Category: 3. Business

In a year that brought us new KRAS-inhibiting drugs, deepened our understanding of HER2 in breast cancer, and highlighted new potential for mRNA vaccines, the cancer field was also rocked by uncertainty of the future of research funding, equity in cancer delivery, and the integrity of review at FDA. 

This episode is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Youtube.

In a lively conversation with The Cancer Letter’s Paul Goldberg, Brawley, who is the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Oncology and Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University and co-editor of the Cancer History Project, started off on a positive note, highlighting several major discoveries made in 2025. 

“Let me talk about some of the science that excites me. In the last year, we’ve known for years that KRAS is important. There are a whole bunch of tumors, be it lung cancer, colon cancer, some of the brain tumors, neuroblastoma, where KRAS is an important gene,” Brawley said. “Well, this year we got inhibitors of KRAS G12D, G12V, and G12R. So, all of a sudden we have drugs that truly have the potential of inhibiting KRAS and positively affecting a whole bunch of tumors. And so to me, this is one of the things that really excites me.”

Despite these great breakthroughs happening in oncology, cures and treatments are not being delivered equally in the U.S., Brawley said.

This numbered among his concerns for the field, which included the loss of Rick Pazdur at FDA as well as talented young investigators choosing alternate career paths. 

“I think we’ve lost some of our young good investigators,” Brawley said. “A lot of the training grants are not being funded. I know several young, talented people who are looking to Europe. I know several young, talented people who are looking to Wall Street, go tell investment banking firms where to put their money as opposed to doing the science to develop the new drug or to develop the new understanding of cancer. So we have been harmed.”

Many of the established systems that have shaped the field of oncology in the U.S. have faced a shakeup this year. Brawley and Paul agree it is time to talk about rebuilding. 

“We do need to talk about rebuilding,” Brawley said. “Part of the rebuilding is how do we finance it? Part of the rebuilding is how do we organize it?”

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This episode was transcribed using transcription services. It has been reviewed by our editorial staff, but the transcript may be imperfect. 

The following is a transcript of this week’s In the Headlines, a weekly series on The Cancer Letter Podcast:

Jacquelyn Cobb: Hello everybody. Today we have a very special episode for you celebrating the end of this very eventful year. To do this, Paul recruited his very good friend and co-editor of the Cancer History Project, Otis Brawley, who is also the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Oncology and Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins University Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center. From personal experience, whenever these two get talking, any listener is in for a good time, so enjoy and we’ll see you next year.

Paul Goldberg: Otis, this is the first year in our long-running tradition, we hope, of looking back at the year that has gone by and seeing what we have learned or unlearned. So it’s kind of an unstructured discussion like many that we have in the course of the year. And I guess, gosh, maybe you should go first. What have you learned this year?

Otis Brawley: Well, there have been a number of challenges, of course, but there’ve been a number of… When I look at what’s going on, and you and I are both kind of science nerds. We’re kind of like the guy who sits in the stands at the baseball game with his scoresheet and knows every player and knows what their batting average is and what their gifts are and what their weaknesses are. As I look at what’s going on in this marathon that we call cancer research or some people would call the war on cancer, and you need to realize it is a war on cancer, this is number one. And actually one of my mentors, a fellow named Vince DeVita used to always say, and still is always saying that this is a great time to be in oncology because we’re discovering so many things. And I think that’s really true.

As I look at the past year, there’s a lot of really good things that have been discovered, a lot of great understanding. We can go through some of those things. And as always, the discovery is perhaps half the battle. The other half of the battle is delivery. And we should talk about disparities and the fact that one of the things that we’re starting to see a lot is there’s a lot of people who don’t get delivery of all of these amazing things that are happening in cancer. And I suspect it’s true if I were a diabetes doctor or a cardiologist.

Paul Goldberg: Yeah. Well, yeah, as you said, it’s half the battle. The other half… Well, I’m not even sure it’s half the battle. Maybe it’s a third of the battle because access is maybe the other third. And roughly speaking, maybe the other one-third coefficient would be policy. And that’s kind of what we mostly—we often focus on. And as to paraphrase Vince DeVita, this is a great time to be a journalist. And it is. It really is. It’s also, strangely, we’ve been doing one thing. One thing that’s different this year from the previous years is that we’re doing a lot of podcasting. Basically, more than once a week, we’re on a podcast, five times a month at least. So it’s just changed everything, changed a lot for us. And actually, it seems like we’re being accessed a lot more, but also it’s the time. So let’s look at policy, our one-third for now.

Otis Brawley: Yeah. Let’s look at policy, but I want to celebrate some of the science too.

Paul Goldberg: Oh, well, let me shut up and you celebrate.

Otis Brawley: All right. Let me talk about some of the science that excites me. In the last year, we’ve known for years that KRAS is important. There are a whole bunch of tumors, be it lung cancer, colon cancer, some of the brain tumors, neuroblastoma, where KRAS is an important gene. And we’ve been looking for KRAS inhibitors. And we developed a couple of years ago an inhibitor to KRAS 12C, which is one particular type of KRAS and we’ve been looking for inhibitors of other mutations. Well, this year we got inhibitors of KRAS G12D, G12V and G12R. So, all of a sudden we have drugs that truly have the potential of inhibiting KRAS and positively affecting a whole bunch of tumors. And so to me, this is one of the things that really excites me. Now, I’m going to be honest with you. I like to talk about saving lives or preventing deaths.

Or sometimes I say because of that person’s work, people are not dead. We are not at that point yet, but these are good leads for good drugs that I think in the very near future are going to prevent some deaths.

By the way, the KRAS tumor that everybody would love to see a drug in is pancreatic cancer.

We have some P53 reactivators. P53 is an important gene mutation and it shuts down. And when it shuts down, cells don’t go into programmed cell death. Well, if we could reactivate P53, maybe some cancer cells would actually kill themselves. And we’ve now got some P53 reactivators that seem to have some activity, and these things are going to get better over the next few years.

Our understanding of HER2 in breast as well as several other cancers is getting better and better. A couple of years ago, everybody talked about HER2-low. Now we’re talking about HER2-ultra low. And we’ve got a drug that had a wonderful finding this year, trastuzumab deruxtecan in HER2-ultra low. This is going to positively affect women with certain types of breast cancer and other people with certain types of things such as gastric cancer, I’m going to predict, in the future.

The mRNA vaccines have been in the news a lot. I actually happen to like the COVID mRNA vaccines, by the way. I happen to think that they’ve saved over two million American lives from COVID. That was a political remark and a remark of scientific truth, by the way, I think. There are some mRNA neoantigen vaccines that seem to be very active in both melanoma and HPV driven tumors. The most common HPV driven tumor right now is cervical cancer, but fast on its heels are HPV driven head and neck tumors. And so I’m actually very, very excited about those findings. And by the way, everything that I’ve said to date is reason why we need to support cancer research.

Paul Goldberg: Ah, you’re going to politics.

Otis Brawley: I’m getting into politics.

Paul Goldberg: You’re crossing into that coefficient of politics.

Otis Brawley: Yes. Yes.

Paul Goldberg: Everybody listen up.

Otis Brawley: Yeah. We need to support. We have seen so many positive things come out of cancer research. It would be a shame to not continue pursuing these avenues of study. The United States right now is the leader in cancer research. And if we don’t continue supporting these avenues of study, we will very quickly end up seeding our leadership to people in Europe and people in China.

Paul Goldberg: Sure. Well, let’s talk a little bit about how this year went by. Correct me if you disagree, but I think it kind of breaks up almost evenly into two segments.

