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The tragedy in Samoa five years ago shows not just how lower vaccination rates can lead to a public health crisis, but also how renewed vaccination campaigns can end such crises. (Josh Green, 1/7)

The middlemen that comprise a growing share of America’s convoluted health-care system find themselves in a bind. The public is angry about the inflated costs and opaque dealings that govern their access to medical care. Lawmakers, despite recent setbacks, are eager to respond. Intermediaries have become an obvious target for blame and reform. (1/7)

In “Double Indemnity,” the Depression era masterpiece about insurance fraud and murder, the anti-hero Walter Huff quickly disabuses the reader from thinking of insurance as a virtuous enterprise: “You think it’s a business don’t you, just like your business, and maybe a little better than that, because it’s the friend of the widow, the orphan, and the needy in time of trouble? It’s not. It’s the biggest gambling wheel in the world.” (Katherine Hempstead, 1/7)

As a physician trained in both internal medicine and pediatrics, I’ve witnessed alcohol play a starring role in the lives — and deaths — of my patients. In the emergency department, it’s the invisible force behind trauma cases, the culprit in new diagnoses of liver cirrhosis, and the reason for the muted tears of those struggling to overcome addiction. (Luis E. Seija, 1/7)

Did you grow up in Connecticut? If so, did you receive sex education, and was it inclusive and comprehensive? Your answer likely depends on what town you grew up in, because Connecticut has no state sex ed requirements beyond human development and HIV/STI education. For many students, that means no information on consent, communication, healthy relationships, or contraceptives. (Kim Adamski, 1/7)

Every time I have moved house — too many times — the cardboard box has followed me, a reminder of my unfulfilled promise to Jon Miller. It contained his journals and letters, mostly from the last 18 months before his death from AIDS/HIV complications in 1990. (John Fleischman, 1/7)