So a Tory former PM criticises the cuts to UK aid while those noted development champions Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, as far as I can tell, have been utterly silent on the subject. Brown was very happy to do it when it was a Tory government doing the cutting. www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

Every single day. on.ft.com/409SaZx

This is how my (our) taxes were spent in 🇬🇧 last year. Only 70p in every £100 went on “overseas aid” … which was before the funding reduction announced earlier this year. Prior to culling #USAID, the US spent 1% of the federal budget on #internationaldevelopment. Rounding errors. Yet vital.

The only people this benefits are Putin and Xi

We found that AI tools - both general like #ChatGPT and research-specific like #Elicit - lack the reliability, relevancy and accuracy to summarise research for teachers. This is important because we have been sold the idea that AI will make research more accessible.

Today, I’m joining @prostatecanceruk.bsky.social & men across the whole of the UK - to share a potentially lifesaving message⤵️ You don’t need a finger up the bum to test for prostate cancer. In fact, the first step is a simple blood test you can get free from your GP

Hero.

Fascism

Still important years after “COVID is over”.

The fund is backed mainly by philanthropy, at a time of declining donor government foreign aid budgets.

Here is the @thekingsfund.bsky.social analysis of UK healthcare spending compared to other countries If you spend less than peer nations, you will have poorer health outcomes, fewer doctors, fewer scanners, fewer hospital beds etc

I agree with the Lancet.

As a GP, I am not allowed to receive a pen or post-it note pad from a pharmaceutical company rep The Government banned them in case I was influenced to prescribe a certain medication This should also be banned @rthonwesstreeting.bsky.social unless you have a way to justify this?

#USAID was the largest bilateral donor to the #TB response, contributing 19% of international donor funding in 2022. We estimate that the elimination of #USAID funding may lead to 1,390,900 million additional episodes of symptomatic TB and 420,500 TB deaths over the next 10 years. 2/8

ChaRM is a point of care device to measure respiratory rate. Please pass this message to at least one global health partner!

I’ve just received my final, delayed payment for work done for #USAID. Sadly, this is me shaking USAID’s hand for the final time to say “Thank you, we achieved so much together.

10 weeks ago #USAID ‘s partners and contractors received their “Stop Work Order” (me included). Since then, almost 190,000 people working in international development have lost their jobs, and c.1/3rd of all global funding has gone. www.usaidstopwork.com is tracking those losses.

“…today’s antivirals are so effective that if taken during pregnancy, the risk of passing HIV to the infant is minimal. Without these drugs, around a quarter of babies born to HIV-positive mothers would also contract the virus – and half of them would die before the age of two.”

#USAID used to wholly or partially fund a Demographic Health Survey every 5-10 years in most countries it worked in. These provided data such as infant & maternal deaths & uptake of contraception. These proved USAID’s ability to deliver change & provided data other partners relied upon. Gone. 😖

(1/4) Strong leadership means taking risks and trying things - but when it doesn’t work, realising your mistake and correcting it. Quickly.

The reason I bang on about the NHS is that I have worked in it for 40 years Over half it’s existence I remember a time, not that long ago when the majority of things worked well Something happened in 2010 that changed that I am fighting for a collective memory & fight for a better future

Wow. 👇🏼

At centre of Texas outbreak, around 20% of kindergarten are unvaccinated, which (very roughly) would suggest a potential R = 18 x 0.2 = 3.6. Which is similar to early COVID in terms of transmissibility, and a big problem. More on how we assess measles risk: kucharski.substack.com/p/measles-he... 2/

@chadbourn.bsky.social If you have not come across it, this is pretty cool theblue.report

Below article has a useful infographic on measles (rather than just a 'measles can infect 12-18 people' claim without mentioning vaccination impact).