The first one is we’re all catastrophizing about the state of science in cancer and the funding, the state of funding for science for cancer. As OMB proposes a budget that for NCI, and NIH that cuts an enormous amount, what is it, 40%? And then there are other cuts like the 15% limit cap on the indirect costs. So basically a catastrophe. And then Congress says no. And that’s Republicans in Congress say, “No, we have other priorities.” And NCI ends up with a pretty good budget. I mean, its flat funding is terrible some years, but this year it somehow feels like a new lease on life.

And then something else happens, which is really astonishing. We’ve had some possibilities for NCI directors, some of whom were in the dietary supplements business—at least one. Some of them actually were quite great. And now we ended up with Tony Letai, who is terrific. He’s a card carrying scientist. He is apolitical as far as I can tell. And maybe he is political, but it’s nobody’s business. He’s a political appointee, but he would be a great hire for any administration.

So suddenly here we are. We are okay. But on the other side of this, which is FDA, I have no idea what’s going on. This is to borrow an image from Winston Churchill. It’s like a fight of bulldogs under the carpet, and I have no idea which bulldog has bitten what.

Otis Brawley: Well, Dr. Letai, and I hope I’m not giving him the kiss of death, I am very optimistic. He’s a good guy. He understands the cancer problem. He’s committed to science and committed to the science problem.

The FDA I cannot speak to, especially given that Rick Pazdur announced that he’s retiring.

Paul Goldberg: So let’s talk about Rick Pazdur.

Otis Brawley: Yeah. Rick Pazdur is the consummate scientist, the consummate physician, and the ideal human being to be doing drug regulation. And I can tell you that a lot of people in the drug industry, the pharmaceutical industry, like the fact that Rick is there. Yes, he’s the policeman. Yes, he’s the guy who for years decided what oncologic drugs got approved and didn’t get approved, but he was a certain amount of continuity, predictiveness that a lot of drug company executives and a lot of drug company physicians and scientists actually liked having in that job. And we’re going to miss him. We are going to miss him.

Paul Goldberg: Yeah. He invented the entire system and he is the link between academic oncology and pharmaceutical industry and the government. A lot of this came through sort of the pathway known as Pazdur’s brain.

Otis Brawley: Yeah. It’s kind of weird. We’re essentially giving the obituary for somebody’s career, or at least the government portion of his career. I think he still has a few years left and people will hire him to do various things to help them out.

Paul Goldberg: Yeah. Yeah. I’m not as worried about Rick because Rick will find his way and he is, as you said, everything the way you described them. But I am worried about FDA and I’m worried about us, meaning as Americans and as humans actually, because one of the things he kept running into reportedly was this new pathway, priority, whatever it is, review, vouchers. So that’s just ripe for abuse. And he was saying that it’s probably illegal.

Otis Brawley: I don’t understand it, so I really can’t comment on it.

Paul Goldberg: No, no, no. I wasn’t trying to get you to do that, but since kind of taking the long view of it, imagining oncology without Pazdur at OCE, and he still had many, many, many good years left in him and was eager to be a public servant. And he only lasted a month, roughly, in this job at CDER, as head of CDER. This is a tough time for all of us.

Otis Brawley: Very much so.

Paul Goldberg: Thank you.

Otis Brawley: Yeah. Best to Rick, and I’m thinking about the… There’s a wonderful set of employees at the FDA, still at the FDA. And I’m thinking about them because I know morale has been very much affected.

Paul Goldberg: Yeah.

Otis Brawley: I’ve often worried that policy does not appreciate science and the scientific method, and policy really needs to be driven by orthodox science and orthodox interpretation of the science. We need more prospective randomized trials instead of less.

We’ve gotten into trouble in the past because instead of doing a long-term prospective randomized trial, it might take 10 years. We have taken a small observation and implemented it throughout the American population. And then 30, 40 years later, realized that we were hurting people. And there are a number of examples of that from bone marrow transplant, lung cancer screening with chest x-ray in the 1960s, even some of what we did with Pap smear screening in the late 1940s and 1950s, people were heard because we did not appreciate the power of those interventions.

Now, I just mentioned interventions that ultimately do save lives when they’re done correctly, but we implemented them before we understood how to do them correctly and people got hurt because of it.

And so I really like when policy is driven by people who look at what the clinical studies show, and they interpret those clinical studies in an Orthodox conservative approach. Ironically, I’m calling for a conservative interpretation of science, not gun slinging or not making it up as we go along.

Paul Goldberg: Well, you’ve been doing this for years.

Otis Brawley: Yeah. Yeah. I’ll be off color and tell you that my favorite t-shirt recently says ‘Science: Because figuring things out is better than making shit up’.

Paul Goldberg: Indeed. Yeah. Those are the choices. Speaking of which, somebody should figure out what to do with a t-shirt. Maybe we should publish it, if that’s the right word, ‘gold standard science’ we put on the front, and then the back it might say something like, ‘What the hell is that?’ That’s just an idea.

Otis Brawley: Okay.

Paul Goldberg: And then maybe it should say The Cancer Letter somewhere.

Otis Brawley: Well, let me explain this to the population. You talk sometimes a little even above me.

Paul Goldberg: Oh, please.

Otis Brawley: Notice I said even above me.

Paul Goldberg: that means you taught me well.

Otis Brawley: Right. The gold standard in clinical trials is the prospective randomized trial and the result of a prospective randomized trial. Now, I very frequently hear people who don’t even know what a prospective randomized trial is who are saying things that there is no science to document, calling it gold standard science.

Paul Goldberg: That’s new though. That’s new.

Otis Brawley: That’s new. That’s something that we —

Paul Goldberg: I traced that to our HHS secretary and now the FDA commissioner and maybe CBER director, not CDER director who knows the difference. So yeah, so go ahead. I’m sorry to interrupt.

Otis Brawley: Yeah. Well, I’m not criticizing anybody. I’m just saying we need to be careful of what our wording is and we need to be orthodox to the science. We need to be conservative in our interpretation of the science, and we need to be conservative in our design of science. And I will tell you, I do worry when I hear people talk about gold standard science and make statements, and then they start quoting science that doesn’t exist or misquoting science that does exist. I’m not talking about any particular individual right now.

And I think that for years I’ve been in the prostate cancer wars where I’ve been trying to get people to understand their pros and cons to prostate cancer screening, but many of the people who are very pro prostate cancer screening just totally misinterpret the literature or misquote the literature. And many of them don’t apologize.

And of course, I once went up against Suzanne Somers, who at one point in time when I actually said a truth, I’ll never forget, she said, “Dr. Brawley, you’re not making my point.”

Paul Goldberg: Thank you. You can’t. But the only thing that’s probably worse than gold standard science, which is deliberate, has to be deliberate obfuscation, unless it’s, of course, the defense from that saying, “No, no, no, it’s just ignorance.” But there’s also something called common sense measures. Common sense is the exact opposite of gold standard, which is evidence-based medicine, which is a movement in medicine.

Otis Brawley: Yeah, I disagree with you a little bit. I used to sit through some of those Oncologic Drug Advisory Committee meetings where… And I was one of the people who actually listened when the public statement section came along where anybody from the street could get up and get two minutes at the microphone to talk about the drug that was being debated before the Oncologic Drug Advisory Committee.

And for our listeners, the ODAC is like a grand jury put together by the FDA. When they have a application for a drug and they’re not sure whether or not they should approve it, they will call together a group of about 20 to 24 experts and they’ll ask them a series of questions relevant to the approval of the drug and then take that information and make a decision about approval.

And I’ll never forget one day this little old lady from a cancer advocacy group, and she’s a wonderful woman who cares about her disease. It was a pediatric disease, and she said a truth, which I think is important for us all to realize and reflect on. She said, “We don’t care if the drug works or not. We have to have something.” And that made me realize there’s a whole bunch of folks who want to grab on to false hope, even if you’re telling them it’s false hope.

