Steve Joffe

For kicks, I pasted your question into Claude, which really is amazing, and got this response. Is one of these the one?

I nominate for Headline Of The Year award.

www.npr.org/2026/03/03/n...

"Aside from the internment camps used to incarcerate Japanese Americans in the 1940s, such facilities have no precedent in American history..."

US Conference of Catholic Bishops statement on Trump's new mass prison camps.

Full statement at the link:

www.usccb.org/news/2026/th...

Four Conditions Make Cash Transfers Save Lives The success of other countries shows these programs can work in the United States.

Why does cash save lives in Tanzania but barely move the needly in Texas? New piece in @theatlantic.com with @hthirumurthy.bsky.social:

We break down the conditions that make cash transfers improve health, and why SNAP gets closets to what works globally.

www.theatlantic.com/health/2026/...

🎉Introducing Dr. David Powell as a new Senior Fellow at Penn LDI!

Dr. Powell is a health economist with research on the opioid crisis, population aging, working conditions, and end-of-life care.

Learn more about his work: https://ldi.upenn.edu/fellows/fellows-directory/david-powell-phd

Good morning. On this *freezing* cold Atlanta morning, this news warms our hearts 💚

This is the most incredible footage of blue whales I’ve ever seen

One Pivotal Trial, the New Default Option for FDA Approval — Ending the Two-Trial Dogma | NEJM This Sounding Board announces a new FDA policy that the default requirement for FDA approvals will be one robust pivotal trial plus confirmatory evidence, rather than two trials.

Lots to unpack about the 1 pivotal trial default.
www.nejm.org/doi/full/10....
For now a few points:
1. FDA is not legally permitted to set policy by journal article. This must stop.
2. This is not likely to give industry much stability. FDA can decide any time that the default doesn't apply. 1/

Thread.

Adding to @hollylynchez.bsky.social's comments: according to @cnbc.com, Makary says drugs should be OTC unless they're unsafe, addictive, or require monitoring.

We'd add antibiotics to this list, given likelihood of overuse & antibiotic resistance, threatening the public health.

Wow.

Yesterday morning kids were sent running from their bus stop in panic because ICE showed up. This guy at today’s ICE Out of Lindenwold protest is a must watch 😭. @maddow.bsky.social

How does one "repeal" a scientific finding?

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/12/c...

Another instance of a center director acting unilaterally to overrule other staff (which here also involved ignoring FDA's previous statements to the company).

As @reshmagar.bsky.social and I have argued, the bar should be much higher for such unilateral action:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Opinion | Universities are sending Trump a dangerous message Higher education is under attack. Drop the appeasement.

Worth a read. wapo.st/3ZrXzur

Call for Papers - The ELSI of Genetic Selection: Pronatalism, Eugenics, and Reproductive Justice The Center for ELSI Resources and Analysis (CERA) is sponsoring a special report of the Hastings Center Report that considers the ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI) of reproductive technol...

📢Call for Papers: The ELSI of Genetic Selection, a special report of the Hastings Center Report.
We welcome contribution on reproductive technologies, practices, and policies that enable the selection of genetic characteristics.

More info: elsihub.org/news/call-pa...

The effect of shingles vaccination at different stages of the dementia disease course A natural experiment found that herpes zoster vaccination reduced the occurrence of mild cognitive impairment and deaths due to dementia, indicating that the vaccine may slow the progression of dement...

I may not live to see the full story play out, but the evidence of an association between the chicken pox virus (varicella zoster virus), a vaccine-preventable illness, and dementia is increasingly tantalizing. www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

One of the most important scientific achievements of the last 50 years was making the causal links between prior viral infections (e.g. EBV) and subsequent serious diseases.

We would like to recruit a stellar junior faculty member in the Division of Child Health Research and Policy @deptpopmed.bsky.social at Harvard. Please circulate this announcement widely!

www.populationmedicine.org/divisions-ce...

In response my colleague @jimswift.bsky.social had chatgpt create new scenes for Coalie. I just spit out my tea

In this week's Receipts, I wrote about "Coalie," the Trump admin's anime-like new mascot for coal; and other failing efforts to revive manly sectors like mining and manufacturing. www.thebulwark.com/p/donald-tru...

Venture Philanthropy Transformed Cystic Fibrosis. Can It Deliver for Other Diseases? LDI Fellows recently analyzed the self-reported profiles of 130 patient groups in an affinity network promoting venture philanthropy.

Can venture philanthropy replicate its cystic fibrosis success for other diseases?

The CF Foundation’s early bet on Vertex generated billions for reinvestment—but LDI Fellow Matt McCoy finds those “home runs” remain rare. Read more:
https://bit.ly/4kisaEh

What the Crackdown Has Done to Minneapolis Children

This is a painful but necessary read. Guts me what we are doing to our kids.

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/04/u...

To be clear: I'm not taking a stand on the FDA's hold.

Recently out from pedi oncology colleagues, about "cancer exceptionalism."

tl;dr: We accept therapy-induced malignancies as part of the benefit-risk calculus when treating cancer, but are unwilling to weigh them in the balance when treating nonmalignant disease. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

Minnesota Proved MAGA Wrong The pushback against ICE exposed a series of mistaken assumptions.

Stop what you’re doing and read this piece, which is as powerful as you’d expect from @adamserwer.bsky.social witnessing the events of last week on the ground in Minnesota. “The secret fear of the morally depraved is that virtue is actually common, and that they’re the ones who are alone.”

What an astounding, maddening story.

Great piece. It resonates with mine on CGT "flexibilities" from last week www.statnews.com/2026/01/20/f... The FDA is kind of doing its new science policy by press release on these related fronts.

Race is not a biological category: challenging this misconception will help tackle racism in healthcare Healthcare professionals must reject flawed racial generalisations, writes Jasmeen Kanwal Institutional racism in healthcare has received increased coverage in recent years, including in The BMJ ’s ...

Excellent piece about why race is not a biological category and how medical education needs to respond. www.bmj.com/content/392/...

I'm perturbed by the HHS response.
Yes, of course we have to speculate when govt regulators fail to follow proper procedures for changing FDA policy.
And no, "an open door posture" isn't the same as formal opportunities for public comment/response. Keep your podcasts, give us regs+formal guidance.

FDA’s new ‘plausible mechanism pathway’ for personalized gene editing raises concerns A new FDA pathway meant to enable one-time gene-editing cures could, ethicists warn, become a Pandora's box.

Thanks to @jasonmast.bsky.social for highlighting our analysis of FDA's new plausible mechanism pathway in @statnews.com.

Key pts:
- Plausible mech is a great idea for n of 1/few
- FDA needs to stop advancing policy via journal article
- Impt open Qs on scope

www.statnews.com/2026/01/26/f...