Chris Walzer

Technical Coordinator ZOOSURSY PROJECT - Sub Regional Representative for Eastern Africa – WOAH Nairobi, Kenya. - WOAH - World Organisation for Animal Health Technical Coordinator ZOOSURSY PROJECT Context   The World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH – founded as OIE) is a leading intergovernmental organisation representing 183 Members worldwide. Throug...

Job opportunity: www.woah.org/en/job-offer...

A Starfish, a President, and a Deep-Sea Frenzy in Argentina

I can only echo: “Long live the Sea and Conicet,” 🎁 www.nytimes.com/2025/08/08/w...

Disarming the World: How U.S. Health Policy Endangers Everyone Some mornings, the news hits harder than the coffee, and today was one of those gut-punches. It's hard to believe, even amid the daily deluge of devastating headlines, that things can, so unnecessaril...

HHS just gutted mRNA vaccine development. A reckless move that undermines science, global health equity, and future pandemic preparedness. This isn't just bad policy. It's dangerous. www.linkedin.com/pulse/disarm...
#PandemicPreparedness #Pandemic #GlobalHealth #vaccines

Will the Last Expert to Leave ACIP Please Turn Off the Lights If you've got expertise, better get the hell out of voluntarily advising the US government

The all-villain ACIP continues to hemorrhage actual expertise. It's pretty hard to take out the MMR and polio vaccines if there are annoying experts around to inconveniently talk about their benefits and safety record.

open.substack.com/pub/rasmusse...

Life is booming in the New York Bight. Our WCS Ocean Giants team saw fin whales, humpbacks, and common dolphins all feeding together.

At the surface, two different pectoral fins emerged, a side-lunging fin whale and a fin-slapping humpback. A feeding frenzy on a fave prey type. 🌎

I am so confused. Isn't the current Mayor the one who should be rattled?

Start your morning with two minutes of the testimony of Samuel Garcia, an average American who drove 3 hours to speak truth to power to the Texas legislature. Let’s decide that we are all Samuel Garcia. Get in their faces and make them listen. Mr. Garcia is a great American.

Pathways to an Intergovernmental Panel on Pandemics: lessons from the IPCC and IPBES Colin J Carlson, Christopher H Trisos, Ben Oppenheim, Shweta Bansal, Sara E Davies, Aïda Diongue-Niang, Victoria Y Fan, John D Kraemer, Rachel Golden Kroner, Lawrence O Gostin, David T S Hayman, Marion Koopmans, Torre E Lavelle, Carlos G das Neves, Zoe O’Donoghue, Laura M Pereira, Benjamin Roche, Matiangai Sirleaf, Kayla Zamanian, Carlos Zambrana-Torrelio, Alexandra L Phelan Pandemics pose a global threat to human wellbeing, justice, economies, and ecosystems and are comparable with other planetary crises such as climate change and biodiversity loss in terms of urgency and impact. The global community would benefit from a dedicated scientific synthesis body to assess pandemic risks and solutions. In this Personal View, we explore proposals for an Intergovernmental Panel on Pandemics and assess potential pathways to its creation. Learning lessons from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) might help national governments and international organisations to chart a course through important decisions about format, governance, operations, scientific scope and process, and ability to recommend policies that make the world safer.

So today, we're sharing two years of research on the path to an "IPCC for pandemics." It's an unflinching look at multilateralism, scientific complexity, and why global health doesn't quite work. But it's also a blueprint for the future.

👉 Please read and share!
🔓 www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Science philanthropy faces a new reality As the ground under American science shifts in troubling and unpredictable ways, questions have arisen as to how philanthropies should respond. Having recently led a private foundation that supports s...

With the ground under American science shifting, how should philanthropies that support science respond?

WCS President and CEO Adam Falk, who until recently served as president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, shares some thoughts in @science.org.

🌎 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

By end of 2022, ~8000 Black Vultures died, mostly in Florida. Serology showed lack of antibodies in some populations (Kentucky, Tennessee), but present in others (Florida, Pennsylvania). Infection by scavenging.
👉 meridian.allenpress.com/jwd/article-...

YouTube video by PoliticsGirl Do Not Look Away

Try and make it through this. Really watch.
youtube.com/shorts/tEVFP...

Summary Table of the massive defunding of biomedical research in the United States
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

New Handbook Aims to Protect Scientists From Autocratic Threats - Inside Climate News Scientists, experts say, need to help protect democracy, “the system of government in which science, health and humanity are most likely to thrive.”

