Perspectives
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What We Heard This Week
— Quotable quotes heard by MedPage Today‘s reporters in 2025
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December 28, 2025 • 3 min read
In place of our usual “What We Heard This Week” feature, and as part of our year-end wrap-ups, we’ve selected some of the most notable quotes our reporters heard in 2025.
“I don’t know how many died.” — HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., during a Senate hearing when asked whether he accepted the fact that a million Americans died from COVID-19.
“When you mix politics and science, you just get politics.” — Former NIH director Francis Collins, MD, PhD, on lessons learned from his early experiences during the COVID pandemic.
“Make doctors great again.” — David Healy, MD, a fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, emphasizing doctors’ responsibility in informing pregnant women of potential risks of using selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.
“I shouldn’t need a Rosetta Stone to understand your notes.” — Prashant Tailor, MD, of the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), relaying a colleague’s comment about the indecipherable notes of ophthalmologists.
“Not only did we lose our home. We lost our community, we lost our neighborhood.” — Sion Roy, MD, of Harbor UCLA Medical Center, on the devastation from the California fires in January.
“We at the American Journal of Public Health have no interest in following the president’s prohibitions on language.” — Georges Benjamin, MD, executive director of the American Public Health Association, discussing how editors at the organization’s journal will continue to only publish studies that meet their guidelines.
“No one wants to lose their job. In the absence of any guidance, opinions fly about what we should do.” — An anonymous federal health worker discussing reactions to a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) email ordering workers to report their productivity.
“Seventeen million people are going to be thrown off of healthcare they have. Is that making America healthy again?” — Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), discussing ramifications of the Big Beautiful Bill signed into law by President Trump.
“Who are you putting the Apple Watch on? The toddler?” — David Mandell, ScD, of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia, questioning the use of wearables data in the HHS autism patient database project launched in May.
“Make no mistake about it, this is going to lead to overtreatment.” — Christopher Lieu, MD, of the University of Colorado Cancer Center in Aurora, discussing the prospect of daratumumab (Darzalex) as the first-ever treatment for smoldering myeloma during an FDA advisory committee meeting, which paved the way for the drug’s recent approval.
“If you define functional cure by accepting the requirement for immunosuppression, then I think you could call [this] a functional cure.” — Michael Rickels, MD, of the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia, on an investigational stem cell-derived therapy that helped people with type 1 diabetes achieve insulin independence.
“The rectum can be used for other purposes besides the traditional primary functions.” — Takanori Takebe, MD, PhD, of the Institute of Science Tokyo, discussing research that aims to develop a rectal ventilation system for patients in respiratory failure using anally administered perfluorodecalin, a liquid with a high capacity for oxygenation.
“It could be cheap…, but it still could be poison.” — Stuart Weinerman, MD, of Northwell Health in Great Neck, New York, on the dangers of buying compounded retatrutide, an unapproved drug still under investigation for weight loss in clinical trials.
“Best-case scenario you’re giving yourself expensive urine.” — Lauren Shawn, MD, of Phelps Hospital in Sleepy Hollow, New York, debunking the idea that glutathione supplementation is needed after acetaminophen (Tylenol) use.
“This isn’t sci-fi…. It’s just we aren’t there yet.” — Adam Rodman, MD, MPH, director of artificial intelligence (AI) programs at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, discussing a proposed bill in Congress that would allow AI to prescribe drugs.
