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The H5N1 bird flu may not officially qualify as a pandemic pathogen yet, but it could easily kill many more people and wreak economic havoc in 2025.In the last few weeks, the virus has spun off a new variant that has killed one person and sent a teenager into critical condition. (F.D. Flam, 2/13)

The Senate has just confirmed as health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a science denialist who once said there is no vaccine that is safe and effective, who has suggested that Covid might have been genetically engineered to spare Jewish and Chinese people and who spent more than 100 pages in his recent book breathing new life into the idea that H.I.V. does not cause AIDS. (Gregg Gonsalves, 2/13)

In pre-COVID times, I published a book about how to use data in early-childhood parenting, and one of the book’s long chapters was on vaccines and evidence for their safety. When the book was published, I wondered whether I would get questions on this topic. Breastfeeding, sleep training, and day care all came up regularly. But I remember being asked about vaccines only once. People seemed to have read the chapter, accepted it, and moved on. (Emily Oster, 2/13)

Trump has taken issue with the way the National Institutes of Health funds “indirect costs” through research grants. It’s a topic ripe for Congress, with input from scientific researchers, to reconsider. But the president’s slash-and-burn approach threatens ongoing research and precludes reasoned discussion of how best to allocate money. (2/13)

Margaret Carpenter, based in New Paltz, New York, has been indicted for prescribing abortion pills to a person in Louisiana — where nearly all abortions are illegal, even in cases of rape or incest. It isn’t the only legal threat she faces: In December, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Carpenter for sending abortion pills to someone in the state. On Thursday, a judge fined her more than $100,000 and ordered her to stop prescribing and mailing abortion drugs to Texas patients. I know Carpenter as “Dr. Maggie.” She has been a hero of mine for a long time, but not just for standing up for people’s rights to reproductive health. When I was 35, she helped save my life. (Maya Gottfried, 2/14)