Medicine & Health

During the 1898-1904 pox epidemic, public health officials and policemen forced thousands of Americans to be vaccinated against their will. Historian Michael Willrich examines that epidemic's far-reaching implications for individual civil liberties in Pox: An American History.

In this week's New Yorker, Atul Gawande asks whether it's possible to lower medical costs by giving the neediest patients better care. Gawande says that primary care physicians who target the chronically ill are the new leaders in health care reform.

After a routine mammogram, brest cancer specialist Dr. Marisa Weiss was diagnosed with a breast tumor. The founder of breastcancer.org discusses her diagnosis and treatment -- and how she feels about new mammography guidelines.

Oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee chronicles how our understanding of cancer has evolved in his new book The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer.

Dr. Barry Straube, the chief medical officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, offers his assessment of the nation's kidney dialysis program -- and what it could mean for the future of universal health care.

Science writer Jennifer Ackerman explores "the uncommon life of your common cold" in her new book, Ah-Choo! She explains why colds follow that familiar throat-to-nose-tochest path of misery -- and details what science shows about various cold remedies. (Prepare to be disappointed.)

Technology can prolong the lives of the terminal ill -- but at what cost? Surgeon and New Yorker writer Atul Gawande examines the difficulties for medical professional and families who must decide when to stop medical intervention and focus on improving a patient's last days.

If public health officials know how to prevent malaria, the mosquito-borne pathogen that kills more than a million people each year, why isn't more being done to eradicate the infectious disease? That's the question journalist Sonia Shah decided to answer in her book, The Fever, which examines why malaria continues to spread around the globe.

What's wrong with the field of psychiatry? Psychiatrist Daniel Carlat says some American psychiatrists are too busy prescribing drugs to actually talk to people. Carla talks about the forgotten art of therapy and the influence of drug companies on the profession in his new book, Unhinged.

In 2008, historian Tony Judt was diagnosed with ALS, a progressive motor-neuron disease. For the past several months, Judt has been writing a series of essays for The New York Review of Books, charting life in what he calls a "progressive imprisonment without parole."