From Our April 2025 Connections Newsletter

• National Public Health Group Calls for RFK Jr. to Resign, Citing ‘Complete Disregard for Science’ [STAT]
• Will USAID Cuts Bring New Opportunities for the Global South? [Devex]
• Hundreds of Thousands Will Die [New Yorker]
• Opinion I Musk Said No One Has Died Since Aid Was Cut. That Isn’t True. [New York Times]
• From Albania to Zambia: List of Cancelled USAID Projects Provides Insight into US Influence [Health Policy Watch]
• US Isn’t First Country to Dismantle Its Foreign Aid Office − Here’s What Happened After the UK Killed Its Version of USAID [The Conversation]
• Europe Is Cutting Development Spending, and It’s Not Because of Trump [Devex]
• Could US Foreign Aid Cuts Fuel a Superbug Crisis? [Devex]
• Foreign Aid Is an Easy Political Target. But Do Americans Want It Gone? [Devex]
• How Trump Is Following Project 2025’s Radical Roadmap to Defund Science [Nature]
• US Expresses Interest in ‘Health as Business’ at Meeting with African Leaders After Huge Funding Cuts [Health Policy Watch]
• Opinion I As Aid Funding Tanks, One Partnership Model Offers Stability [Devex]
• WHO Grapples with Deepening Funding Shortfall [Devex]
• 1 Big Thing: How RFK Jr. Could Threaten Vaccine Markets [Axios]
• Opinion I With Federal Public Health Shakeups Underway, California Needs to Prepare for the Next Crisis [Cal Matters]
• Bezos’ Parents, Gates, Rockefeller, & Other Donors Pledge $2B to Tackle Child Malnutrition [Barron’s]
• Fearing Trump Cuts, California Democrat Proposes Creating State’s Own NIH [Politico]
• NIH Funds Research to Develop a Game-Changing HIV Diagnostic Tool [News Medical Life Sciences]
• USDA to Invest up to $100M for Projects to Combat Bird Flu [Reuters]
• USDA Launches Biosecurity Steps for Poultry Producers, Adds Details on H7N9 Avian Flu Detection [CIDRAP]
• Opinion I America Has Been Lucky on Bird Flu — So Far [New York Times]
• Kennedy’s Alarming Prescription for Bird Flu on Poultry Farms [New York Times]
• Why PEPFAR Has Bigger Problems Than Reauthorization [Devex]
• PEPFAR at Crossroads: Lawmakers Debate Future of Global HIV Program [Devex]
• New Data Show Gender-Affirming Hormones Protect from HIV [STAT]
• With Few Dentists & Fluoride Under Siege, Rural America Risks New Surge of Tooth Decay [KFF Health News]
• Birth Control Pill for Men Moves Closer to Reality [Reuters]
• People Are Leaving Red States Over Abortion Bans, Studies Find [Axios]
• Texas Arrests Midwife & Associate on Charges of Providing Abortions [New York Times]
• Unsanitary Practices Persist at Baby Formula Factory Whose Shutdown Led to Mass Shortages, Workers Say [ProPublica] 
• RFK Jr. Says HHS Will Determine the Cause of Autism by September [STAT]
• Public Health Leaders, Besieged & Regretful, Talk of Re-Establishing Trust [STAT]
• With Trump Review, a Harvard Infectious Disease Researcher Stands to Lose It All [STAT+]
• Trump Administration Declines to Expand Medicare Coverage for Obesity Drugs [STAT+]
• Idaho Restricts Vaccine Mandates [Axios]
• How Vaccines Changed the World [Council on Foreign Relations]
• Climate Change, Global Surgery, & G20 Nations [Think Global Health]
• Enabling Climate & Health Resilience: A Blueprint for Urgent Business Action [Forum for the Future]
• Opinion I Why We Need a Pandemic Treaty Now [The Telegraph]
• What Kind of Support Is the US Offering in the Wake of the Myanmar Quake? [NPR]
• US Aid Team Fired While in Myanmar Earthquake Zone, Ex-Official Says [Reuters]
• Myanmar’s Collapsing Health System Crushed Beneath Earthquake & Civil War [Health Policy Watch]
• Funding Shortages May Halt Global Child Malnutrition Programs, World Food Programme Warns [Reuters]
• HIV Cases More Than Double in Middle East & North Africa [The Telegraph]
• WHO Notes 4 New MERS Cases, 2 Fatal, in Saudi Arabia Since September [CIDRAP]
• How Researchers Can Work Fairly with Indigenous & Local Knowledge [Nature]
• ‘Critical Lack’ of Antifungal Treatments & Growing Drug Resistance [Health Policy Watch]
• Continued Conflict in the DRC Is Fueling a Deteriorating Health Crisis, Alarming Cholera Outbreak [IRC]
• Deadly Antibiotic-Resistant Superbug Bacteria Spreading in Malaysian Hospital [Medical XPress]
• Expanding Medical Oxygen Access Without US Foreign Aid [Think Global Health]
• ‘We Will Just Die in Silence’: US Aid Cuts Hit Ethiopia’s Fragile Tigray Region [AP News]
• ‘We’ve Vanished’: US Aid Cuts Leave Health Workers Around the World Reeling [STAT]
• Big Foundations Say It’s Time to Increase Giving [Devex]
• Africa CDC to Pilot New Health Financing Options [Health Policy Watch]
• Congo Lab Testing Confirms Deadly Disease Outbreak Was Malaria [Deccan Herald]
• Uganda Receives First Pediatric Drug for Schistosomiasis. What’s Next? [Devex]
• This May Be the Most Lead-Polluted Place on Earth. Is There Any Hope? [NPR]
• What to Know About the New Covid Strain Affecting Three in Five UK Patients [The Independent]
• Haiti Humanitarian Crisis Worsening as Violence Escalates, Says Aid Group [Reuters]
• ‘I Begged Them, My Daughter Was Dying’: How Taliban Male Escort Rules Are Killing Mothers & Babies [The Guardian]
• Supreme Court Rules in Favor of FDA in Dispute Over Flavored Vapes [The Hill]
• ‘We’ve Lost Our Way’: San Francisco Rethinks Drug Paraphernalia Handouts [New York Times]
• ‘Most Effective Way’ to Prevent Measles Is Vaccination, RFK Jr. Says, in Most Direct Remarks Yet [STAT]
• Former CDC Director Tom Frieden Shares Warning for RFK Jr. on Measles Outbreak [STAT]
• Health Officials Say Federal Cuts Will Hurt Texas’ Measles Response [Texas Tribune]
• US May Be Reverting to a Time When Measles Deaths Were Not Very Rare, Experts Warn [STAT]
• Texas Never Wanted RFK Jr.’s Unproven Measles Treatment [The Atlantic]
• Want Inclusive AI? Teach It to Speak More Languages [Devex]
• Watch. How Will AI Change Global Health? [Devex]