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In Focus

Racism in the Black Body

For decades, researchers have looked at social factors to explain the greater presence of disease in Black populations. But the stress of experiencing racism causes great harm, too.

Researchers have, for decades, tried to catalogue racial disparities and identify what causes them. The first part of that task turns out to be the easy part. National records of heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes all tell the same grim story about a disproportionate harm to Black people in the United States. But only part of those statistics...

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In Depth

Chapter 1: In the Path of the Pandemic

A novel coronavirus would come to affect every ward, clinician, researcher and patient at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Chapter 2: The Virtues of Necessity

As the first COVID-19 patients arrived, pressure mounted to discover how the disease worked and how it could be beaten back.

Chapter 3: The Fight That Lies Ahead

When the caseload began to ease, clinicians came to grips with the new normal as researchers set their sights on ending the pandemic for good.

The Case Against Vaping

As COVID-19 makes lung health a national concern, experts take another look at the dangers of e-cigarettes.

When A Cure Can't Wait

COVID-19 treatment trials will need to be nimble. Is this the moment for adaptive designs to step into the limelight?

Everything Changes

Every tumor begins with a genetic mutation. Understanding how they occur and what they do may revolutionize cancer treatment.

The Personality Game

Character traits can influence heart health, cognitive decline and other health factors. Are people prisoners of their dispositions?

New Mothers on the Brink

They are dying at alarming rates in the United States. Treating mental illness, an often overlooked cause, could save many lives.

The Insomnia Genes

Poor sleep affects almost half of the country, and solutions have been hard to come by. Tracing the problem to its genetic roots may stop the tossing and turning.

The Primary Problem

Long the bedrock of medicine, the practice of primary care has been in need of a reinvention. Several models show promise. None of them will be cheap.

The Art of Active Surveillance

Sometimes prostate cancer is best served by a wait-and-see approach. Yet many patients and doctors can't stand the thought of doing nothing. What would change their minds?

Back From the Brink

Near-death experiences have been the domain of pseudoscience. But clinicians ignore them at their peril.

To Build a Better Vaccine

Waiting a decade or more for new vaccines may be a thing of the past, thanks to the revolution of rational vaccine design.

What Blockchain Could Do

Beneath the hype is a technology that could solve many logistical problems that plague medicine.

Something in Your Voice

New speech analysis technologies can help diagnose mental illness. But they also raise troubling questions.

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Dispatches

Is Health Care’s Racism Treatable?

In the wake of a landmark year of activism, medical schools, hospitals and the research establishment are seeking to excise racial discrimination. How well have they done?

Made to Be Invaded

Mini gut models give scientists a front row seat to some of the most puzzling pathogen behaviors.

Fathers-to-Be, Take Note

A wave of research shows how a pregnancy can be put at risk by drinking, diet and exposures to toxins—on the part of the male.

Podcast: Do Better by Disabled Patients

People who live with a disability are no stranger to overcoming obstacles. But the bias of a clinician shouldn’t be one of them.

What Makes a Kid Clumsy?

More research into coordination disorders shows why some children are more prone to trip, fumble and spill the milk.

Eyes in the Sky

Satellite data can be used to assess the health impact of dust storms and the spread of mosquito-borne diseases. Additional applications could be on the horizon.

Could This One Change Help Curb the Opioid Crisis?

To prescribe an effective bridge to addiction treatment, emergency physicians must get special training and receive a waiver. Making that process easier—or eliminating the requirement altogether—could make a big impact.

One Thing Leads to the Next

Robert Lefkowitz is best known for revealing the mechanism behind hundreds of drugs in use today. But he thinks of himself as a storyteller first and has a new book out to make his case.

Podcast: The Research Year That Was

Medical research labs have faced a difficult stretch of closed buildings and competing priorities. Yet they have also produced milestone discoveries—and not only on COVID-19.

The Shape of Us

Two milestone discoveries in protein modeling promise to change the fundamentals of drug discovery.

