Julie Leask AO

Already more than 5,000 Australians have joined our campaign to release more funding for medical research in the 2026 Federal Budget.

If you can spare 30 seconds of your time to join our campaign, you’ll help fund life-saving cures in Australia.
www.moniqueryan.com.au/medical_rese...

The newly released WHO Full Value of Improved Influenza Vaccines Assessment (FVIVA) examines how next‑generation flu shots - offering broader, longer‑lasting protection - could affect health outcomes, economics, and policy.

tn21.org/FVIVA

My thoughts too.

Person in uniform walking through bush land.

Some news stores just get under your skin. Very sad to see the outcome of the Chris Baghsarian kidnapping today with his likely remains being found in Sydney. Appreciate all the efforts to try to find him, including SES (son searching yesterday buzzed by news helicopter).

As I’m, always, harping on. You owe no one your attention. You, particularly, don’t owe parasocial contacts your attention. There are ways to lessen your stress on social media and in online interactions, but, you must be proactive. Mute, block, move on, let it go. Your overall health will improve.

Just submitted my Research Handbook on Immunisation and Society to the publisher. A year in the making, this will be nice volume of contributions from leading authors when it comes out later this year. 😌 🎉

This is bad for public health.

Julie Leask on Vaccination Insights Discover insights from Julie Leask on how to tackle vaccine hesitancy.

Where Are We At With Vaccinations? Why people don't vaccinate - from the time of Jenner to now. My podcast interview with David Curnow. www.wawawpod.com/vaccinations/

Very cool

Using Social Media for Public Health Communication to Young People: A Qualitative Study to Inform Emergency Preparedness The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the role of social media for official health communication, especially for young people who rarely engage with other public health agency channels. This study expl...

✏️ How can we improve social media health communication with young people in the next big emergency?
 
Co-create messages for young people, with young people. 🤝
 
Study here: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Trump blamed autism on this pain pill. Now, the gold-standard evidence is in Studies promoted by the US president have shown small associations between a common medication and autism. A new analysis checked those results.

www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...

Here’s the summer uptick in flu and COVID-19 in NSW from this weeks surveillance report. Quite unusual for influenza.
www.health.nsw.gov.au/Infectious/c...

Agree - calling it a CDC action is false.

CMS to stop requiring states to report childhood vaccination levels

The current US government is providing a Masterclass in how to lower vaccination coverage. Here’s another example - stop collecting useful data and sanctimoniously dog whistle anti-vax tropes. www.cidrap.umn.edu/childhood-va...

Cabinet papers 2005: John Howard’s government was warned in 2005 that schools and borders might need to be shut under a pandemic Alexander Downer told senior colleagues the H5N1 strain of bird flu could mutate into a pandemic ‘with potentially devastating consequences’ for Australia and the world * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Health officials warned the Howard government that Australia might need to close schools and shut international borders in the event of a global influenza pandemic, nearly 15 years before the arrival of Covid-19. Previously unreleased cabinet papers made public by the National Archives of Australia on Thursday show planning for an influenza pandemic reached all the way to the national security committee of federal cabinet in October 2005. The discussions, two years after the Sars viral respiratory disease spread across Asia, presaged much of the response as Covid-19 spread around the world. Continue reading...

Cabinet papers 2005: John Howard’s government was warned in 2005 that schools and borders might need to be shut under a pandemic

Breaking News: Tatiana Schlossberg, an environmental journalist and child of Caroline Kennedy, died at 35. She recently wrote of her battle with leukemia in The New Yorker. nyti.ms/4pjDWiz

Opinion | Trump’s War on Public Health Is a Battle to the Death The war on public health is a battle to the death.

In @nytopinion.nytimes.com

“The Trump administration had adopted policies condemning a sizable group of its core MAGA supporters — miners, firemen, manufacturing workers — to slow deaths from diseases that cut off their ability to breath,” Thomas B. Edsall writes.

There’s more to the measles comeback than misinformation Global Health Checkup: What's really driving measles, Kenya pauses aid deal, airplane pollution onboard

There’s more to mealses than misinformation. www.healthbeat.org/2025/12/18/g...

This is what hepatitis B vaccination is about.

If you’re into the Dunedin music scene of the ‘80s or just like rock docos, go see this one screening in Sydney over next three nights. #StraitjacketFits www.lifeinonechordfilm.com/blank-1-1?in...

Vaccine Committee May Make Significant Changes to Childhood Schedule

Comments by President Trump, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and some panelists suggest the committee is likely to delay hepatitis B shots and discuss revising the use of other vaccines.

www.nytimes.com/2025/12/02/h...

We are supposed to believe that FDA paused and removed the J&J vaccine immediately after 6 cases of clotting, but they hid 10 kids dying from the mRNA vaccines until Prasad and Hoeg, who were always antivaxx, revealed the truth.

Checks out.

List of headlines from media covering FDA, most emphasizing the claim that covid killed children

News media has to do better with headlines that present false and unverified public health claims.

Debunking Health Misinformation with Empathy Debunking is an effective means to mitigate the impact of health misinformation. However, even after receiving a corrective message, misinformation of…

When correcting health misinformation 💉 💊 , it is a truism that one should do that in an empathetic way 🫶. But why should that help? What are the psychological mechanisms? Do we have evidence for its' effectiveness? What are potential backfire effects 🙈? www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

So much opportunity for Australia to lead, and so much apathy by decision makers

Rebels Post Videos of Mass Killings in Darfur as the World Watches After the fall of El Fasher to the R.S.F., observers fear for the next target in the war.

Humanitarian and foreign-affairs professionals agree that what is happening in Darfur now is on a scale unlike anything seen in the conflict so far. Why is so little being done? https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/the-fall-of-el-fasher

Engagement-based #algorithms amplify intergroup hostility + moral-emotional content, leading it to be overrepresented in your feed

This leads us to falsely perceive that people want to see this kind of content and share more of it.

This technology fuels false polarization: osf.io/preprints/os...

Promotional card for the Lancet-Elsevier Foundation Evidence to Impact Award. Images depict two healthcare workers looking at a clipboard and a person facing into the sun with their eyes closed and holding their hand on their chest.

How does research drive real change?

Our new Lancet- @elsfoundation.bsky.social Evidence to Impact Award is open for proposals!

If your project champions implementation science, health equity, and community engagement, apply now: tinyurl.com/j5dty567

What next

From Life in Prison to the Eras Tour While serving time for murder, Joe Garcia heard Taylor Swift’s music and thought of the woman he loved. Last year, they were reunited.

From Life in Prison to the Eras Tour. Joe Garcia’s account of many years in prison and how being a Swiftie helped him with the different feelings and stages www.newyorker.com/culture/pers...