"Words like 'catastrophic' come to mind." -- David Newman-Toker, MD, PhD, of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, on possible budget cuts to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
"It seems the goal of this administration is to prove that vaccines cause autism even though they don't." -- Alison Singer, president of the Autism Science Foundation, discussing a proposed HHS study to identify whether a relationship between vaccines and autism exists.
"This caused unnecessary distress to families and prolonged their grief." -- Erica Pan, MD, of the California Department of Public Health, after a hospital failed to notify families of 61 deceased patients sent to an off-site morgue.
"I have to tell these patients that their health insurer completely excludes medications for obesity treatment but may cover bariatric surgery. That doesn't seem right." -- Lauren Oshman, MD, MPH, of the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor, on the lack of Medicare coverage for obesity drugs.
"The 14 ADRCs remain in limbo." -- Ann Cohen, PhD, of the University of Pittsburgh, discussing 14 Alzheimer's Disease Research Centers (ADRCs) that still have not received grant funding.
"It appears that better newborn outcomes will come from better care, but perhaps not from more NICUs and more NICU doctors than we have today." -- Gwenyth Gasper, MS, of the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth in New Hampshire, discussing neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) capacity and infant mortality.
"Globally, this could mean clinicians will be seeing more new cases of HIV in their practice worldwide." -- Debra ten Brink, MD, MPH, of the Burnet Institute in Australia, on potential repercussions of international HIV funding cuts.
"You want physicians to be worried about their patients, and let the financials take care of themselves." -- Chad Dodd, of Athenahealth, discussing results from a new Harris Poll survey.
"What's good for the heart is generally good for our vision." -- JoAnn Manson, MD, DrPH, of Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, discussing a trial testing cocoa extract for age-related macular degeneration.