XUNICEF News and Views

Who doesn’t enjoy the Hallelujah Chorus? Here’s a nice story about how desperate Handel was during the composition and first performances of the Messiah. Yes, those were in Dublin, not London.

Dear All I’m in a mourning period. So please forgive any errors or over statement of UNICEF’s situation. I think you know I used to be part of the staff and very likely have heard me going on and on about some experience in a distant place. UNICEF gave me opportunity to meet people I never would have, to work on projects I loved, and do this in places I never expected to be in. I’m mourning because the headquarters of this organization is essentially being dispersed and reduced by 25%. I knew there was change coming, and felt some cutting and sharpening of focus would help. It now appears that by end December our main headquarters staff location will be Nairobi. It also appears that most of the programming functions are moving to a set of different cities, Rome, Valencia and Budapest. Admin staff moved to Budapest several years ago. The New York headquarters appears to be a thing of the past. Okay, it’s been in NYC 80 years, yes Eleanor Roosevelt was our first Exdir, yes it won the No...

Morning, All we need next are a few pockets of malnourished under five year olds, and maybe a group of immunocompromised children coming in contact with these cases and we could have a measles epidemic in the United States.   These subgroups won’t infect survivors; these will dead. Waning immunity in poor health older populations may also experience adult onset disease.   I’m wondering how Grant or Bellamy would have led UNICEF in this situation. If Steve Joseph is still with us I wonder if he could present his one hour lecture on how measles kills a child. I heard it in 1985, and it stuck. https://ritholtz.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/12/measles.png Editor's note: 14 US states currently report active outbreaks, with Texas and New Mexico hardest hit. So far there are three confirmed deaths.  The national MMR coverage for the 2023 / 2024 school year among kindergarteners was 92.7% , down from previous levels— and falling below the 95% herd immunity threshold....

The comment and video below refer to the report of the Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese which we posted last week -  From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide .  John has added a video in which Francesca Albanese summarizes her work.

Shared by John Gilmartin Today, The Washington Post, to their credit, reported on the Google founder Sergei Brin's internal reaction to the report Albanese report that alleged technology firms including Google and its parent company Alphabet had profited from “the genocide carried out by Israel” in Gaza.

Article shared by John Gilmartin Malaria. Half a million dead African kids a year. John Gilmartin

Article shared by John Gilmartin I suppose this is Lancet’s obituary for AID as most people call it who worked with it.

Comments and article shared by John Gilmartin From today’s Nature post. Working in public health can get nasty. Below are current examples of attacks linked to smoking and food advocacy.

Article shared by John Gilmartin To my surprise The New Yorker published one of the clearest and potent pieces on how healthcare in the USA has changed in recent years. Many of us on this message have heard about the Seward health issues, but this piece makes it very clear. The current governor of MA was the attorney general who originally blessed the deal that enabled Cerebus to pull off this debacle.

Article shared by John Gilmartin Click here for the article Summary Haiti, one of the world's poorest countries, was forced to pay France a massive debt after achieving independence. This debt crippled the country's development and left it vulnerable to further exploitation. The article argues that this historical injustice is a significant factor in Haiti's current problems. Author Ambassador Mark A. Green is President and CEO of the Wilson International Center for Scholars and a former US Ambassador to Tanzania, and a former executive director of USAID, Quote "In order to be able to comply with its debt terms, the Haitian government took out high interest loans from a range of banks in France, but also banks in the US and other parts of Europe. This created a double debt: the original debt owed to France, and a growing debt owed to foreign lenders."

Article shared by John Gilmartin I admit some headlines grab my attention. “Poo milkshake” !!?? Babies. Microbiome.  This is from Nature yesterday and is not a joke. Helsinki and their ministry of health are world class and willing to try things that others won’t or don’t.   My grandmother used to say, ‘you’ll eat a peck of dirt before you’ll die.' John

  Chemistry Nobel goes to developers of AlphaFold AI that predicts protein structures Click here for the article in Nature This title might sound dull, predicting protein structures. It isn’t.

Good news in dementia prevention  From yesterday's Washington Post, Shingrix vaccine for prevention of shingles disease appears to also have a genuine reduction effect on dementia development. Shingrix is a two dose vaccine made by GSK (Glaxo Smith Kline).  Some of you may already have received the Zostavax made by Merck up until 2020.  Zostavax does not appear to have an effect on dementia reduction, and is no longer marketed.  Shingrix is covered by Medicare part d so should cost you nothing.

Editor's Note: William Calley died on April 28, 2024. In March 1968 in the midst of the US war in Vietnam, US Lt. William Calley led American soldiers who killed 504 unresisting civilians, mostly women, children and elderly men, in My Lai and a neighboring community. The news reports and photos of the massacre later became a major factor in turning the American public against the war.

Editor's Note : Readers may have seen two articles we posted yesterday concerning the World Health Assembly and the seeming deadlock over the draft agreement on preparations for future pandemics.  If you missed them, click here and here.    I asked John Gilmartin to give us his views on the issues, and particularly the issue between developed countries and less developed over vaccine sharing.   Here is John's reply.  If you have thoughts to share, please comment. Hi Tom, Honestly, I don’t follow the many many WHO meetings that touch on vaccine supply and related issues. I’m not a diplomat. I’m now an old out of touch 'supply guy.’ My battles in the global vaccine supply arena were around concepts like CVI, the Children’s Vaccine Initiative, polio eradication, and local manufacture which became a somewhat important side issue during the Summit for Children. The founding of GAVI, which I think in hindsight was a brilliant idea, contributed to the succes...

Editor's Note:  Back in January John Gilmartin sent this message and the attached copy of Newton Bowles address to the Group of 78.  For some unknown reason, we did not post it on the blog at the time. However, it is an important part of our UNICEF history and is worth reading or re-reading now.

Children lining up for food in Karenni State Video shared by John Gilmartin

Article shared by John Gilmartin

Article shared by John Gilmartin