13 Americans w/o Ebola exposure put in detention when returning from Africa. “Staff even created a map for Bhattacharya that showed the vast distance from Kinshasa to Ituri province, to highlight the low risk. He ordered them to be detained anyway.” www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

Trump's CDC Is Detaining Americans in Response to Ebola: A 'Wild Misuse' of Power

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is needlessly detaining Americans as part of a chaotic Ebola response led by Jay Bhattacharya.

rollingstone.com

Elon Musk’s cuts to U.S.A.I.D. led to some 700,000 deaths, Atul Gawande says. www.newyorker.com/news/the-new...

The Human Cost of DOGE’s War on U.S.A.I.D.

Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and the “public man-made death” that they’ve caused.

newyorker.com

More signs of resurging HIV after USAID’s closure. African Neonatal Network reported at IMNCH (a global health conference): HIV+ pregnant women ↑50% & those not on antiretrovirals ↑>300%, year-on-year, across 22 hospitals in 5 nations. @vtoxfordnetwork.bsky.social

Shock, awe, and economic fall out: During the first 9 months of 2025, ICE operations led directly to 668,000 lost jobs across 86 U.S. metro areas, according to new economic analysis. When you remove immigrant workers, you undermine native workers. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/26/o...

Opinion | ICE Is a Job Killer Everywhere It Goes

nytimes.com

Speed of response is everything, and it's still lagging far behind. Essential explainer on the Congo Ebola outbreak from @JeremyKonyndyk. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Opinion | Why This Ebola Outbreak Could End Up Being the Worst One in History (Gift Article)

The situation in eastern Congo and Uganda combines some of the most dangerous aspects of the 2014 and 2018 Ebola outbreaks.

nytimes.com

Vital read from @jeremykonyndyk.bsky.social in @nytimes.com The closure of USAID & disregard for the human toll was the 1st step in a dark shift in US aspirations toward naked power and extractive self-interest. It's leaving the US friendless, isolated, and weaker. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/08/o...

Opinion | The Aftermath of Feeding America’s Credibility Into the Woodchipper

nytimes.com

My sister, Meeta, and I are heartbroken to report that our beloved mom, Sushila Goswami Gawande, a joyful force of nature and a pediatrician for three decades in Athens, Ohio, died on December 17. We will miss her dearly. Her obit describing her remarkable life: www.legacy.com/legacy/sushi...

Read to the end. NPR asked why the Trump team ended a low-cost program that cured millions of tropical diseases w drugs donated by pharma. The spokesperson replied with an NPR headline—“Farewell to USAID”—and said: “What do you think farewell meant?” www.npr.org/sections/goa...

The fight to beat neglected tropical diseases was going well. 2025 could change that

The campaign to prevent and treat these diseases has seen great success thanks to a USAID program. Now that program is gone.

npr.org

My wife, Kathleen: “In the future, we will just be data. We will be just ones and zeroes. But I will be a one. Not a zero.”

This is your must read this week. Read this. It is about leukemia and the powers and limits of science and the terrifying dangers of the turn against it. It is human and excoriating and beautiful. www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

A Battle with My Blood

When I was diagnosed with leukemia, my first thought was that this couldn’t be happening to me, to my family.

newyorker.com

The CDC website has been lobotomized. Where it once presented the decades of evidence debunking the false claims of a link between vaccines and autism, that has now been replaced with junk science.

I spoke with @BigThink about why even the most experienced professionals need a coach — including surgeons. It’s one of the most under-utilized ways people improve. Video: youtu.be/tW7ClAexgHI?...

How to break the hidden limits of expertise | Atul Gawande for Big Think+

YouTube video by Big Think

youtu.be

I helped make a film, out this week, called “Rovina’s Choice,” about the deaths this man without conscience or accountability has caused — already 600,000, ⅔ of them children.

Today @TheNewYorker released our short documentary “Rovina’s Choice” online. It traces the ongoing effects of the sudden shutdown of US foreign aid through the story of one mother in Kenya as she seeks to save her daughter from sickness and starvation. 🎥 1/ www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

The Shutdown of U.S.A.I.D. Has Already Killed Hundreds of Thousands

The short documentary “Rovina’s Choice” tells the story of what goes when aid goes.

newyorker.com

I watched the 1st meeting day of RFK Jr’s handpicked committee of vaccine advisors. It was utterly depressing. 1/

9 CDC Directors going back to 1977 speak out. What RFK Jr has done to our nation’s public health system "should alarm every American." It "is unlike anything we have ever seen at the agency, and unlike anything our country has ever experienced." www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/o...

