96 Global Health NOW: A ‘Brutal,’ Man-Made Hunger Crisis and the Best Global Health Reporting of 2025 View this email in your browser December 17, 2025 Forward Share Post TOP STORIES The U.S. CDC approved updated hepatitis B vaccine recommendations for infants, reversing a decades-old policy offering every newborn a hepatitis B shot; the decision was approved despite criticism from physicians and health systems, who said they would not be changing their practices. STAT      A former leading NIH scientist has sued the Trump administration over her firing, claiming she was illegally terminated for her warning that widespread cuts to the agency were endangering patients—especially those enrolled in clinical trials—and imperiling public health. AP    Cases of a new, shape-shifting influenza variant—J.2.4.1, or subclade K—are rising globally, now detected in 30+ countries; while the variant is not included in the current flu vaccine composition, the WHO emphasizes that seasonal vaccines still offer the best protection against severe cases. UN News    The UN General Assembly approved a political declaration to combat noncommunicable diseases and promote mental health, with near-unanimous approval from member states except Argentina, Paraguay, and the U.S.—which claimed that the declaration overreached in recommending measures like taxes on unhealthy products. Health Policy Watch  IN FOCUS A ‘Brutal,’ Man-Made Hunger Crisis    After the Trump administration’s sudden cuts to food aid early this year, U.S. officials were repeatedly warned by humanitarian advocates that the disruption would cause starvation, violence, and death among refugees in Kenya.     Those warnings were ignored, resulting in what aid workers describe as an American-made crisis.     ProPublica provides a harrowing account of the unfolding crisis from multiple angles:  

• The lengths World Food Program workers went to warn of dangers, from emergency cables to appeals made over elaborate dinners in Nairobi. 

• Trump administration officials’ studied refusal to acknowledge the urgency.  

• And the suffering endured by families in Nairobi’s Kakuma camp, where rations fell to historic lows, malnourished children wasted and died, and families fled rather than starve. 

“I’ve never experienced anything like it,” said one longtime aid worker in Kakuma. “It’s huge and brutal and traumatizing.” 
  The report expands on another ProPublica report earlier this week depicting how U.S. officials celebrated USAID cuts with cake—even as dire warnings of resulting cholera deaths in South Sudan loomed.

The pair of articles from Anna Maria Barry-Jester and Brett Murphy cap a year of excellent reporting from many global health journalists on the global fallout from slashed foreign aid, leading us into our round-up of 2025’s must-reads.    2025's BEST GLOBAL HEALTH REPORTING The Toxic Toll of Battery Recycling    American car companies have long relied on recycled lead for batteries. But the process of recycling is steadily poisoning the communities working and living around the factories throughout Africa.

• Children near one factory cluster outside Lagos, Nigeria, had lead levels that could cause lifelong brain damage.  

• Automakers were aware of the lead pollution for nearly 30 years, yet they opted not to act—and actively blocked advocates’ attempts to intervene.  

The Examination 
  A Portrait of Measles Resurgence    As measles swept through North America amid declining vaccination rates, reporter Eli Saslow chronicled one West Texas family’s battle with the virus—which forced the father and four children to spend days in the hospital.  

• “‘I feel like I’ve been lied to,’ [the father] Kiley texted his wife, as his temperature hit 40°C (104°F). He treated himself with cod liver oil and vitamin D," as recommended by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The New York Times (gift link)       A Must-Read Commentary:  
“As the pandemic rose, I saw my patients get sick and in some cases die, including a 42-year-old mother of two young children whose loss is seared into my soul. As it receded … the overwhelming public sentiment was: never again. Today, it seems: never what?” ——————————— Siddhartha Mukherjee in a March 10, 2025, commentary in The New York Times (gift article) Argentina’s ‘Tidal Wave’ of Health Cuts 
Extreme cuts to Argentina’s health systems under President Javier Milei’s austerity measures forced patients and their families to resort to desperate measures to access vital care, including turning to Facebook to obtain donated cancer drugs.     AP  
  A Scourge of Dud Cancer Drugs  
Critical chemotherapy drugs used worldwide have failed key quality tests, leaving cancer patients in 100+ countries at risk of ineffective treatments and life-threatening side effects—exposing dangerous gaps in international drug regulation.     The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

• Meanwhile, new must-read TBIJ reporting has found that globally-exported generic medications from major Indian drugmaker Zee Laboratories have been repeatedly flagged as ineffective and dangerous; but a lack of repercussions means the company continues to ship pharmaceuticals worldwide. 

