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President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team tried to tamp down the report from leading vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that Mr. Trump had asked him to lead a new panel on the safety of childhood inoculations. The president-elect, we were told, is only exploring the possibility of forming a government commission on autism. But by even entertaining the idea, Mr. Trump — who has his own troubling history when it comes to vaccine safety — gives new life to debunked conspiracy theories tying autism to vaccines. That in turn endangers children’s lives. (1/12)

The Cures Act, formally known as H.R. 34 or the 21st Century Cures Act, passed overwhelmingly in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate in the waning days of the 114th Congress and was signed into law by President Barack Obama on December 13, 2016. Weighing in at nearly 1000 pages, this bipartisan bill is the product of years of hard work by Republican and Democratic lawmakers, in collaboration with a broad array of diverse stakeholders. As with any landmark piece of legislation, the complex negotiations leading up to its passage were challenging and intense. But the final provisions are well worth heralding, including increased support for state efforts to combat opioid abuse, new steps aimed at improving mental health services, and important changes affecting the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health. (Kathy L. Hudson and Francis S. Collins, 1/12)

Over the past year, we’ve seen the life-altering effects of the Zika virus on newborns. Images of babies with abnormally small heads and other birth defects have been shown in newspapers and on TV broadcasts. These images often show the hands of their parents feeding, bathing and comforting them, or the hands of doctors or nurses caring for them. These hands represent the intensive, potentially lifelong support that many of these children will need. For families, this will demand love, patience and hope. For doctors and nurses, it will demand learning new ways to treat patients. For the government, it will require funding, research and commitment. (Tom Frieden and Edward McCabe, 1/12)

The first time the sugar industry felt compelled to “knock down reports that sugar is fattening,” as this newspaper put it, it was 1956. Papers had run a photograph of President Dwight D. Eisenhower sweetening his coffee with saccharin, with the news that his doctor had advised him to avoid sugar if he wanted to remain thin. The industry responded with a national advertising campaign based on what it believed to be solid science. (Gary Taubes, 1/13)

Sugar may well be a killer. The conventional thinking is that it’s an “empty calorie” — it fills you up without providing nutrients. But there’s a growing body of research suggesting that sugar actually triggers a disorder known as metabolic syndrome, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says now afflicts 75 million Americans. If it does, then it plays a critical role in virtually every major chronic disease, including obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer and even dementia. The catch is that the evidence is ambiguous. At this point, scientists can’t tell us definitively whether this accusation against sugar is true. Nor can they exonerate sugar. (Gary Taubes, 1/13)

If any more proof were needed that current laws and policies aren't separating the most deranged individuals from the most destructive weapons, it came in last week’s mass shooting at the Fort Lauderdale airport. (1/12)

My heart goes out to the victims of the gun violence in Florida and their families, but increasing forced psychiatric treatment is the wrong answer. More forced treatment won’t prevent such tragic events: Virtually every significant study has concluded that people with mental illness are no more likely to be violent than matched controls in the community. (Daniel Fisher, 1/12)

There are two quite different stories about why there is a prescription drug crisis in the United States, and why opioid-related deaths have quadrupled since 1999. At some level, you are probably aware of both. Earlier this year, I interviewed people in the New Hampshire towns worst affected by this crisis — from imprisoned addicts to grieving families. Even the people who were living through it would alternate between these stories, without seeing that, in fact, they clash, and imply the need for different solutions. Thousands of lives depend on which of these tales is correct. (Johann Hari, 1/12)

John Ashcroft stood in the place of Jeff Sessions the last time a new Republican administration came to power. Like Sessions, Ashcroft was a conservative senator who had been nominated to be attorney general. Also like Sessions, Ashcroft became a top target of Senate Democrats. ... One difference between the two nominees is that Ashcroft was more defensive about abortion. (Ramesh Ponnuru, 1/12)