The @statnews.com First Opinion Podcast is back! This season, we're examining the intersection of culture and medicine, starting with a timely and provocative argument: Sports betting is creating a new public health crisis: www.statnews.com/2026/04/08/s...

A star scientist showed that better genetics lessons could reduce racism. It was the death knell for his career Brian Donovan had persuaded high school teachers and education researchers that prejudice might be ended by changing how genetics is taught.

Brian Donovan had persuaded high school teachers and education researchers that prejudice might be ended by changing how genetics is taught. www.statnews.com/2026/04/07/b...

The Future Tense Fiction team invited me back to weigh in on the super cool short story "The Pocket Box." Give it a read and then read my response! issues.org/futuretensef...

National survey of NIH-funded researchers shows precarious state of U.S. science — ‘This is like the Titanic’ A nationwide STAT survey of NIH-funded researchers reveals that, a year after Donald Trump's return to the White House, many scientists are reeling

@statnews.com conducted a national survey of NIH-funded researchers and found that, a year after Trump's return, many scientists are reeling, with some closing labs entirely. ‘This is like the Titanic,' one respondent told me. For full details, see our special report
www.statnews.com/2026/03/19/n...

Announcing the Retraction Watch Research Accountability Reporting Fellowship - The Open Notebook The Open Notebook and Retraction Watch are thrilled to announce a new fellowship program funded by The Center for Scientific Integrity. This six-month program will equip up to six reporters and editor...

Very cool: a new six-month fellowship from @theopennotebook.bsky.social and @retractionwatch.com for reporters and editors at local newsrooms to report stories of scientific integrity unfolding at research universities or institutions in their areas. www.theopennotebook.com/2026/02/26/a...

Whaaat!! That’s an honor!

Ahhhh congratulations! Can’t wait to read it!

ID: A flier for the event reads, "The Sick Times: Free Webinar, The Long COVID Op-Ed. Help Break the Stigma. February 19th, 7-8:15pm ET. Learn how to pitch and share your story with tips from expert guests. Hosted by Miles Griffis and Betsy Ladyzhets. Below are the headshots of three guests, Torie Bosch, First Opinion Editor, STAT. Madeline Miller, Best-selling author. Funmi Okunola, MD, Co-founder Long COVID the Answers. A button at the bottom reads, "Comment "RSVP" for a registration link!"

Join us for a free webinar! The Sick Times editors @mileswgriffis.bsky.social and @betsyladyzhets.bsky.social — plus special guest speakers — will demystify the process of writing and pitching op-eds and essays on Long COVID. Register now: us06web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

Sign up for First Opinion — STAT The smartest thinkers in life sciences on what's happening — and what's to come.

This week on the @statnews.com First Opinion Newsletter, I wrote about how my submission inbox is like a buffet and sometimes there's way more good food than I can eat: www.statnews.com/signup/first...

The food nationalism of the new dietary guidelines The new food pyramid quietly reasserts what kinds of food count as real.

The federal dietary guidelines aren’t just about macronutrients.

They’re also about whose food counts as “real”.

I wrote about that tension here for @statnews.com. Thank you @thekibosch.bsky.social for publishing!

www.statnews.com/2026/01/30/n...

Putting out a periodic call: I really want to publish pieces about the veterinary pharmaceutical biz on STAT's opinion section. If you have ideas, reach out: first.opinion@statnews.com

I recently ended up in a corner of TikTok about people addicted to a certain gas station drug. This video explained so much about what was happening there.

Former CDC Director William Foege: How public health can fight back in a time of dangerous nonsense “Kennedy would be less hazardous if he decided to do cardiac surgery. Then he would kill people only one at a time,” writes former CDC Director William Foege.

Last year, Foege wrote in First Opinion, "Despite this environment, those working in public health must continue to keep the objectives of their profession in mind: prevent premature death, reduce unnecessary suffering, and improve the quality of life for everyone." www.statnews.com/2025/08/18/r...

Public health giant William Foege, who helped eradicate smallpox, has died at 89 ‘I wish we could have spared him from seeing that’: Friends of Bill Foege on his legacy, and his anger over anti-vaccination.