More Notables:   

• Wielding Obscure Budget Tools, Trump’s ‘Reaper’ Vought Sows Turmoil in Public Health – KFF Health News

• How Imperial Brands’ confidential contract kept cigarette prices low in Laos—while secretly enriching a political insider – The Examination 

• Trump Halted an Agent Orange Cleanup. That Puts Hundreds of Thousands at Risk for Poisoning. – ProPublica

QUICK HITS How countries around the world have responded to mass shootings – The Washington Post (gift link)     Why Mumbai's Overcrowded Trains Prove Fatal – Think Global Health    Grant cuts, arrests, lay-offs: Trump made 2025 a tumultuous year for science – Nature    House Speaker Johnson rebuffs efforts to extend health care subsidies, pushing ahead with GOP plan – AP     Gen Z behind jump in use of oral nicotine pouches across Great Britain – The Guardian    A Powerful New Drug Is Creating a ‘Withdrawal Crisis’ in Philadelphia – The New York Times (gift link) 

A grad student’s wild idea triggers a major aging breakthrough – Mayo Clinic via ScienceDaily Issue No. 2839
Global Health NOW is an initiative of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Contributors include Brian W. Simpson, MPH, Dayna Kerecman Myers, Annalies Winny, Morgan Coulson, Kate Belz, Melissa Hartman, Jackie Powder, and Rin Swann. Write us: dkerecm1@jhu.edu, like us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram @globalhealth.now and X @GHN_News.

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A McGill-led study is challenging a popular theory about how dopamine drives movement, a discovery that could shift how scientists think about Parkinson’s disease treatments. 

Published in Nature Neuroscience, the research found dopamine does not set the speed or force of each movement, as had been thought. Instead, it appears to act as the underlying support system that makes movement possible. 

A McGill-led study is challenging a popular theory about how dopamine drives movement, a discovery that could shift how scientists think about Parkinson’s disease treatments. 

Published in Nature Neuroscience, the research found dopamine does not set the speed or force of each movement, as had been thought. Instead, it appears to act as the underlying support system that makes movement possible. 

While the Asia and Pacific region has made notable progress in reducing hunger, persistent challenges remain in addressing malnutrition, food insecurity and unequal access to healthy diets, a new UN report published on Wednesday concludes. 

96 Global Health NOW: An ‘Accelerating’ Measles Outbreak; and GHN's Best Exclusives of 2025 View this email in your browser December 16, 2025 Forward Share Post TOP STORIES A phase two trial for an Oxford University-developed vaccine against the deadly Nipah virus has been launched in Bangladesh, where the disease has a case fatality rate of up to 71%. The Telegraph   
Suspected militants killed two people including a police officer guarding a team of polio workers in northwestern Pakistan today, amid a weeklong nationwide campaign aimed at immunizing 45 million children. AP     Speakers and members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) frequently commented about infectious disease risks from immigrants during this month’s meeting of the CDC panel, sparking concerns about anti-immigrant rhetoric. CIDRAP 
  Personalized risk-based breast cancer screening was as effective as one-size-fits-all annual mammograms in a large trial of ~46,000 women; the findings suggest a risk-based approach could improve screening by shifting resources from low-risk women to high-risk women. JAMA  IN FOCUS The heart of downtown Spartanburg, South Carolina, on June 13, 2021. J. Michael Jones An ‘Accelerating’ Measles Outbreak     The surging South Carolina measles outbreak has topped 120 cases and sent hundreds into 21-day quarantines, as state health officials hunker down for a monthslong fight. 

• 126 cases—many among schoolchildren—have been reported in the state’s northwest, per CIDRAP. 119 of the measles patients were unvaccinated. 

• 303 people are in quarantine (some for the second time), and 13 are in isolation.   

No mandates: State officials, including Gov. Henry McMaster, are steering clear of vaccine mandates, while simultaneously encouraging kids’ vaccinations and emphasizing free choice, Axios reports.  

• "There's some people who don't want to do it, and that's up to them," McMaster said. "People need to understand it's dangerous just like a lot of other diseases. If there's some way to prevent it, you ought to do it." 

• Local people are divided with some skeptical of vaccines and aggrieved by COVID-19 remote learning and shutdowns, while others worry about risks for their youngest children, per The New York Times (gift link).   

Big picture: The CDC reports 1,900+ measles cases in the U.S. and three deaths (two of whom were children) so far this year.     Related: Connecticut reports first measles case in years – The Hill  BEST OF 2025 GHN EXCLUSIVES Muthukutti, 23, endured an amputation of his left leg after an accident at Sree Mariyammal Fireworks Factory in Achangulam village, outside Sivakasi, India. Kamala Thiagarajan Fireworks and Heartbreak in a Hard-Hit Indian Village     SIVAKASI, India—Of the 650 families who live in Surangudi village, most have lost either a limb or a loved one to fireworks. 
 
Workers in the area produce 50,000 tons of firecrackers annually—most of India's fireworks—in factories prone to explosions and fires. Journalist Kamala Thiagarajan’s two-part series takes readers inside a poorly regulated factory system that led to at least 100 deaths in 2023–2024. 
  
