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Bill and Melinda Gates handed the world a report card last week, assessing its progress on 18 global health indicators: infant mortality, AIDS, vaccine use, smoking rates and so on. Called “Goalkeepers,” the report was a huge statistical effort, three years in the making, aimed squarely at the world leaders gathering at the United Nations General Assembly this month. To draw extra attention to it, the Gateses will hold an awards dinner and a public release this week featuring former President Obama. (McNeil, 9/18)

Most patients getting an MRI don’t know to ask a critical question: Will the MRI use gadolinium or not? Magnetic resonance imaging with a gadolinium-based contrast agent, called a GBCA, leaves metal deposits in the body’s organs and tissues including the brain, research shows. Scientists are exploring whether the deposits harm patients. (Reddy, 9/18)

Tattoos or pierced body parts have long been considered a red flag for pediatricians who found them on their patients. Physicians who came across an inked symbol or a navel ring while examining an adolescent or young adult were taught to probe for other dangerous behaviors, including drug use, weapons carrying, risky sexual activity, and self-injury. In a flood of ink both literal and figurative, that medical advice has been washed away. (Healy, 9/18)

Angela Cooper arrived home from work to discover her daughter’s temperature had spiked to 102 degrees — a sign that the teenager, who has cancer, had a potentially deadly bloodstream infection. As Cooper rushed her daughter to the hospital, her mind raced: Had she done something to cause the infection? (Bailey, 9/19)