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Every week or so, scientists issue another warning that the H5N1 bird flu is inching closer to exploding into a pandemic. Despite having contended with a pandemic that broke out less than five years ago, the US has no solid plan to handle a new one — nor have our leaders done anything to incorporate the lessons learned from the government’s less-than-ideal handling of Covid-19. (F.D. Flam, 12/16)

Americans spend more on health care than the citizens of any other country, and get less for it. Insurance does not really function as insurance here, in that it fails to shield policyholders from debilitating health-care costs. Premiums are obscene: The average family paid $23,968 for a private, employer-sponsored plan in 2023. (Annie Lowrey, 12/14)

The connection between infection and chronic disease is one I know personally. A few years ago, I was diagnosed with oral cancer. My doctors tracked the cause to a human papillomavirus (HPV) infection I’d had many decades earlier. I am 69, and when I was growing up, there was no HPV vaccine like there is today — a vaccine developed thanks to infectious disease research. (Larry Schlesinger, 12/16)

The Biden Justice Department on Dec. 4 challenged before the Supreme Court a Tennessee law that bans the use of puberty blockers and hormones for gender-transition treatments in minors on the grounds that it unlawfully discriminates based on sex. (12/15)

For a time in the early 2000s, it seemed as if the world was gaining ground against malaria, but progress has stalled, cases have risen and the hopes for its near-elimination by 2030 have been scuttled. (Lorie Zoloth, 12/15)