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Better late than never. Although lawmakers finished formal sessions July 31 with a raft of unfinished business, they made clear last week that some important issues are still being addressed. A conference committee released a bill on maternal health Wednesday, and lawmakers voted in informal sessions Thursday to send it to Governor Maura Healey. (8/20)

For the second time in three years, the WHO has declared an mpox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern. Since news of the epidemic, the media has circulated images of patients infected with mpox. Some of these photographs show mpox on patients’ arms, legs, and hands, but others are headshots that resemble mugshots of African people with mpox covering their faces. (Jim Downs, 8/19)

Off-patent medicines provide people with access to high-quality essential treatment options that can be significantly less expensive than branded on-patent medicines. Off-patent therapies — generics and biosimilars — represent a system-critical industry that delivers around 80% of medicines used worldwide at a fraction of the cost of branded medicines. (Michael Banks, 8/20)

Prevention is key to health and wellness. Don’t wait too late to have these simple, essential medical devices on hand. (Howard Zucker, 8/19)

Last week, a mask ban in Nassau County, New York was signed into law. If I lived just 60 miles east of my New Jersey town, I would be under threat of a fine or jail time every time I left the house. I’ve been masking consistently in public since 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic began, because I have a kidney transplant and will take immunosuppressant medication for the rest of my life. (Kaitlin Costello, 8/20)