In case you missed it: a day in the life of a pandemic; Boston Scientific settlement, MetroWest demand, start-up's first drug, health care costs

In the Sunday Globe:

Never before have public health agencies, scientists, and drug makers attempted to brew so much vaccine - 250 million doses nationally - and deliver it in so little time. In the race between swine flu virus and vaccine, the virus has the head start, fostering a demand for flu shots and spray with few parallels in medical history. For the first time since the frenzied hunt for swine flu inoculations began last month, the state Department of Public Health agreed to let a reporter observe the divvying up of vaccine to health providers. It is a task that is equal parts science and art, supply and demand.

In Saturday's Globe:

Boston Scientific Corp. yesterday said it has agreed to pay $296 million to settle a US Department of Justice investigation into charges that its Guidant heart-device subsidiary made faulty product reports to the Food and Drug Administration.

MetroWest Medical Center has told employees it may end its contract with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts unless the insurer narrows the gap in payments between the hospital and its competitors.

Gloucester Pharmaceuticals, a six-year-old Cambridge biotechnology start-up, has won approval from the Food and Drug Administration to market its first drug in the United States. The drug, called Istodax, treats a rare skin cancer known as cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, or CTCL.

"Much of the health care debate is focused on whether the country can afford the $850 billion the Congressional Budget Office estimates it will cost," Linda Bilmes, a faculty member at the Harvard Kennedy School, and Rosemarie Day, deputy director of the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority of Massachusetts, write on the opinion page. "This debate misses the point. It assumes that doing nothing will cost nothing. It turns out that not expanding health insurance is a pretty costly option, because uninsured people impose big financial and economic costs that are not properly appreciated."