Opinion: The most-read First Opinion essays of 2025

You can chart 2025’s biggest and most important life sciences topics through the most read First Opinion essays of the year: vaccines, health insurance costs, whether AI is fulfilling its promise, the MAHA movement, and general chaos within the federal government.

But the top 20 pieces — 10 free, 10 behind our STAT+ paywall — are more interesting and revealing than that list, with each story adding important nuance and personal voices to debates often flattened into pro or con.

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