Longforms: Preeclampsia, old fashioned infectious disease, Hantavirus test, and reversing terminal disease
May 16, 2026
A. Mother’s Day reflection on the health crisis of preeclampsia
Tina Sturdevant of The Athletic (gift link) reports on the many Black female athletes who have experienced preeclampsia, a dangerous complication of pregnancy that can be fatal to both mother and baby. Three members of the US 2016 Olympic 4x100 relay team were affected — one died. The story is a powerful reminder that the US has worse maternal mortality outcomes than other developed nations, and that these deaths devastate not just families but entire communities.
B. This 93-year-old doesn’t want to make infectious disease great again
Fran Moreland Johns remembers when a friend went blind from measles, when children were kept indoors during polio outbreaks, and when, as a second grader, she visited a friend confined to an iron lung. Writing in The Atlantic (gift link), she draws on these memories to argue against complacency about vaccine-preventable diseases — and against any nostalgia for the era before we had tools to stop them.
C. Inside the race to develop a test for the Andes Hantavirus
When COVID arrived in the US in 2020, the absence of reliable tests made it nearly impossible to distinguish the new virus from the flu or a common cold. The CDC compounded the problem by distributing flawed tests while delaying approval of accurate PCR tests from outside labs. That history adds urgency to Wired’s Emily Mullin reporting on how Nebraska’s Public Health Laboratory, which runs the containment facility housing people exposed on the Hantavirus-infected cruise, raced to develop and deploy accurate tests as passengers were repatriated to countries around the world.
D. When your terminal cancer becomes a chronic illness
Physician and writer Daniela Lamas writes in the New York Times (gift link) about patients whose cancers had spread widely and who were told they had weeks or months to live, only to find themselves still alive, and living well, years later, thanks to new immunotherapy drugs. Many had already made funeral arrangements and said their goodbyes. Lamas grapples with what it means to reframe a death sentence as a manageable condition, and with the steep and growing cost of the treatments making that possible.
Correction: The summary of yesterday’s post misstated which home colorectal cancer test had the higher return rate. It was Cologuard. I corrected this by 7am, but the incorrect version went out with the morning Substack alert. I apologize for my error.
Animal Photo:
Red tailed hawk in a red maple tree last week near my house in suburban Boston,
