How America Got So Sick

February 10, 2026

aerial view of a crowd of people

(The Atlantic) – Many problems contribute to these shifts—insufficient investments in infrastructure, budget cuts in state and local health departments, the growing drug resistance of bacteria. Yet underlying all of the outbreaks, and even gun and opioid deaths, is a common theme: a declining sense of mutual responsibility among Americans. If the population could be analogized to a single human body, then its immune system would rely on a concert of action and purpose between each cell. When that concert stops, the body dies. (Read More)