Benjamin Mazer

Vinay Prasad, until Tuesday one of the country’s top medical regulators, just got a bitter taste of what it means to have real power. In recent months, the academic hematologist-oncologist, medical contrarian, and polemic podcaster had become a central figure at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. In May, he was chosen to lead its Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research—a position that gave him authority over vaccines and gene therapies.

The first time that Mehmet Oz was questioned by the Senate, in June 2014, the atmosphere was not inviting. He’d been hauled in to defend his habit of promoting unconventional supplements for weight loss, including green coffee beans, raspberry ketones, and an Asian tropical fruit called garcinia cambogia, on his daytime-television talk show. “I don’t get why you need to say this stuff,” Claire McCaskill, the Missouri senator who chaired the hearing, told him. “Because you know it’s not true.

“It’s not unusual.” That’s how Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the anti-vaccine activist and secretary of Health and Human Services, described an ongoing measles outbreak in and around Texas that has already infected more than 100 people and killed one child. This incident is, in fact, unusual. Until this week, someone hadn’t died of measles in this country since 2015, and endemic spread of the virus was declared eliminated in the United States 25 years ago.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of Health and Human Services, is a longtime conspiracy theorist and anti-vaccine activist. He thinks Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates are leaders of a “vaccine cartel” that intentionally prolonged or even started the coronavirus pandemic in order to promote “mischievous inoculations.” Kennedy also blames immunizations for autism and obesity (among other chronic diseases) in children.

Is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Donald Trump’s improbable nominee for secretary of Health and Human Services, actually such a crank? Short answer: yes. But two opinion pieces published in just the past few days argue that although Kennedy is often taken as unhinged, some of his ideas may very well be sound. Take the call for removal of fluoride from the nation’s drinking water. “It’s not an entirely crazy idea,” wrote Leana Wen, the former Baltimore health commissioner, in The Washington Post.

“People will die if doctors misdiagnose patients.” This is true as far as it goes. But the recent news that prompted Elon Musk to share this observation on X was not precisely about medical errors. It was about what he might call the “woke mind virus.” A story by Aaron Sibarium in The Washington Free Beacon had revealed complaints that UCLA’s medical school was admitting applicants partly based on race—a practice that has long been outlawed in California public schools.

The autopsy should have been a piece of cake. My patient had a history of widely metastatic cancer, which was pretty straightforward as far as causes of death go. Entering the various body cavities, my colleague and I found what we anticipated: Nearly every organ was riddled with tumors. But after we had completed the work, I realized that I knew why the patient had died, but not why he’d died that day. We found no evidence of a heart attack or blood clot or ruptured bowel.

For decades now, gay men have been barred from giving blood. In 2015, what had been a lifetime ban was loosened, such that gay men could be donors if they’d abstained from sex for at least a year. This was later shortened to three months. Last week, the FDA put out a new and more inclusive plan: Sexually active gay and bisexual people would be permitted to donate so long as they have not recently engaged in anal sex with new or multiple partners.

During this week’s Monday Night Football game, the 24-year-old Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed moments after making a routine defensive play. Hamlin seemed to have suffered a blow to his chest shortly before losing consciousness from cardiac arrest, and his condition is grave. The source of his illness remains unclear. A study of sudden cardiac events in U.S.

I am still afraid of catching COVID. As a young, healthy, bivalently boosted physician, I no longer worry that I’ll end up strapped to a ventilator, but it does seem plausible that even a mild case of the disease could shorten my life, or leave me with chronic fatigue, breathing trouble, and brain fog. Roughly one in 10 Americans appears to share my concern, including plenty of doctors.

Sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, “will be a thing of the past,” according to Carmel Harrington, a sleep researcher at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead, in Australia. A press release describes her new study, out this month, as a “game-changing” effort and a “world-first breakthrough” that could prevent future deaths from the tragic illness. Celebrations quickly spread on social media: “THEY FOUND THE CAUSE OF SIDS.

As the United States nears its numbing, millionth COVID death and shrugs its shoulders at a rise in cases, some Americans are feeling left behind. Immunocompromised people have suffered disproportionately throughout the pandemic, and even those who have been fully vaccinated wonder if they’re really safe. News stories highlight their struggles to adapt to a society that “doesn’t seem to care whether they survive.

Move over mimosas, because America has a fresh New Year’s tradition: struggling to get tested for COVID before returning to school or work. The line for brunch was replaced, last weekend, with line after line after line of weary citizens waiting to receive their viral clearance. Testing backlogs are only going to get worse from here, as case numbers continue their ascent.

At a White House press briefing yesterday, NPR’s national political correspondent Mara Liasson asked Press Secretary Jen Psaki a question that’s been on many people’s minds: “There are still a lot of countries, like Germany and the U.K. and South Korea, that basically have massive testing, free of charge or for a nominal fee,” she said.

Last week, prosecutors and defense attorneys made opening statements in the criminal trial of Elizabeth Holmes, the former CEO of Theranos, who is accused of defrauding investors and patients with false promises of cheap, rapid blood tests. The next day, the Biden administration announced a plan to purchase 280 million cheap, rapid COVID-19 tests—an action for which some lawmakers have been advocating for more than a year.

Doug Robertson is the kind of doctor who eats his own dog food. As a gastroenterologist in the Department of Veterans Affairs health-care system, he is overseeing a 50,000-person study comparing two different ways to screen for colon cancer: Patients aged 50 to 75 are randomly assigned to receive either a colonoscopy or a fecal immunochemical test, which can be conducted at home and detects tiny amounts of blood in a patient’s poop.

Doug Robertson is the kind of doctor who eats his own dog food. As a gastroenterologist in the Department of Veterans Affairs health-care system, he is overseeing a 50,000-person study comparing two different ways to screen for colon cancer: Patients aged 50 to 75 are randomly assigned to receive either a colonoscopy or a fecal immunochemical test, which can be conducted at home and detects tiny amounts of blood in a patient’s poop.

When the third coronavirus surge hit the U.S. last fall, the midwestern states were among the worst affected. Thousands of people in the region were being hospitalized with the virus every day. It was at this inauspicious time that a team of transplant doctors at University Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan, received a pair of healthy-seeming lungs. According to a published case report, the donor had been in an automobile accident, and died from her injuries a few days later.