Covid spreads too easily to think it can be confined to the young.
Limiting Covid's impact requires us to think differently about confronting respiratory pathogens in the winter.
Confronting a dangerous pandemic requires containing spread wherever it is reasonably possible. Sensible measures such as universal masking, testing and widespread and rapid contact tracing can help. The best way to protect the vulnerable is to try to protect everyone.
Under Obamacare, doctors have been strained by costly new regulations, intricate payment 'reforms' that tie their Medicare reimbursement to complex federal reporting requirements, and mandates that they install and make 'meaningful' use of electronic health records.
Covid-19 has altered world history.
The convergence of information technology and biology allows scientists to translate the human genome into digital data that can accelerate diagnoses and cures.
America tolerates a heavy toll from the flu on health and productivity. But if Covid becomes a twin risk, the heath-care system will struggle to fight both at once.
President Obama famously promised that the Affordable Care Act would not only slow the growth in health care costs, but would also reverse these trends, making the average health insurance plan cheaper. That isn't happening.
Covid is likely to persist once its pandemic phase has passed and circulate each winter alongside the flu. Even after more of us contract coronavirus infection and develop immunity to it or even after an effective vaccine arrives, some people will still get very sick.
When gene therapy was believed to harbor latent risks, research was largely put on hold until the risks were better understood. Sometimes, the theoretical risks have led to a principle of absolutist precaution that impedes progress.
Cell-based and regenerative medicine can restore human functions lost to disease, including returning some sight to the blind.
The ability of working class Americans to bargain for health coverage at work gave them access to the same basic packages of benefits as executive management teams.
Gene therapies and other treatments that can cure - not just treat - disease are going to be expensive. All of the cost of innovating and reaping an economic return may need to be recouped in a single payment.
Antibiotic resistance is as old as the dirt that coats our planet.
When some states introduced mandatory smallpox vaccinations during the epidemic of 1898-1903, Americans resisted by the thousands. The ensuing battles produced medical conventions and case law that altered the balance between government authority and medical practice, in favor of federal control.
Many inherited disorders can perpetuate poverty by leading to disabilities that disrupt people's ability to work. In turn, someone's capacity to secure an effective new cure for these diseases can mean the difference between a life led productively, or one plagued by infirmity.
When I was a medical student, a pulmonary professor of mine cajoled me into joining a clinical trial that she was running. The general aim of the tests was to determine whether prolonged periods of short and shallow breathing would cause a person's lungs to go into spasm. It turns out, as I can attest, that they do.
Reformers in Washington need to do a better job of explaining how market-based alternatives to ObamaCare are a better outcome for the structure and delivery of health care.
As Apple advances the medical promise of its watch and smartphones, it has also made clear that its foremost aim is to steer clear of Food and Drug Administration regulation.
There are two main types of immunity to an infection. Innate immunity comes from circulating cells that attack any invader the body views as foreign. Adaptive immunity is specific to the pathogen presented. Through adaptive response, immune cells are programmed to secrete antibodies that are primed to target a viral invader.
