Public Health & Policy

Modern eugenics: the quiet return of a dangerous ideology

Physician
December 8, 2025

I’m not paranoid. And I don’t believe in conspiracy theories. But as a physician who has spent decades watching the pendulum of medical ethics swing back and forth, I can’t ignore the pattern emerging across public health and politics today. Some of what I’m seeing looks uncomfortably familiar. It looks like eugenics, not the caricature of white coats and calipers, but the quieter, policy-driven, values-encoded version that shaped America a …

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A lawyer’s essential checklist for physician side hustles [PODCAST]

Podcast
December 5, 2025
YouTube video

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Licensed attorney Anu Murthy discusses her article, “A lawyer’s guide to physician side gigs.” Anu details why the pandemic caused an explosion in physician side gigs (from telehealth to passion projects) and …

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The devaluation of physicians in health care

Physician
December 5, 2025

It is remarkable that treatises, white papers, editorials, and articles on the cost of health care are consistent with ignoring the essence of care, and they are lacking in physician commentary. Insurance is not health care, and there can be no health care without doctors. Simply stated, in the end after all the intermediaries have claimed their pound of flesh for myriad services that most often provide little to no …

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How immigrant physicians solved a U.S. crisis

Conditions
November 24, 2025

Adapted from The Care of Foreigners: How Immigrant Physicians Changed US Healthcare. Copyright 2025. Published with permission of Johns Hopkins University Press.

In the decades following the passage of the Hart-Celler Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, the face of American medicine irrevocably changed. This bill expedited the rapid entry of physicians from post-colonial Asian nations into the U.S. in significant numbers. In this migratory flow, South Asian physicians, in …

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Did the CDC just dismantle vaccine safety clarity?

Policy
November 22, 2025

“Vaccines do not cause autism.” That statement once anchored public health. The CDC just dismantled it, quietly, strategically, and dangerously.

Presumption reversed, justice subverted

Attorney Lindsey Halligan didn’t misspeak when she claimed James Comey must prove his innocence beyond a reasonable doubt to a Virginia grand jury. She exposed the new doctrine: guilt by accusation, innocence by loyalty. Then she staged a procedural ambush. She bypassed the full grand jury entirely. She …

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Why we need to expand Medicaid

Education
November 20, 2025

When I began PA school, I faced an unexpected financial hurdle: I no longer qualified for employer-sponsored health insurance, and although at the time, I didn’t meet the requirements for Medicaid, I did qualify for subsidized health coverage through the marketplace. However, even with subsidies, the monthly premiums and out-of-pocket costs were still a financial strain. To afford health care and cover basic living expenses, I had to continue working …

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How culturally compassionate care builds trust and saves lives [PODCAST]

Podcast
November 19, 2025
YouTube video

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Public health professional Nishat Uddin discusses her article “Why culturally compassionate care matters for South Asian communities.” Nishat explains why South Asians, one of the fastest-growing U.S. populations, face disproportionate rates of …

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Medicine’s silence on RFK Jr. [PODCAST]

Podcast
November 16, 2025
YouTube video

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Diagnostic radiologist Rakesh A. Shah discusses his article “A critique of medicine’s response to RFK Jr.” Rakesh argues that major physician organizations have failed in their duty to protect public health by …

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A new vision for modern, humane clinics

Physician
November 16, 2025

This is an invitation to clinicians and health leaders to shape the next decade of care: more precise, more connected, more human. The tools are here. The leadership is you.

The quiet nudge

If you’ve felt that steady tug that health care could be so much better, you’re not alone, and you’re not wrong. We’re investing more than ever, but patients still meet friction at the exact moment they need ease. That …

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Why medical organizations must end their silence

Policy
November 14, 2025

Professional medical organizations, such as the American Medical Association (AMA), American Hospital Association (AHA), and American College of Physicians (ACP), do more than set policy. They are custodians of medicine’s ethical core, defenders of science, and guardians of public trust. Yet, at critical moments, these organizations too often fall back on a strategy of silence. That silence is not neutral. It carries real consequences.

