How will the world look in the year 2058? Sixty thinkers from around the world rise to that challenge in “The Way We Will Be 50 Years From Today,” a collection of essays edited by longtime journalist Mike Wallace.

The consensus view is that we’ll muddle through many of the issues that vex us today – [...]

As doctors struggle to eradicate polio worldwide, one of their biggest problems is persuading parents to vaccinate their children. In Belgium, authorities are resorting to an extreme measure: prison sentences.Two sets of parents in Belgium were recently handed five month prison terms for failing to vaccinate their children against polio. Each parent was also fined [...]

A woman dying of Alzheimer’s has a fever. Should she be given antibiotics? Many people would say yes. But a provocative new study suggests that antibiotics are overused in people dying of dementia diseases and should be considered more carefully because of the growing problem of drug-resistant superbugs.
The study raises ethical questions about when it’s [...]

Months before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made Atlanta lawyer Andrew Speaker the unwitting poster boy for drug-resistant tuberculosis, the agency and its advisers discussed a strategy to get more funding by publicizing the deadly strain of the disease, records show.
Frustrated that money for combating TB had dwindled as Congress favored newer threats [...]

In the face of terrorism and catastrophic natural disasters, modern regional trauma systems that improve survival for critically injured patients are more vital than ever.
Yet many fundamental assumptions underlying these systems — such as the notion that it is imperative to send the sickest patients to the hospital first — have rarely been subjected to [...]

With an estimated 2.1 billion airline passengers roaming the planet last year alone, infectious diseases are spreading faster than ever before, the U.N. health agency said Thursday, calling on governments to follow its revised regulations for fighting dangerous health crises.
“Vulnerability is universal,” WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan said in an introduction to the annual World [...]

The Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld the jailing of a tuberculosis (TB) patient who failed to comply with her treatment regimen. Ruby Washington had been diagnosed with noninfectious TB in 2005 by the staff of a TB control clinic. When she failed to appear to receive medication, the City of Milwaukee Health Department issued a directly-observed therapy [...]