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Americans are living longer lives as we make progress against age-related illnesses. But if the added years are lost in dementia, what have we really gained? Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s announcement Monday that he is pushing forward a legislative initiative to fund new research into treatments for dementia is a welcome statement that Texas wants to fight. (11/20)

Vaccines save lives and reduce health care costs. Those are facts. They have been critical public health tools for more than 200 years. Their hallmark achievement was against smallpox, a frequently disfiguring and often fatal disease that killed over 300 million people in the 20th century before a worldwide vaccination campaign eradicated it in 1980. (Michael T. Osterholm and Ezekiel J. Emmanuel, 11/20)

An environmental lawyer, Kennedy is a master at seeding doubt around public health. He employs the same distrust-sowing technique that worked for the tobacco industry for decades, “just asking questions” dissembling that threatens support for science and an already stumbling public health infrastructure. (Maggie Fox, 11/19)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for health and human services secretary, claims that the agencies overseeing the nation’s health are conspiring with the food industry to “poison” the American public, and he intends to fire hundreds of government workers who he believes are complicit in the scheme. (11/20)