Mixed messages, missed voices

Consider a recent example. …

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The flaw in the ACA’s physician ownership ban

Policy
November 14, 2025

“The most expensive piece of medical equipment is a doctor’s pen. And, as a rule, hospital executives don’t own the pen caps. Doctors do.” Dr. Atul Gawande, an endocrine surgeon practicing at Brigham’s Women and Children Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, wrote those words in the June 1, 2009, edition of the New Yorker in an article entitled, “The Cost Conundrum.” In that article, Dr. Gawande compared health care expenditures …

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Deaths in custody highlight crisis in Philly prisons

Policy
November 12, 2025

The Kensington community is still reeling after the deaths of Amanda Cahill and Joey Gabor, who both died in custody shortly after being arrested during the area’s controversial narcotics sweeps at the end of 2024. While we don’t know the details behind these deaths, they are alarming and depict the vulnerability of those incarcerated with substance use disorder. We as physicians working to curtail the opioid epidemic must advocate for …

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Why ACA subsidies aren’t the main issue

Policy
November 10, 2025

As a physician with decades of experience, I have watched health care in this country change from a patient-centered calling into a profit-driven corporate enterprise. Much of the current political rhetoric surrounding the Affordable Care Act (ACA) conveniently ignores the real structural issues that drive up premiums and reduce access for ordinary Americans.

The recent claim that, if Republicans “get their way” and ACA tax credits expire, insurance costs will skyrocket …

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Are we scared of the wrong environmental toxins?

Conditions
November 1, 2025

Like you, I receive many emails concerning environmental toxins. Many of their claims are based on conjecture rather than scientific evidence and are delivered in a panicked manner, implying that you or a family member is doomed if you do not act quickly. It is especially annoying that they often target minor issues rather than major ones. For example, they have emphasized the danger of artificial sweeteners. However, if one …

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Why medicine should be the Fifth Estate

Physician
October 30, 2025

In examination rooms across the country, the foundations of medical practice are being eroded. Physicians navigating the opioid crisis are forced to choose between our ethical duty to alleviate suffering and the legal risk of sanction. When we provide reproductive care, the patient-physician relationship is being superseded by political ideology, with devastating consequences. When we follow evidence-based guidelines for gender-affirming care, we face legislative intrusion that substitutes political agendas for …

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A pediatrician on the lead contamination crisis

Physician
October 25, 2025

I shake my head in disbelief. Is this really happening in the United States? As a pediatrician and public health advocate, I believe we are witnessing the literal systematic dismantling of our health care system.

Case in point: the federal government’s mishandling of two recent lead contamination crises (in Michigan and Wisconsin). These failures not only expose children to preventable toxic harm, but also reveal a deeper breakdown in democratic accountability …

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The secret illnesses of U.S. presidents

Physician
October 25, 2025

Presidents are not immortal. But for much of American history, their bodies have been treated as state secrets, curated, concealed, and choreographed for public reassurance. When illness is hidden, the cost is not just clinical. It is geopolitical.

Warren G. Harding: collapse before the scandal

President Warren G. Harding died suddenly on August 2, 1923, at age 57, while touring the country on his “Voyage of Understanding.” He collapsed in San Francisco’s …

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Diagnosing the epidemic of U.S. violence

Physician
October 24, 2025

As a physician, I am trained to diagnose not just the presenting symptom but the underlying pathology. This is the same lens through which many of us in the medical community view the epidemic of American violence. For years, organizations from the AMA to the CDC have called it a public health crisis. This is not merely a metaphor; it is a clinical framework pioneered right here in Chicago by …

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Why the MAHA plan is the wrong cure

Policy
October 22, 2025

“Make America Healthy Again (MAHA).” Finally, something we can all agree on.

The new MAHA report with its pages of promises taps into something real, something we see daily in primary care practice: Many Americans feel unwell, unheard, and unprotected by the very institutions meant to support them. Compared to our peer countries, we live shorter, sicker lives, suicide rates are rising, and even our children are …

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How AI on social media fuels body dysmorphia

Policy
October 18, 2025

The alarming relationship between artificial intelligence and adolescent body dysmorphia

That is what the American Health Law Association called the global increase in social media usage: an epidemic.

Indeed, social media usage and reliance, especially by youth, is becoming a mental health phenomenon quickly escalating out of control.

Nearly 25 percent of youth report spending over four hours on social media daily, with 46 percent of adolescents claiming that social media …

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