Londoner found ill from lead in spices (coriander) bought on holiday in SE Asia. London's passive surveillance misses 99% of cases. In New York, pro-active surveillance finds hundreds of contaminated spices every year. Can only assume hundreds of cases in London not detected.

A decline in school Ofsted ratings costs the headteacher £ 2,200 per year in salary www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The EU should've stepped in. These are American crimes but also western failures

"AS THEY ATE"

If Erasmus is an avatar for getting closer to the EU in general then Labour is kicking at an open door which frankly is the only kind of door Starmer seems interested in.

Genuine question why are Starmer & Reeves SO unpopular?

Free the Best Buys! www.cgdev.org/blog/fcdos-b...

This summer, Brett Murphy, @peterdicampo.bsky.social and I went to South Sudan, where the U.S. had been supporting the response to a historic cholera outbreak in the world’s poorest country before pulling the plug. We found shuttered clinics and dead bodies. www.propublica.org/article/usai...

New estimates suggest harmful lead exposure among Bangladeshi children is lower than once thought. But over a third of children are still affected. @leecrawfurd.bsky.social & Caroline Mallory explore why the numbers may be improving & what lessons policymakers can draw: https://go.cgdev.org/3KHNCVH

Pre-school in Africa works. "on average, these programmes are successful in improving children's cognitive outcomes by 0.10 standard deviations (p-value < 0.01) [and] children's socioemotional development by 0.09 standard deviations (p-value < 0.01)." academic.oup.com/jae/advance-...

"Most Irish Foreign Aid Never Leaves the Country" www.thefitzwilliam.com/p/most-irish...

New Home Office impact assessment finds that cutting skilled and social care visas will cost the UK up to £10 billion with a central estimate of -£5.4 billion. It would be good if this got even a fraction of the coverage devoted to the endless debate about boats, flags and Turkish barber shops

Government has now - belatedly -published the impact assessment for the changes to skilled worker and care worker visas announced in May. Impact is estimated between -£2 billion and £-10 billion (central - £10 billion). assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6937e6...

Welcome to Britain, a country so short of dentists that an MP's 87-year-old mum pulled her teeth out with pliers. Also a country with thousands of foreign-qualified dentists who can’t work until they pass an exam so oversubscribed it’s like trying to book Glasto tickets. www.ft.com/content/f4e5...

New data shows over 1 in 3 Bangladeshi children have harmful lead exposure—but it’s a marked improvement on previous estimates. @leecrawfurd.bsky.social & Caroline Mallory consider the reasons for improvement (and if it's real), lessons learned, and what's next: https://go.cgdev.org/3KHNCVH

Blog: New representative data shows over 1 in 3 Bangladeshi children have harmful lead exposure, that's high but still represents real progress www.cgdev.org/blog/cautiou...

"Massive returns" - "amongst the most economically efficient development investments globally" New WB report on lead (pb) www.worldbank.org/en/topic/env...

If it were steel works we would have a government bailout plan, yet losing thousands of jobs at unis is met with a shrug. & unlike steelworks universities were profitable when they had foreign students. You are killing the golden goose… one of our best exports… HOW IS THIS HELPING GROWTH?!

"the U of Chicago identified 83 countries where an annual investment of only $50-100k could improve air quality. Air pollution poses “the world’s largest single environmental health risk,” contributing to 7 million premature deaths each year, according to the WHO" www.semafor.com/article/11/1...

1/ For six months, I've been traveling the world on Pulitzer Ctr & Fund For Investigative Journalism grants investigating Trump's effect on HIV & LGBTQ health. On World AIDS Day, @theintercept.com is publishing an overview essay of Afeef Nessouli & my findings. theintercept.com/2025/12/01/w...

I have a new VoxDev Lit launching this week on education technology👇 This area has lots of froth, but also some very promising evidence on tech use (on teaching, assessments, information) across K-12. Pulling this together was fun (with Phil Oreopoulos and @lnavarrosola.bsky.social ).

Call For Submissions: We're holding another lead conference at CGD, this time in London! www.cgdev.org/blog/call-su...

Hello #EconSky, this is my official #EconJMP post! I'm an applied micro-economist with a PhD from the University of Bordeaux. I work on topics in agricultural and environmental health in developing countries. You can find my work at mjamurphy.com or check the 🧵below for what my JMP is all about

I'm on the #EconJobMarket! I study how policies and childhood environments shape outcomes of low-income & vulnerable kids. In my JMP, I study the effects of allowing youth who would have aged out of foster care at 18 to stay until 21—offering support their peers not in foster care get from parents.

Here's my thread of this year's new scholars in Economics of Education and Education Policy. These PhD students and postdocs are on the job market, so take a look (and spread the word to others who might benefit from exposure). And now onto the scholars... 👇

"female councilor[s] accelerates the expansion of public child care ... women can be effective in councils despite being a nonpivotal minority because they change “the conversation.” direct.mit.edu/rest/article...