Universal Flu Vaccines Move Forward

In the shadow of coronavirus vaccine development, another vaccine was making solid progress.

New Hope for Controlling HIV

By studying elite controllers—people who are able to arrest the progress of HIV without medication—researchers have found a promising new path.

Progress on a Different Plague

A novel use of bacteria could blunt the spread of dengue and other mosquito-borne diseases.

A Better Cholera Vaccine?

Puzzling through the cholera antibody response may help slow a disease that affects millions of people every year.

Fighting COVID-19 with the Body’s Clock

The fledgling field of chronotherapy—timing drugs to a patient’s circadian rhythms—may yet come to the aid of those at risk from the virus.

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From Mass General

What a Hospital is Built For

As COVID-19 first swept through Boston, the people of Massachusetts General Hospital responded. Their efforts offer a portrait of medicine in motion.

Our Response to a Pandemic

Peter L. Slavin and Timothy G. Ferris discuss how Massachusetts General Hospital is tackling COVID-19.

The Changing Landscape of Primary Care

Peter L. Slavin and Timothy G. Ferris discuss a shortage of primary care physicians and how to address the problem.

A Safe and Controversial Place

Physician Mark Eisenberg discusses the furor over (and the desperate need for) safer injection sites.

Next-Generation Vaccines

Peter L. Slavin and Timothy G. Ferris discuss the revolution of rational vaccine design.

A Revolution in Cancer Treatment

Peter L. Slavin and Timothy G. Ferris discuss the promise of CAR T cell therapy for solid tumors.

Climate Change Meets an Aging Population

The most common victims of extreme weather events are older people. New research looks into how the health system fails them, and how it can be fixed.

Singular Exceptions

Should primary care physicians be trained to spot unusual, medically important cases?

Silent No More

Peter L. Slavin and Timothy G. Ferris discuss the need to end workplace violence in health care.

An Extra Pair of (A)Is

Machine intelligence takes a big step into the clinic, with a technology that helps identify patients with an elevated risk of breast cancer.

Doctoring on a Screen

Telemedicine made its first broadcast 50 years ago in an airport clinic.

Ending the AIDS Epidemic

Since the early 1980s, AIDS has killed more than 35 million people worldwide. But researchers are determined to find better treatments, cures and preventions that many finally put an end to the epidemic.

For Some Clots, It Takes a Village

Treatment of pulmonary embolisms may benefit from a team approach. But that model faces obstacles inside and outside the hospital.

Shining a Light on Depression

Peter L. Slavin and Timothy G. Ferris highlight the need for new approaches to treating depression.

A (Small) Cause of Big Pain

Neurologist Anne Louise Oaklander investigates a cause of chronic pain that is treatable without opioids.

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Charts & Data

The Body on Chips

An engineered model of human physiology hits an important milestone.

How to Green a Hospital

Health care leaders look for ways to scale back an outsized carbon footprint.

The New Anatomy

Parts of the body are constantly being proposed or discovered. Where do they come from?

Anatomy of a Hashtag

Public health messaging online yields beautiful—but sometimes worrying—data.

How Did COVID-19 Get Here?

Genomic analysis details how SARS-CoV-2 spread through Boston.

The Village Without Memory

In France, a home for people with dementia is designed from the ground up.

To Choose Death

Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act crosses the 20-year mark.

In Passing

How does a hospital keep patient details from getting lost in the shuffle?

To Catch a Protein

The world of protein imaging undergoes a chilly revolution.

The Next Zika

Vaccines are most helpful before an epidemic hits. So which diseases should researchers prepare for next?

ResearchKit

A software platform from Apple is helping medical researchers collect health data from any iPhone user

White Coats

The standard garb of the physician comes with surprising risks and benefits.

Unsound the Alarm

Hundreds of alarms compete for a clinician's attention. Can less noise mean better care?

Babel in the ICU

Machines in an ICU can't speak to one another—but what if they could?

The Changes We've Seen

Proto looks at trends in health care during the last 10 years.

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