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Sheryl Gay Stolberg, NYT's much acclaimed Washington correspondent on health, speaks to recent work. A visit to the Wisconsin House race between incumbent (now defeated) Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) and his Democrat opponent Rebecca Cooke, (the victor) revealed how health care costs have become major electoral issues, seen quite differently by Rs and Ds. HHS Secretary Kennedy's visit to the NIH hospital to launch a new, unclearly defined investigation of vaccine injuries, sparked controversy. The sustained attacks on Anthony Fauci have become a symbol of the deterioration of public discourse around science and public health that has generated a climate of chaos, fear and mistrust. The new NYT series 'Science Under Siege' explores how the administration's actions have disrupted the critical partnerships among government, industry and universities and puts at grave risk U.S. global leadership. Sheryl's upcoming book, tentatively titled Contagion of Mistrust, scheduled to appear in 2028, takes a sweeping historical look at how science and public health have fallen victim to partisan divides.

This episode of The CommonHealth features a live discussion of the recently published book, Lifeline: The Story of PEPFAR, the Greatest Humanitarian Initiative of Our Time, by John Donnelly. In Lifeline, published by HarperCollins, Donnelly provides an inspiring account of how the U.S. government built PEPFAR, a then start-up development program to fight AIDS. PEPFAR went on to save more than twenty-six million lives, becoming one of America’s most successful foreign assistance programs in history. Lifeline draws from interviews with more than 200 global health leaders, from President George W. Bush to Dr. Anthony Fauci to local physicians across Africa, to cover the period from PEPFAR’s inception to the beginning of 2009.

Dr. Haitham Mohamed Ibrahim, Sudan Minister of Health, speaks to the astronomic scale of health and humanitarian demands in Sudan, the largest globally, three and a half years after the outbreak of war that has featured war crimes by both sides, cleaved Sudan into two de facto partitioned zones, and involves continued intense fighting over contested zones in Kordofan and Blue Nile. There is widespread, armed deliberate targeting of civilians, health services, clinics and hospitals. There is very little if any progress in reaching a negotiated peace settlement, an unconditional humanitarian truce, or in creating humanitarian corridors. External financing remains a fraction of what is required. Despite these stark realities, the Minister remains determined to restore services, improve access, and plan for the future. Progress has been achieved recently in restoring some primary care and hospitals, in reaching isolated populations in South Kordofan in extreme distress, and in working in close partnership with the World Food Program, UNICEF and WHO. Dangerous outbreaks in cholera and measles have been contained through national vaccination campaigns. Millions of displaced have returned to Khartoum. Food relief reaches 4 million, including 2 million in Darfur and almost 1 million in Kordofan. Planning for rehabilitation of the health sector has commenced. A wildcard is whether the heightened threat of a return to war between Ethiopia versus Eritrea and the TPLF will merge into Sudan's internal war and result in a regionalized conflagration.

It has been 25 years since a series of letters containing anthrax powder were distributed through the U.S. postal system in an act of bioterrorism. The 25th anniversary provides an opportunity to reflect on how the United States responded to these anthrax attacks and to explore U.S. efforts to deter future bioterrorist attacks, including the ability to identify and attribute attacks, impose consequences, and mitigate the impacts on the health and welfare of the American public. Maj. Gen. Paul Friedrichs (ret.) Senior Adviser, CSIS Global Health Policy Center, will moderate a discussion on how lessons learned from the 2001 anthrax attacks have been applied to the U.S. biodefense enterprise, and what more is needed to continue protecting Americans from deliberate biological threats. He will be joined by Dr. Wendi Kuhnert, Deputy Director, National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; former Senator Richard Burr, Co-Chair, CSIS Bipartisan Alliance for Global Health Security and Principal Policy Advisor and Health Policy Strategic Consulting Practice Chair, DLA Piper; and Stewart Simonson, Senior Adviser, CSIS Global Health Policy Center.

