Daniel G. Aaron, MD, JD

This is sure to cause an increase in HIV rates at a moment when we have treatments available.

"The programs are contending with rising costs as H.I.V. drugs become more expensive ... At the same time, funding for the programs has remained flat for more than a decade."

States Move to Limit Access to H.I.V. Treatment

"Tens of thousands of Americans are losing access to treatment for H.I.V. as nearly 20 states impose restrictions ... The biggest change took effect in Florida on Sunday, when officials cut off benefits for at least 16,000 residents living with H.I.V."

www.nytimes.com/2026/03/02/h...

Due to recent laws, Saoirse Stone "says she cannot discuss being transgender with her students. She cannot provide pronouns that match her gender identity. And when students refer to her incorrectly, whether accidentally or deliberately, she says she must let it pass."

"Few of these threats have escalated beyond strongly worded warnings...It seems more likely that this FTC will adopt the strategy we have seen at several other agencies... : big talk that pushes the limits of law in the hope inducing anticipatory compliance or extracting corrupt settlements."

Seized Art, Eavesdropping Guards: Parents Describe a Clampdown at Dilley Detention Center as Kids Shared Their Stories Detainees told ProPublica that art supplies have been removed in room searches, immigrants have lost access to Gmail and staff hover within earshot during video calls.

NEW: Guards have taken away crayons, colored pencils & paper during recent room searches at Dilley, according to detainees and others. After one inspection, the children just “cried and cried and cried,” a mother said. The facility denies the claims.

By @mckenziefunk.com @micarosenberg.bsky.social

I can't get over this number: in 2007, there were 360,000 newspaper jobs. Now, there are 80,000. "My local paper sucked!" Sure. What sucks even more? The void. "I get all my news from the Guardian!" No, the Guardian doesn't report on your town council, your school board, local cops.

"Those fears are beginning to come true, according to executives and investors involved with companies that develop & sell vaccines... At conferences & in interviews, they described the emerging consequences of the Trump administration’s dismantling of the longstanding federal support for vaccines."

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.

One Pivotal Trial, the New Default Option for FDA Approval — Ending the Two-Trial Dogma | New England Journal of Medicine www.nejm.org/doi/abs/10.1...

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.

There is going to be so much to empirically study when Makary/Prasad are through.

"FDA’s default position is that one adequate and well-controlled study, combined with confirmatory evidence, will serve as the basis of marketing authorization of novel products."

www.nejm.org/doi/full/10....

New @jama.com: @cshachar.bsky.social, David Blumenthal, Glenn Cohen & Nicole Huberfeld on Dec 11 exec order purporting to "undo most state legislation" on AI.

Trump "is trying to usurp Congress’ [preemption] authority, which upsets the balance of federal power"

jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Inside TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans From Filing Their Taxes for Free Using lobbying, the revolving door and “dark pattern” customer tricks, Intuit fended off the government’s attempts to make tax filing free and easy, and created its multi-billion-dollar franchise.

With tax season in full swing, here's our reminder that TurboTax owner Intuit spent two decades fighting to prevent Americans from filing their taxes online for free.

(Published 2019)

From Tobacco to Ultraprocessed Food: How Industry Engineering Fuels the Epidemic of Preventable Disease Policy Points Ultraprocessed foods (UPFs) are engineered to heighten reward and accelerate delivery of reinforcing ingredients, driving compulsive consumption and disrupting appetite regulation. ...

New study @milbankfund.bsky.social examines design of cigarettes and ultraprocessed foods, concludes: Both are "highly engineered delivery systems designed specifically to maximize biological and psychological reinforcement and habitual overuse."

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

AI could soon renew prescriptions without clinician help. Should the FDA make sure it's safe? In a pilot, Utah is testing use of AI for renewing drug prescriptions. Experts ask if it should be regulated as a medical device.

Bunch of FDA folks quoted in this important @statnews.com piece - myself, @saragerke.bsky.social, @davidasimon.bsky.social, Glenn Cohen & others

www.statnews.com/2026/02/03/u...

