Vinay Prasad

Portland

Writer at Sensible Medicine Newsletter

Writer at Vinay Prasad's Observations and Thoughts

These posts were issued before my FDA employment and do not necessarily represent the views of the FDA or the United States. The account is now inactive.

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Articles

How Not to Get Fooled by the Medical Literature - Part 4 Diagnostic Tests

2 weeks ago | sensible-med.com | Vinay Prasad |John Mandrola |Adam Cifu

The most common question we get asked is: is there a course on how to become better at critically reading medical research. Here it is!This is the fourth of 9 videos that we recorded as part of a course on clinical appraisal, and there will be many more to come. This and future videos will be made available as a thank you to paid subscribers.
Reply to ‘Surrogate end points in oncology: aligning drug development incentives and patient needs’ - Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology

3 weeks ago | nature.com | Vinay Prasad

In a recent News & Views (Prasad, V. Surrogate end points in oncology: the speed–uncertainty trade-off from the patients’ perspective. Nat. Rev. Clin. Oncol. 22, 313–314 (2025))1, I discussed two studies that, using surveys, show that patients with cancer crave information about how long and how well they will live. That is, patients are willing to wait for overall survival (OS) results rather than accepting improvements in progression-free survival (PFS).
Pausing Chikungunya Vaccination and Accelerated Approval

3 weeks ago | jamanetwork.com | Vinay Prasad

Pausing Chikungunya Vaccination and Accelerated Approval On May 9, 2025, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) initiated a coordinated action with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to issue a safety communication recommending a pause in the use of live attenuated chikungunya virus (CHIKV) vaccine (IXCHIQ; Valneva Austria GmbH) for individuals aged 60 years and older while the agencies investigate postmarketing reports of serious adverse events, including neurologic and...
How Not to Get Fooled by the Medical Literature - Part 3 : Bad Observational Epi & a Flawed Randomized Trial

1 month ago | sensible-med.com | Vinay Prasad |Adam Cifu |John Mandrola

The most common question we get asked is: is there a course on how to become better at critically reading medical research. Here it is!This is the third of 9 videos that we recorded as part of a course on clinical appraisal, and there will be many more to come. This and future videos will be made available as a thank you to paid subscribers.
Ask Us Anything

1 month ago | sensible-med.com | Vinay Prasad |Adam Cifu |John Mandrola

This is a long one! 83 minutes. This is the second podcast in which we answer questions from a our “ask us anything” post. We recorded this one before our most recent podcast — kind of like Abbey Road and Let it Be — so we were still graced by Vinay’s presence. In fact, we recorded it in his studio. We still have about a half dozen questions to answer; we will cover those on an upcoming podcast. Enjoy.
How Not to Get Fooled by the Medical Literature - Part 2: Observational Studies

1 month ago | sensible-med.com | Vinay Prasad |Adam Cifu |John Mandrola

The most common question we get asked is: is there a course on how to become better at critically reading medical research. Here it is!This is the second of 9 videos that we recorded as part of a course on clinical appraisal, and there will be many more to come. This and future videos will be made available as a thank you to paid subscribers.
The Perfect Film

1 month ago | drvinayprasad.com | Vinay Prasad

Every scene of Wim Wenders Perfect Days (2023) is art. The framing, composition and light. The screen print interludes in black and white. And, of course, the stunning performance of the lead actor. The film depicts two weeks in the life of Hirayama, a toilet cleaner in Tokyo, who indeed lives Perfect Days. Koji Yakusho’s near silent performance is deserving of all the accolades it has received and more.
A users guide to the media coverage of health and science in 2025

1 month ago | drvinayprasad.com | Vinay Prasad

The media coverage of science and medicine has hit rock bottom. As one person puts it. Here are my tips for how to read news stories in the era of biased and weak reporting. Step 1. Fact check the source material. If you read an article that says Jay Bhattacharya supported the use of Ivermectin, locate the raw video or audio. You will find the article is factually wrong. Jay supported conducting randomized trials of ivermectin.
How Not to Get Fooled by the Medical Literature - Part 1 - Course Introduction

1 month ago | sensible-med.com | Vinay Prasad |Adam Cifu |John Mandrola

The most common question we get asked is: is there a course on how to become better at critically reading medical research. Well, now there is!This is the first of 9 videos that we recorded as part of a course on clinical appraisal, and there will be many more to come. We call our class: How Not to Get Fooled by the Medical Literature. These are topics that each of us teaches separately, but, here, for the first time, we teach them together, and the whole is more than the sum of the parts.
5 reasons why the COVID-19 vaccine needs clinical trials before approval

2 months ago | drvinayprasad.com | Vinay Prasad

I couldn’t help but notice that the mainstream media is upset that going forward the fall COVID 19 booster might require randomized trials measuring clinical endpoints, rather than allowing Peter Marks to pick a variant target (based on an analogy to him buying milk) and then generate antibodies against the target. Helen Branswell from Stat, however, says that trials are not feasible. Is this true? Here are 5 reasons why COVID-19 shots should require trials.