Liz Zuccala

Novartis settles with Henrietta Lacks' estate over use of her 'stolen' cells to advance medicine Novartis has settled a lawsuit by the estate of Henrietta Lacks that alleged the pharmaceutical giant unjustly profited off her cells, which were taken from her tumor without her knowledge in 1951 and...

Justice sure took a long while…

apnews.com/article/henr...

‘Unbelievably dangerous’: experts sound alarm after ChatGPT Health fails to recognise medical emergencies Study finds ChatGPT Health did not recommend a hospital visit when medically necessary in more than half of cases

Study finds ChatGPT Health did not recommend a hospital visit when medically necessary in more than half of cases. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

YouTube video by ABC News In-depth Women ‘let down by the system’: Dr Gordon was gynaecology’s open secret | Four Corners

ICYMI: tonight’s full #4Corners, Scarred on gynaecologist Dr Simon Gordon is here. YouTube for international viewers. youtu.be/EwnqZ12O1sQ #endometriosis #medicine #surgeon

Pollution from trucks and buses costs Australians $6.2bn in health effects each year, study finds Research describes children exposed to air pollution equivalent to eight cigarettes a day by attending childcare near major roads

Heavy vehicle pollution costs us $6.2bn a year in health effects.

The study found that children attending childcare near major roads are exposed to pollution levels equiv. to 8 cigarettes a day.

No parent should have to worry that the air their child breathes at childcare could harm their health.

COVID-19 vaccination status during pregnancy and preeclampsia risk: the pandemic-era cohort of the INTERCOVID consortium COVID-19 vaccination with a booster reduces the odds of PE by 30% approaching 60% reduction among women with pre-existing morbidities.

Remember when RFK Jr. unilaterally decided that COVID19 vaccines should no longer be recommended during pregnancy?

Well, COVID19 increases the risk of preeclampsia.

And it turns out that getting boosted, either before or during pregnancy, significantly reduces the risk of preeclampsia.

New Documents Reveal a Controversial Vaccine Study's Unusual Path to CDC Approval A new investigation has found irregularities in the ethics review of a grant to study effects of a birth dose of hepatitis B vaccine in Guinea-Bissau.

New from @katherineeban.bsky.social in @rollingstone.com: CDC appointees bypassed the agency’s scientists to rush-fund a study questioning the hep B birth dose. The ethics committee president says his name was used on the approval without his knowledge.

www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

Australia's shameful history of the treatment of children in immigration detention springs to mind here. We have good evidence of the harms this causes.

These are dangerous places for children.

humanrights.gov.au/resource-hub...

Three reasons why the European region should worry about tuberculosis Despite decades of experience, advanced health systems, and deep medical knowledge, the WHO European region is still at risk from the global epidemic of tuberculosis. There are at least three pressing...

France just cut its contribution to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria by 58 percent!

And here we are, writing: European nations must continue to stay engaged in global health, continue to provide humanitarian assistance...

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Whistleblowing protections are arguably vital for health system good governance. According to the authors:

"Every one of our clients in the healthcare industry who had made a whistleblowing report before seeking legal assistance from us suffered some form of retaliation for their whistleblowing"

CSIRO funding falling short by ‘at least’ $1 billion Internal correspondence and Senate submissions show the CSIRO is running out of money and may lose its position as a leading research agency.

Internal correspondence and Senate submissions show the CSIRO is running out of money and may lose its position as a leading research agency, Rick Morton reports. satpa.pe/kyzQZla

I will never forget what it was like working as an ICU physician during the pandemic. There were many days that I went back to my hotel crying because of the patients we lost.

I hate this so much.

You can't... repeal... a scientific finding. At that point it's just called lying about it.

"The LNP were effectively giving Queensland's coal to Adani for free."

After the LNP abandoned a court case against Adani over unpaid coal royalties, it looks pretty dodgy that the data shows they received over half a million dollars in donations from Adani.
@rodcampbell.bsky.social #auspol

This is the key point - it's not about Moderna's flu vaccine, it's about sending a signal to the rest of the industry that vaccine development isn't viable in the US. It's all part of the larger anti-vaccine agenda.

Rare, dangerous side effects of some COVID-19 vaccines explained “Groundbreaking” study uncovers why adenovirus-based shots caused life-threatening blood clots and bleeding in some people

Five years after the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines started, it seems the mystery of why the Astra-Zeneca and J&J vaccines led to a rare but deadly side effect of unusual blood clots and bleeding has finally been solved. 