Opinion | We Ran the C.D.C.: Kennedy Is Endangering Every American’s Health

nytimes.com

#freedc I returned from the wedding of our daughter to find the city where I have lived for the last 3 years in the midst of a military takeover. The military policing Americans. This is happening. It is a danger for everyone in our country. Now is the moment to turn out in protest.

Excellent read from @danielleofri.bsky.social on the reality for clinicians as NIH, CDC, FDA recs are put under political controls: “Medical professionals can no longer fully trust federal health guidance, and our patients are the ones who will suffer the most.” www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/o...

Opinion | Doctors Have Lost Their Mount Olympus of Medicine

nytimes.com

truly www.nytimes.com/2025/07/27/o...

Opinion | José Andrés: People of Good Conscience Must Stop the Starvation in Gaza

nytimes.com

They came for the foreign aid workers, justice department, public health institutions, universities and researchers, law firms, media organizations, not to mention longtime immigrants. Now it is nonprofits too. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/27/o...

Opinion | You May Not Be Trump’s Target This Time. But You Could Be Next.

nytimes.com

STAGGERING: This new study of 133 countries is the first to estimate the impact of all USAID’s work. In 2 decades, it has saved *92M* lives. Current cuts, if not reversed, are forecast to cost up to *14M* lives thru 2030. www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

"The anti‑vax movement, once seen as confined to the U.S., is now spreading globally." An excellent, if sobering, piece from Rivka Galchen.

The New Yorker@newyorker.com · last yr.

A recent study devised forecasts for the next 25 years if vaccination rates decline by various rates. A ten-per-cent drop in measles vaccination, for example, would lead to some 11 million additional cases.

“Foreign aid has changed nothing.” “These are not our problems.” “The system is dysfunctional.” “The countries we aid are corrupt.” “Other countries aren’t doing enough.” I have heard all these arguments too. @nickkristof.bsky.social succinctly answers. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/25/o...

Opinion | The U.S. Cannot Solve All the World’s Problems

nytimes.com

This was supposed to be a breakthrough year in the 44-year-long struggle against H.I.V. It's turned into something very different. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/25/h...

Promise of Victory Over H.I.V. Fades as U.S. Withdraws Support

nytimes.com

This is a travesty & a nightmare. The US was a founder of @gavi.org. It lowers global vaccine costs, has vaccinated 1B children, & averted 19M deaths. This pull out will cost 100s of thousands of children's lives a year - and RFK Jr will be personally responsible. www.politico.com/news/2025/06...

RFK Jr. says US won’t donate to global vaccine effort

Kennedy ripped into Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, in a video address at its pledging summit.

politico.com

This twice-yearly shot almost completely prevents HIV and is now approved. It could shut down HIV. It needs to roll out in at risk groups. But Trump has gutted HIV prevention at home and abroad. That could be stopped, however. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/18/h...

Regulators Approve a Twice-Yearly Shot to Prevent H.I.V. Infection

nytimes.com

Americans Are Going to Die’ -- Why Dr. Fiona Havers, an influential vaccine researcher, left the CDC. The wholesale dismissal of the agency’s scientific advisers crossed the line, she said (Gift article) www.nytimes.com/2025/06/18/h...

Why a Vaccine Expert Left the C.D.C.: ‘Americans Are Going to Die’

nytimes.com

After Musk’s dismantling of USAID, deaths can be counted by the hundreds of thousands. “If there were justice in the world, Musk would never be able to repair his reputation, at least not without devoting the bulk of his fortune to easing the misery he’s engendered.“ www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/o...

Opinion | Elon Musk’s Legacy Is Disease, Starvation and Death

nytimes.com

“No children are dying on my watch,” said Rubio. It's blatantly false. Credible estimates count 190K deaths so far. In Kenya, I am seeing devastating impact, incl this child's starvation & many deaths directly caused by Rubio’s actions. More in my @msnbc.com clip. www.instagram.com/atul.gawande...

Atul Gawande on Instagram: "“No children are dying on my watch,” said Rubio. It's blatantly false. So far, 190,000 children and 90,000 adults have died due to the dismantling of USAID (even assuming...

9 likes, 0 comments - atul.gawande on May 24, 2025: "“No children are dying on my watch,” said Rubio. It's blatantly false. So far, 190,000 children and 90,000 adults have died due to the dismantlin...

instagram.com

“What I do know is that my colleagues, many…like me, foreign scientists, are terrified of being detained or having their visa status revoked.” It’s 3 months since ICE put Kseniia Petrova in detention for a customs violation normally handled with a fine. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/13/o...

Opinion | I Came to Study Aging. Now I’m Trapped in ICE Detention.

nytimes.com