Kamala Thiagarajan for Global Health NOW    Migration Response Done Right: Brazil’s Model    PACARAIMA, Brazil—Migrants fleeing Venezuela’s deteriorating political and economic system have found something wondrous at the border with Brazil: Open arms.    Since 2018, the Operação Acolhida (Operation Welcome) partnership has blended military logistical support with respect for humanitarian autonomy to provide housing, essential services, and efforts to counter human trafficking, though U.S. foreign aid cuts have forced some organizations to scale back.     Julianna Deutscher for Global Health NOW (with support from the Johns Hopkins-Pulitzer Global Health Reporting Fellowship)    Dispensing ‘Free Chances at Life’      In this hard-partying college town of Iowa City, the beloved Deadwood Tavern is known as a great place to relax, watch Iowa football, pick up free naloxone, birth control, emergency contraceptives, gun locks, wound care kits, and needle disposal kits. They’re all available, free and anonymously, from the public health vending machine at the back of the bar—part of a trend taking off in dozens of cities.  
Annalies Winny, Global Health NOW 
  Peru’s Illegal Mining Surges … and Destroys    LIMA, Peru—Soaring gold prices and plunging U.S. government funds are pushing Peru’s southeastern jungle, scene of a booming illegal mining industry, into a public health crisis—with destroyed forests, mercury poisoning, and fast-spreading infectious diseases. The cancelation of U.S.-supported reforestation and mercury poisoning mitigation projects has been likened to “throwing gasoline on an already hot fire.”
  Lucien Chauvin for Global Health NOW    Why Latin America Needs Its Own CDC—Now More Than Ever (Commentary) 
Latin American governments must champion the creation of a regional CDC, similar to the Africa CDC model, that would work alongside PAHO to ensure faster, more efficient responses to health emergencies, according to three public health leaders from the region.   
Patricia J. García, Jorge Saavedra, and Ariel García for Global Health NOW  
  Other Notable Exclusives 

• Inside India’s Funding Failure in Rare Genetic Disease Care by Rupsa Chakraborty 


• A Promising Fight Against a Silent Killer by Scovian Lillian 


• Fighting Infant Mortality With Vaccines and Cash in Northern Nigeria by Abiodun Jamiu 


• Climate Change’s Overlooked Role in Obesity by Sanket Jain 


• How to Keep Doing Global Health: Tips From the Global South (commentary) by Siddhesh Zadey and Dhananjaya Sharma 

OPPORTUNITY QUICK HITS Can Canada Survive Trump’s Attack on Science? – Maclean’s     Newsom announces new public health initiative led by ousted CDC officials – The Sacramento Bee    NSF pares down grant-review process, reducing influence of outside scientists – Science    Is science diplomacy still possible? – The Lancet (commentary) Thanks for the tip, Cecilia Meisner!     FDA has no plans to put most serious warning on COVID vaccines, Bloomberg News reports – Reuters    She Studied Mosquitoes to Prevent Malaria – The New York Times (gift link)  Issue No. 2838
Global Health NOW is an initiative of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Contributors include Brian W. Simpson, MPH, Dayna Kerecman Myers, Annalies Winny, Morgan Coulson, Kate Belz, Melissa Hartman, Jackie Powder, and Rin Swann. Write us: dkerecm1@jhu.edu, like us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram @globalhealth.now and X @GHN_News.

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World leaders meeting at the UN General Assembly have adopted a historic global declaration to tackle noncommunicable diseases and mental health conditions together, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Tuesday.

Amid an early start to the Northern Hemisphere influenza season a new variant of the virus is rapidly gaining ground - but vaccination remains the “most effective defence”, the UN health agency said on Tuesday.

A new study has linked air pollution exposure and immune-system changes that often precede the onset of autoimmune diseases.

McGill University researchers analyzing Ontario data found that fine particles in air pollution are associated with higher levels of a biomarker linked with autoimmune diseases, such as systemic lupus.

A new study has linked air pollution exposure and immune-system changes that often precede the onset of autoimmune diseases.

McGill University researchers analyzing Ontario data found that fine particles in air pollution are associated with higher levels of a biomarker linked with autoimmune diseases, such as systemic lupus.

96 Global Health NOW: Mosquito-Borne Illnesses Engulf Cuba; and Prosecutions Climb in a Post-Roe Landscape View this email in your browser December 15, 2025 Forward Share Post TOP STORIES A military air strike on a hospital in Burma (Myanmar) killed at least 31 and injured dozens more last Wednesday; the attack left the Rakhine state hospital, which was stretched thin and overflowing with patients before being struck, in ruins. The Telegraph

The U.S. FDA may place a “black-box” warning on COVID-19 vaccines, CNN reports; a decision on whether to place the label—used to flag serious threats to life and health—is expected by the end of this month. Mother Jones

