Emma Heffernan

With Future Of UNAIDS In Question, Top Official Says 'Very Difficult' To Envision 2026 Shutdown - Health Policy Watch BERLIN — A top UNAIDS official told delegates at the World Health Summit this week that it would be "very difficult" to envision shutting down the agency by

🚨The #HIV response is unraveling.

@unaids.org modelling warns that the sudden US funding cuts could lead to 6.6 million new infections & 4.2 million AIDS-related deaths by 2029.

✍️ @stefananderson.bsky.social
@gavi.org @un.org @who.int @iasociety.bsky.social
healthpolicy-watch.news/with-future-...

WMA has adopted a new resolution calling on the Government of Israel to immediately cease attacks on healthcare personnel, patients, and medical facilities in Gaza.

Full Press Release: lnkd.in/dQMs4TNU

#WMAGA2025 #MedicalEthics #MedSky

WMA has adopted a landmark Statement on Artificial and Augmented Intelligence in Medical Care, outlining global ethical principles to guide the safe and responsible use of artificial intelligence in healthcare.

Press Release: www.wma.net/news-post/wo...

#MedicalEthics

Great article by Colin Sheridan in yesterday's Irish Examiner. There must be an end to all of apartheid Israel's crimes against Palestinians, including the Occupied West Bank and in Gaza. There must be self determination, freedom, justice and equality for all Palestinians. #FreePalestine

Image showing people clearing a bomb site in Gaza

"Moving beyond the uncomfortable apathy of medical neutrality is the duty of professionals and their organisations."

Where genocide, healthocide, and atrocities start, medical neutrality ends, says @kamranabbasi.bsky.social in this Editor's Choice
www.bmj.com/content/391/...

An AP photographer from Gaza shares the stories behind her images of the war AP photographer Fatima Shbair tells the stories behind some of her most poignant images from covering the war in her homeland of Gaza.

Two years into the war, and as Israel and Hamas reached a deal raising hopes for the conflict's end, AP photographer Fatima Shbair tells the stories behind some of the most poignant images she made in her homeland, Gaza.

Cover of The Lancet's Oct 4, 2025 issue. Cover quote reads: "Most medical and surgical societies worldwide have remained silent or issued vague statements about Gaza's healthocide [...] Staying silent while pretending to be neutral is, in effect, a form of complicity."

On this week’s cover of The Lancet, a new letter: “Gaza’s healthocide: medical societies must not stay silent”.

Read the letter and more in our latest issue: tinyurl.com/5n85x448

Rescue teams in Gaza

"No dataset can truly capture the suffering of colleagues killed while doing their job, of hospitals reduced to rubble, or of patients left without care."

These research authors describe how their study on war injuries in Gaza was born out of necessity
www.bmj.com/content/390/...

"Undermining confidence in one of the few safe and effective pain and fever relief drugs in pregnancy risks causing unintended harm."

Pregnant women are often excluded from clinical trials and evidence gaps enable unsubstantiated claims, @louiseckenny.bsky.social
www.bmj.com/content/391/...

"The MAGA methodologists are unchecked: their hubris extends to believing that they know best about science and medicine."

The cult of MAGA methodology is out of control, and it’s causing harm, writes @kamranabbasi.bsky.social in this Editor's Choice
www.bmj.com/content/391/...

Thousands take part in pro-Palestine march in Dublin, calling for sanctions ‘I feel optimistic because all we have is to hope,’ Palestinian mother tells crowd

Thousands take part in pro-Palestine march in Dublin, calling for sanctions

66 000 people have been killed & almost 170 000 have been injured in #Gaza.

@who.int estimates that at least 1/4 of those have life-changing injuries that require immediate & ongoing rehabilitation.

I call on all parties to this conflict to choose peace, now.

Surveys show a mismatch between what tier most physician assistants think they can work at and what tier most doctors think they can work at.

There is a mismatch between physician assistants and doctors in confidence and competence
www.bmj.com/content/390/...

Positive impact of agri-environment schemes on butterflies UKCEH-led research, using professional surveys and data from citizen scientists, highlights the positive impact of agri-environment schemes (AES) on butterflies. This shows the importance of agri-envi...

Positive impact of agri-environment schemes on butterflies...

www.ceh.ac.uk/press/positi...

A reminder: Not only are there Medicaid cuts, but RFK Jr. is getting personal authority over who to kick off of Medicaid.

Read @juliametraux.bsky.social's report.

“Not Just Measles”: Whooping Cough Cases Are Soaring as Vaccine Rates Decline While much of the country is focused on the spiraling measles outbreak, experts warn that whooping cough and other preventable diseases could get much worse with falling vaccination rates and Trump’s ...

