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Send us a text [https://www.buzzsprout.com/twilio/text_messages/1961832/open_sms] It’s been a dire year for global health. Almost as soon as he took office as president of the United States, Donald Trump said he would withdraw [https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/withdrawing-the-united-states-from-the-worldhealth-organization/] the country from membership in the World Health Organization (WHO), he fired almost everyone at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and slashed staffing [https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/27/top-usaid-career-staff-ordered-leave-00200854] and budgets at U.S. health agencies such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  The United States government also says it plans to end funding [https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/26/health/usaid-cuts-gavi-bird-flu.html] for Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and has cut some funding [https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/us-restores-urgent-food-aid-afghanistan-yemen-millions-120629524] for the United Nations World Food Program's efforts to feed millions of people in 14 countries. Before Trump, the United States was the largest donor to global health [https://www.kff.org/global-health-policy/issue-brief/10-things-to-know-about-u-s-funding-for-global-health/] in the world, contributing about US$12 billion in funding. That’s less than 1 percent of the United States federal budget. But the new administration claimed these efforts were wasteful, did not serve the country's interests, and cost too much. [https://www.state.gov/on-delivering-an-america-first-foreign-assistance-program/]  It’s not clear who can or will fill the gaps. [https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/22/health/usaid-who-trump-china.html] “I think we are going through a very dark time,” says Dr. Ramanan Laxminarayan [https://onehealthtrust.org/researchers/ramanan_laxminarayan/], founder and president of the One Health Trust. But Dr. Laxminarayan, an epidemiologist and economist, does see some hope. He doubts the United States will permanently end its robust support of global health and he sees opportunities for organizations such as WHO to streamline and become more efficient. Listen as he chats with One World, One Health host Maggie Fox about the immediate effects of the startling new United States government policies and how he sees things shaking out in the long term.

Send us a text [https://www.buzzsprout.com/twilio/text_messages/1961832/open_sms] Air pollution is a big killer. Air pollution of all kinds helped kill 4.2 million people globally in 2019, according to the World Health Organization. It can damage nearly every organ [https://www.who.int/teams/environment-climate-change-and-health/air-quality-energy-and-health/health-impacts] in the body, worsening asthma and leading to cancer and heart disease. It especially affects pregnant women and can damage a growing fetus. Air pollution also has more insidious effects. Dr. Álvaro Hofflinger of Arizona State University and colleagues studied school children [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11111-024-00472-5] in a part of Chile where many people still rely on wood-burning stoves. They found the more air pollution children were exposed to, the lower their grades. It’s another piece of evidence that can help parents, policymakers, officials, and health experts make decisions about where to focus their efforts in reducing pollution.  In this episode of One World, One Health, host Maggie Fox chats with Dr. Hofflinger about what his team found, about the factors that cause this type of pollution, and what people might be able to do about it. They found it’s not going to be such an easy problem to solve. Wood is cheap or free for many in parts of Chile, and electricity isn’t. Old habits are hard to break. And clean energy is not always an uncomplicated choice for governments.   Give it a listen and check out some of our other episodes on air pollution and health. Learn from Dr. Sarah Chambliss [https://onehealthtrust.org/news-media/podcasts/hazardous-air-in-the-neighborhood-local-pollution-and-asthma] about how people of color and in low resource neighborhoods are disproportionately affected by poor health due to pollution. Find out about the association between air pollution, depression, and pregnancy in our episode with Dr. Jun Wu [https://onehealthtrust.org/news-media/podcasts/air-pollution-depression-and-pregnancy/].

Send us a text [https://www.buzzsprout.com/twilio/text_messages/1961832/open_sms] It’s hard to overstate how popular writer John Green is. His most famous book, The Fault in Our Stars – a novel about teenagers with cancer, young love, and fate – has sold tens of millions of copies. The film based on the book brought in more than $300 million [https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/box-office-milestone-fault-stars-734124/] and it’s still popular to this day. Green has become a YouTube star and leader of online communities of fans including Nerdfighteria [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerdfighteria], as well as a co-host of an annual fundraiser for Project for Awesome [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_Awesome]. He's also passionate about public health. Green is a member of the board of trustees [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Board_of_trustees] for Partners in Health [https://www.pih.org/vlogbrothers-support-maternal-health] and posts regular videos [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgQEKHBg5g0] about it. A trip to Sierra Leone in west Africa got Green interested in tuberculosis. Now he’s written a book about that ancient disease: Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything_Is_Tuberculosis]. There are more characters than numbers in the book – from Henry, the charismatic young man John met who appears throughout the story, to the thin and pale women who once made people perceive TB as sexy (really). The book brings a star quality to an often-forgotten infection. Green hopes he can focus the attention of his dedicated audience on this leading global killer [https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/tuberculosis]. His work to bring attention to TB comes at a dire time, as the incidence of drug-resistant TB [https://onehealthtrust.org/news-media/podcasts/new-challenges-from-an-ancient-disease-drug-resistant-tuberculosis/] grows and the U.S. government slashes funding [https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2025/03/tuberculosis-death-usaid-trump/682062/] for global TB care and research. In this episode of One World, One Health, John Green chats with host Maggie Fox about the book, why he wrote it, and what he hopes its publication will accomplish.

