Janette Bennett

Ten ways to build a new narrative for humanitarianism Changing the narrative of an aid response system that is often blind to its inherent failings will be hard, but it is essential.

"It is not certain to work. But trying to cling on to global humanitarianism’s imploding status quo is certain not to work. Indeed, the status quo has already stopped working & cannot be saved" www.thenewhumanitarian.org/opinion/2026... @benphillips76.bsky.social

Annual Letter 2026 After a turbulent year for HIV and global health, 2026 opens with an urgent need to rethink the HIV response. The challenges we face demand more than incremental change. They require us to rethink how we work, rebuild what has been weakened and rise to meet a rapidly shifting global context.

🌐 In the year ahead, the IAS will convene, enable, advocate and empower to help secure sustainable financing, promote an evidence-based response, and protect the role of communities.

#RethinkRebuildRise

CDC Stopped Updating Key Vaccine, Infectious Disease Databases in 2025 The inaction 'demonstrates a profound disregard for human life,' says IDSA leader

Infectious diseases do not magically disappear just because you stop tracking and reporting. This is dangerous.
When diseases spread in silence, outbreaks go undetected for much longer and containment is more difficult.
All of this means more avoidable deaths.
www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdi...

The She Made Him Do It Theory of Everything The rhetoric and logic of the abuse of power operates similarly at all scales, which is why I've found feminism such useful equipment for understanding authoritarians in public and political life. Bec...

I guess we're back to this: www.meditationsinanemergency.com/the-she-made...

mRNA cancer vaccine shows protection at 5-year follow-up, Moderna and Merck say The vaccines are tailor-made to target each patient's unique cancer.

Our timing is stupidly impeccable. We are losing so many chances at great discoveries & applications for mRNA b/c of HHS.

mRNA vaccines engineered for high risk skin cancers reduced the risk of recurrence & death by 50% over 5 yrs, compared to standard treatment.
🧪 arstechnica.com/health/2026/...

Guinea-Bissau suspends US-funded vaccine trial as African scientists question its motives Officials at the US Department of Health and Human Services, which awarded funding for the controversial study, say it will proceed as planned.

Africa is doing the morally right thing. The infamous Guinea-Bissau trial is suspended.

"They’re trying to use African children to prove a case for reducing vaccines in the US."

There is no room for ethically problematic studies on babies or anyone.
🧪 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

What's behind this country's dramatic drop in the number of new orphans? A new study offers good news from Uganda — although the cuts in U.S. aid cast a shadow over the reduction in deaths of parents from HIV/AIDS.

New reporting from @npr.org shows orphanhood in #Uganda has fallen sharply thanks to sustained access to #HIV treatment.

But these gains are fragile – and at risk amid recent funding cuts. #RethinkRebuildRise

One Year Post-USAID, Global Health Funding Stuck in Limbo  | Think Global Health End-of-year estimates convey how much global health funding changed in 2025

One Year Post-USAID, Global Health Funding Stuck in Limbo

www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/one-...

Controversial CDC hep B vaccine study in Guinea-Bissau may be canceled

This is a step in the right direction.
News of this unethical study elicited outrage from scientists.

Guinea-Bissau has one of the highest burdens of hepatitis B in the world. 90% of babies exposed at birth develop chronic infection.
🧪 www.cidrap.umn.edu/childhood-va...

US cuts to #HIV programs in sub-Saharan Africa pose global risk, experts say

Reduced funding will erode decades of progress and impede future advancements, but there is hope for the future with alternative resources.

www.cidrap.umn.edu/h...

Photo: World Bank / Flickr cc

Good Morning!

Love this so much.

I have a deep respect for elephants. When a new baby is born, the herd surrounds the mother of little one and celebrates the new life.

@the_knowledge_factory on IG

It’s 2026, but we need to teach our global & public health students about

Fascism
Colonialism, coloniality
Authoritarianism
Broligarchy & oligarchy
Anti-science
Anti-vaccine
Science denial
Genocides
Climate crisis
Conflicts
Patriarchy, misogyny
Structural Racism
Human rights violations

Bari Weiss Has Thrown the CBS News Killswitch The Trump administration now has a veto over the Tiffany Network’s newsroom.

Adversarial journalism depends on the premise that reporters can publish true, well-sourced information even when the subjects of stories would prefer they didn’t. Weiss has abandoned that premise.

trib.al/S3C3UWY

2025: an annus horribilis for health in the USA The US Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices vote on Dec 5 to no longer recommend the hepatitis B vaccine birth dose, which had ensured that babies exposed to hepatitis B would not later develo...

