Tom Bollyky and Aaron Kesselheim propose a sustainable strategy to address price spikes among U.S. generic drugs and improve patients’ access to safe medicines. They propose a three-pronged approach for increasing competition in the U.S. generic drug market, while minimizing any attendant risks to patient safety or undermining the institutional role of the FDA. This proposal centers on the use of reciprocal drug approval and draws on previous precedents and the existing platforms for regulatory cooperation in the pharmaceutical sector.

New strains of antibiotic-resistant bugs have triggered an alarming rise in deaths from treatable illnesses worldwide. A global ban on growth-promoting antibiotics in livestock is a crucial starting point for combating this trend.

Laurie Garrett writes that the life expectancy of Americans is lower than those living in some third-world countries and that the GOP health care bill would have decreased it even more by cutting funding to life-saving preventative care. 

Global health should not be a matter of endless charity, political whim, profiteering, or philanthropic trendiness. Health is a right.

A surge in deaths in China from a virulent form of influenza has set off a scramble among health officials to find infected bird stocks, while experts have yet to produce a viable vaccine, writes CFR’s Laurie Garrett.

Yanzhong Huang argues that the 2014 Ebola crisis in West Africa highlighted the role of China in addressing public health emergencies of international concern (PHEIC).

Reports on the response to Ebola broadly agree on what needs to be done to deal with disease outbreaks. But Laurie Garrett and colleagues find that the world is not yet prepared for future outbreaks.

CFR hosted a workshop to discuss environmental health linkages in China, the Chinese government’s capability to respond to associated health crises, and international experience for coping with similar challenges. 

Laurie Garrett writes that the president-elect’s dangerous views on the safety of vaccines threatens the lives of millions of Americans.

Last week, the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), part of the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, released its 2015 mortality statistics, which showed U.S. life expectancy fell from 78.9 to 78.8 years over the prior year. It is worth putting these results in the context of long-term trends in U.S. life expectancy and comparing them to other nations. Three lessons emerge when you do.

Laurie Garrett writes that all Rex Tillerson cares about is energy, but does that mean he’s going to gut America’s $50 billion foreign aid budget?

Zika has been downgraded from emergency status by the WHO—and despite how it might sound, Laurie Garrett argues that’s not good news. 

To continue the extraordinary progress of the past fifteen years, the next U.S. administration should further integrate global health, development, and pandemic preparedness into the U.S. national security architecture, write CFR's Thomas J. Bollyky and Eric Goosby, former U.S. AIDS Coordinator and UN Special Envoy on Tuberculosis.

Thomas Bollyky discusses the importance of empirical evidence in assessing the effects of U.S. trade deals on drug prices.

Steve Davis, president and CEO of PATH, and Richard Hatchett, acting director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) discuss spurring the development and delivery of medical tools to prepare for emerging infectious disease outbreaks as part of the Global Health, Economics, and Development Roundtable Series.

Dame Sally Davies discusses the challenges of responding to antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and the need for a global action plan following the high level meeting on Antimicrobial Resistance at the United Nations General Assembly.  

Experts discuss the growing crisis of noncommunicable diseases, specifically cardiovascular diseases, and the initiatives by the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in countering these threats globally.

Laurie Garrett writes that the U.N. General Assembly is taking on the danger of antimicrobial resistance that threatens the health of our entire species.

Garrett argues that Congress’ failure to pass a Zika funding bill and the ignored warnings of 9-11 and subsequent anthrax attacks show parallel instances of government failing the American people.

A leading killer among diseases is now targeted for eradication by the middle of this century. This Backgrounder examines the costly, challenging efforts to combat malaria.