Take as Directed

Politico’s global health correspondent Carmen Paun offers her insights into the White House decision on March 13 to withdraw the nomination of David Weldon to be the next Director of CDC. CDC, while vulnerable, has not seemed to be a priority target of the Trump White House, though it is “not totally out of the woods” and is proceeding cautiously in Texas in response to the measles outbreak. There...

In a special crossover episode with CSIS's The Truth of the Matter, Andrew Schwartz and Steve discuss the recent measles outbreak and risks associated with it.  The United States is experiencing the worst measles outbreak in 30 years and the highest rate of contraction in the past six years after nearly eradicating the disease. Cases have surged in communities with low immunization coverage, raisi...

Dr. Elizabeth (Beth) Cameron, Professor, Brown University, and former senior official in global health security and biodefense at the White House and USAID, kindly shares her thoughts on the radical changes unfolding inside the U.S. government surrounding biothreats. Two internal factions within the Trump administration vie with one another. “It’s a bleak picture” in the accumulating damage to the...

Dr. Vanessa Kerry, founder of Seed Global Health, Associate Professor, Harvard School of Medicine, and since June 2023 the WHO Director-General’s Special Envoy on Climate Change and Health, joined The CommonHealth to unpack her recent article ‘Health is a Cornerstone of Global Security,’ published February 14 in Foreign Policy. In it, she argues the need to rethink health as the first line of defe...

In the eighth episode of the CommonHealth Live! series, J. Stephen Morrison sits down with Loyce Pace, Assistant Secretary for Global Affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Assistant Secretary Pace discusses the newly released HHS Global Strategy and its implications for U.S. climate and health policy. 

Dr. Elizabeth (Betsy) Bradley, President of Vassar College, shares her thoughts on the fusillade of Executive Orders signed by President Trump directed at educational institutions, including the apparent special animus toward elite private institutions. In this moment of heightened scrutiny across multiple fronts, the first step is to circle back to core values and the return on investment, to com...

Apoorva Mandavilli, the award-winning New York Times science and global health reporter, is on the front lines of several fast-breaking stories. “We should be worried” about the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). It was “already on the chopping block” before the hugely disruptive Trump pause on national grants and contracts. Secretary Rubio did issue a waiver, but there has been...

The renowned expert on vaccine confidence, Dr. Heidi Larson, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, explains why there has been a precipitous escalation in the past four years, especially among 18-24 year-olds, of vaccine skepticism and resistance. During Covid-19, “everybody got vaccinated,” everyone was exposed to the “digital swarm,” the “wildfire” on social media of mis- and dis-infor...

Since the start of her tenure in July 2023, Dr. Mandy Cohen, Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has pursued several reforms intended to make CDC a stronger, nimbler agency better able to protect Americans from domestic and global public health threats and rebuild trust. She is joined in conversation with former Senator Richard Burr, Co-Chair of the CSIS Bipartis...

In the tenth episode of the CommonHealth Live! series, Katherine E. Bliss will sit down with Stacy Aguilera-Peterson, Deputy Director for Research, U.S. Global Climate Change Research Program, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Josh Glasser, Assistant Director for Combatting Antimicrobial Resistance & Integrated Health Innovation (One Health), White House Office of Science an...

In the ninth episode of the CommonHealth Live! series, J. Stephen Morrison will sit down with Rahul Gupta, Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.  Dr. Gupta will discuss the surprising 15 percent decline in overdose deaths in 2024, 70 percent of which are caused by fentanyl overdose, and what factors are driving this change. He will discuss measures taken nationally on...

Dan Diamond, the national health reporter at the Washington Post, reflects on the shock of both United Health executive Brian Thompson’s tragic murder and the subsequent tsunami of anger and glee on social media. We’ve entered “a staggering moment” that does not feel real, but nonetheless reveals the remarkable depth of discontent with the American health system, in particular insurers. “Everythin...

Sheryl Gay Stolberg, the NYT health correspondent, feels her decades of health and political reporting prepare her well for understanding this remarkable moment in American history. Anger and alienation against the health sector and science are surging, drawing both on historical roots and current dynamics. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. nominated to be HHS Secretary, taps into a profound mistrust that he...

