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 Letter to the Editor here, or find the submission form at the end of any First Opinion essay.
The story
“‘Do no harm’ is hurting 400 million long Covid patients worldwide,” by Julia Moore Vogel and Charlie McCone
The response
Thank you for publishing this, and please consider publishing more articles like this that call out the medical community for turning their shoulder to these patients. There is enough literature out there to support treatment to improve quality of life even if we don’t have a “cure.” Neglecting to take the time to treat what symptoms we do understand in order to ease someone’s complaints feels like one is indeed breaking the Hippocratic Oath, and other health care professionals who need their medical counterparts to hold themselves to this standard are getting fed up with not having that support.
— Francesca DeSimone-Farrow
The story
“The progressive campaign against biomedical innovation,” by Vrushab Gowda and Brian J. Miller
The response
I realize this is an opinion piece, but it would be a good deal more persuasive if it didn’t read as a relentlessly negative rant. I would have expected the medical researchers who lent their names to it to have constructed a thoughtful argument that didn’t rely on so many anti-regulatory cliches, and acknowledged the severe affordability problems the regulations are intended to tackle. I don’t know if those regulations ultimately hurt or help (or both), and after reading this opinion piece I am no wiser on that point.— Jeannie Graham
The story
“New mental health parity laws are already under threat,” by David Lloyd
The response
Insurers are wrong about their parity limitations (paying less for psychiatric treatment than for other treatment), but for the wrong reasons. They are afraid that psychiatric treatment is an overpriced black hole, but they seem unaware that everything in the American medical industry is an overpriced black hole. They thought psychiatric treatment was worse several or more decades ago, when it involved what they feared was endless and aimless psychotherapy (they were sometimes not wrong), but everything in the American medical industry is excessive and sometimes invented diagnosing and treating, and for inflated costs. It should never be forgotten that medical intervention in the U.S. costs far more than it does in any other country, our results are worse than many, and the most common cause of personal bankruptcy is an inability to pay medical bills. Hippocrates is probably rolling in his grave.
— Alfred Jonas