‘Ultimately, these cuts will remove food & healthcare ..the reality is that this decision is already being portrayed as following in President Trump's slipstream of cuts to USAID’ International Development Minister Anneliese Dodds’ resignation letter over PM’s decision to cut overseas aid budget

Dodds is also absolutely right to urge the government to look at ways of raising money other than by cutting departmental budgets, including "...our fiscal rules and approach to taxation, as other nations are doing."

Annaliese Dodds has made a principled decision to step down from her role following Starmer's move to cut foreign aid to fund defence spending. Like her, I believe withdrawing from humanitarian commitments is both cruel, counterproductive, and short-sighted.

2. All tuberculosis programs, including the Global TB Drug Facility – terminated.

1. All malaria supplies protecting 53 million people, mostly children, including bed nets, diagnostics, preventive drugs, and treatments – terminated.

This was once the 14th Street entrance to USAID. Black tape obscures the agency’s name on all the directories. The lettering above the doors was pulled a few weeks ago. A trash bag covers the seal.

Shutting down #USAID was a colossal mistake. Aspects needed reform, but canning decades of work and expertise, while backtracking on “waivers” for lifesaving treatments and closing those too, shows a callous disregard for humanity, and the value of life. Thank you USAID colleagues & partners 🙏🏻

Many will be heartened by the sentiments expressed in this page on the Marks & Spencer website. Many will be disappointed that M&S are now aligning with a channel which uses dangerous, dehumanising rhetoric about refugees: corporate.marksandspencer.com/world-refuge...

For measles virus and the vaccine, it's a no-brainer. It's ridiculously infectious, R0~12-18. It's s a killer. >107K in 2023, mainly unvaxed kids in LMIC. Vax prevented ~60M from 2020-23. It also kills memory B cells, so no "natural immunity" for "healthy" immune systems🤦‍♂️

My General Practice Partnership consisted of a Jew, a Christian (me), a Muslim and a German Working in a mixed ethnic urban area We get on, worked together for the good of the whole community and drank coffee

Horrendous

This was a headline in an Ugandan newspaper earlier this week. It follows a suspension of all #USAID services 27 Jan. Tues: SoS Marco Rubio granted a 90 day waiver for lifesaving HIV meds inc PMTCT. With ‘000s USAID staff & partners furloughed or terminated, a restart will take time.

The major halt in funding is expected to have “a ripple effect on all different health issues,” says Katie Dain, the CEO of the NCD Alliance. This could include a move from integrated health care back to vertical programming.

Former USAID employees, aid workers and officials from aid organizations described in interviews a system thrown into mass confusion and chaos by the Trump administration's freeze on foreign aid and attempt to gut the agency. “Those things have taken decades to build up but two weeks to destroy.”

#USA: "We urge the US government to immediately resume funding of critical humanitarian and health aid, either through rescinding relevant orders freezing funding or expanding the current narrow humanitarian waiver to cover all necessary health and humanitarian programs." - @avrilbenoit.bsky.social

A simple graphic to explain what’s gone on with #USAID, why it matters and what you can do. @agawande.bsky.social

This is shameful. And the utter indifference to loss of life, our people abroad, America's standing, and American security, caused by unchecked, reckless power, is evil.

We already see the shutdown's cost. Kids with drug-resistant TB, turned away from clinics, are not just dying - they're spreading the disease. People around the world w HIV, denied their medicine, will soon start transmitting virus. The damage is global.

“We are witnessing one of the worst and most costly foreign policy blunders in U.S. history.” www.nytimes.com/2025/02/06/o...

What's happening at #USAID is causing so much damage. The great reporters at @science.org explore some of that damage. www.science.org/content/arti...

Two weeks into President Trump’s sweeping freeze on foreign aid, H.I.V. groups abroad have not received any funding, jeopardizing the health of more than 20 million people, including 500,000 children. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/05/h...

USAID matters. I've often disagreed with their strategy and choices, but their work saves more lives than any philanthropy can. It's a rounding error in the federal budget, and one of the best things we do as a country. To see it destroyed overnight by one unelected man is an unmitigated horror.