, including a silly executive order on glyphosate that feels anathema to what we have fought for. I’d be lying if I said that my heart hasn’t been bent toward repentance for my part […]

Ahead of Monday’s NCAA men’s basketball final, much of the news coverage focused on two overlapping dynamics: what bets to make, and how the rise of sports betting is causing damage. According to Isaac Rose-Berman, a fellow at the American Institute for Boys and Men, the skyrocketing popularity of sports betting is a burgeoning public […]