The FDA also approved two antibiotics, zoliflodacin and gepotidacin, to treat gonorrhea late last week; the approval comes as Neisseria gonorrhoeae, the bacterium that causes the STI, has “outsmarted every previous antibiotic deployed against it, including the sole therapy that remains effective.” The New York Times (gift link) 

A $2.5 billion aid deal between Kenya and the U.S. has been suspended by a Kenyan court over data privacy concerns, after a consumer rights group sounded the alarm that under the deal Kenyans’ personal medical data could be viewed by U.S. officials. BBC IN FOCUS An employee of Cuba's Ministry of Public Health fumigates a house in the Jesus Maria neighborhood of Havana, on November 20. Adalberto Roque/AFP via Getty Images Mosquito-Borne Illnesses Engulf Cuba    Mosquito-borne illnesses are sweeping through Cuba’s population amid medicine shortages, overcrowded hospitals, and a lack of government action and transparency, reports El País.    On the ground: Health officials and independent advocates report a mix of dengue, chikungunya, Oropouche, and other respiratory viruses circulating simultaneously. 

• Many Cubans simply refer to the illnesses as “the virus”—reflecting confusion about what they are suffering from amid little to no diagnostic resources. 

• Symptoms include high fever, rashes, swelling of joints, vomiting, diarrhea, and persistent pain that leaves many unable to walk normally. 

Rapid rise in cases: Official data show 42,000+ chikungunya cases and ~26,000 dengue infections reported this year, with the latter virus’s incidence surging 71%+ in one week, reports Agencia Efe. 

• A report from The Guardian last month suggested that one-third of the Cuban population was infected.  

And 47 arbovirus deaths have been reported—though health workers and families say the real number is much higher, as death certificates have been mislabeled, reports Ciber Cuba. 

• Children and older people have been especially affected. 

Conditions are exacerbated by severe food and medicine shortages, sanitation failures, prolonged power blackouts, and failed vector control. 

• “Nobody is okay here. … We are an army of zombies,” 57-year-old Mercedes Interian told El País. 

GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH Prosecutions Climb in a Post-Roe Landscape    More than three years after the reversal of Roe v. Wade, pregnancy complications—including life-threatening conditions and pregnancy loss—are increasingly subject to legal scrutiny in U.S. states with strict anti-abortion laws.     By the numbers: A report from reproductive rights group Pregnancy Justice found at least 412 pregnancy-related prosecutions in the two years after Roe’s reversal.    Three types of cases: Charges include mishandling fetal remains, murder accusations after miscarriages or stillbirths, and alleged substance use during pregnancy.    Chilling effect on care: Fear of criminalization is leading to delays in care, interstate travel for treatment, and dangerous, nonviable pregnancies being carried to term.     ABC Australia 
  Related: Fewer characters on TV had abortions this year — and more stories reinforced shame – NPR QUICK HITS Trump Officials Celebrated With Cake After Slashing Aid. Then People Died of Cholera. – ProPublica    Nearly half of Japanese have experienced loneliness and isolation – Japan Times     New clues about long covid’s cause could unlock treatments – The Washington Post (gift link)    Harvard Replaces Leader of Health Center Said to Have Focused on Palestinians – The New York Times (gift link)
  AI finds a surprising monkeypox weak spot that could rewrite vaccines – University of Texas at Austin via ScienceDaily    The Epidemic of Tobacco Harms among People with Mental Health Conditions – The New England Journal of Medicine (commentary)    What's behind the wellness claims for the synthetic dye methylene blue? – NPR    The gift that shaped my career in science – Nature  Issue No. 2837
Global Health NOW is an initiative of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Contributors include Brian W. Simpson, MPH, Dayna Kerecman Myers, Annalies Winny, Morgan Coulson, Kate Belz, Melissa Hartman, Jackie Powder, and Rin Swann. Write us: dkerecm1@jhu.edu, like us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram @globalhealth.now and X @GHN_News.

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96 Global Health NOW: Ukraine Births Under Siege; and Slovenia’s Preventive Care Pays Off View this email in your browser December 11, 2025 Forward Share Post TOP STORIES Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis is deepening with the deterioration of basic human rights, especially for women and girls, warn senior UN officials—who say nearly half of the country’s population will need protection and humanitarian assistance amid economic decline, displacement, and diminishing aid. UN News    South Carolina’s measles outbreak is “accelerating” due to holiday travel and undervaccination, the state’s Department of Public Health has warned; of the 111 measles cases recorded in the state’s northwest region, 105 involved people who were unvaccinated while three were partially vaccinated. The Washington Post (gift link)

An international study has identified a blood-based indicator of intestinal damage and inflammation that strongly predicts mortality in sick children; the new biomarker could help to identify children at greatest risk of dying post-hospitalization in low-resource parts of the world. Nature

Even a small proportion of citizens who do not comply with public health measures can amplify an epidemic’s spread in large cities, per a Politecnico di Milano outbreak simulation in Turin, Milan, and Palermo that analyzed the role of individual behavior in the spread of contagions. Medical Xpress IN FOCUS Bogdana Zhupanyna surveys the damage to her apartment days after it was struck by a drone during a Russian bombardment. July 23, Kharkiv, Ukraine. Scott Peterson/Getty Ukraine Births Under Siege    Childbirth in Ukraine has grown increasingly perilous, as relentless bombardments and displacement fuel a maternal mortality crisis and contribute to plunging birth rates that threaten the country’s future.     Dangerous delivery: Maternal deaths in Ukraine spiked 37% between 2023 and 2024, reaching 25.9 deaths per 100,000 live births, reports France24.  

