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In 2019, the United States recorded twice as many maternal deaths as in 1999. You may have seen articles under headlines such as “More Mothers Are Dying” that frame this situation as a crisis. The notion that the U.S. has fallen behind other highly developed nations in addressing rising maternal deaths has filtered from academia into activist circles, newsrooms, social media, and everyday conversation. The general public might conclude: In America, pregnancy is getting deadlier by the year. (Jerusalem Demas, 5/30)

I remember the bright red drop of blood on my shoe as I wrapped up a meeting at work. At just shy of nine weeks pregnant, I was having a miscarriage. I knew something was wrong when the ultrasound the week before showed the fetus wasn’t developing right. I had no idea how fast an unviable pregnancy could resolve itself, if it would. And I was shocked by the amount of blood and how quickly it came once it started. I excused myself from the meeting, cleaned myself up and went out to my car to call my midwife. She reassured me that what I was experiencing was normal. (Shireen Ghorbani, 5/29)

In May 2022, when the spread of mpox virus began to be reported outside of Central Africa for the first time, queer health advocates imagined it would become a clear demonstration of a successful emergency response. Because of the similarity between mpox and smallpox, the U.S. government had not only already developed and tested effective diagnostics, a treatment (the antiviral drug TPOXX) and a vaccine but had stockpiles of them all. (Joseph Osmundson, 5/29)

Syphilis, one of the oldest infections known to humans, has returned to the U.S. at epidemic rates that have been climbing since 2001. In 2022, the last year with complete data, the highest number of infections were recorded in more than 70 years. It’s not yet clear why syphilis is spreading faster than other sexually transmitted infections. Recent shortages of single injection penicillin needed to treat this infection threatens to make matters worse. (Jacob D. Moses and Allan M. Brandt, 5/30)

The health care bill passed by the Massachusetts House earlier this month provides a strong foundation for policy makers to address important questions: How can we help financially struggling community hospitals? How can we enhance state oversight of health care transactions to avoid another debacle like Steward’s bankruptcy? And perhaps most importantly, how can we ensure health care is affordable? This board has previously supported policies like those included in the bill that would give state regulators more authority to scrutinize transactions involving for-profit health care. (5/30)