“I wish we could have spared him from seeing that": Bill Foege helped eradicate smallpox, inspired generations of public health leaders--and watched the rise of the anti-vaccination movement. @helenbranswell.bsky.social wrote a moving remembrance www.statnews.com/2026/01/25/w...

A thing I actually have to say repeatedly, every night: no dancing in the bathtub.

Federal health officials slash recommended childhood vaccinations under Trump’s directive The number of recommended childhood shots drops from 17 to 11.

#Breaking: The number of recommended childhood shots drops from 17 to 11. www.statnews.com/2026/01/05/c...

If you're a first-year biomedical Ph.D. student, I'd like to hear how your first few months of grad school have been going. I'm a science journalist at @statnews.com and got my Ph.D. in immunology before going into journalism. You can reach me at jonathan.wosen@statnews.com. #journorequest

An advocate who offered a window on the experience of living with brain cancer dies at 43 Adam Hayden, a patient advocate and the subject of an earlier profile in STAT, has died at age 43.

Adam Hayden, a patient advocate and the subject of an earlier profile in STAT, has died at age 43.
www.statnews.com/2025/12/22/a...

My 12-year-old niece just texted me out of the blue to ask me about the Backstreet Boys fan fiction I wrote when I was 14-16. Naturally I now a) have to go lie down and b) strongly believe no one should have a phone until they are 25.

Oh and c) my brother/her father continues to ruin my life

Comms people, I'm begging you, skip the well-intentioned generic holiday e-cards. They just clog up my inbox.

Collins is an evangelical Christian, Siegel is Jewish, and I'm a half-Catholic, half-Jewish agnostic. It was a really fun, enlightening conversation for people of all faiths (or lack thereof).

We talked about Siegel's new book, Collins' conversion, and, perhaps most importantly, about vaccine hesitancy and the reluctance among some communities of faith to see medicine as an instrument of God.

Francis Collins and Marc Siegel say medicine is a gift from God “To have Christians be the group that was most resistant” to the Covid vaccine “really seems wrong here,” said former NIH Director Francis Collins.

Science is like "glimpsing God's mind": On the last episode of this season of the First Opinion Podcast, I talked to former NIH Director Francis Collins and Fox News' Marc Siegel, author of the new book The Miracles Among Us, about faith, medicine, and science: www.statnews.com/2025/12/17/f...

Definitely not

Never thought I'd say this, but: I miss work holiday parties.

It's that time of year! Writers, I'm begging you: If the submission isn't super time-sensitive/news-related, consider holding it until the new year.

Could an HIV miracle drug actually reach people like my parents? Can an HIV miracle drug actually reach people like my parents?

Gilead’s trial participants outside the U.S. deserve more than to be studied. They deserve access to the drugs they helped make possible!

In my first @statnews.com piece, I call for global equity regarding lenacapavir. Thanks @thekibosch.bsky.social for holding my story with care 🫶🏾
#IDSky

Kids have a right to vaccinations. Let's bring in the lawyers Children suffering from diseases that should have been consigned to history is a moral failure. Access to vaccines is a human right.

Access to vaccines is not a privilege — it is a human right.

In @statnews.com today, Stefan Peterson and I write about using a human rights-based approach to deal with vaccine denialism and the return of measles, whooping cough and diphtheria

www.statnews.com/2025/11/12/c...

James Watson’s lifelong friend and protégé on his complicated legacy “I can’t make sense of it”: Nancy Hopkins remembers who James Watson was — and who he became.

“Remarkable man, a genius, a true genius, a giant — and with flaws that we can’t understand": I spoke with Nancy Hopkins about James Watson, the friend who urged her to get a Ph.D. in the 60s--but took a very troubling turn in the last 20 years of his life: www.statnews.com/2025/11/12/j...

I’m a physician who went to the anti-vaccine movement’s biggest gathering. More of my colleagues should too A pro-vaccine physician went to the anti-vaccine movement’s biggest gathering. He warns that public health must learn what it’s up against.

I'm a very pro-vaccine physician.

Last weekend, I went to the biggest gathering of anti-vaxxers.

More of my public health colleagues should've been there.

I explain why for @statnews.com
www.statnews.com/2025/11/11/c...