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The future of vaccine policy is uncertain under Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of health and human services, given his history of criticizing vaccines and his desire to change the childhood vaccine schedule. This week, many doctors watched nervously as his handpicked Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccine advisory panel met to debate multiple vaccines. (Daniela J. Lamas, 9/20)

Well, that was close. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee voted 6-6 Friday afternoon against adding a prescription requirement to its recommendations for coronavirus vaccines. (9/19)

In a stunning display of procedural subversion, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s newly installed vaccine advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention moved to upend two cornerstones of the childhood immunization schedule. This week’s actions are the clearest demonstration yet that the health secretary intends to use his handpicked panel to erode the nation’s vaccine safeguards, undermining decades of scientific consensus and inviting the spread of devastating diseases. (Leana S. Wen, 9/19)

This obsession with Trump’s health is part of a broader transformation of American life by what the sociologist Peter Conrad described in a 2007 book as “the medicalization of society.” The concept originally referred to the tendency to recast more and more dimensions of human experience — from childbirth and addiction to shyness, boredom, and distraction — as medical problems in need of professional diagnosis and treatment. (Eric Reinhart, 9/22)

Why has health data — perhaps the most private information in modern society — become so accessible? When it comes to professional athletes, the answer involves sports betting. (Trevan Klug, Yaron Covo, and Mihir Gupta, 9/21)

The largest professional organization representing ear, nose, and throat doctors in the United States endorsed gun silencers last year, ostensibly as a way to prevent hearing loss caused by loud gunfire. (Aru Panwar, 9/22)