• Doctors report a sharp increase in complications, including more premature births, a 44% rise in uterine ruptures, and dangerous spikes in C-section rates—up to 46% in frontline regions like Kherson. 

Compromised care: 80+ maternity centers across Ukraine have been damaged or destroyed since Russia’s 2022 invasion, putting pregnant women and newborns at severe risk and forcing hundreds of births to occur in underground shelters, warns the UN Population Fund.  

• Last week, a maternity hospital in Kherson was attacked, further compromising severely strained medical services, per the WHO. 

• Power outages and supply shortages further contribute to rising risks.  

Demographic disaster: Ukraine now has the highest death rates and lowest birth rates in the world, measuring three deaths for every birth, reports Reuters.  

• That has led to fears of population collapse, with the country’s population plummeting from 42 million in 2022 to a projected 25 million by 2051. 

GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES NONCOMMUNICABLE DISEASES Slovenia’s Preventive Care Pays Off    More than 20 years ago, Slovenia adopted a chronic disease prevention strategy that is now showing impressive results—and becoming a model for other countries.     The basics: Slovenia’s system emphasizes primary care, screening, and coaching—and, per Rade Pribaković, of the country’s National Institute of Public Health, “kind of nagging the population,” to have regular checks at health promotion centers which reach ~50,000 Slovenians a year.  

• Such hubs are staffed with community nurses, dentists, gynecologists, and other specialists, and offer workshops on topics like nutrition, stress, and obesity.  

Results: Slovenia’s chronic disease death rates have fallen sharply, and its life expectancy has steadily increased: Last year, it reached 82.3 years—higher than the EU average of 81.7 years and the U.S. average of 78.4 years.    STAT  CORRECTION The Cause of Cholera
In yesterday’s GHN, in a story about the DRC’s cholera outbreak, we referred to the disease as a virus, but cholera is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. We regret the error. Thanks to Hasanain Odhar for pointing out the mistake!  ALMOST FRIDAY DIVERSION Will This Christmas Kill ‘Last Christmas’?       Think of it as the GameStop short squeeze—but for a Christmas song. And no one gets rich.      After decades of relentless overplay from Halloween til Christmas, a group of pals in Europe has organized the masses in a takedown of the loathed holiday track.   
  The first rule of Whamageddon: Don’t play the song—unless it’s a cover.      Us versus the airwaves: Refereed only by the honor system, players 
must publicly forfeit themselves if they’re “hit” by the signature synth. WHAMbushing others is a no-no and radio hosts, who can send countless players to dreaded “Whamhalla” with a single play, have been shamed for this “lowest of the low acts.”    Full disclosure: Until now, we actually didn’t realize we were supposed to hate the song and are now trying to catch up. If you’re in the same boat, defer to this scathing, line-by-line takedown of its “inanity” and narrative incoherence.      But we will say: If making sense is how this YouTube scrooge rates music, we’d love to hear his take on ‘I Am The Walrus.’   QUICK HITS The fight to beat neglected tropical diseases was going well. 2025 could change that – NPR Goats and Soda    Meta shuts down global accounts linked to abortion advice and queer content – The Guardian      U.S. mass killings drop to 20-year low. Some policy shifts might be helping. – The Christian Science Monitor    EU officials acted to aid tobacco giant abroad, documents show – The Examination    Climate Change Is an Information Crisis; Public Health Already Knows How to Fight Those – Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs (commentary)    Japan turns to AI, robot caregivers to tackle dementia crisis – Firstpost  Issue No. 2836
Global Health NOW is an initiative of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Contributors include Brian W. Simpson, MPH, Dayna Kerecman Myers, Annalies Winny, Morgan Coulson, Kate Belz, Melissa Hartman, Jackie Powder, and Rin Swann. Write us: dkerecm1@jhu.edu, like us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram @globalhealth.now and X @GHN_News.

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Gaza’s health system for mothers and newborns has been “decimated”, the UN said on Thursday, with Israeli attacks destroying almost all hospitals, cutting off medical supplies and driving sharp rises in maternal deaths, miscarriages and newborn fatalities amid mass displacement and hunger.

A World Health Organization (WHO) expert committee has again confirmed that there is no causal link between vaccines and autism spectrum disorders (ASD), following a new review of global scientific evidence.