It's a fascinating case of molecular mimicry that may help make vaccine safer.🧪

Top US medical body to review vaccine effectiveness as government ‘abdicates’ responsibility AMA to review safety of respiratory vaccines as health agencies end recommendations based on no new data

ACIP, the vaccine committee that scrutinizes evidence on vaccines and offers guidance, has “now effectively collapsed,” the @ama-assn.org says. Organizations like AMA and the Vaccine Integrity Project at @cidrap.bsky.social are stepping into the gap. My latest:
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Public-good science is being squeezed, and health is part of the fallout Submissions to an inquiry into funding and job cuts at CSIRO raise important questions about the future of Australian science,

Report by Jason Staines re CSIRO cuts identifies a "shared concern that Australia is drifting toward a model of public science that is increasingly short-term, reactive and fragile, even as national challenges become more complex and interlinked."
www.croakey.org/public-good-...

“I am shocked and appalled,” one NCI scientist said. “We are moving funds away from so much promising research in order to do a preclinical study based on nonscientific ideas. It’s absurd.”

Why scrapping a key health promotion agency makes little economic sense

Preventing disease is clearly worthwhile. So why is the future of a key Australian health promotion agency, VicHealth, in the balance?

Donate to Support for Washington Post international employees, organized by Michelle Lee Among the hundreds of journalists laid off by The Washington Post on … Michelle Lee needs your support for Support for Washington Post international employees

Former Washington Post journalists have launched a GoFundMe to help repatriate fired staff members who are effectively stranded in foreign countries.

One of the richest men in the world fired them from the paper and didn’t even pay to ensure they got home.

Abolish the billionaire class:

Controversial Danish vaccine research group faces new allegations Researchers say they couldn’t find complete data for 10 trials that together enrolled tens of thousands of children in Guinea-Bissau

Have I ever mentioned how surreal it is to be an Editor-in-Chief of a journal called Vaccine right now?

www.science.org/content/arti...

It’s pretty wild, at least by typical academic journal editorial office standards.

US committee is reconsidering all vaccine recommendations Move is dramatic departure for advisory group under Kirk Milhoan, who says he doesn’t like the term ‘established science’

Prof emerita @elizabethjacobs.bsky.social,
“a founding member of Defend Public Health, said Milhoan “wants to experiment on the people of the United States by seeing what happens as vaccination coverage plummets and infectious diseases spread. This is so dangerous as to approach criminality””

Human rights advocates are calling for the Australia Government to stop violating children’s rights and locking them up in “cages” as the country faces renewed calls to increase the minimum age of criminal responsibility.

Read the full piece on The Point: https://theaus.in/4a07kEL

Through expanded ‘global gag rule,’ Trump administration exports anti-abortion, anti-trans policies The new global gag rule bars organizations receiving U.S. foreign aid from providing or even discussing abortions, gender identity, or DEI

It is our duty not to become numb or indifferent to the suffering this administration is causing, here and abroad: prismreports.org/2026/01/29/g...

Funder review rights ‘leave researchers in impossible position’ Mandatory edits of research findings a ‘blind spot’ in integrity debate, says scholar who experienced government agency ‘interference’

Rules around government-sanctioned research can leave academics in a no-win position by forcing them to accept revisions that violate their ethical obligations, a Queensland analysis suggests #academicsky
ow.ly/IZUJ50Y4PJ6

U.S. government has lost more than 10,000 STEM Ph.D.s since Trump took office A Science analysis reveals how many were fired, retired, or quit across 14 agencies

Incredible self own for the US. The damage being done to the US scientific enterprise is generational. We will look back on this as a tipping point where the US chose all on its own to stop leading the world in science.

www.science.org/content/arti...

MAHA

www.bakerinstitute.org/research/rea...

For those of you following the Guinea-Bissau hepatitis B vaccine: The Danish researchers have posted their updated protocol (called version 1.5). They still propose giving a lifesaving vaccine to only half of newborns and withholding it from others. www.bandim.org/wp-content/u...

“The reason the state of our hospitals, schools and other essential services are getting worse is that, while Australia is one of the richest countries in the world, our governments act as if we are poor.” - Dr Richard Denniss

Read the full article: https://theaus.in/3NnGHCh

Sometimes as editors we need to ask ourselves:

“does this paper belong in a scholarly journal or on an institutional website?”

When dealing with submissions from govt reps - who frequently place political messaging over balanced, evidence led discussion - the answer is usually straightforward.