"New Handbook Aims to Protect Scientists From Autocratic Threats--Scientists, experts say, need to help protect democracy" by Bob Berwyn for @insideclimatenews.org: insideclimatenews.org/news/0407202...

From Reactive to Predictive Care: A Conversation on AI and Animal Health - The Animal Echo

From wildlife tracking to AI-powered early warning systems, predictive health is the future of pandemic prevention. I was glad to contribute to this new @WOAH_AnimalHealth piece on how we can shift from reacting to preventing:
🔗 theanimalecho.woah.org/en/from-reac...
#OneHealth #AI #Surveillance

Will we habituate to the decline of democracy? The recent attack on science in the US is not only undermining knowledge; it is also undermining democracy. In a healthy democracy, public policy is guided by evidence, and truth is the shared foundat...

"The diminution and marginalization of science are thus central parts of the erosion of democracy itself."
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Musk will be responsible for the deaths of 14,000,000 people.

That’s a genocidal amount of death.

Thank you ‪@animalhealtheu.bsky.social‬ for inviting me to speak at Preventing Disease X: Great discussions on how strong animal health systems within a #OneHealth systems-based approach are the frontline of pandemic prevention. #DiseaseX #AnimalHealth” tinyurl.com/57x4eu84

We have changed! The International Mycorrhiza Society mycorrhizas.org has a new logo and website featuring current award winners, all our newsletters, searchable program abstracts from past ICOMs, info on future ICOMs, and beauty shots of fungi from our community. Enjoy! ⬇️

12th case of H5N1 in Cambodia in 2025. 5 yo boy from Kampot. Zoonotic spillover continues to occur. Vigilant surveillance and One Health response is critical.

A/HRC/59/23: From economy of occupation to economy of genocide - Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 (Advance unedited ... To learn more about Special Procedures of the UN Human Rights Council and the Question of Palestine, click here to visit the dedicated webpage. Human Rights Council Fifty-ninth session 16 June–11 July...

The objective is to hold these firms and their executives accountable through legal proceedings in every relevant jurisdiction.

Read the report here: www.un.org/unispal/docu...

Welcome Adam!

Here's a gift link to the piece about how the world's richest man decided to kill the world's poorest children. wapo.st/3GjK8qn

RFK Jr. says U.S. will stop funding global vaccine alliance Gavi Gavi works to expand access to vaccines for children in some of the world’s poorest countries. Health experts say the move could have deadly consequences.

Let’s be absolutely clear. This decision, based on fringe conspiracy theories, will kill children.
www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/...

The Covid ‘lab leak’ theory isn’t just a rightwing conspiracy – pretending that’s the case is bad for science | Jane Qiu While figures like Steve Bannon have exploited the issue, scientists have done themselves no favours by shutting down legitimate inquiry, says award-winning science writer Jane Qiu

Disappointing from @janeqiu.bsky.social, who is well aware that scientists haven’t shut down legitimate inquiry into a “lab leak.” No evidence supports it.

Trust is lost not by scientists publishing evidence, but by dishonest actors misrepresenting the evidence.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

We're hiring📢📢📢
To complement our team we're currently looking for a postdoctoral researcher with expertise in animal communication and behaviour, ideally canids but not a must! Position is based in Vienna, Austria, and available for 4 years. Please check the attachment for details 🐺🐶😊

Rare sightings: In the South Gobi, WCS Mongolia is monitoring how wildlife uses crossing structures at a newly built railway. This is important to improve vital connectivity for these nomadic species.

Recently, they caught clips of a rare Eurasian lynx. 🌏

WCS Is the Only Conservation NGO to be Designated as a World Organisation for Animal Health Collaborating Centre Amanda Fine (WCS) with WOAH staff Sara Linanne and Mariana Delgado, who serve as the Secretariat for the WOAH Biological Standards Commission (BSC). The WOAH BSC reviews collaborating centre applicati...

NEWS: WCS is the only conservation NGO to be designated as a World Organisation for Animal Health Collaborating Centre.

Designation recognizes our global leadership in science, #OneHealth, transboundary disease surveillance, and biodiversity conservation.

▶️ 🌍 bit.ly/40aeeDl

Bat Cave Footage Offers Clues to How Viruses Leap Between Species

Bat cave footage offers clues how viruses leap between species, writes @nytimes.com.

“It’s a cool example of what’s happening all the time and has been for eons,” said WCS’s @cwalzer.bsky.social.

🌍 www.nytimes.com/2025/06/16/s...

#NoKings
New York

The American Medical Association is calling for an investigation into Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to upend a major vaccine advisory committee at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.