Drs. Armand Sprecher and Adi Nadimpalli, MSF, directed on-the-ground operations in Ituri and North Kivu provinces in recent months. They unpack why no one should feel comfortable with a runaway Ebola outbreak in eastern DRC that continues to outstrip the response. Reassuring statements from other sources notwithstanding.

Megan Ranney, Dean of the Yale School of Public Health for the past three years plus, reflects on the 25th anniversary of 9/11. And what she has learned and the innovations she has spearheaded leading Yale in an uncertain, highly volatile moment. "The slow destruction of trust is perhaps the greatest challenge."  We will not see any change so long as "we haven't done anything about it."

Zipline has drawn attention for its record of success delivering life-saving medical products by drone through its expanding network across key African partner countries, including Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, and Rwanda. Its on-demand supply chain approach has expanded access to vaccines, emergency blood products, and other treatments, especially in hard-to-reach rural areas, contributing to dramatic gains in reaching zero-dose children, treating severe malaria, and reducing maternal mortality. The company has also been a subject of interest following its $150 million award from the U.S. Department of State, as a model for the innovative, public-private partnerships that are a stated priority of the America First Global Health Strategy, and its new approach to commercial diplomacy. Please join the CSIS Bipartisan Alliance for Global Health Security for a discussion reflecting on Zipline’s work to expand its delivery network, the evolution of its partnership with African partner governments and the U.S. State Department, and what the company has learned about the potential for emerging technologies to increase health access and outcomes. J. Stephen Morrison, Senior Vice President and Director of the CSIS Global Health Policy Center will moderate the discussion with Caitlin Burton, CEO of Zipline's International Business.

Monisha Ashok, Director of Health Investments, U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) lays out how health now figures in DFC's strategy following the late 2025 Congressional reauthorization that increased its investment cap by more than threefold to $205 billion with much greater flexibilities, including equity investments and engagement in high-income countries. Under the DFC "strategy refresh," health has been elevated as a priority, with special emphasis on supply chain resilience and biosecurity. There is enormous market concentration of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and key starting materials (KSM) in China, where investments in near- or friend-shores production are essential to create more diverse and resilient supply chains. Biosecurity encompasses medical countermeasures (vaccines, therapies, tests); labs and advanced diagnostics; and bio surveillance. Increasingly, DFC is drawn to support the many signed MOUs with partner countries, under the America First Global Health Strategy. During the General Assembly in New York the week of September 21, DFC will join a panel on the first anniversary of AFGHA and a roundtable on financing pandemic preparedness and response.

Hayley Severance, Deputy Vice President, Global Biological Policy and Programs, Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), walks us through the newly launched Africa Health Security Index (AHSI): its origin and purpose; its key African and other partners; what it reveals about significant progress in Africa since 2021 (surveillance, countermeasures) and what it reveals about glaring problems (biosafety/biosecurity, finance). The challenge now is to get the AHSI in front of senior African decision makers, and to engage with the Trump administration, among others, at this moment when the Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak is raging.

Aurélia Nguyen, Dep. CEO of CEPI (Coalition of Epidemic Preparedness Innovations) shares her unusual personal and career story, including working with Andrew Witty at GSK, and with Seth Berkley at GAVI during Ebola in West Africa 2014-2015 and later during the COVID-19 pandemic when she managed the COVAX facility. "It was incredibly difficult." CEPI's 3.0 strategy focuses on viral families; technologies and platforms; and networks to rapidly conduct clinical trials and begin manufacturing. CEPI swung rapidly into action with the advent of the Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak in Ituri, DRC. It struck a promising $50 million partnership with the Department of State in support of its work to accelerate development of four vaccine candidates. Clinical trials are beginning and will advance in the fall in the hot zone in eastern DRC. Mistrust and insecurity require intensive community engagement. Even with US and EU support, CEPI still strives to fill an estimated $130 million gap over the next 6-9 months. Her biggest worry? Cases have doubled in just 23 days. We are not yet able to gauge the true scale of the outbreak.