On Saturday, November 8, 2025, Healthy Brains, Healthy Lives (HBHL) presented the third edition of the Amazing Brain Science Talks, in partnership with Brain Canada Foundation and the Brain-Heart Interconnectome. Held at the Grande Bibliothèque in Montreal, the event attracted over 100 attendees for an engaging afternoon discussing popular topics in brain health.

On Saturday, November 8, 2025, Healthy Brains, Healthy Lives (HBHL) presented the third edition of the Amazing Brain Science Talks, in partnership with Brain Canada Foundation and the Brain-Heart Interconnectome. Held at the Grande Bibliothèque in Montreal, the event attracted over 100 attendees for an engaging afternoon discussing popular topics in brain health.

96 Global Health NOW: COVID Vaccines’ Safety Confirmed Amid U.S. Scrutiny; and How to Read a Scientific Study View this email in your browser December 10, 2025 Forward Share Post TOP STORIES In DRC’s worst cholera outbreak in 25 years, children account for nearly a quarter of the 64,427 total cases so far this year; in “one of the most tragic” instances, 16 of 62 children died when the virus swept through a Kinshasa orphanage. UNICEF (news release) 
The first single-dose dengue vaccine has been approved for use in Brazil; the shot, Butantan-DV, protects against four strains of dengue and will initially be given to 1 million people in January. The Telegraph 
  Children exposed to extreme heat are less likely to meet basic developmental milestones than children living nearby in cooler areas, finds a study of 20,000 children published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry; low-income children are especially vulnerable. NPR Goats and Soda 
  Civicus downgraded the U.S.’s civic health rating from “narrowed” to “obstructed,” citing a “sharp deterioration of fundamental freedoms in the country” this year and placing the U.S. in the same classification as 39 other countries including Hungary, Brazil, and South Africa. The Guardian  IN FOCUS People waiting to receive a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at the Clermont-Tonnerre military hospital in Brest, France. April 6, 2021. Loic Venance/AFP via Getty COVID Vaccines’ Safety Confirmed Amid U.S. Scrutiny    A major French study is offering one of the clearest looks yet at the long-term safety of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, concluding that the vaccines did not increase mortality rates in France, reports Radio France Internationale. 

• The research arrives amid renewed debate of the vaccines’ safety in the U.S. sparked by an FDA memo that alleged vaccine-related deaths—claims rejected by former FDA leaders and unsupported by data.  

The study: The “enormous” study published in JAMA Network Open analyzed the health records of 28.7 million adults ages 18–59 in the French health system; 22.8 million of those received an mRNA vaccine in 2021, reports IFLScience.

• The team tracked all causes of death for four years—far longer than most prior studies.  

Key results: Vaccinated people had a 74% lower risk of dying from COVID-19 in the hospital, and all-cause mortality over those four years was also lower: 0.4% among the vaccinated versus 0.6% among the unvaccinated.    Meanwhile in the U.S.: The FDA has broadened an internal review into whether COVID-19 vaccines may be linked to deaths in adults as well as children, reports The Washington Post (gift link), following FDA head Vinay Prasad’s unsubstantiated claims that the shots caused at least 10 pediatric deaths.   

• Prasad also said he plans to implement tighter vaccine-approval standards, though it is unclear what data sources the FDA is using to assess the safety of the vaccines or the approval process, reports CNN.  

Related: Doctor groups form united front against RFK Jr’s efforts to limit vaccine access – CIDRAP  GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES RESEARCH How to Read a Scientific Study    Research studies are no longer limited to an audience of scientists—they are now a frequent feature of podcasts, YouTube videos, and social media posts.  

• How can nonscientists avoid falling for oversimplification, distortion, or manipulation?  

The first step: Learn how to read the studies. Epidemiologist Emily Gurley offers some key guidance, including:  

• Eye the essentials: Know the journal and its quality; understand the abstract section; look at the introduction to understand the study’s  purpose, and read the discussion section to learn more about how to interpret the study. 

• Consider possible limitations, including sample size, participant demographics, and what needs further study. 

• Distinguish between correlation and causation.  

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health  QUICK HITS How a rare drug made from scientists’ blood saves babies from botulism – AP    Synthetic chemicals in food system creating health burden of $2.2tn a year, report finds – The Guardian    After NIH grant cuts, breast cancer research at Harvard slowed, and lab workers left – NPR Shots    What to know about the surprising MERS coronavirus cases discovered in France – Axios    Punished for bleeding: How periods in prison become a trap – The 19th    Malaria No More taps Trump insider for ‘new era’ of global health – Devex    Five important financial moves for PhD students – Nature  Issue No. 2835
Global Health NOW is an initiative of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Contributors include Brian W. Simpson, MPH, Dayna Kerecman Myers, Annalies Winny, Morgan Coulson, Kate Belz, Melissa Hartman, Jackie Powder, and Rin Swann. Write us: dkerecm1@jhu.edu, like us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram @globalhealth.now and X @GHN_News.

