Before casting a crucial vote for the health secretary, the top Senate Republican laid out several specific commitments he had secured, some of which appear to have been breached.

© Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times

In an interview, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cited gaps in vaccine safety research. His critics say he is ignoring a larger point: Vaccines save lives.

© Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times

The Vienna-based ‘father of neurodiversity’ was ahead of his time in his work but was also implicated in the Third Reich’s crimes. My novel set out to explore these contradictions

In 2015, I decided to write a novel about Dr Hans Asperger, who worked at the University Children’s Hospital in Vienna during the second world war. My interest was sparked by two nonfiction books: NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and How to Think Smarter About People Who Think Differently by Steve Silberman and In a Different Key: The Story of Autism by John Donvan and Caren Zucker.

Reading these stories told about Asperger, you would have thought they were talking about two different people. To Silberman, Asperger was a compassionate and original thinker, whereas Donvan and Zucker depict him as an enthusiastic supporter of Hitler. For a historical novelist, widely differing accounts of the same person are gold dust, and I began to dig deeper.

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© Photograph: Brandstaetter Images/Getty Images

© Photograph: Brandstaetter Images/Getty Images

© Photograph: Brandstaetter Images/Getty Images