Samaritan’s Purse (SP) has a well-established hospital and deep community ties in DRC's Ituri province. Vice President Ken Isaacs describes how SP pivoted during the unfolding Ebola outbreak, launching Ebola treatment centers. Humanitarian assistance reaches close to 200,000. Health workers have been very vulnerable to infection. "We have lost three." Expansion of international staff requires coping with the possibility of a 21-day isolation period before returning home. "What they need are Ebola fighters." Addressing malaria is essential. There is not yet a clear path to take care of international staff that get sick. If the U.S. facility in Kenya served a wide array of international Ebola fighters, that would be well received.

Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, Executive Director, WHO Health Emergencies Programme, spent several weeks in the hot zone in eastern Congo, mobilizing the international response to the late-discovered Ebola outbreak. Establishing community trust and confidence is the single most urgent challenge across all activities. At the six-week point, the response is scaling. However, "We have to be humble." "We are nowhere yet where we want to be." There is now a high-level UN figure in eastern Congo charged with addressing the complex security challenges. The absence of advanced US technical expertise in the deliberations and response, following the US withdrawal from WHO, is "strange." "Everyone pays a price."

In this episode of the CommonHealth Live! series, J. Stephen Morrison sits down with Representative Ami Bera (CA-06) to discuss the future of U.S. global health security strategy in an era of redefined alliances, geopolitical competition, and the rise of transformative but disruptive technologies such as AI.  What is the future of global health assistance under the new structure created by the U.S. Health Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs)? How is this model reshaping the role of the State Department and the CDC in global health, and how is it playing out in the context of the unfolding Ebola outbreak? How durable is this compact model, and does it align with long-term strategies Congress is pursuing in other foreign assistance domains, including for critical minerals under the DOMINANCE Act? As the United States pursues a more robust industrial policy in the name of stronger national security, how can it maintain reasonable channels for cooperation with China in the highly interdependent bioeconomy?

Dr. Gerald Parker, an acclaimed biodefense/One Health expert and high-ranking official across several administrations, experienced New World screwworm (NWS) as a boy in Texas while assisting his veterinarian father treat pets invaded by the parasite. Michaela Simoneau, CSIS Fellow, joined the conversation. In the late 1950s, the scaled introduction of sterile male flies — 50 million per week — was a brilliant scientific discovery, combined with a public private partnership with the ranching community. NWS was cleared from the United States by 1966, and from Mexico and Central America by 2006. The barrier began to decay in this decade, a function of migration, illicit cattle trafficking, a decline in the effectiveness of the sterile flies, Covid interruptions, and complacency and bureaucratic inertia. NWS has now arrived in Texas and New Mexico. The race is now fully on to restore control. We need an "Operation Warp Speed" mentality to advance multiple technological innovations, diplomacy, financing, a massive expansion of flies — perhaps as high as one billion per week.

Jamie Bay Nishi, the dynamic CEO of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH), is absorbed with the question: how do we navigate all the changes in government policy and programs and hold the global health community together? That includes philanthropies, universities, and companies. OMB’s proposed “Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance,” a 400-page document, would expand political oversight and weaken the authority of scientific advisory groups, changes that would alter the scientific research enterprise and create uncertainties. A 45-day period for comment is too little time to understand what is in the document and the ramifications if its proposed actions were enacted. It could further stigmatize collaboration with China. The June 3 White House Executive Order to reclassify the federal workforce will weaken career protections of GS-15 workers, leaving them open to firing at-will. CDC’s overseas country offices are to transition to a fee-for-service model, as part of the America First Global Health Strategy. This will not be sufficient to guarantee a sustainable work force, which requires a reliable surge capacity in CDC headquarters at Atlanta and stable expert in-country staff. It is incumbent upon Congress to change the funding scheme for CDC overseas experts and its surge capability.