And we need to get back to science and reality. We just need to get back to science and reality and people need to… And us in medicine, I’m spending a lot of time on this nowadays, us in medicine need to get better at explaining the science that we do, why it’s important and—what we do and why it’s important. Everybody in science needs to have that elevator pitch.

Paul Goldberg: Well, common sense science and common sense anything is… Evidence-based medicine is flying by instruments. Common sense can lead you into some very strange straits as you’re one of the people who fights that frequently, but let’s just set that aside for now because we could have… This is not a conversation you can have without scotch. So let’s just say we do not have the modality that is needed to support this discussion.

So let’s talk more about this year, what we have learned. Again, the timing is six months of catastrophism roughly, and six months of saying, “Hey, things are not so bad and maybe we’ll get through this.” Do you think we get through this?

Otis Brawley: Well, I think we’ve lost some of our young good investigators. A lot of the training grants are not being funded. I know several young, talented people who are looking to Europe. I know several young, talented people who are looking to Wall Street, go tell investment banking firms where to put their money as opposed to doing the science to develop the new drug or to develop the new understanding of cancer. So we have been harmed.

I do worry a great deal that the Europeans, who are actually trying to hire a number of American scientists, will get better. I worry about the Chinese who are also out there competing against us. We’ve had a period of more than 50, 60 years where in medicine and cancer medicine, especially, we have reigned supreme and I’m worried that we’re going to lose that. I will agree with you that the harm that I’ve seen is less than what I would’ve predicted when it started happening, when a number of laboratories had to shut down, number of people had to start figuring out how do we keep our animals alive until we can get to the point that we can do science again.

It certainly is not that bad. And again, another thing, I’ve been saying for 15 years that we need to find alternative methods to finance cancer research. The history is that in the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s, foundations overwhelmingly found the money to subsidize research, be it the Kellogg Foundation, the Ford Foundation, there are a number of others that were out there. The American Cancer Society in the early 1950s funded more cancer research than the National Cancer Institute. Then it was the government that really picked up after World War II and really accelerated. And then finally in 1971 with the National Cancer Act, and Nixon never called it Nixon’s War on Cancer, that was other people. We had this huge acceleration of money going from the NIH to universities to do cancer research. And actually other institutes at the NIH did the same thing, which is frequently not talked about, but the National Cancer Act was a wonderful thing for cardiology, for infectious disease, even for mental health and children’s health.

But in any event, we had this rise in government-funded research that started in the 1950s, really took off in the 1970s. And I think that’s been a good run, but we need to find alternative ways. It might involve more venture capital because venture capital has become a big, big thing out there. It might involve things like the CPRIT Texas model, but I don’t know what the model is. I know we need to find an alternative model, and I know that we’re at a point where we have such an amazing understanding of what cancer is, and that amazing understanding of what cancer is leads us to ideas on how to interfere with it that leads to ideas about both prevention as well as treatment. We’ve got those ideas about prevention and treatment being drugs and interventions that have come forth, some of whom clearly work. And it would be, pardon me again, a damn shame if we got to this point and we then decided not to follow through to completion.

Paul Goldberg: Well, the amounts of money involved in R&D can be so huge and-

Otis Brawley: That’s right.

Paul Goldberg: … appropriations have not kept up. So what’s the NCI budget? It’s pretty minor compared to even the giving from the high net worth individuals, like the Dells just gave six point something billion to something or other.

Otis Brawley: Yeah. I think the NCI budget this year is seven billion.

Paul Goldberg: Yeah. So in essence, you could spend a whole lot more and look at the R&D by pharma companies, which of course would all stop if NCI died.

Otis Brawley: Well, many people don’t realize that the two actually support each other quite nicely right now. And again, I want to say again, we need to find alternative ways of funding for the future. The government-funded research funds a lot of very basic research and understanding of cancer. And the drug companies are interested in applied research. They’re more the engineers. And they come up with the treatments. They take risks just as the federal government does. The federal government funds some research that ends up going nowhere. The drug companies fund a lot of drugs that end up never being used. But the federal government research program trains a lot of people who go off and work in the pharmaceutical research programs. And so there’s a good interplay. And the federal government has recognized that over the years, the Bayh-Dole law from the early 1980s, for example, which actually figures out how the money that comes from federally funded… How the money that results from federally funded research and patents that are supported by that federal research, how that money is distributed.

Those are all recognition of the interaction between the two. And it’s been very fruitful. I just mentioned a whole bunch of drugs from this year. And by the way, I’ve got other science from this year that I’m actually thrilled about and I would love to see continued support.

Paul Goldberg: I guess we should talk about it.

Otis Brawley: Yeah. We should.

Paul Goldberg: Celebrate some more. We should give you little flags.

Otis Brawley: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I’m a screening guy, I’m a screening epidemiologist and we got these multi-cancer early detection tests out there. I consult for one company. I’m not pushing anyone of these tests right now. However, I would tell you that I think the future can be bright. It’s helping us learn a great deal about what cancer is and how cancer behaves. I think the first area where some of these tests are going to actually influence patients and may be influencing patients even now is looking at circulating tumor DNA for what we call molecular residual disease. And that is if a person seems to have no evidence of disease or no evidence of cancer after treatment for their local disease, doing the blood test to figure out if there’s additional evidence that there’s no disease present. Molecular residual disease is looking for residual tumor circulating. And we’ve seen that.

There’s a test out there that’s approved in colorectal cancer, but this year we saw tests in breasts, lung, bladder, lymphoma, and maybe a couple of other cancers coming out there. And I actually hope, and this is a dream, that molecular residual disease testing will ultimately become a valid surrogate endpoint to speed up some of these clinical trials, clinical trials in cancer treatment, clinical trials in cancer screening. Again, I have to tell you, it is a hope. You and I have had this conversation about a valid surrogate endpoint going back into the 1990s.

Paul Goldberg: When the argument was that there’s no such thing.

Otis Brawley: Yeah, this may be.

Paul Goldberg: Well, there is one surrogate endpoint, which is fully meeting the Prentice principles [Prentice criteria], which is your respiration, for living, is a surrogate for being alive. That’s a full effect of… Anyway, all three criteria are satisfied in that one, but I don’t think there’s anything else. But does it worry you right now with the MCEDs that we might be resorting to quote gold standard science and common sense instead of the gold standard in science?

Otis Brawley: No. The MCEDs need to be evaluated in a scientifically—just in a scientific way like anything else. One of the things that the MCEDs have against the multi-cancer early detection test is there’s a whole group of people who don’t understand science and think if the test finds cancer, it must be good. If it finds cancer that appears to be early, it must be even better.

And there are a whole bunch of folks who don’t understand that the purpose of a screening test is to prevent someone from dying. And right now, the only way we can show that we prevent someone from dying is with a long-term randomized trial where we compare a group of people who are screened versus a group of people who are not screened. And that takes 15, 20 years in many instances. With this molecular residual disease testing, we might be able to shorten that.

And again, I gave you a whole bunch of the Washington hedge words. Might. I didn’t say definitely would, but I think this is an area of investigation that we need to go down.

Paul Goldberg: Well, speaking of gold standard science and scientific and gold standard in science and all of the rest of the words we’ve been discussing, it all kind of takes us to a question of the scientific method and its role in settling debates. And that seems to be one of the issues here is how do you get the public, the voters to understand the scientific methods so you can have this conversation? You see where I’m going?

Otis Brawley: Yeah. Yeah. There’s a lot of people who are not very scientifically literate, and then there’s a whole bunch of scientists who are not very literate in their ability to convey what science is. And so you got the two problems. You got people who are not very good at explaining it and people who are not very good at understanding it, and we need to work on both. And unfortunately, going and fixing the curriculums in grade schools and junior high schools won’t fix the problem for years.