Exciting news on @malengo.org, the NGO that helps East African students move to Europe for education: Our research team has given us a glimpse of their early findings! Here is the full writeup, joint with @richardnerland.bsky.social: forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/CpZYHk... Thread follows!

Yesterday Trump's EPA committed $3 billion to replace lead pipes. Budget day in the UK and the exact same problem here has just zero attention. www.reuters.com/legal/litiga...

Does Lead Exposure Really Kill Five Million People Per Year? (Probably yes, while there's limited causal evidence, the one causal study with comparable data suggests similar effect sizes to the much larger observational literature) www.cgdev.org/blog/does-le...

Mere decades after the passing of Maria Montessori, we have the first large-scale RCT results of Montessori preschool. Seems pretty good. www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

This is good news, but for me, the biggest shock and one of the most under researched areas in development is the stunning rates of sexual abuse *in schools* in many places

Training a single teacher (the "gender focal point") in each school in Mozambique reduced sexual abuse of girls by school staff by 67%

As aid budgets decline, the ways rich countries are driving development are more important than ever. 🌟NEW: @cgdev.org’s Commitment to Development Index ranks the world’s richest nations, spotlighting impacts on the poorest & where nations can step up ⬇️🧵#CDI2025 go.cgdev.org/49ZJoD5

Stay tuned for follow-up, where we conduct an RCT involving vulnerable women in this area - half abducted as children - to assess the impact of: 1) cash only 2) cash+group life-skill training 3) cash+group mental health counseling W/ @eeshani.bsky.social & @mirandainez.bsky.social

Indonesia built 6,000 secondary schools and you'll never guess what happened to enrolment rates next cesarlgm.github.io/documents/pa...

Millions of Children Need Life-Changing Lead Poisoning Medicine. Why Isn’t It Affordable? "To break the monopoly, we need a cheap generic with an international stamp of approval—either from a WHO-listed authority or through WHO prequalification." www.cgdev.org/blog/million...

"We have become the destination of choice in Europe" according to the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood. Data from Eurostat & the Home Office shows the UK had the fifth largest number of claims of the EU/UK area in 2025, at 108,000... assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/691ae0...

i know “quiet, piggy” is just one raindrop in the flood of vile, shocking statements from trump, but it’s SO cruel, so threatening, such a violation of our most basic interpersonal norms. i would really like to see it get some actual coverage.

Can LLMs be personal tutors? 1. LLMs are good at explanations, but explanations are over-rated 2. LLMs are not as good at creating precise questions 3. There is a limit to what students will learn on their own and on a screen open.substack.com/pub/daisychr...

The EU banned toxic lead chromate pigments—but loopholes mean European exports (at least 242 tons) still put children worldwide at risk. @rorytodd98.bsky.social & @leecrawfurd.bsky.social call for full export ban, a meaningful win for global health at no cost to the EU: https://go.cgdev.org/4oTRelV

Delighted that the JRCT is taking this next step in reckoning seriously with their historical legacy www.linkedin.com/posts/hiring...

We just spent 6 months to add 1 figure to this paper. Some people said, "Couples aren't prioritizing men's careers. Men just have better earnings opportunities when moving." Earnings effects of moves for couples on the left, singles on the right. Negligible gap between single men and women.

Flu (and/or COVID) vaccines reduce *HEART FAILURE* (consider this your regular reminder to get yours) academic.oup.com/eurheartj/ar...

Tim Leunig is prolific in his policy proposals but this is the one that has most stuck in my head - governments should mandate that social media video feeds play the news. 1 min of news for every 1 hour of watching. open.substack.com/pub/timleuni...

New blog with @rorytodd98.bsky.social : The EU Should Ban Exports of Lead Chromate

LEEP are hiring for multiple program associate roles working on reducing lead exposure in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Application Deadline: Nov 16, 2025, salaries $35-50k depending on location (including remote). leadelimination.org/jobs/

"Current proposals in Britain are exceptional even in the longer-term development of repressive European migration policy." foreignpolicy.com/2025/11/05/b...

Good news that the UK Health Ministry has finally been shamed into thinking about child lead screening, great work @laurahughesft.bsky.social ! www.ft.com/content/e27f...

You may remember talk of "fractional dosing" during COVID. Its still relevant - we could save thousands of lives and millions of dollars by stretching vaccines for various diseases, giving lower doses to more people at less cost. New by Witold Więcek www.cgdev.org/publication/...

Could Katie Lam identify the London schools where "more than three-quarters of children don’t speak English to a serviceable school standard". Well done to @davehillonlondon.bsky.social for giving Lam + CPS the chance to substantiate this claim at the Tory fringe www.onlondon.co.uk/dave-hill-ka...