The Pandemic’s Hidden Victims

How COVID-19 Made Other Illnesses More Deadly

If we told you that marathons lead to spikes in deaths from heart attacks, you might picture exhausted weekend warriors collapsing before they cross the finish line. The story is not that simple. In 2017, Harvard researchers found that blocking traffic during events like marathons delayed emergency care response by 4.4 minutes on average. In some cases, those few minutes proved fatal. No more heart attacks were recorded on marathon days, but more of them led to death.

Something similar happened during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the …

by Maria Carnovale and Imre Varju | August 16, 2021

The 1918 Flu Pandemic That Revolutionized Public Health

Mass Death Changed How We Think About Illness, and Government's Role in Treating It

By Laura Spinney | September 26, 2017

Nearly 100 years ago, in 1918, the world experienced the greatest tidal wave of death since the Black Death, possibly in the whole of human history. We call that tidal …

In Medicine, Dying Doesn’t Have to Be a Struggle

Options, Not Treatment, May Be What’s Most Needed at the End of Life

By Paul Bisceglio | January 21, 2016

Grandma’s dying.

She lived a full life, but illness is getting the best of her. Could be days, could be weeks, the doctors say—unless, that is, she tries one particular treatment. …

Has Modern Medicine Made Dying Harder Than Ever?

Hospitals Have Gotten Better at Keeping Us Alive, But That Also Means Thornier Questions at the End of Life

January 19, 2016

In his 2010 New Yorker essay “Letting Go,” surgeon Atul Gawande stops by the intensive care unit at his hospital and describes the sad state of its patients at the …

Why I Want ‘Dallas Buyers Club’ to Win Best Picture

A Historian Says the Movie Captures the Emotional Exhaustion Hundreds of Thousands of Americans Experienced During the HIV/AIDS Crisis of the ’80s and ’90s

by Andrea Milne | February 26, 2014

I don’t usually bother with the Oscars, but this Sunday I’ll be on my sofa, snacks in hand, watching the 86th annual Academy Awards in real time. I’m forgoing my …

When Cancer Put Me Under Suspicion

I Didn’t Realize Illness Would Threaten My Credibility. Running 26 Miles Helped.

by Claire Peeps | January 30, 2014

In late 2006, I underwent a clean, routine mammogram. Six weeks later, I found a small lump in my left breast. Two weeks and two surgeries after that, on January …

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