The suggestion that obesity is a preventable disease has been weighing heavily on my mind ever since I read a recent article in the Hastings Center Report. The article claims to focus on “ethical, policy, and public health concerns” related to anti-obesity medications, but there is a strong undercurrent of bias throughout. As an endocrinologist who specializes in medical weight management, my clinical experience informs my understanding that obesity is almost never entirely preventable, but bias against those with obesity certainly is.

Patients who are members of marginalized groups—women, Black people, trans people, elderly people, disabled people—are often dismissed, minimized, or altogether ignored by health care professionals. Over time, this can lead to gaslighting in which patients question their thoughts, feelings, symptoms, even themselves.

While working as a medical volunteer in the clinic at the edge of the refugee camp, I quickly realized I was in a clinical environment I had never seen before. I was unprepared for the sheer scale of medical needs among the refugees I was there to serve, and for what resource scarcity meant under these conditions.

It seems to me a kind of magical thinking to assume that explaining the genetic causes of obesity will reduce stigma when that new explanation is lodged firmly within a broader project of treating, preventing, or curing fatness. Today, drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy, and now Zepbound are the favored medical solution.

When I said “yes!” to my partner’s proposal last spring and changed my Facebook relationship status to engaged, I expected targeted advertisements for wedding dresses, flowers, and photographers. What I did not expect were ads to donate my plasma to help pay for my wedding.

Just one month ago, my mom received an intravenous infusion of CAR T-cells, which have become mythical creatures in my imagination.

Florida’s new anti-immigrant law, SB 1718, has escaped widespread notice, despite the way it will undermine the mission—and core identity--of not-for-profit hospitals as caring institutions that promote the health of the community. Bioethics and health care institutions must take action.

In “The Cure for Politicized Pediatric Gender Care,” Moti Gorin argues that a U.S.-based systematic review, conducted by a trusted major medical organization such as the National Institutes of Health or the National Academy of Medicine, is needed to develop consistent standards for pediatric gender care. While the intent behind his call is well-intended, it is based on a flawed premise.

Children and adolescents diagnosed with gender dysphoria receive radically different treatments depending on where they live. With intense politicization of pediatric gender medicine, the U.S. needs a systematic review of the evidence for different care options.

Our patient, weighing over 600 lbs., was above the weight limit of our hospital system’s scanner tables and those of all the other major medical centers that we called in our large city. What to do next? Our radiology department’s answer was, “Well, there’s always the zoo.”