COVER STORY

The Other Cost Crisis

Billing for care now costs almost a third as much as providing it. It's time to cut the paperwork.

Halting Schizophrenia

After symptoms begin but before reality departs, aggressive treatment may forestall the disease. But is the intervention worth the risks?

Dying to Live

Long the stuff of science fiction, suspended animation also has a medical history—and it could soon save trauma victims.

Prevention's New Profits

Once poised to defeat infectious disease, vaccines beat a long retreat. Now they’re back, and gaining new ground.

Too Soon for Surgery?

Operating in the womb sometimes has miraculous results. Yet many still question whether it should be done at all.

Message from the MGH

Academia’s role in driving innovation, by Peter L. Slavin and David F. Torchiana.

Second Opinion

Readers talk about the problem with lab animals and an important warning about heart disease.

Our Earth, Our Health

Eric Chivian, founder of the Center for Health and the Global Environment, worries that some medical mysteries may remain forever unsolved as a result of global climate change.

Hospital Bound

Hospitalists care only for hospitalized patients. Do they confer any benefit over internists?

The Eight Americas

Universal medical insurance isn’t the golden ticket to universally improved health, warn researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health.

The Balm in the Willows

The most popular drug in the world—aspirin—would never have won FDA approval. Fortunately, the active ingredient was isolated in 1828.

Class Conflict

Pharmacists propose a third category of drugs—“behind the counter”—which they, not doctors, would prescribe.

The Autism Gene

Researchers have found the first strong genetic cause to be specifically associated with autism.

Human Microbiome

Scientists have had only a glimmer of an idea how microbes affect our bodies; a $115 million National Institutes of Health project aims to find out.

After a Terrorist Attack

Photographer Diane Covert sheds light on victims of terrorist attacks with her photography exhibit featuring x-ray photos of the victims.

Damned Spot!

The first dermatologist told the writer that she was just seeing things. But finally, magically, the second dermatologist saw what the writer saw.