Paul Goldberg: Yeah. But what about patient groups for whom this is life and death? By the way, we have not heard from patient groups directly. Maybe we have because Congress did stop these Draconian cuts.

Otis Brawley: Yeah. Well, I have been very praising of some patient groups and very critical of others. Some of the worst people in terms of harming cancer patients are some of the patient advocacy groups and they harm cancer patients by not being very scientific, appealing to the emotions and getting people to do things that are unproven. They’re getting people to do things that don’t even make your gold standard science.

Paul Goldberg: But gold standard science is that which I think it is. Not I, but the keeper of gold standard science. But yes, yes, you are exactly at that point. One of the smartest pieces we’ve run, kind of eye-opening pieces we’ve run this year in The Cancer Letter was about just that, the scientific method and how people do not understand it.

It was a piece by George Weiner and Elizabeth Jaffee. And boy, was that a fantastic piece of, well, of work and insight to how to make those arguments, how to speak to people without maybe even using the words scientific method. But maybe you should just go into kind of how politics of the thing has been developing because I don’t think of someone like RFK Jr. as a conservative, classically speaking, classical liberal or whatever. He’s kind of an outlier in the Trump administration. You see where I’m going with this? Because my guess is that his way of thinking, his gold standard science and all of this isn’t going to go away should Democrats win.

Otis Brawley: No, I think we need to take our arguments about supportive science to the people. I think we need to try to explain to folks the importance of mRNA vaccines in COVID or the importance of some of the things that we’re doing. We’re still in the prostate cancer screening wars. That’s an area that nobody in the administration has talked about, so I feel very comfortable discussing that one. We need to explain to the community of men in the country the pros and cons of prostate cancer screening, the things that are open questions, the things that are closed questions. We need to talk about the importance of getting quality care when one decides to get care.

Yeah. We need to stop thinking about politicians and stop thinking about certain individuals and actually start making an appeal to the population as a whole. And that way we bypass some of the bad patient advocacy groups. And then there’s some of the good patient advocacy groups. I have to mention the fact that there’s some really good patient advocacy groups because some of those, especially like the National Breast Cancer Coalition, they’ve been very supportive of me and my career and some of the things that I’ve tried to say and tried to do. And they are some of the folks who understand the science. Matter of fact, Fran Visco and the group started something called Project LEAD more than 35 years ago, where they were teaching advocates how to ask questions and how to understand the science.

Man, we need more Project LEAD. I might try to start doing something like that in Baltimore.

Paul Goldberg: Oh, that’s an excellent idea. And it is based on the actual scientific method and it is kind of the foundation of this whole thing. And the other tidbit with them that’s fascinating is it’s not about your disease, it’s about the other woman’s disease.

Otis Brawley: Yeah.

Paul Goldberg: It’s about everyone’s disease. It’s about breast cancer, for God’s sake.

Otis Brawley: Yeah, that’s a really important point. So much of the badness that I see in oncology is people who are out for something for themselves or for their family, the hell with everybody else. And yeah, I recently had an opportunity to go to the Jamaica Hospital in Queens and I found a whole bunch of folks there. It was really beautiful. There are all kinds of races and religions and they all have one thing in common. I finally referred to it as an unrepressed Mother Teresa gene. They cared about each other and about all the people who they were taking care of. They actually understood what the meaning of the word profession is for those who are in nursing or medicine. And I’m actually writing some stuff now and they’re one of my examples of how you practice medicine.

Paul Goldberg: Well, of course. And then look at what we’ve heard from patients, which isn’t a whole lot in this whole era of… Well, in the past year. It’s not been really any different from the past. The patients have been pretty silent or no more vocal than before. And I’m wondering how to explain that because for patients, maybe they have not been silent, but there’s no foundation. And I don’t mean as in funding, but no means for getting their experience and their thoughts out there into the world.

So breast cancer has Fran Visco and NBCC and they knew what to do and how to do it and what needed to be done. Well, they learned partly from the AIDS movement, but they took all of the right lessons. And we do not have an AIDS movement equivalent that goes kind of pan-cancer.

Otis Brawley: Now, the other thing that I wish we focused more on from policy is health promotion. One of the things that has come to fruition in terms of our research is our understanding of what the causes of cancer are and what a healthy life is and what a healthy life is not. And much of that, we get through policy. It’s policy that leads to us having low smoking rates in the United States and the most successful, and there have been a number of public health interventions that have been successful over the last 100 years from the introduction of vaccines against measles, mumps, and rubella to the smallpox, which we have eradicated from the planet, but let’s get into cancer and cardiovascular disease.

The work that we’ve done on tobacco control since the mid 1960s is just absolutely amazing. We’re starting to take a few steps back and we still aren’t finished, but the work that we’ve done in tobacco control is absolutely amazing. It’s about 15% of American adults are smoking today. 1955, it was 55% of adult men. In 1965, it was 35% of adult women. Those were the maxes, but it’s 15% of adults today, and we can go lower.

In Maryland, where I live and work, we have counties where the childhood smoking rate for teenagers is 20%, and we have counties where the childhood smoking rate for teenagers is 3%. I quote those to show what we can do and what we need to do. And those are policy issues. It’s making it hard for people to find a place to smoke, making it expensive for people to buy tobacco, teaching people the harms of tobacco through public health messaging and what we teach them in the schools.

We have to worry about vaping, which is not cigarette smoking, but I still worry about vaping causing lung illness. These are policy things that we still need to focus on. And I worry that we are starting to lose focus. In the last nine months, the smoking offices at the CDC, FDA, and NCI have all been radically reduced. Some of them closed.

Paul Goldberg: That’s a bad thing. Maybe it’s time to reopen them because that was early in the administration situation, possibly having to do with Elon Musk or possibly not. Who knows? Actually, the first order of business for this administration was to stop the menthol guidance, right?

Otis Brawley: Well, the previous administration…

Paul Goldberg: Flubbed it first.

Otis Brawley: … Chose not to abolish menthol. Current law allows the Food and Drug Administration to regulate the amount of menthol that is in tobacco. Menthol does not naturally occur in tobacco. Tobacco is spiked with menthol, and by spiking tobacco with menthol, you actually make tobacco much more addictive. And there are certain populations that love menthol. Black men, for example, who smoke cigarettes overwhelmingly smoke menthol cigarettes. Even many cigarettes that we think of as not menthol tasting have a small amount of menthol added to them because of this addictive thing. The FDA could actually just tell the tobacco industry this evening, “Effective tomorrow, you are not allowed to put menthol in any tobacco products.”

The Biden administration chose not to do that and the Trump administration has also chosen not to do that.

Paul Goldberg: Well, yes, the Biden administration did flub it pretty badly out of fear that they’ll lose Black vote. That’s kind of what it seemed like even though…

Otis Brawley: That’s my understanding.

Paul Goldberg: Yeah. Even though you were at the forefront, your understanding matters a lot here because you’re not guessing. Let’s just be sure.

Otis Brawley: Yeah, we can talk about that. I lost to the Reverend Al Sharpton.

Paul Goldberg: That’s true. Maybe we should just sort of refer back to that because there’s a couple more points to make. One of them is disparities. Are you finding it, you’re a disparities researcher, are you finding it difficult to talk about disparities to say colleagues or administrators?

Otis Brawley: Yeah. I haven’t found it difficult to talk about disparities. Actually, it may surprise some people. I’m someone who’s always talked about disparities rural versus urban, rich versus poor. I’ve been a huge proponent that socioeconomic status and poverty is what drives a large number of the disparities out there.

