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This week, the World Health Organization — which works globally to improve human health — will meet in Geneva to select a new director general. We have a mission for that leader: take on factory farms, a major threat to health and the environment. Starting just after World War II, animal production in the United States became increasingly industrialized. ... worldwide, meat production has tripled over the last four decades and increased 20 percent in just the last 10 years, according to research by the Worldwatch Institute, an environmental research group. This sweeping change in meat production and consumption has had grave consequences for our health and environment, and these problems will grow only worse if current trends continue. (Scott Weathers, Sophie Hermanns and Mark Bittman, 5/21)

It is not surprising but it is deeply depressing that the Trump administration is reviving the “global gag rule” — so called because it bans U.S. financial assistance to non-governmental healthcare organizations in foreign countries if they provide abortions or even utter the word to their patients in counseling them or referring them elsewhere. ... The rule was bad enough in its earlier form, when it barred aid to family planning organizations that offered abortion or abortion counseling. ... But the new Trump administration incarnation of the rule is far more expansive. (5/22)

When video surfaced last fall of Donald Trump boasting about sexual assault, outrage erupted. But if Trump’s words about women were offensive, his policies are incomparably more consequential — and may cost more lives than in any other area of his governance. Yes, the phrase “war on women” may seem hyperbolic, but it also reflects the devastating impact of Trump’s policies on women’s health. One danger is that we’re so focused on the battles at the White House that we neglect the administration’s policy impact at the grass roots — on, say, women who will die unnecessarily all over the world from cervical cancer. (Nicholas Kristof, 5/20)

As with so much else, the Trump administration has stumbled in its initial efforts to combat opioid addiction. Given the magnitude of the crisis, healthcare professionals have an obligation to speak out against ill-considered policies. ... Citizens of all political persuasions have cried out for a comprehensive approach to this scourge. Not only must the healthcare system reckon with its misguided approach to treating pain, policymakers must address the reality that the worst of the addiction crisis is being felt in communities experiencing economic decline, poverty, violence and despair. (Merrill Goozner, 5/20)

"They are everywhere. Like, every event, every forum.”T his is how anti-vaccine activists were described by a community outreach worker in Minneapolis, where the Somali-American population was systematically and incessantly warned against vaccines. ... The campaign led to an increase in mistrust of vaccines, particularly measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine, among Somali-American parents, as well as dangerously low vaccination rates — 41 percent among 24-to-35-month-olds, according to one estimate. You don’t have to be an epidemiologist like me to comprehend the consequences of such drastic drops in vaccination rates. (Saad Omer, 5/19)

The need to terminate a pregnancy knows no political affiliation or religious faith. I’ve hugged, cried with and held the hands of hundreds of people who’ve had abortions, many of whom never thought they would. All were thankful that someone was there to provide care, sit with them when they were alone and hold their hair as the nausea took over. All felt the stigma and shame society thrusts on them. The abortion debate rages on, but the voices of those who’ve actually had abortions are ignored. Few people try to understand our lives. And we are never asked the most simple but important question: Why did you do it? (Renee Bracey Sherman, 5/20)

For my generation, breastfeeding has become the ultimate status symbol. I could not possibly count the number of times I was asked while pregnant if I intended to breastfeed my child. ... Though I probably will never be asked if I graduated college with honors, I will be asked how I fed my child for decades to come. Breastfeeding is the Phi Beta Kappa of millennial motherhood. I wanted membership. But as I would soon learn, deciding to breastfeed is one thing, doing it quite another. (Lizzie Garrett Mettler, 5/21)

As longtime advocates for healthy school meals for schoolchildren, we agree that school meals should be great — our children deserve nothing less. We respectfully differ with the secretary on one point. Children will eat meals that meet the higher nutrition standards — and there is ample evidence to support our claim. (Ellen Parker and Ronald E. Kleinman, 5/22)

Around the world, noncommunicable diseases — including heart disease, cancer, and diabetes — and injuries from traffic crashes and other causes kill 44 million people a year. In fact, these illnesses and accidents kill more people than communicable diseases such as AIDS, tuberculosis, or malaria. Yet it’s much harder to get funding to tackle them. Noncommunicable disease cause two-thirds of the deaths in low- and middle-income countries, but less than 1 percent of total development assistance for health goes toward addressing them.  (Thomas R. Frieden, 5/19)