“My concern is that there is going to be a large outbreak of not just measles, but other vaccine-preventable diseases as well, that’s going to end up causing a lot of harm, and possibly deaths in children,” said Dr. Anna Durbin of @johnshopkinssph.bsky.social.

(Published April 2025)

Exclusive: RFK Jr. and the White House buried a major study on alcohol and cancer. Here’s what it shows. Kennedy wants to “Make America Healthy Again” — but doesn’t want you to see a report that could do just that.

www.vox.com/health/46008...

Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, scholars' association says The world's leading genocide scholars' association has passed a resolution saying that the legal criteria have been met to establish Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, its president said on Monday.

"Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide in Article II of the United Nations Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948)".
Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, genocide scholars' association says - www.reuters.com/world/middle...

Opinion | We Ran the C.D.C.: Kennedy Is Endangering Every American’s Health

9 CDC Directors going back to 1977 speak out. What RFK Jr has done to our nation’s public health system "should alarm every American."

It "is unlike anything we have ever seen at the agency, and unlike anything our country has ever experienced." www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/o...

Breaking: NSF is suspending roughly 300 grants with UCLA, following a DOJ finding on Tuesday that the university violated Title VI by "creating a hostile educational environment for Jewish and Israeli students."

The German Experiment That Placed Foster Children with Pedophiles With the approval of the government, a renowned sexologist ran a dangerous program. How could this happen?

Beginning in the 1960s, a German sexologist was allowed to place foster children under the care of pedophiles. Why did the government support his experiment?

British baby dies from whooping cough as vaccination rates fall Infant’s mother had not been vaccinated against the highly infectious disease, which affects the lungs and airways A baby in the UK has died from whooping cough, marking the first such death in the country this year. The infant’s mother had not been vaccinated against the highly infectious disease, which affects the lungs and airways. This death occurred as vaccination rates among children and pregnant women in the UK have fallen to their lowest levels in 15 years. Continue reading...

British baby dies from whooping cough as vaccination rates fall

The Big Idea: why we should embrace AI doctors People are understandably wary of new technology, but human error is often more lethal

The Big Idea: why we should embrace AI doctors

Israeli airstrike kills Houthi prime minister in Yemen, rebels say Ahmed al-Rahawi killed alongside several ministers gathered for prerecorded speech by rebel group’s leader An Israeli airstrike killed the prime minister of the Houthi rebel-controlled government in Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, the Houthis have said. Ahmed al-Rahawi was killed in a strike in Sana’a on Thursday along with a number of ministers, the rebels said in a statement on Saturday. Other ministers and officials were wounded, the statement added without providing further details. Continue reading...

Israeli airstrike kills Houthi prime minister in Yemen, rebels say

US Health Secretary Kennedy Ignored And Sidelined CDC Experts, Officials Claim In Resignation Letters - Health Policy Watch Details from the resignation letters of top officials from the United States’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that the government’s top

US Health Secretary Kennedy Ignored & Sidelined CDC
Experts, Officials Claim in Resignation Letters

Multiple claims of CDC data manipulation, eugenics rhetoric, & misinformation.

✍️ @kerrycullinan.bsky.social

@seckennedy.govpeeps.us @hhsgov.govmirrors.com @childrenshealthdefense.org.web.brid.gy

More Palestinians die of starvation as famine spreads in Gaza – Middle East crisis live Gaza hospitals record eight new deaths due to starvation and malnutrition, including two children The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has called for an urgent scale-up of evacuations from Gaza, warning that more than 15,600 patients remain in need of specialised care. In a post on X, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus thanked the UAE for supporting the latest evacuation of critically injured and sick patients but stressed that far more action is needed. Continue reading...

More Palestinians die of starvation as famine spreads in Gaza – Middle East crisis live

Famine confirmed for first time in Gaza More than half a million people in Gaza are trapped in famine, marked by widespread starvation, destitution and preventable deaths. FAO, UNICEF, WFP and WHO reiterate call for immediate ceasefire and ...

More than half a million people in Gaza are trapped in famine, marked by widespread starvation, destitution & preventable deaths, according to a new @theipcinfo.bsky.social analysis released today.
Read the full release: www.who.int/news/item/22...

Famine confirmed for first time in Gaza.

Famine confirmed for first time in Gaza
FAO, UNICEF, WFP & WHO reiterate call for immediate ceasefire & unhindered humanitarian access to curb deaths from hunger & malnutrition.

What do we know about the Covid-19 virus five years on? As the virus continues to evolve, experts assess its latest variants, seasonal prevalence and levels of vaccine uptake

What do we know about the Covid-19 virus five years on?