Many of the Black/white disparities that I spent the early part of my life documenting are driven because Black people are poor socioeconomically, as opposed to because Black people are biologically different. And one of the things that I’ve been trying to fight for the longest time is so many of my scientific colleagues will remind you that race is a sociopolitical construct and in the next sentence using the same breath, they will start talking about race as if it is a biological construct. And the current rules are that if you talk about disparities and it’s about socioeconomics, or if it’s about region of where people live, and it’s not racial, it’s fine.

And most of the racial disparities are due to socioeconomics, not all, but most. So that’s an area that we can still talk about. It is not an area that’s very well funded now, unfortunately.

Paul Goldberg: Well, that can be fixed. I guess it’s just you to have to be careful how you call it. You cannot call it DEI, but you can call it community outreach and engagement, that’s still-

Otis Brawley: Well, DEI was actually always a little bit different. Many of the cancer centers had an office for DEI and an office for community outreach and engagement. So they were totally different. Community outreach and engagement is something that when I say discovery is part of it, I actually do think it’s half of it and delivery is the other half. Community outreach and engagement is heavily involved in that delivery aspect. I would say delivery of every aspect of cancer control. I still believe that, and I think this past year has told us we don’t focus enough on prevention, risk reduction, and health promotion. We focus way too much on screening and we don’t focus enough on getting the screened people adequate diagnostics and treatment. And then all the way across that spectrum from prevention, risk reduction, health promotion through screening, diagnostics and treatment, it’s a whole continuum. We don’t speak enough about quality.

One of the things that I’ve talked about a lot this past year, and I see it starting to get a little bit more traction, is my hatred of mammogram vans. Mammogram vans are a method of getting mammography into the inner city to poor women or in the rural areas, to poor women, but there hasn’t been enough emphasis on maintaining high quality mammography on those mammograms as compared to the quality in the bricks and mortars facilities. So what I’m saying is a whole bunch of people are very proud of the fact that they were getting these poor people in the inner city low quality mammography. They didn’t say low quality, but they were bragging about how they were getting people in the inner city mammography, now they’re realizing it was lower quality than what they or their spouses would get for themselves at bricks and mortar facilities.

Paul Goldberg: Which is kind of interesting because a study would be required to say that whether this is better than nothing, right?

Otis Brawley: It might be better than nothing. It might be.

Paul Goldberg: It might be. It might not.

Otis Brawley: Yeah. And for those who are wondering how I know it’s lower quality, the American College of Radiology has said that a high quality mammogram involves, if the woman has a previous mammogram, you go find the old mammography to do a comparison. And what we have is a large number of mammogram vans, not all, I don’t want to castigate all of them, but the majority of mammogram vans in the United States, as a policy, don’t try to find old mammography for comparison. They, by definition of the American College of Radiology, are giving low quality mammography.

Paul Goldberg: Fascinating. So let’s talk more just, maybe that’s the last point to bring up. The system that we saw cracking early this year, it evolved. It was not designed from scratch. Nobody would have come up with the system of research that we have now. It has worked so far. It may still be working very well, but if it’s being brought down, and that’s a big if, how do you rebuild? Is this an opportunity to rebuild? Should that be a matter of public discussion? And how do you mark that discussion?

Otis Brawley: Yeah, we do need to talk about rebuilding. Part of the rebuilding is how do we finance it? Part of the rebuilding is how do we organize it?

I actually happen to believe that the National Cancer Institute director needs to be in even more control of the federal cancer program than he or she is now. I want to see the NCI director have much more to do with the VA, much more to do with the Defense Department, much more to do with the Department of Energy.

By the way, the Department of Energy is where a lot of the new radiation therapy equipment is being developed and regulated. We talk about photons, that was last century, and then protons. Carbon ion radiation therapy is one of the things of the future. And there were some great carbon ion studies published in this previous year.

I want to see the NCI and the National Cancer Institute Director more involved with implementation and dissemination of findings, more involved in assessment of quality of care that’s given, more involved with the dissemination of health prevention policy, as well as health prevention education.

Paul Goldberg: Well, how would one initiate that process of rebuilding, of designing… It’s a design build. It’s a design phase.

Otis Brawley: Yeah. The only way that you can do this sort of thing that I’m contemplating is you need to have people in government on both sides of the aisle who are committed to it, who are concerned about it. And it’s not something that can be done in one, two, or three years. This is a movement. And it’s a movement very much like the one Mary Lasker and Sydney Farber were involved with in the 1950s and ’60s that culminated in the National Cancer Act of 1971. But you’re going to have to have… If you look at that whole history, and you know the book Cancer Crusade, which outlines that history, you’re going to have a series of people from both sides of the aisle who are interested in cancer and cancer research, you need people who are committed to research. And I would even go so far as to say this shouldn’t be a cancer effort as much as it should be a health promotion effort.

And it should rally around not just tobacco, but diet and physical activity and the obesity epidemic that’s about to suffocate all of us. One of the things that people don’t realize is one of the huge reasons why medical cost is going up dramatically is because in 1970, 15% of Americans were obese. Today it’s well over 40% and there’s certain subpopulations, Black women, for example, where it’s well over 65% are obese and we are paying for the cost of their care. Now, this is where the fat guy, me, has to tell you we shouldn’t be blaming people for being fat. We need to look at the policies and the social environments that were created that caused that obesity and try to change those policies and encourage policies that I call healthy living or healthy prevention.

That I think is part of this rebuild coming out of what’s been a hard year for the National Institutes of Health, not just the National Cancer Institute.

Paul Goldberg: Well, that is to be continued. I think rebuild is something we need to continue to talk about and continue maybe to spearhead because it needs to happen. The conversations need to be public, I think, more than anything. So that’s kind of-

Otis Brawley: Some of your listeners may not be aware of the fact that the leading cause of cancer in the United States is still tobacco, but just behind tobacco and within the next five years or so, the second leading cause now and soon the leading cause of cancer is going to be the combination of too many calories consumed, not enough exercise to burn off that caloric energy and storing that caloric energy. And we call that storage obesity.

The obesity epidemic is about to become the leading cause of cancer in the United States, and it is already the leading cause of healthcare consumption.

Paul Goldberg: That’s an amazing point. Well, thank you. Let’s do this again next year.

Otis Brawley: All right.

Paul Goldberg: And happy New Year.

Otis Brawley: Happy New Year.

Paul Goldberg: All right. Thank you. Bye, Otis.

Jacquelyn Cobb: Thank you for joining us on The Cancer Letter Podcast, where we explore the stories shaping the future of oncology. For more in depth reporting and analysis, visit us at CancerLetter.com. With over 200 site license subscriptions, you may already have access through your workplace. If you found this episode valuable, don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and share. Together, we’ll keep the conversation going.Paul Goldberg: Until next time, stay informed, stay engaged, and thank you for listening.

WASHINGTON — Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Michael S. Selig today announced Amir Zaidi will serve as the CFTC’s Chief of Staff.

“Amir brings to this role deep experience both at the Commission and in the financial services world, and has a proven track record of successfully embracing innovation in our markets,” Chairman Selig said. “I’m grateful for his willingness to return as chief of staff and for his continued dedication and service to both the CFTC and our stakeholders. Amir was instrumental in the historic launch of CFTC-regulated bitcoin futures contracts during President Trump’s first term. With Congress poised to send digital asset market structure legislation to the President’s desk, he will bring tremendous experience and expertise to the CFTC as it develops fit-for-purpose regulations for our rapidly evolving commodity markets.” 

“I am excited to return to the CFTC and thank Chairman Selig for appointing me to this important role,” Zaidi said. “Under Chairman Selig’s leadership, I look forward to providing a steady hand at the Commission during this important time. I am committed to ensuring that the Chairman’s pro-innovation agenda is successfully implemented during this period of rapid transformation in the derivatives markets.”