2025 is definitely the American annus horribilis.

The WH website spreads misinformation about the origins of Covid. The CDC denies real data about vaccines/autism. ACIP does not support Hep B vaccines for babies. Measles/pertussis outbreaks. #NIH is politicized.
🧪 www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

The RFK, jr effect.

Key dates | AIDS 2026 Key dates for AIDS 2026, the 26th International AIDS Conference  Join our mailing list to receive the latest updates on registration, submissions, scholarships, volunteering and more.

📅 Planning to take part in #AIDS2026?

Conference dates & submission deadlines for abstracts, scholarships, satellites, pre-conferences & more are all in one place.

Visit our key dates page for everything you need to know to stay on track! 👇

USAID shutdown has led to hundreds of thousands of deaths | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health The Trump administration’s decision to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths from infectious diseases and malnutrition, accord...

The numbers vary from study to study but hundreds of thousands of people have died because of Elon Musk and Marco Rubio illegally disbanding USAID — a body count on par with the first eight years of the Syrian civil war — In just seven months. It’s mass death that is simply unfathomable in scale.

World On Track For 2.8°C Warming As Paris Agreement Overshoot Now Inevitable - Health Policy Watch The world is heading for 2.8°C of warming by century's end under current policies, according to a United Nations assessment released Tuesday.

🌡️ A hotter world is a sicker, more unequal world.

A new @unep.org assessment warns the world is on track for ~2.8°C of warming — with an overshoot of 1.5°C now likely within a decade.

🚨This is not only a climate story. It’s a health equity emergency.

@consilium.europa.eu #COP30

📖⬇️ & 🙏🔁

Can South Africa’s social grants help people make a better life? Research offers hope South Africa is looking for ways to use social grants to promote economic inclusion.

New evidence shows combining cash and support boosts livelihoods and stability. Investing in people pays off. 💸🌏

theconversation.com/can-south-af...

#Politics

A quirky observation in 1967 launched a field of research: bigger signatures often signal bigger egos. Today, CEOs can be measured by their pen strokes — and large signatures can bring in twice the fundraising revenue, according to a social psychologist.
tcnv.link/QUuFY4j

Anti-malaria funding cuts could lead to ‘deadliest resurgence ever’, study warns Expected reduction in contributions by wealthy countries likely to cost millions of lives and billions in lost growth

Anti-malaria funding cuts could lead to ‘deadliest resurgence ever’, study warns

Do you know what a group of frogs is called?

AN ARMY

Solidarity is the only way

Printing presses kept their letters in cases.

Capital letters went in the upper case.
Smaller letters went in the lower case.

This is why we say ‘UPPER CASE’ and ‘lower case.’

Ok, but what did we call them before the invention of the printing press?

MAJUSCULE and minuscule.

Inside the everyday Facebook networks where far-right ideas grow The Guardian spent a year studying an online community trading in anti-immigration sentiment and misinformation. Experts say such spaces can play a role in radicalisation * Far-right Facebook groups are engine of radicalisation in UK, data investigation suggests Far-right ideas are gaining ground. They are thriving in online worlds which are not easily visible to large swathes of the public but which spread misinformation that has real-world consequences. Take last year. In the summer of 2024, riots broke out across parts of the UK, fuelled by misinformation that spread on social media. Continue reading...

Inside the everyday Facebook networks where far-right ideas grow

In AVAC's legal case, #SCOTUS ruled to give the Administration a free pass to run out the clock on $4B in #foreignaid —funds Congress already appropriated for #globalhealth programs.

#AVAC denounces this misguided ruling & its dangerous precedent. Read our statement: avac.org/blog/us-supr...

In Major Breakthrough, Scientists Successfully Treat Devastating Brain Disease Huntington's for the First Time A research team says that for the first time in history, it's successfully treated Huntington's disease, a devastating, inherited disorder.

"The actual magnitude of the effect is breathtaking."

Public Good Narrative Project - Global Cooperation Institute September 2025

Today, harmful stories are shaping the global conversation, constraining policy ambition.

Our new report identifies how to overcome these stories.

PUBLIG GOOD: Building a winning narrative to bring the world together

By Jonathan Glennie & Ben Phillips

globalcooperation.institute/public-good-...