Hazel Bevan

Excerpt from a public letter Roald Dahl wrote encouraging people to vaccinate their children. Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything. “Are you feeling all right?” I asked her. “I feel all sleepy,” she said. In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead. The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her. On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunized against measles. I was unable to do that for Olivia in 1962 because in those days a reliable measles vaccine had not been discovered. Today a good and safe vaccine is available to every family and all you have to do is to ask your doctor to administer it.

The measles outbreak in Texas is reminding me of the public letter Roald Dahl wrote about losing his daughter to measles in 1962, just before the vaccine was publicly available.

The Path to American Authoritarianism What comes after democratic breakdown.

www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state... This is by far the best, clearest and most realistic analysis of what we're in for that I've seen.

I can be as critical as anyone of the government's occasionally muddled message on growth but Look! At! This! Chart!! Anything they've done pales next to this GIGANTIC UNFORCED ERROR COMMITTED IN 2016!

(fagpacket maths follows)

on.ft.com/4hzyvbJ

This is a terrible example of "party brain" at work.

The question isn't "how do you beat Reform?" - which would be a wholly illegitimate way to make this decision.

It's "how do we stop foreign (& indeed domestic) money from subverting our democracy?"

That's much bigger than the fate of one party

Genuinely the last point I had a whole 24 hours without blowing my nose or coughing was October half term. Granted I also have a 1yo who just started nursery. But. This is now day 48 of sickness and I’d really like to breathe through my nose again…

The cost of not investing in the next 1000 days: implications for policy and practice Building on the evidence from the first paper in this Series highlighting the fundamental importance of healthy and nurturing environments for children's growth and development in the next 1000 days (...

New Lancet paper 'The cost of not investing in the first 1000 days'.

Cites our Cochrane review on preschool-based feeding programmes in socio-economically deprived settings.

FEED STARVING CHILDREN in a timely way. Later (when they're older) may be too late.

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan... 🧪

I’m sure this is a great appointment. Though it would be excellent to have a photo of the successful woman being recognised accompanying the piece rather than one of the man appointing her…

RFK Jr: Fact-checking his views on health policy Robert F Kennedy Jr has been nominated to be the next US health secretary, but some of his views are not backed by science.

"Vaccination has probably saved more lives & is better researched than most, if not all, aspects of healthcare. RFK Jr could set this back & be responsible for the death & disability of myriads of people, particularly children.”

Outstanding BBC fact check on RFK 👇

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Have we always been so entrenched in our conviction that our POV is right that it’s an affront to even listen to an alternative view however unlikely we are to find it palatable? Did we just read a partisan paper, have like minded friends & avoid talking politics? Or have our tolerances changed?

Entirely agree. Interesting also that the instinct is not just to mute someone who you don’t want to engage but to block them. I wonder if a legacy of twitter is the expectation that all debate will be or become vitriolic, and therefore so blood pressure inducing as to need to shut other views out

I pick based on where the more conveniently located plug sockets are… remarkable number of even recently done up hotels don’t have sockets anywhere near the bed. And yes I should probably have better sleep hygiene & leave my phone out of reach but one has to have some vices…