Zaidi returns to the CFTC after having previously served in several roles at the agency from 2010 to 2019, including as director of the Division of Market Oversight, where he oversaw the certification and deployment of the bitcoin futures contact – the first federally-regulated crypto product. While at the CFTC, he also held senior roles in the offices of former Chairman Chris Giancarlo and Commissioner Scott O’Malia. Prior to returning to the CFTC, Zaidi was global head of compliance for a large broker-dealer and introducing broker. Prior to 2010, Zaidi served in various financial, legal, and regulatory roles in New York and Washington. He has decades of experience in the financial services industry.

Zaidi received his J.D., cum laude, from the University of Maryland School of Law and B.S. in Business Administration, summa cum laude, from Boston University School of Management. 

Leading global law firm Baker McKenzie announced today that the New York office represented BBVA, BTG Pactual, Citigroup, J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley, as global coordinators, and Barclays, BofA Securities, Goldman Sachs and Santander, as joint bookrunners, in connection with their exercise in full of the over-allotment option to purchase an additional 5,500,000 Real Estate Trust Certificates, also known as CBFIs (Certificados Bursátiles Fiduciarios Inmobiliarios) of Fibra Next.

The exercise of the over-allotment option was a testament to the success of the follow-on equity offering and resulted in additional proceeds to Fibra Next of approximately USD30 million. After giving effect to the full exercise of the over-allotment option, the combined value of Fibra Next’s IPO and follow-on offering is approximately USD900 million.

The CBFIs were offered publicly in Mexico on the Mexican Stock Exchange and were made internationally pursuant to Rule 144A and Regulation S.

Fibra Next was created as a result of a split off by Fibra Uno, the largest real estate company in Latin America, of its logistics operations, forming the largest warehouse and logistics company in Mexico. The proceeds received by Fibra Next from the follow-on offering and over-allotment exercise will be used primarily for the acquisition of an industrial real estate portfolio to be contributed to Next Properties.

Baker McKenzie also represented Fibra Next in connection with its approximately USD450 million initial public offering earlier this year and its USD370 million follow-on offering.

Transactional Practice Group Partners Mike Fitzgerald, Arturo Carrillo, Joy Gallup, Pedro Reyes and Steven Sandretto led the Baker McKenzie team, which also included associates Alejandra Cuadra and Diego Aznar, as well as Tax Senior Counsel Thomas May and Partner Kia Waxman.

Other law firms participating in this transaction included Holland & Knight (as Fibra Next’s US and Mexican counsel) and Mijares (as initial purchasers’ and dealer managers’ Mexican counsel).

With more than 2,500 deal practitioners in more than 40 jurisdictions, Baker McKenzie is a transactional powerhouse. The Firm’s NY office has participated in more Mexican corporate equity offerings in 2025 (by number of deals and amount raised) than any US law firm.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Fewer Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week with layoffs remaining low despite a weakening labor market.

U.S. applications for jobless claims for the week ending Dec. 27 fell by 16,000 to 199,000 from the previous week’s 215,000, the Labor Department reported Wednesday. Analysts surveyed by the data firm FactSet forecast 208,000 new applications.

READ MORE: U.S. unemployment claims dropped again last week, remaining at a historically healthy level

Unemployment benefit filings are often distorted during holiday-shortened weeks. The shorter week can cause some who have lost jobs to delay filing claims.

The weekly report was released a day early due to the New Year’s Day holiday.

Applications for unemployment aid are viewed as a proxy for layoffs and are close to a real-time indicator of the health of the job market.

Earlier this month, the government reported that the U.S. gained a decent 64,000 jobs in November but lost 105,000 in October as federal workers departed after cutbacks by the Trump administration. That helped to push the unemployment rate up to 4.6% last month, the highest since 2021.

The October job losses were caused by a 162,000 drop in federal workers, many of whom resigned at the end of fiscal year 2025 on Sept. 30 under pressure from billionaire Elon Musk’s purge of U.S. government payrolls.

Labor Department revisions also knocked 33,000 jobs off August and September payrolls.

Recent government data has revealed a labor market in which hiring has clearly lost momentum, hobbled by uncertainty over President Donald Trump’s tariffs and the lingering effects of the high interest rates the Fed engineered in 2022 and 2023 to rein in an outburst of pandemic-induced inflation. Since March, job creation has fallen to an average 35,000 a month, compared to 71,000 in the year ended in March.

Earlier this month, the Federal Reserve trimmed its benchmark lending rate by a quarter-point, its third straight cut.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the committee reduced borrowing costs out of concern that the job market is even weaker than it appears. Powell said that recent job figures could be revised lower by as much as 60,000, which would mean employers have actually been shedding an average of about 25,000 jobs a month since the spring.

Companies that have recently announced job cuts include UPS, General Motors, Amazon and Verizon.

The Labor Department’s report Wednesday also showed that the four-week average of claims, which evens out some of the week-to-week volatility, rose by 1,750 to 218,7500.

The total number of Americans filing for jobless benefits for the previous week ending Dec. 20 fell by 47,000 to 1.87 million, the government said.

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.

A team from Cardiff, Wales, is experimenting with the feasibility of building semiconductors in space, and its most recent success is another step forward towards its goal. According to the BBC, Space Forge’s microwave-sized furnace has been switched on in space and has reached 1,000°C (1,832°F) — one of the most important parts of the manufacturing process that the company needs to validate in space.

“This is so important because it’s one of the core ingredients that we need for our in-space manufacturing process,” Payload Operations Lead Veronica Vera told the BBC. “So being able to demonstrate this is amazing.” Semiconductor manufacturing is a costly and labor-intensive endeavor on Earth, and while putting it in orbit might seem far more complicated, making chips in space offers some theoretical advantages. For example, microgravity conditions would help the atoms in semiconductors line up perfectly, while the lack of an atmosphere would also reduce the chance of contaminants affecting the wafer.

These two things would help reduce imperfections in the final wafer output, resulting in a much more efficient fab. “The work that we’re doing now is allowing us to create semiconductors up to 4,000 times purer in space than we can currently make here today,” Space Forge CEO Josh Western told the publication. “This sort of semiconductor would go on to be in the 5G tower in which you get your mobile phone signal, it’s going to be in the car charger you plug an EV into, it’s going to be in the latest planes.”

Space Forge launched its first satellite in June 2025, hitching a ride on the SpaceX Transporter-14 rideshare mission. However, it still took the company several months before it finally succeeded in turning on its furnace, showing how complicated this project can get. Nevertheless, this advancement is quite promising, with Space Forge planning to build a bigger space factory with the capacity to output 10,000 chips. Aside from that, it also needs to work on a way to bring the finished products back to the surface. Other companies are also experimenting with orbital fabs, with U.S. startup Besxar planning to send “Fabships” into space on Falcon 9 booster rockets.

Putting semiconductor manufacturing in space could help reduce the massive amounts of power and water that these processes require from our resources while also outputting more wafers with fewer impurities. However, we also have to consider the huge environmental impact of launching multiple rockets per day just to deliver the raw materials and pick up the finished products from orbit.

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By Joy Wiltermuth

Despite year-end drops for gold and silver, both are still on pace for their biggest yearly percentage gains since 1979

Gold, silver and copper are the big winners of 2025, even with year-end turbulence. What a key chart level may signal about the road ahead.

Year-end turbulence was only modestly slowing the surge in silver, gold and copper in 2025, with the metals providing important ballast to portfolios as President Donald Trump’s tariffs rattled markets and a spending frenzy around artificial intelligence entered a new debt-funded chapter.

For the year, gold (GC00) was up nearly 65% and silver (SI00) was about 145% higher as of Wednesday, putting both on pace for their biggest annual percentage gains since 1979, according to Dow Jones Market Data based on the most-active metals contracts.