Ultra-processed foods should be treated more like cigarettes than food – study UPFs are made to encourage addiction and consumption and should be regulated like tobacco, say researchers Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) have more in common with cigarettes than with fruit or vegetables, and require far tighter regulation, according to a new report. UPFs and cigarettes are engineered to encourage addiction and consumption, researchers from three US universities said, pointing to the parallels in widespread health harms that link both. Continue reading...

Ultra-processed foods should be treated more like cigarettes than food – study

Tenuous biomedical funding has put first-year Ph.D. students in a bind First-year biomedical graduate students across the country said labs have been hesitant to take them in due to a tenuous funding environment

"First-year biomedical graduate students throughout the country told STAT that labs have been hesitant to take them in due to a tenuous funding environment, with the National Institutes of Health funding fewer projects last year and on track to do the same in 2026."

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

I'm at the Willard Hotel where I've been denied entry and kicked out of the Reclaiming Science event with NIH director Bhattacharya & other top agency leaders.

@jocelynkaiser.bsky.social and I registered for the event months ago yet were told capacity was full, even as they let in dozens of others.

!!

Trends and Disparities of US Adult Obesity Prevalence This study uses measured body mass index (BMI) data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and bias-corrected BMI values calculated from self-reported height and weight data from th...

"[I]n 1990, 19.3% of the US adult population were living with obesity; by 2022, this had increased to 42.5%. By 2035, this was forecasted to increase to 46.9%"

34.7 mil in 1990 --> 107 mil in 2022 --> 126 mil in 2035 (projected)

@jama.com jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

A page from JAMA titled "Ethics and Social Medicine Education Under Political Pressure Teaching Through Uncertainty." It discusses challenges to medical education amid political scrutiny. Published online December 30, 2025.

💬 Viewpoint: The rollback of DEI efforts and threats to academic freedom risk undermining the foundational teaching of bioethics, social determinants of health, and structural injustice in #MedEd.

ja.ma/3ZBLR07

For folks going to ALPE in Richmond, I have an airbnb with 2 BRs if anyone wants to split. Happy to share the listing/photos over DM

🚨🚨🚨New article with @jennoliva.bsky.social, forthcoming in @uclalawreview.bsky.social Discourse: Veteran Disability Hierarchies. Now on @ssrn.bsky.social! On disability as mitigation in veterans’ treatment courts and the politics of service-connected compensation: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

“A Godsend”: ProPublica’s Rx Inspector Tool Is Helping People Find Critical Safety Information on Generic Drugs Health care workers are changing how they counsel patients. Experts are using our database to support their research. And some consumers report they’ve discovered troubling records at the factories wh...

The FDA won’t tell Americans where their generic drugs are made, so ProPublica built a tool to show you.

Here’s how Rx Inspector has helped patients, doctors and researchers so far.

Also, importantly, raising cigarette taxes by $1.50 would save >275,000 lives and raise $6 bil in revenue in year 1

@tobaccofreekids.bsky.social

For years, @ksabeelrahman.bsky.social & I have been frustrated with what we call the Part IV Problem in legal scholarship, the expectation of neat & feasible prescriptions to end pieces. Our frustrations are heightened in this moment of authoritarianism, as we wrote today at @lpeblog.bsky.social:

NIOSH Employees Reinstated in Victory for Workers and Public After nine months of sustained organizing and collective action, all employees at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) who received layoff notices last year were fully rei...

This is great news for public health: “After nine months of sustained organizing and collective action, all employees at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) who received layoff notices last year were fully reinstated last week.”

10000%. At the same time the Court clearly uses practical concerns in some cases. Lookin at you Eagle County!

A parting thought on Wolford: C.J. Roberts kept insisting that there‘s no principled difference between 1A & 2A when it comes to private property rights. If I’m presumptively allowed to enter a coffee shop to canvas for a politician, I’m presumptively allowed to enter a coffee shop with a gun. (1/4)

Nice to see industry pushing back, akin to its response to right-to-try.

Essentially, "no thanks, we prefer the status quo."