Readers respond to the December 2025 issue
MATERNAL MENTAL HEALTH
In “The Mother of Depressions,” Marla Broadfoot reports on a new type of medication that offers better, faster treatment for postpartum depression. I’m a survivor of postpartum depression and anxiety attack, and the article made me stop everything I was doing to thank the work that continues on behalf of mothers and families.
My son was born in 2012. What followed for almost the next year was what I can only describe as a nightmare of epic proportions. Without two things, I don’t know if I would be here today. First, on our local NPR station, I heard a story about the recently opened perinatal psychiatry program at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. The team was able to immediately place me in an intensive care outpatient program.
On supporting science journalism
If you enjoy this article, please consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscription. By purchasing a subscription, you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
I had also seen a flyer for our local maternal mental health support group, Moms Supporting Moms. A year later, I was a trained peer facilitator working on our helpline (a telephone service for non-emergency assistance) and meetings. And a few years later, I featured some of the amazing staff at Postpartum Support International.
Survivors of postpartum depression and anxiety are truly the strongest people I know. My son just turned 13 last spring, and not a week goes by that I don’t marvel at the fact that I’m here and how grateful I am for it.
AMANDA CADRAN BY EMAIL
PLASTIC CRISIS
As a chemist who worked in polymer science, I read “The Pivot to Plastic” by Beth Gardiner with deep trepidation. The environmental crisis associated with synthetic materials is real and urgent, but its nature is more complex than the term “plastics” suggests. What we face involves the entire spectrum of synthetic carbon-based materials, a vast family much larger and more diverse than that single word suggests.
It is essential to remember that these materials have also democratized access to technology and basic goods. Synthetic fibers, for example, have transformed clothing, once a scarce and expensive resource, into something accessible to everyone. This success must not be forgotten, even if fast fashion waste now constitutes one of our most serious challenges.
The influence of the industry in creating this crisis is undeniable. Decades of prioritizing short-term gains have led us to a situation where moving from fuel production to ever-increasing polymer production is not a sustainable strategy. Indeed, it may be doomed to failure. The industry itself is not the enemy, however. We all share this finite planet, and the very companies that helped cause the polymer waste problem must also play a critical role in developing the solutions needed to solve it.
There is no simple cure. But the rule of the “three Rs” – reduce, reuse and recycle – can serve as a compass to guide us. Progress will require strict regulation, a drastic reduction in production at the source, the design of materials that can be reused and recycled, and a realignment of economic incentives toward sustainable products and markets. Activism is vital, but lasting change will come from the combined force of education, informed journalism, scientific research and democratic institutions – just as has happened in the cases of tobacco, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and industrial pollution.
JUAN CAMPORA CHEMICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE, SPAIN
CANCER VACCINES
It’s been 60 years since I was in graduate school, where I recorded mouse melanoma cells using time-lapse micrography. Today, the exciting potential of personalized vaccines to control pancreatic cancer and possibly other cancers such as melanoma, as Rowan Moore Gerety describes in “Your Personalized Cancer Vaccine,” has given hope to people with these deadly diseases. It is dismaying that federal funding for mRNA vaccine research has been suspended or canceled. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. should be held accountable for the unnecessary suffering and deaths this will cause.
Tim Hannert BELLAIRE, MICH.
BOTS ARE NOT FRIENDS
In “Are AI Chatbots Healthy for Teenagers?” » [The Science of Parenting]Elizabeth Englander discusses the dangers of teens using “chatbot companions.”
As a teenager today, I am no stranger to the use of artificial intelligence. But I spent a lot more time with my real friends, and I realized through my own experience that no robot can ever replace the time spent making real connections with real people.
The rise of AI and technology in general has made parenting much more complicated for today’s young people, especially when it comes to spending time with friends. Most kids want to stay indoors, chatting either with real people online or with AI. To combat this, parents should teach their children that AI is a tool and nothing more.
AI is not going away; This is a rapidly growing industry and children need to know how to use it safely and effectively. Children should not be allowed to have “friendships” with chatbots. Their relationship with AI should be designed to be professional, with AI kept as a tool and not a friend.
JACK FESLER BY EMAIL
ANCIENT MORAL PHILOSOPHY
In “The neuroscience of morality” [November 2025]Elizabeth Svoboda presents some findings on a topic worth considering: moral character and the psychology of character development. The subject is so interesting, in fact, that it has been the focus of moral philosophers for at least two and a half millennia. The results reported by Svoboda are worth repeating, and their relationship to known neurophysiological processes is informative, if not surprising.
I would like to add that these questions, with the exception of neuroscientific data, were studied and understood in much more detail by ancient Greek thinkers. Remarkable examples are provided to us by the dialogues of Plato: Meno, The Republic and the Critoamong others — to which we must of course add that of Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics. (Svoboda alludes in passing to Plato’s arguments regarding the definition of virtue in the Meno.) We still have much to learn from these pioneers.
EVAN FALES DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY, UNIVERSITY OF IOWA
CLARIFICATION
“Human on a Bike,” by Allison Parshall and DTAN Studio [Graphic Science; November 2025]noted that bicycles allow us to ride without putting any power into pedaling. This is possible because the wheels and bearings roll with low friction.