Send us a text [https://www.buzzsprout.com/twilio/text_messages/1961832/open_sms] People have always doubted science. In the 17th century, Galileo was sentenced to house arrest [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei] by the Catholic Church for reporting his observations that the sun is at the center of the solar system and that the other planets, including Earth, orbit it. In 1925, the U.S. state of Tennessee banned the teaching of evolution and when a high school teacher named John Scopes agreed to challenge the law, the Scopes “monkey” trial [https://www.aclu.org/documents/state-tennessee-v-scopes] resulted. People did not like to think that they descended from monkeys – although that’s not quite what the science of evolution shows. Now, the United States and much of the world seems to have regressed into another period when science is denied. This time, much of it centers around vaccines, although there is animosity toward many other public health measures. Climate science is likewise still under attack, decades after the scientific expert community settled the question of whether people’s activities are changing the planet’s climate. One of the scientists fighting back is Dr. Peter Hotez. Long a champion of fighting neglected tropical diseases such as Chagas disease [https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/chagas-disease-(american-trypanosomiasis)] and leishmaniasis [https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/leishmaniasis], Hotez has evolved into an advocate for vaccination in general and for inexpensive, freely available vaccines in particular. He wrote a book, Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel’s Autism [https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/12040/vaccines-did-not-cause-rachels-autism?srsltid=AfmBOoqCha2Es9j3A1qYx412gbXujx5Ng2jYHzeqLGbW23Y2jW9XL3SY], that explains the disproven notion [https://www.today.com/health/are-vaccines-safe-answer-clear-yes-t106904] that vaccination might cause autism – using his own daughter’s case history as an illustration. His latest book, The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science [https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/33293/deadly-rise-anti-science], looks at the history of attacks on science, the political and commercial motives of many of the attacks, and the often fatal results. The attacks have gotten very personal for Hotez, and they’ve worsened under the new Trump Administration in the United States. Now Hotez, who is Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, has become one of the most recognizable public faces in the fight to defend science. In this episode of One World, One Health, Hotez describes how he never expected to be cast as a “cartoon villain” when what he mostly wanted to do was help underprivileged people escape disease.  SS

Send us a text [https://www.buzzsprout.com/twilio/text_messages/1961832/open_sms] Measles is an extremely infectious [https://www.cdc.gov/measles/about/index.html] virus that can both kill and cripple children. Luckily, there are highly effective vaccines to prevent the disease. The World Health Organization [https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/measles] recommends that 95 percent of the population be fully vaccinated against measles because it’s so contagious. This helps to ensure that vulnerable children and infants who cannot be vaccinated are protected. Yet vaccination rates are falling globally. The result? A 20 percent increase in measles cases between 2022 and 2023,  according to WHO [https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/measles] and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2024/p1114-measles-cases.html]. That adds up to more than 10 million cases. More than 107,000 people died from measles in 2023, mostly children.  The problem is worse in some communities [https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/measles-outbreaks-show-the-risks-of-under-vaccination/], especially where connections to the outside world are limited. One example: the Charedi community in London. Often referred to as ultra-Orthodox Jews, the Charedi often run their own schools and daycare centers and can fall outside the usual public health health system. Vaccination rates have fallen [https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(24)00173-1/fulltext] below 70 percent in some of these communities, according to UK health officials. [https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66a0ce1449b9c0597fdb03a6/20240704_national-measles-guidelines-July-2024.pdf] It can be tricky to encourage people in isolated communities to get themselves and their children vaccinated. Sometimes it’s simply a matter of logistics, and sometimes it’s a matter of overcoming distrust, misinformation, and disinformation. Dr. Ben Kasstan-Dabush has been studying this problem while at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. One solution he found: Make use of people from within the community to communicate. “I worked with clinical and community partners to produce a short clinic clip [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8_jhru5Emo] that can be screened in primary care waiting rooms,” he says. “It features the voice of a Charedi Jewish healthcare professional and mum.”  Another success: coloring pages for kids that feature vaccination in a positive light and that use common Jewish names. Common-sense solutions include extending clinic hours so parents can attend outside working hours and religious holidays.  Now a lecturer of global health policy at the University of Edinburgh, Dr. Kasstan-Dabush is continuing to study how people respond to public health outreach attempts around vaccination. Listen as he chats with One World, One Health about some of the reasons kids might not get vaccinated on time and ways to make it easier.