A hantavirus outbreak aboard the Dutch flagged expedition cruise ship MV Hondius has brought renewed attention to a disease that many people have not heard about since the Four Corners outbreak in the United States during the 1990s. As of May 4, 2026, the World Health Organization reported seven cases linked to the ship, including two laboratory confirmed hantavirus infections and three deaths. In this article, you will find the latest information about the MV Hondius outbreak, along with relevant journalistic and academic context that offers a brief introduction to infectious disease epidemiology and outbreak investigation.

On April 25th each year, Italy commemorates Liberation Day, marking the fall of Fascism and the end of Nazi occupation in 1945. Public memory often focuses on partisan resistance, political transformation, and the rebirth of democracy. Yet hidden within the history of Liberation Day is another important story: the story of health, medicine, and survival. The final years of World War II left Italy socially devastated. Cities were bombed, infrastructure collapsed, and food shortages became widespread. In many regions, hospitals struggled to function under impossible conditions. Medicines were scarce, sanitation systems deteriorated, and infectious diseases spread rapidly among civilian populations. Tuberculosis, malnutrition, and preventable illnesses affected thousands of families already living under the strain of occupation and war. For ordinary Italians, survival itself became a public health crisis.

It has been a while since I last documented my French experience. In the meantime, I finally received my Carte Vitale, my benefits kicked in, and for the first time, I could see the white light at the end of the long French bureaucratic tunnel. 

When Bad Bunny took the stage at the Super Bowl, what unfolded felt instantly recognizable to anyone who has spent time in working-class neighborhoods across the United States.

For many Europeans, the Christmas and New Year holidays are a time of movement. Winter towns come alive. Switzerland, in particular, draws thousands of young people from France and Italy each year who cross the border to ski, celebrate, and welcome the new year in places associated with beauty, leisure, and safety. I might have been one of them, had I not been in Italy for the holidays. That is what makes this tragedy especially disheartening and so personal. You arrive somewhere to celebrate the future. You count down the final seconds of the year. You step into 2026 surrounded by friends, music, and light. And then, forty minutes later, that is all the new year you will ever know. Forty minutes of 2026, and then nothing more.

On December 5, 2025, RFK Jr.’s newly appointed CDC vaccine panel voted to end the universal recommendation for hepatitis B vaccine at birth. The change was driven by vaccine-skeptical members RFK Jr. appointed to the panel. However, the vaccine has decades of safety data and is proven safe and effective.

Ce matin, un article du Journal du Dimanche est apparu dans mon fil d’actualité, indiquant que l’intégration professionnelle des personnes vivant avec un handicap en France demeure très lente. Et même si l’intention de l’article est louable, il utilise encore le terme « handicapé », un mot profondément stigmatisant qui est tombé en désuétude aux États-Unis ainsi que dans plusieurs autres pays de l’Union européenne. Ce terme réduit une personne à une seule caractéristique au lieu de reconnaître l’ensemble de son identité.

This morning, an article from Le Journal du Dimanche appeared in my newsfeed, noting that the professional integration of people living with disabilities in France remains very slow. And while the intention behind the article is commendable, it still relies on the word handicapé, a term that is deeply stigmatizing and that has fallen out of favor in the United States as well as in several other EU countries. It reduces a person to a single characteristic instead of recognizing their whole identity.

After my earlier article on hormone therapy, I received numerous emails with follow-up questions, which prompted me to write a second piece to address these concerns in more detail. First, I want to clarify my background. I am not an oncologist or gynecologist. I am a public health researcher specializing in maternal and child health, with a focus on pregnant women, those who have recently given birth, and their newborn babies. This topic is not within my research scope, nor will it be part of my PhD studies. However, the recent FDA decision has been portrayed on social media with an excitement that oversimplifies the complexity of the situation.

Pendant plus de vingt ans, l’hormonothérapie destinée à traiter les symptômes de la ménopause, y compris les formulations à base d’œstrogènes telles que les comprimés, les patchs et les crèmes, a été assortie d’un « avertissement encadré », la mise en garde la plus stricte que la Food and Drug Administration (FDA) américaine puisse imposer sur l’étiquetage d’un médicament. Cet avertissement signalait clairement aux patientes et aux cliniciens les risques potentiels liés à son utilisation, notamment les maladies cardiaques, les accidents vasculaires cérébraux, le cancer du sein et la démence.

For more than twenty years, hormone therapy for menopausal symptoms, including estrogen-based formulations such as pills, patches, and creams, carried a “black box warning,” the strongest caution that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) can impose on a drug label. This warning prominently alerted patients and clinicians to potential risks such as heart disease, stroke, breast cancer, and dementia.

According to 20 Minutes News Network, the French National Assembly has just adopted a resolution introducing a minimum health insurance contribution for non-EU citizens. Currently, foreigners residing in France for more than three months can access universal health coverage (PUMA) without paying into the system. The new measure would require non-EU citizens holding a long-stay “visitor” visa to pay a mandatory contribution in order to open or maintain their PUMA rights. This resolution has only been adopted by the lower house and must still be discussed by the Senate before it becomes law. But if it passes, Americans living in France will be directly affected.