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The vast majority of World Health Organization (WHO) member States say 40 to 90 per cent of their populations now use traditional medicine.  

96 Global Health NOW: Polio: An Influx of Cash—and a Funding Shortfall View this email in your browser December 9, 2025 Forward Share Post TOP STORIES A hospital and kindergarten in Sudan came under drone strikes last week, killing 114 people, including 63 children; 35 were injured, many of whom tried to get victims to the hospital, according to the WHO; Sudan officials attributed the Kalogi massacre to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, a group responsible for other atrocities in Sudan’s civil war. The New York Times (gift link) 

Countries must jointly enact policies and fund programs against climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation, and pollution, per a UN report published this morning; the report, based on the work of 287 scientists, calls for unprecedented transformation of government, the financial sector, and industry. AP 

A multidrug-resistant bacterial colonization of the gastrointestinal tract is prevalent worldwide, per a new meta-analysis in the American Journal of Infection Control; carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales often precedes infections in critically ill hospital patients. CIDRAP 

Returning to school after the COVID-19 pandemic improved children’s mental health, according to a California-based study that found kids’ probability of being diagnosed with a mental health condition dropped 43% nine months after school reopening compared to pre-opening levels. The Washington Post (gift link)  IN FOCUS A child is vaccinated against polio by Thane Municipal Corporation Health Department on December 8, 2024, in Mumbai, India. Praful Gangurde/Hindustan Times via Getty Images Polio: An Influx of Cash—and a Funding Shortfall 
International donors committed to $1.9 billion against polio yesterday, but is it enough?                                               

• The funds will be used to vaccinate 370 million children against polio each year as well as build up health systems, per the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI). 
   
• The Gates Foundation pledged $1.2 billion, and Rotary International committed to $450 million, CNN reports. 

Shortfall: Despite the pledges, there’s still a $440 million gap in support for GPEI through 2029. 

• The U.K., Germany, and other countries have pulled back plans for development assistance and health funding in 2026, and U.S. support for polio efforts is unclear for 2026.  

• GPEI expects to cut its budget by 30% next year because of the global retreat in foreign aid, per Reuters. 

The Quote: Without the full $6.9 billion needed for GPEI’s strategy, “children will be left unprotected against polio,” GPEI spokesperson Ally Rogers told CNN. 

Polio memories: In a new study in Vaccine X, the University of Toronto Mississauga’s Madeleine Mant interviewed 65 people who had polio between 1941 and 1977. Their message: Young people shouldn’t have to experience polio or other vaccine-preventable diseases, per Medical Xpress.

Related: Bill Gates renews call to eradicate polio and malaria with UAE as key partner – The National (UAE) 

DATA POINT

4.6 billion
—————–
The estimated number of people worldwide who still lack access to essential health services; while countries have advanced toward universal health coverage, major challenges remain. —WHO
  HEALTH SYSTEMS A Health Care Breakdown in a Health Care Town 
Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital is southwest Georgia’s largest health provider—but also the region’s dominant employer and economic power center.  
 
And yet: Locals describe a system fraught with access limitations, poor outcomes, high prices, and fractured care—including dismissive treatment reported by uninsured residents. 
 
Inflection point: When the region became one of the nation’s first COVID-19 hot spots in 2020, the crisis exposed frayed relationships between the hospital and the community, especially poor and Black residents who suffered the worst outcomes. 
 
Bigger picture: The more hospitals operate as behemoth businesses, “the fewer incentives there are to lower costs or improve quality and the less communities can do about either.” 
 
ProPublica QUICK HITS More Americans refusing vitamin K shots for newborns, new study finds – The Hill    Warning issued after new mpox strain identified in England – The Independent    Why Some Doctors Say There Are Cancers That Shouldn’t Be Treated – The New York Times (gift link)    Surprise! Your health care provider added a fee for that questionnaire you filled out – North Carolina Health News 
  Zimbabwe’s only female heart surgeon on medicine, misogyny and making a difference – The Guardian  Issue No. 2834
Global Health NOW is an initiative of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Contributors include Brian W. Simpson, MPH, Dayna Kerecman Myers, Annalies Winny, Morgan Coulson, Kate Belz, Melissa Hartman, Jackie Powder, and Rin Swann. Write us: dkerecm1@jhu.edu, like us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram @globalhealth.now and X @GHN_News.

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  Copyright 2025 Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. All Rights Reserved. Views and opinions expressed in Global Health NOW do not necessarily reflect those of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health or Johns Hopkins University.


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Supporting colleagues facing potential sexual exploitation or abuse (PSEA) in the workplace, may start with small acts of recognition but can have lasting positive impacts, according to a UN member of staff working in the Southeast Asian country, Lao People's Democratic Republic.

