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When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, Justice Brett Kavanaugh argued that abortion policy was best left to elected leaders. In the 11 months since, numerous legal challenges have kept the question of abortion care firmly within the judicial branch. (5/4)

Psychiatry’s guiding paradigm is that some extremes of mood are sufficiently severe that they constitute illness. But a longstanding criticism of psychiatry claims that the issues it professes to treat are just ordinary aspects of the human condition (or “problems in living” as the psychiatrist Thomas Szasz, a staunch critic of his own profession, would have it) that are being unnecessarily pathologized. (Huw Green, 5/5)

People with Down syndrome have an extra copy of the 21st chromosome — the chromosome on which the gene that codes for amyloid precursor protein is located. The accumulation of amyloid plaque in the brain is associated with the development of Alzheimer’s. Though the amyloid theory of Alzheimer’s is controversial, one thing is clear: Around 70% of people with Down syndrome will be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in their 40s and 50s. (Michelle Sie Whitten, 5/5)

Right now, a vote to fund the bipartisan 9/11 Responder and Survivor Health Funding and Correction Act is still pending, and some lawmakers from around the country have not yet said they will support it. The CDC-run health program is facing massive cuts in just a few years. This program is a lifeline to our sickened members, and those working in rescue and recovery on 9/11 and the days and months after, more than 11,000 of whom are under medical monitoring. It is unconscionable to have to continually seek support from lawmakers outside New York, and beg for funding for this essential, life-saving program, even while the numbers are clear. (Laura Kavanagh, 5/5)