Ben Ryan — Substack
Hazard Ratio is the newsletter of Benjamin Ryan, an independent American journalist based in New York who writes about science and healthcare. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, NBC News, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic, and he became known for his reporting on HIV and AIDS.
What to expect
The newsletter covers public health, medicine, and psychology. A substantial portion of the articles focuses on gender-affirming care for minors in the United States and the related lawsuits and political decisions. Ryan discusses new studies, summarizes court filings, and follows the closure and reopening of clinics. One example of such a political decision is the Medicaid rule ending coverage for gender-affirming care for minors.
Why it is included
Ryan works as a reporter and reads the underlying studies himself, making his articles a useful entry point into the scientific debate. His critical tone regarding the evidence for medical treatment of young people is not without controversy.
The author's background
According to his own biography, Ryan grew up in Seattle as the son of a surgeon and an English teacher. He graduated cum laude from Columbia University and previously lived in Paris and Los Angeles. In addition to the major newspapers, he has written for The Nation, New York magazine, The Marshall Project, The Village Voice, The New York Sun, LGBT publications Out and The Advocate, and the HIV magazine POZ. The journalists' association NLGJA honored his reporting on HIV and AIDS in 2014 and 2019, as well as a profile he wrote in 2020. In 2023, he received an award for reporting on occupational and environmental medicine.
Topics and approach
Ryan describes his field as the intersection of public health, medicine, psychology, and government policy. According to him, the newsletter focuses particularly on gender-affirming care for children and young people and the related lawsuits. The title Hazard Ratio is borrowed from a measure used in medical statistics. That reflects his approach: Ryan examines study design, the size of the groups studied, and what the findings do and do not demonstrate.
How to assess this source
Hazard Ratio is the work of a single journalist, without an editorial team reviewing his work. Ryan describes himself as independent. His background is in mainstream and LGBT media rather than conservative publications, which makes his position in the American debate unusual. Read his summaries alongside the studies themselves. Extensive reporting on gender-affirming care for minors in the United States appeared at Reuters Investigates in 2022. An overview of the research can be found in systematic reviews on gender-affirming care; country-specific rules are listed under policies by country.