96 Global Health NOW: The Hepatitis B Vote: A Pivotal Moment for U.S. Vaccine Policy View this email in your browser December 8, 2025 Forward Share Post TOP STORIES 20+ babies in Hungary have died of maternally contracted syphilis, and 63 cases have been confirmed in the country this year as syphilis cases increase worldwide. The Telegraph 

2 MERS cases have been reported in France; both patients had been on the same trip to the Arabian Peninsula; no secondary transmission has been detected. Outbreak News Today 

Kenya signed a $2.5 billion, five-year agreement to accept U.S. funding to help fight infectious diseases, becoming the first country to sign a deal aligned with the Trump administration’s foreign policy goals; the agreement sparked concerns about the security of sensitive health data. BBC

Environmental advocates in Canada are pushing for a moratorium on the use of glyphosate, the key ingredient in RoundUp, after a 25-year-old foundational research paper on the herbicide’s safety was retracted by the journal Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology following revelations that RoundUp’s maker, Monsanto, may have helped produce the paper. CBC IN FOCUS Members of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices at the CDC headquarters. Atlanta, Georgia, December 5. Megan Varner/Bloomberg via Getty The Hepatitis B Vote: A Pivotal Moment for U.S. Vaccine Policy     It’s a tectonic shift in U.S. immunization policy: The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted Friday to withdraw a long-standing recommendation that newborns receive a hepatitis B vaccination at birth. 

• The decision was made without new evidence and against the strong consensus of medical groups that the change puts children at unnecessary risk, reports Health Policy Watch.   

New recommendations, established efficacy: The panel now suggests delaying the first hepatitis B dose until at least two months for infants born to virus-negative mothers. 

• But the vaccine’s safety is well established, reports Nature, which outlines the history of the shot, its timing, and its role in bringing down infections in young people by 99%. 

Sharp pivot: ACIP’s 8-3 vote sets the stage for broader reconsideration of childhood immunization policy, reports STAT.  

• President Trump weighed in Friday, urging health officials to review the entire childhood vaccine schedule, calling the U.S. an “outlier,” reports The Washington Post (gift link).  

What’s next: The decision about actually changing the vaccine guidelines now sits with the CDC’s acting director. 

• But states are already pushing back against ACIP’s recommendation: New York declared that it would not change guidance, and Ohio officials criticized the move. 

Related:     4 fact-checks after CDC vaccine panel ends universal newborn hep B vaccine recommendations – Politifact     Three-fourths of Americans support hepatitis B vaccine for newborns, poll finds – reports CIDRAP  GLOBAL HEALTH VOICES CHILD HEALTH Australia’s Sweeping Social Media Ban    A strict ban on social media accounts for users under 16 takes effect in 
Australia this week, prompting platforms like Meta, TikTok, Snap, and YouTube to deactivate hundreds of thousands of accounts, reports Reuters via The Straits Times.  

• Other governments worldwide are watching the move, which Australian officials call the “first domino” in such regulation. 

Details of the ban: Unlike current age-restrictions that are easy to work around and difficult to enforce, Australia has multiple compliance requirements, reports The Atlantic (gift link), including: 

• A “layered safety approach,” including AI-informed age detection, activity-pattern analysis, and mandatory age verification. 

• Protections to block circumvention attempts, and parent reporting. 

• Fines of up to $49.5 million for platforms.  

The Quote: “Social media was a big social experiment. In some ways, this is an antidote social experiment,” said eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant.   QUICK HITS Trump DoJ ‘immediately’ stops enforcing prison rape protections for trans and intersex people, according to leaked memo – The Independent

Faulty glucose monitors linked to 7 deaths and more than 700 injuries, FDA warns – AP

'Very concerning': Opioids for sickle cell pain often not administered fast enough in ED – Healio

How the new H-1B visa fee is upending health care in rural America – The Washington Post (gift link)    Editors’ pick 2025: Our favourite essays and longform stories on public health in South Africa – Bhekisisa    Ashish Jha to leave Brown University School of Public Health – The Brown Daily Herald    ‘One bite and he was hooked’: from Kenya to Nepal, how parents are battling ultra-processed foods – The Guardian  Issue No. 2833
Global Health NOW is an initiative of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Contributors include Brian W. Simpson, MPH, Dayna Kerecman Myers, Annalies Winny, Morgan Coulson, Kate Belz, Melissa Hartman, Jackie Powder, and Rin Swann. Write us: dkerecm1@jhu.edu, like us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram @globalhealth.now and X @GHN_News.

Please send the Global Health NOW free sign-up link to friends and colleagues: http://www.globalhealthnow.org/subscribe

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  Copyright 2025 Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. All Rights Reserved. Views and opinions expressed in Global Health NOW do not necessarily reflect those of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health or Johns Hopkins University.


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