Copper’s (HG00) roughly 40% jump this year, while slightly more modest, would still mark its largest yearly increase since 2009 and amount to more than double the S&P 500 index’s SPX 17% gain so far this year.

The clamor around metals has stirred debate about potential bubbles forming in gold and silver that could end badly for investors, especially those arriving late to the party. Yet on the last trading day of 2025, all three metals were perched above their 50-day moving averages, a key technical level that can be a bullish signal for an asset’s price.

“Big picture, it means there’s a lot more buyers than sellers,” Sameer Samana, head of global equities and real assets at the Wells Fargo Investment Institute, said of the uptrend. “That has to do with the dollar weakness in the early part of 2025, plus, you could argue, a lot of uncertainty around how countries will manage their fiscal health going forward.”

The ICE U.S. dollar index DXY, a measure of the buck against a basket of rival currencies, booked its worst first half of the year since 1973, when Richard Nixon was president. It since has recouped some of its 2025 losses but was still 9.4% lower on the year through Wednesday, according to FactSet.

A turbo rally in silver

Unlike gold and silver, copper isn’t considered one of the world’s precious metals. Yet like silver, it was added to the U.S. Interior Department’s list of critical minerals this year, given its role in wiring, power generation and electrical transmissions, all which are essential to the AI buildout.

Read: Why it’s time for investors to start treating copper like a precious metal

Recent bullishness helped silver gain more than 55% in the past three months alone, while copper shot up nearly 17%, gold rose 12.5% and the S&P 500 added 0.2% over the same span, according to FactSet data.

From a technical perspective, the most recent leg of the metals rally has pushed gold and silver above their 50-day moving averages for a relatively long 93 trading days through Wednesday, while copper was above that threshold for 25 trading days, according to Dow Jones Market Data based on most-active futures contracts.

That has happened only four other times for gold since 1993 and five other times for silver since 1982, according to Dow Jones Market Data. Shorter stretches of at least 25 days for copper have been fairly common in recent years.

While the past doesn’t predict the future, similarly long trading stretches above the 50-day moving average have tended to skew bullish for stocks and gold in the weeks and months that follow, while silver has been mixed and copper has seen most of its gains after the three-month mark.

This table shows gold, silver, copper and stocks after previous stretches when the metals traded above their 50-day moving averages.

Importantly, gold showed its resilience this year after equities sold off in April following Trump’s “liberation day” tariff announcement, which shocked investors and triggered an ugly reaction in the bond market.

“Fixed income sort of helped, but crypto (BTCUSD) also fell by the wayside, while gold held up,” Samana at Wells Fargo said. “Given the nature of the beast, you look at your last best hedge when markets sell off, and I think it’s fair to say that’s gold.”

Skepticism around inflation and whether it can be tamed next year, especially with tax breaks and the data-center boom likely to reaccelerate the economy, would likely work in favor of metals in 2026, Samana said.

Spending on AI infrastructure is also not expected to let up in the years ahead. The U.S. already has nearly 3,750 data centers, according to the Data Center Map, an industry research tool launched in 2007.

For every new data center, metals have a role in the process. “There’s copper for wiring and silver in a lot of chips,” Samana said. And at least globally, demands for power from data centers will mean harnessing alternative-energy sources, where silver has been playing a major role.

Mike DeStefano and Brian Benner contributed.

Opinion: China launches its silver weapon on Jan. 1. Here’s what that means for prices.

-Joy Wiltermuth

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The City of Boston Planning Department this year made its first substantial changes to the development review process in decades, continued comprehensive zoning reform of the City, and made progress on revitalizing Downtown Boston. Staff also made progress in creating more housing, including through the Office to Residential Conversion Program, the Neighborhood Housing initiative, and approval of projects by the BPDA Board.

Staff advanced 60 new development proposals and 27 notices of project change amounting to 5.8 million net square feet worth approximately $4.8 billion of investment in our City. This includes 3,773 net residential units, of which 1,278 or 29 percent will be income-restricted. The projects approved this year are estimated to generate 5,987 net construction jobs and 3,776 net permanent jobs. Development projects newly approved in 2025 will generate approximately $9.8 million in Linkage fees to support affordable housing, and approximately $1.9 million in Linkage fees to support job training programs. 

Continuing to elevate planning and zoning, staff also rezoned Roslindale Square with Squares + Streets zoning districts to expand areas in Roslindale that allow and welcome more housing opportunity and small business activity. This updated zoning has already resulted in approval of an all-affordable senior housing development with ground floor retail in Roslindale Square, with an additional four projects currently under review.

The Planning Department also continued to advance specific public goals this year on over 750,000 square feet (17+ acres) of underutilized, public land across Boston. These public sites will produce a variety of public benefits and include space for affordable and mixed-income housing, marine industrial and blue tech uses, a community-based non-profit, public libraries, gardens and public outdoor space, and a fire station. Notable new project sites in 2025 included Pier 5, Parcel M, and Welcome Home, Boston Phase 3. Major project milestones included the conveyance of land for the new Chinatown Boston Public Library branch and affordable housing project at Parcel R1, and the Alma Wright Zen Garden at Parcels S-20 and S-21. Upgrades to Pier 10 in the Raymond L. Flynn Marine Park enabled a new commuter water shuttle stop in partnership with the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority and the Seaport Transportation Management Association (TMA), which opened this summer. These redevelopment efforts further the recommendations made in the City’s 2022 land audit to maximize the potential for underutilized sites across Boston to meet goals of producing affordable housing and other community needs.

The Coastal Resilience Delivery Team also released a draft plan for resiliency measures at Long Wharf this fall. This project will recommend solutions to current and near-term flooding, guidelines to retrofit and protect individual structures on Long Wharf, and a set of alternative designs that will contribute to planning and delivering a comprehensive coastal flood protection system through Downtown and the North End.

The sections below provide more detail on major accomplishments and progress of the Planning Department to help make Boston a home for everyone, and tackle Boston’s greatest challenges today: resilience, affordability, and equity.

Planning takes steps to create a more vibrant, residential Downtown through rezoning and office conversions

Following almost two years of zoning-focused engagement with the community, in addition to a multi-year planning process, the Zoning Commission adopted new comprehensive zoning for Downtown Boston in October for the first time in more than 30 years. The zoning meaningfully prioritizes the ability to build new housing and mixed-use development across Downtown in response to the ongoing housing shortage, enabling increased density at the core of Boston’s transit network where it can be best supported. Residential uses are now legal throughout the new zoning districts, whereas large hotel, lab, and office uses will require further zoning approval. The zoning also eliminated outdated and prohibitive land-use restrictions to encourage new and diverse businesses like coffee houses, bakeries, fitness studios, and entertainment uses to thrive, fill empty storefronts, and help drive foot traffic and activity Downtown. 

Building off of the success of the City’s Office to Residential Conversion Program, the new zoning supports historic preservation by eliminating barriers to convert or adapt existing buildings, and also provides extensive design guidelines to ensure sensitivity and preservation of historic areas. 

The City of Boston also extended the application period for the Office to Residential Conversion Program through the end of 2026, due to its success since its last extension in the summer of 2024. The program, which formally launched in October of 2023, has received 22 applications to convert 1.2 million square feet of office space across 27 buildings into 1,517 new homes, including 284 income-restricted units, far exceeding initial city goals. Five projects totaling 306 units are currently under construction, and one of the first buildings to apply for the program at 281 Franklin Street has already been fully tenanted with 15 units. The goal of this program is to support owners and developers of older commercial office buildings in converting them to housing, and to help stabilize the office market downtown while also increasing the housing stock in Downtown Boston. The program is also designed to respond to post-pandemic economic shifts that will prioritize expanding housing options Downtown, creating an 18-hour, mixed-use neighborhood.