How do we explain the peril that global health faces? Covid and the post-Covid backlash. The Biden years’ “status quo” approach. Less support in Europe. Excessive debt in Africa. The generational shift in Congress and aging of the flagship programs: “Time has passed.” “We never really dealt with PEPFAR’s treatment mortgage.” Dealing with the conservative critique of US global health funding Is ess...

In the seventh episode of the CommonHealth Live! series, Katherine E. Bliss will sit down with Dr. John Balbus, Director of the Office of Climate Change and Health Equity at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Dr. Balbus will speak about the foundation of his office in 2021, the work it has engaged in so far, lessons learned, and his vision for the future.  This event is made possibl...

In the sixth episode of the CommonHealth Live! series, Katherine E. Bliss will sit down with Dr. Hanan Balkhy, WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean. Dr. Balkhy will speak to her evolving vision for the region, encompassing EMRO’s multiple complex humanitarian operations—in Gaza, Yemen, Afghanistan, Libya, and beyond. She will also reflect on the growing challenge of antimicrobial re...

Javier Guzman, Center for Global Development debriefs on the High Level Meeting on Anti-Microbial Resistance held in New York City on September 26. Successes took several forms: significant new data, analyses, and projections; a political declaration committed to the creation of a scientific panel; elevation of equity of access and accountability; a target to reduce deaths by 10% by 2030; and agre...

Dr. Michael Osterholm unpacks the history of H5N1, as we struggle with the question of whether the current H5N1 outbreak may pose a grave threat of a human-to-human pandemic. "It’s possible that H5N1 may never get over the bar for human disease and we don’t know why.” He also speaks to what we are likely to face in the months ahead from the mpox clade 1b outbreak, centered in Africa. 

Nidhi Bouri, DAA at USAID Bureau for Global Health, joined us to speak to the U.S. response to the dangerous mpox outbreak (clade 1b) centered in the Democratic Republic of Congo, boosted by President Biden’s commitment at UNGA to $500m in support, including 1 million vaccine doses. Much better data is urgently needed on the needs for diagnostics and vaccines. Tensions remain high among Africa CDC...

Dr. Jerome Adams authored his 2023 memoire, Crisis and Chaos: Lessons from the Front Lines of the War Against COVID-19. In it, he reflects on his upbringing in southern Maryland and the acute “hurting” among many citizens, rural and poor, dissatisfied with the status quo. Profoundly impactful to his tenure as Indiana State Health Commissioner was managing the opioid, Hepatitis C, and HIV outbreaks...

Dr. Anthony Fauci sat down with J. Stephen Morrison, CSIS, on August 13, for a conversation on his remarkable 54 year career of service as a doctor and scientist. Listen to hear about his early upbringing in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn; his Jesuit training; his expansive leadership at NIH on HIV/AIDS in the darkest days; the creation of a position of influence in science and public health unprecedented...

Dr. Megan Ranney, the dynamic, charismatic Dean of the Yale School of Public Health, joined us to illuminate the strategy she has pioneered to curb firearm injuries and deaths in America. It is a true epidemic that begs a serious public health approach. It requires coming to terms with suicide and homicide in America—both sensitive, disturbing phenomena. It requires a concentrated focus on data ga...

With the International AIDS Society’s 25th global conference taking place next week in Munich, Mark Lagon, Chief Policy Officer at Friends of the Global Fight Against AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria and Bennett Freeman, Associate Fellow with Chatham House, joined Katherine to discuss a new Friends report regarding the role of the private sector and civil society organizations in advocating for glo...

Leonard Rubenstein is Professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, non-resident Fellow at CSIS, and Chair of the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition. He joins us to unpack the Coalition’s 11th annual report on 2023. Four big wars—Ukraine, Myanmar, Gaza, Sudan—are driving up attacks upon civilians, and deaths, to exceptionally high levels. At the same time, attacks on the hea...

Dr. Raj Panjabi, former NSC Senior Director for Global Health Security and Biodefense, shares his personal story, his deep ties to Liberia, the genesis of Last Mile Health, the profound lessons that emerged from Ebola in Liberia. In his time (2021-2023) heading the President’s Malaria Initiative and serving at the NSC, what accomplishments is he most proud of? Alternatively, what were the toughest...