Quick takes

PEPFAR's funding was recently paused as a result of the recent executive order on foreign aid.[1] (It was previously reauthorized until March 25, 2025.[2]) If not exempted, this would pause PEPFAR's work for three months, effective immediately. Marco Rubio has issued waivers for some forms of aid, including emergency food aid, and has the authority to issue a similar waiver for PEPFAR, allowing it to resume work immediately.[3] Rubio has previously expressed (relatively generic) positive sentiments about PEPFAR on Twitter,[4] and I don't have specific reason to think he's opposed to PEPFAR, as opposed to simply not caring strongly enough to give it a waiver without anyone encouraging him to. I think it is worth considering calling your representatives to suggest that they encourage Rubio to give PEPFAR a waiver, similarly to the waiver he provided to programs giving emergency food aid. I have a lot of uncertainty here — in particular, I'm not sure whether this is likely to persuade Rubio — but I think it is fairly unlikely to make things actively worse. I think the argument in favor of calling is likely stronger for people who are represented by Republicans in Congress; I expect Rubio would care much more about pressure from his own party than about pressure from the Democrats.   1. ^ My primary source for this quick take is Kelsey Piper's Twitter thread, as well as the Tweets it quotes and the articles it and the quoted Tweet link to. For a brief discussion of what PEPFAR is, see my previous Quick Take. 2. ^ https://www.kff.org/policy-watch/pepfars-short-term-reauthorization-sets-an-uncertain-course-for-its-long-term-future/ 3. ^ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-pause-applies-all-foreign-aid-israel-egypt-get-waiver-says-state-dept-memo-2025-01-24/ 4. ^ https://x.com/SenMarcoRubio/status/1141694696135245824

Is anyone in EA coordinating a response to the PEPFAR pause? Seems like a very high priority thing for US-based EAs to do, and I'm keen to help if so and start something if not.

I just learned that Trump signed an executive order last night withdrawing the US from the WHO; this is his second attempt to do so.  WHO thankfully weren't caught totally unprepared. Politico reports that last year they "launched an investment round seeking some $7 billion “to mobilize predictable and flexible resources from a broader base of donors” for the WHO’s core work between 2025 and 2028. As of late last year, the WHO said it had received commitments for at least half that amount". Full text of the executive order below: 

Quick Take: In most educational settings or even healthcare campaigns for the general public, the only mosquito-borne disease highlighted prominently in the UK tends to be malaria, and most mosquito-borne diseases may be non-domestic in countries we'd consider HICs and with healthcare infrastructure, and yet turns out quite a few are considered now natively established in regions such as Spain, France, US, Croatia. Currently doing a lit review on different methods of reducing populations, transmission or exposure to bites to control mosquito borne diseases, and that has more context, information and sources, but if anyone was considering doing some cause prio on types/vectors of disease we may want to work on/should consider, then here are some key mosquito-borne diseases that I feel get mentioned less. Working on a longer write up but if it helps anyone considering wrapping their head around mosquito borne diseases, here is a short list of the most prominent diseases in terms of the burden of morbidity and mortality from worldwide disease, with a mention of endemic to HICs diseases: Malaria * Protist Plasmodium spread by female Anopheles mosquitos * Spread directly during bites, minority spread through contaminated needles with infected blood and congenital in utero * Agnostic to most innate risk factors but sickle cell uni-recessive carriers appear to be immune, and external factors are mainly climatic region (living in endemic countries, near equator, international travel), malnutrition, working outdoors especially during evenings, working with animals * children or elderly are more susceptible * 90% of malarial deaths occur in Africa south of the Sahara and most are in children under 5 * Testing is recommended after suspected bites or during local outbreaks, through microscopic blood smears or RDTs (expensive but can detect small pieces of malarial parasites), or lab PCR testing (most accurate especially to determine species but highly rare, specialis

The Trump administration has indefinitely paused NIH grant review meetings, effectively halting US-government-funded biomedical research. There are good criticisms of the NIH, but we are kidding ourselves if we believe that this is to do with anything but vindictiveness over COVID-19, or at best, a loss of public trust in health institutions from a minority of the US public. But this action will not rectify that. Instead of one public health institution with valid flaws that a minority of the public distrust, we have none now. Clinical trials have been paused too, so it’s likely that people will die from this. I don’t have a great sense of what to do other than lament. Thankfully, there are good research funders globally—in my case, a lot of the research Kaya Guides relies on is funded by the WHO (😔) or the EU. We’re still waiting to see how the WHO withdrawal will affect us, but we’re lucky that there are other global leaders willing to pick up the slack. I hope that US philanthropic funding also doesn’t dry up over the coming years…

During the animal welfare vs global health debate week, I was very reluctant to make a post or argument in favor of global health, the cause I work in and that animates me. Here are some reflections on why, that may or may not apply to other people: 1. Moral weights are tiresome to debate. If you (like me) do not have a good grasp of philosophy, it's an uphill struggle to grasp what RP's moral weights project means exactly, and where I would or would not buy into its assumptions. 2. I don't choose my donations/actions based on impartial cause prioritization. I think impartially within GHD (e.g. I don't prioritize interventions in India just because I'm from there, I treat health vs income moral weights much more analytically than species moral weights) but not for cross-cause comparison. I am okay with this. But it doesn't make for a persuasive case to other people. 3. It doesn't feel good to post something that you know will provoke a large volume of (friendly!) disagreement. I think of myself as a pretty disagreeable person, but I am still very averse to posting things that go against what almost everyone around me is saying, at least when I don't feel 100% confident in my thesis. I have found previous arguments about global health vs animal welfare to be especially exhausting and they did not lead to any convergence, so I don't see the upside that justifies the downside. 4. I don't fundamentally disagree with the narrow thesis that marginal money can do more good in animal welfare. I just feel disillusioned with the larger implications that global health is overfunded and not really worth the money we spend on it. I'm deliberately focusing on emotional/psychological inhibitions as opposed to analytical doubts I have about animal welfare. I do have some analytical doubts, but I think of them as secondary to the personal relationship I have with GHD.

While quartz countertop sales grow, millions of people have silicosis from inhaling silica dust: https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-023-16295-2 Hundreds of thousands died in the last couple decades from the incurable disease. Australia's the first country to enact a ban: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/dec/14/australia-will-become-the-first-county-to-ban-engineered-stone-bench-tops-will-others-follow

World Bank Development Impact Group looking for ML talent  https://www.worldbank.org/en/about/unit/unit-dec/impactevaluation/JobOpenings?trk=feed-detail_main-feed-card_feed-article-content - apply by jan 31 no affiliation, just thought it looked like a promising initiative