Opinion | ‘A Perfect Recipe for Money, Money, Money’: What We Heard This Week

“It’s a perfect recipe for money, money, money, big dollars.” — Colleen Auer, JD, an Arizona lawyer speaking about for-profit nursing schools.

“The glimmers of hope and possibility quickly fade.” — Eleonora Teplinsky, MD, of Valley-Mount Sinai Comprehensive Cancer Care in New Jersey, recounting hard conversations with patients who can’t be guaranteed chemotherapy amid ongoing cancer drug shortages.

“There is a drastic rise over the time period.” — Merianne Rose Spencer, PhD, MPH, of the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, on data showing the death rate from xylazine-involved overdoses rose from 0.03 to 1.06 deaths per 100,000 people since 2018.

“There are millions of new sperm cells being made in the testicles.” — Parviz Kavoussi, MD, of the University at the Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, discussing data linking COVID-19 infection to impaired semen quality.

“Twenty years ago, if you wanted to run a psychedelic study, you’re kind of on your own.” — Sandeep Nayak, MD, of the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research, discussing draft FDA guidance for designing psychedelic drug clinical trials.

“These compensation improvements reflect long overdue investment in our primary care workforce.” — Tochi Iroku-Malize, MD, MPH, MBA, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, on survey data indicating a 6.1% bump in pay for primary care from 2021 to 2022.

“If you fill up the gas tank, and then you see that it goes low again, you know there must be a leak somewhere.” — Avir Mitra, MD, of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, describing how clinicians diagnose and treat sepsis, which may have played a role in Madonna’s recent illness.

“There’s enough evidence that it can be harmful.” — Paul Potnuru, MD, of the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, discussing cannabis use disorder and perioperative complications.

“BMI in general is a poor indicator of health risk.” — Aayush Visaria, MD, MPH, of Rutgers Institute of Health in New Brunswick, New Jersey, on new data that showed BMI in the overweight range was not independently associated with an increased mortality risk.