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Nearly 30 years ago, the author William Styron outed himself in these pages as mentally ill. “My days were pervaded by a gray drizzle of unrelenting horror,” he wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed article, describing the deep depression that had landed him in the psych ward. He compared the agony of mental illness to that of a heart attack. Pain is pain, whether it’s in the mind or the body. So why, he asked, were depressed people treated as pariahs? (Pagan Kennedy, 8/3)

In early 2018, a United Nations special rapporteur on adequate housing made headlines during an unofficial visit to San Francisco and Oakland, California, by comparing the living conditions for those people residing on the streets of these cities with what she had observed in Mumbai, India, and by calling this state of affairs a violation of international human rights law. Indeed, it is hard to explain how, in one of the wealthiest regions of the world at a time of human history when the overall standard of living has never been higher, we have encampments of people living without toilets, sinks, showers, refrigerators, or cooking facilities. (Michael Incze and Mitchell H. Katz, 7/30)

Data from the U.S. Census Bureau may not seem political or imminently relevant to your life, but I can assure it is both. The census helps dictate how federal tax dollars are spent, based on how many people live in given communities. And it determines long term representation at the federal, state and local levels. Now anti-immigrant policy makers are trying to make changes to the census that will endanger everyone’s access to health care services; and immigrant communities will be hurt most. (Bridgette Gomez, 8/2)

I’d written about health care for seven years. Worked on the business side of a clinic for two years. Was raised by a nurse. So I thought I had a pretty good understanding of health care in the U.S. Then I got pregnant. Navigating the system for nine months was a refresher course in how convoluted, secretive and occasionally magical American health care can be. (Audrey Dutton, 8/2)

China, with its huge population and its position as the second-largest pharmaceutical market in the world, should be poised to become a world leader in clinical trials for new drugs and devices. But it isn’t quite ready for that. Problems with protecting clinical trial participants, inadequate clinical trial infrastructure, and poor transparency make China an unreliable country in which to conduct a clinical trial. As a clinical research professional with more than a decade of global industry experience, I’ve seen clinical trials conducted in many countries but have yet to work with a U.S. company that has opted to conduct a clinical trial in China. (Anne Poli, 8/3)

In the aftermath of the mass shooting at a social services center in San Bernardino, California, in 2015, President Barack Obama suggested that the relationship between firearm ownership and gun injuries might be as strong as the connection between cigarette smoking and lung cancer. The full extent of the burden of firearm injuries is incompletely understood because of historical restrictions on federal funding for research on firearm violence by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). But recent increases in the frequency and lethality of mass shootings in the United States — and the approximately 90 gun deaths that occur each day — argue for efforts to reframe the national debate about firearms as a public health issue. (John Maa and Ara Darzi, 8/2)

Anyone with a computer or smartphone can share their opinions online about any product, facility or professional. Someone happy with a restaurant might post a positive review on yelp.com. Someone not happy with a car repair might post negative comments about a mechanic on Facebook. Medical professionals are not immune to such public rants and raves. Yet doctors are fighting back, according to a recent USA TODAY Network investigation. (8/2)

The capture of the suspected Golden State Killer illustrated that DNA information may derive from testing that an implicated person doesn’t know has occurred. Realizing DNA testing’s great potential as a public health tool will require managing its potential for misuse. (Thomas May, 8/2)

Healthy Youth is not a radical bill. It simply ensures that any sex education taught in our public schools be grounded in fact and science, teach about consent and healthy relationships, and be LGBTQ affirming. ...This means, some of our students may learn that they shouldn’t bother with birth control because it doesn’t work (that’s false), or that queer students are damaged and wrong, or that girls who have sex with more than one partner are as valuable as used chewing gum. (Jaclyn Friedman, 8/3)

Senate Bill 8, which the Legislature passed last year, requires abortion facilities specifically to bury or cremate any cells or other fetal tissue after a procedure, regardless of the faith beliefs or wishes of the woman. ...But too often I see political leaders impose their own faith beliefs on those who don’t share them, particularly regarding the treatment of women. (Amy Cohen, 8/2)