Atul Gawande

We are witnessing a poisonous effort to destroy what the vast majority of Americans know is a key pillar of public health.

Vaccines are responsible for 40% of the reduction in child mortality achieved in the last half century.

The CDC website has been lobotomized. Where it once presented the decades of evidence debunking the false claims of a link between vaccines and autism, that has now been replaced with junk science.

YouTube video by Big Think How to break the hidden limits of expertise | Atul Gawande for Big Think+

I spoke with @BigThink about why even the most experienced professionals need a coach — including surgeons. It’s one of the most under-utilized ways people improve.
Video: youtu.be/tW7ClAexgHI?...

YouTube video by The New Yorker "Rovina's Choice" Shows How The Shutdown of U.S.A.I.D. Has Already Killed Hundreds of Thousands

And here's a YouTube link. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj0P...

See the film and my update on the ongoing, pointless, man-made loss of life here: bsky.app/profile/agaw...

I helped make a film, out this week, called “Rovina’s Choice,” about the deaths this man without conscience or accountability has caused — already 600,000, ⅔ of them children.

YouTube video by The New Yorker "Rovina's Choice" Shows How The Shutdown of U.S.A.I.D. Has Already Killed Hundreds of Thousands

Which is why we have made “Rovina’s Choice.” We cannot let the people affected – the health workers like those at Clinic 7 and the families like Rovina Naboi’s — go unseen. And we cannot let the consequences go unaccounted for.

YouTube link: 🎥 6/
youtu.be/Oj0PsaP2ZqQ?...

We are experiencing what historian Richard Rhodes called “public man-made death.”

But the deaths will be harder to see than in war. They are scattered & unfold slowly. We have estimates, but official statistics will not come until 2027. 5/

But now the gains are being reversed. In Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, our team visited Clinic 7, where the sickest children come. After US aid ended, food supply fell to 40% of minimum needs, 2/3 of health workers were laid off, & sever malnutrition surged. 4/
www.impactcounter.com/dashboard?vi...

Consider malnutrition. USAID helped countries shift care from hospitals to nearer home. Health workers with a scale & tape measure detect bad cases earlier. A peanut-paste therapy reversed starvation. Deaths fell from 20% to as little as 1%. It saved 1.2M lives in 2023. 3/

My companion piece explains the film’s context: USAID’s dismantling is estimated to have already killed 600,000 people, ⅔ of them children. Officials simply deny any harm, while halting data monitoring and firing inspectors general who’d have documented it. 2/
www.impactcounter.com/dashboard?vi...

The Shutdown of U.S.A.I.D. Has Already Killed Hundreds of Thousands The short documentary “Rovina’s Choice” tells the story of what goes when aid goes.

Today @TheNewYorker released our short documentary “Rovina’s Choice” online.

It traces the ongoing effects of the sudden shutdown of US foreign aid through the story of one mother in Kenya as she seeks to save her daughter from sickness and starvation. 🎥 1/ www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

You could see where this was going before they even started. 7/

It’s like seeing a surgeon about a curable cancer and focusing entirely on the potential harms of the surgery option without evaluating the potential harms of the no-surgery option. 6/

Meanwhile they jettisoned CDC’s usual, careful process for grappling with risks of changes they’re voting for. ACIP did zero evaluation of harm, costs, or problems in implementation, while asking for an impossible standard for current vaccination practice. 5/

Discussion went round in circles on CDC’s review of the strong evidence supporting current vaccine administration. Prompting this from member Retsef Levi: “I’m hearing a lot of ‘there’s no evidence of harm.’... I think the question is ‘Is there evidence of no harm?’” 4/

Finally, an answer came back: we must make changes because trust in vaccines has decreased. “The signal that is prompting this is not one of safety, but one of trust,” said member Robert Malone. 3/

Liaison members from medical societies asked repeatedly: what is the reason for the votes to now change routine children’s vaccine schedules when there’s been no signal of harm and clear evidence of great benefit? 2/

I watched the 1st meeting day of RFK Jr’s handpicked committee of vaccine advisors. It was utterly depressing. 1/

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...

#freedc I returned from the wedding of our daughter to find the city where I have lived for the last 3 years in the midst of a military takeover.

The military policing Americans.

This is happening. It is a danger for everyone in our country. Now is the moment to turn out in protest.

Opinion | Doctors Have Lost Their Mount Olympus of Medicine

Excellent read from @danielleofri.bsky.social on the reality for clinicians as NIH, CDC, FDA recs are put under political controls: “Medical professionals can no longer fully trust federal health guidance, and our patients are the ones who will suffer the most.” www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/o...

Opinion | José Andrés: People of Good Conscience Must Stop the Starvation in Gaza

truly

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/27/o...

Opinion | You May Not Be Trump’s Target This Time. But You Could Be Next.

They came for the foreign aid workers, justice department, public health institutions, universities and researchers, law firms, media organizations, not to mention longtime immigrants. Now it is nonprofits too. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/27/o...

Bush, Obama — and singer Bono — fault Trump’s gutting of USAID on agency’s last day “Gutting USAID is a travesty, and it’s a tragedy. Because it’s some of the most important work happening anywhere in the world,” Obama said.

Bono in a lyrical send off: “They called you crooks/when you were the best of us/there for the rest of us./And don’t think any less of us/when politics makes a mess of us.” www.politico.com/news/2025/06...

Obama: “Gutting USAID is a travesty, and it’s a tragedy. Because it’s some of the most important work happening anywhere in the world.”

Bush, Obama, and Bono thanked USAID staff & criticized dismantling USAID.

Bush: “Is it in our interest that 25 million people who would have died now live? I think it is. On behalf of a grateful nation, thank you for your hard work, and God bless you.” www.nytimes.com/2025/06/30/u...

Today, what’s left of USAID is being transferred to the State Dept, which is gutting that development work. Ending USAID will go down in history as a colossal failure and mistake. bsky.app/profile/ddia...

Higher USAID support was associated with a 15% reduction in overall mortality and 32% reduction in child mortality.

This was the effect of not just its health work but also its development support for economies, people, and institutions that transitioned numerous countries off of aid.

STAGGERING: This new study of 133 countries is the first to estimate the impact of all USAID’s work. In 2 decades, it has saved *92M* lives. Current cuts, if not reversed, are forecast to cost up to *14M* lives thru 2030. www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...