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The Department of Health and Human Services recently announced it would wind down 22 mRNA vaccine development projects under the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, halting nearly $500 million in investments. This decision undercuts one of the most significant medical advances in decades, technology that could protect millions more from the threats ahead. I know the stakes because I was BARDA’s director when the United States made the decision to invest heavily in mRNA. That investment did not begin with Covid-19. It began in 2016, when we faced the Zika virus outbreak. (Dr. Rick Bright, 8/18)

For leaders in business, failing to learn the lessons of a crisis can be disastrous. For leaders in government, when millions of lives are at risk, such disasters can be catastrophic. Unfortunately, that’s where the US is heading, thanks to the disagreement that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has with his boss, President Donald Trump. (Michael R. Bloomberg, 8/18)

Physician Brendan Phibbs, who wrote “The Other Side of Time: A Combat Surgeon in World War II,” said, “It is a merciful God that doesn’t let us see the future.” But we all have dreams for that future, and so we went into public health knowing it was not a great approach to riches, and we also knew it was not likely we would ever be thanked. People don’t thank us for something they did not know they were destined to encounter. So we must be secure in the knowledge that what we are doing has a beneficial impact. (William Foege, 8/18)

Many on the left hurriedly resist the idea of reforming civil commitment laws, given the country’s dark history with mass institutionalization. In the 1950s, more than half a million Americans were detained at state psychiatric hospitals, where they were often subjected to unsanitary conditions and inhumane treatment. Most of those facilities have long since closed, thanks to better psychiatric medications and a shift toward community-based services. (8/18)

The message came through before dawn: “Our EHR is down. No access to patient charts.” In a rural clinic, that isn’t just a technical inconvenience. It’s the mother who drove 40 miles before sunrise to get her child’s asthma medication, the farmer who left the fields to review his lab results, the elderly patient who can’t make another trip for months. When systems go dark, there’s no backup facility down the road. For many, that clinic is their only lifeline. Today, that lifeline is under siege. The newest weapon — for both healers and attackers — is artificial intelligence. (Holland Haynie, 8/17)

In July, the National Institutes of Health released a request for information seeking public input on a proposed policy to limit allowable publication costs — the portion of grant funds researchers can use to cover journal fees, including article processing charges (APCs). These fees, which can run from hundreds to several thousand dollars per article, are the current price of making scientific work openly accessible to the public. (Angel Algarin, 8/18)