Planning makes first substantial changes to development review process in 30 years 

In August, the Zoning Commission approved amendments to Article 80 of the zoning code recommended by the Planning Department to improve the predictability and consistency of the development review process, and lay the groundwork for future reforms as part of the Article 80 Modernization Action Plan. The amendments: change the thresholds and procedures for Boston Civic Design Commission (BCDC) review; make it easier to renovate existing buildings, including rehabilitation for sustainability upgrades and conversions; modernize communication methods with the public; and improve coordination between city departments. Overall, these amendments made the development review process more efficient for housing projects, internal renovations, and sustainability upgrades.

In addition, staff are currently piloting new engagement tools within the review process including: an early engagement toolkit for developers, new training and forms to support increased transparency and clarify expectations for Advisory Group members, signage on the site of a proposed project to better inform the public about new development in their community, and improvements to public meetings to make them more clear and concise. Beginning in July, all new projects began the modernized review process.

All of these improvements will fully go into effect in 2026. Together with the zoning changes, continued operational improvements will lead the city toward a development review process that is easier to use, consistent with existing practice, and set up for future reform.

City releases Anti-Displacement Action Plan

The City of Boston adopted its first ever Anti-Displacement Action Plan, A Place to Thrive, this summer, which lays out a two-year plan for City departments to help stabilize residents, small businesses, and cultural organizations that may face direct or economic displacement, helping to ensure all Bostonians can thrive and flourish here. The City’s anti-displacement efforts are grounded in four main tenets: protect, preserve, produce, and prosper. The City is working to stabilize households by protecting people – particularly lower-income and vulnerable renters and homeowners – from displacement; preserving existing housing; producing new housing for people at all income levels; and promoting prosperity through homeownership.

As part of the Plan, the Planning Department will pilot the first ever Direct Displacement Disclosure. Developers will be asked to notify any current tenants on site of their proposed project 30 days before filing the project with the City, and to notify the City of any possible direct displacement of residential, commercial or cultural tenants that may occur as a result of their project. Displacement impacts will be reviewed and, in certain cases based on the unique circumstances of each project, the City may request displacement mitigation measures as part of the project’s overall mitigation strategy. This will be piloted for the next year as part of the modernized Article 80 development review process. Staff will evaluate the impact of this new policy, share results, and refine as needed.

Roslindale Square rezoned with Squares + Streets zoning districts

The Zoning Commission approved new Squares + Streets zoning districts in Roslindale Square in May on the recommendation of the Planning Department. This followed a year-long community process. The new Squares + Streets zoning districts are aimed at creating a more mixed-use neighborhood center and connecting streets that support walkability, small businesses, outdoor gathering spaces, and new housing growth. The new zoning districts support creating more transit-oriented housing in the plan area. In addition, new zoning will make it easier to: build more housing in the area, make modifications to existing housing that will help preserve the existing supply and build generational wealth, create a backdrop for community development by allowing new cultural anchors in the plan area, and allow new growth and opportunities for small businesses. 

This is the second area of the city where Squares + Streets zoning districts are now implemented. The first location to be mapped with Squares + Streets zoning was Mattapan Square, following the completion of PLAN: Mattapan. 

The Zoning Commission also adopted two new Squares + Streets Districts this year that add a new commercial typology and a mixed-use typology with reduced height, in response to a zoning petition by Hyde Park residents submitted during the Squares + Streets planning process for Cleary Square. Now that these districts have been added to the zoning code, the Cleary Square draft plan and zoning map will be released in January 2026. This plan will include a range of strategies and recommendations aimed at fostering economic vitality, enhancing public spaces, and supporting the unique character of the Square. 

Planning for key corridors is an early phase of citywide zoning reform, focusing on high-impact, near-term, and targeted recommendations that can be implemented through zoning changes and capital investments. As Boston’s population continues to grow, these corridors play a critical role in connecting neighborhoods and ensuring every Bostonian has access to affordable, sustainable, and equitable places to live, work, and play. Additional corridor locations will be announced on a rolling basis.

Net Zero Carbon Zoning goes into effect

The City this year adopted Net Zero Carbon Zoning to create decarbonization requirements for new development projects that advance the City’s goal of being carbon-neutral by 2050. Implemented in July, these updates continue Boston’s leadership in the transition to a more sustainable, low-carbon future for both building materials and energy aligned with the City’s Building Emissions Reduction Disclosure Ordinance (BERDO). Under NZC, projects subject to Article 80 review will minimize energy use, carbon emissions and use renewable electricity to annually achieve net zero carbon emissions. Three projects, all with income-restricted housing, have already been approved under this new zoning this year, and five others are under review. These projects demonstrate the Mayor’s and City’s leadership in moving us closer to our carbon neutral 2050 goals, and proving we can build next generation buildings today.

Enabling Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) and home renovations

As of September, there were 51 ADUs permitted in Boston in 2025, compared with 34 through all of 2024. Building off the momentum from the ADU Guidebook released last November, the Planning Department this year began meeting with residents in West Roxbury, Hyde Park, and Roslindale about the Neighborhood Housing initiative. This zoning will expand the types of housing allowed to be built in Boston citywide, including ADUs, thereby helping the city more effectively respond to the housing shortage. In addition, this new zoning will legalize and simplify the upkeep and renovation of homes. A first draft of new zoning districts in these neighborhoods will be released in early 2026.

Planning in Allston-Brighton

The Planning Department hosted an Ideas Reception this summer for the Allston-Brighton Community Plan, and staff anticipate releasing a draft plan and zoning in 2026. The plan is based on the Allston-Brighton Needs Assessment that identified needs such as more accessible and affordable housing, and convenient public open space, among other things. 

In parallel, the Beacon Park Yard Regional Framework Plan is guiding the long-term redevelopment of this former rail yard into a new mixed-use district, with a focus on housing, job creation, open space, and improved connections to surrounding neighborhoods. The Harvard Enterprise Research Campus (ERC) Plan complements this effort by establishing a framework for a major research- and innovation-focused campus, supporting economic development while advancing transportation improvements, sustainability goals, and public realm investments that benefit the broader Allston-Brighton area. Both of these plans will be released in early 2026.

Boston Design Vision produces ‘Color Flows on Winter Street’ activation downtown

The Planning Department launched ‘Color Flows on Winter Street’ in the fall of 2025, a multi-week public art and public space activation program with fun, interactive events in Downtown Crossing. Winter Street was transformed by colorful art installations, food trucks, and cultural programming, as part of the City’s broader effort to reimagine how Boston’s streets and pedestrian zones can be safer, more engaging, and enjoyable for all. ‘Color Flows’ was one of the first implementation projects coming out of the Boston Design Vision. The activation tested new approaches to transforming public spaces as hubs of community, culture, and economic investment. During the time ‘Color Flows’ was running, 80 percent of the area businesses surveyed reported an increase in foot traffic, and 60 percent reported an increase in sales. In addition, 90 percent of people surveyed during the activation reported feeling safer in Downtown Crossing. Staff are now exploring which neighborhood streets might be good candidates for this type of programming in 2026.

Community Benefits

The Planning Department this year presented more than $433,000 in community benefit grant funds disbursed to 42 local non-profits from projects located Downtown, in South Boston and in Dorchester. The organizations awarded serve the community in a variety of ways including community development, youth programming, and arts and culture.

 

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About the Planning Department

The City of Boston’s Planning Department shapes growth that serves Boston’s residents and centers their needs. Our mission is to address our City’s greatest challenges: resilience, affordability, and equity, and to take real estate actions and prioritize planning, development, and urban design solutions that further these priorities. We seek to build trust with communities through transparent processes that embrace predictable growth and shape a more inclusive city for all. Learn more at bostonplans.org, and follow us on Twitter and Instagram @BostonPlans.