For most of the time I worked on the Gaza humanitarian response at USAID, this smuggling ring was the bane of our existence. It dramatically impacted price and market stability in Gaza and made the truck drivers jobs far more dangerous. We all knew it was the IDF running it.
"The [OECD] report notes that long COVID has a health system and economic impact that is similar to stroke or multiple sclerosis, but has not sparked the same response."
That cost? $135 billion per year over the next decade, comparable to the entire annual health budget of the Netherlands or Spain.
PM Mark Carney releases what is basically a “fireside chat”-style video. A lot of it is a repeat of his greatest lines. But also a warning that “A lot is going on in the world and not all of it is good”, with changing US-relations a key focus . youtu.be/uk2TZwkhi4E?...
Let's make electoral boundaries boring again
open.substack.com/pub/lisayoun... from the always wise @jlisayoung.bsky.social
Manly pronouncements on national interests, values and human rights written with all the preachiness of an corporate editorial entity that's never worried about their own human rights being protected. 🙄
5 years after bottom trawling was banned across more than 300 km² of seabed off southern England, early signs of ecosystem recovery are emerging. Mussel beds are re-establishing, fish populations are increasing, & conditions are improving for kelp forests. buff.ly/vnOTVLk #ShareGoodNewsToo
NEW: Can community creativity fight antimicrobial resistance? In Nigeria, residents co‑produced AMR messages through art, jingles, & film—showing how culturally grounded, participatory approaches can strengthen antibiotic awareness beyond expert‑led campaigns.
journals.plos.org/globalpublic...
Public health is simultaneously a government function, academic sub-discipline, & (global) social movement. Advocacy is a core competency. The result: medical journals routinely (& increasingly since the COVID pandemic) feature op-eds that engage with politics. Here: "the politics of contempt".
Data published today by CIHI show there were 57,700 hospitalizations in Canada for vaccine-preventable diseases in 2024, more than DOUBLE the rate in 2019.
40% were related to COVID, the largest driver of hospitalizations for vaccine-preventable respiratory diseases.
www.cihi.ca/en/priority-...
JD Vance is lecturing the Pope on Catholicism and Pierre Poilievre is lecturing Mark Carney on economics and RFK Jr is lecturing scientists about vaccines and Donald Trump is lecturing the world on tariffs and Pete Hegseth is quoting Pulp Fiction and thinking it’s the Bible
More broadly, public health ethics is a growing force here in Canada (see the work of @maxwellsmith.bsky.social). It’s a powerful tool to understand public health policy and, by extension, public health politics.
Those who oppose vaping & other alternatives to combustibles will sometimes argue that, even if it could be shown that vaping is much less harmful, there remains the problem of nicotine addiction. While I have not seen a detailed Canada/ US comparison, the argument is common here.
A tension in public health between reducing harm & shaping behaviour. “In theory, the goal is to minimise disease and death. In practice,… an additional … goal to discourage certain kinds of choices altogether, particularly those seen as unnecessary, indulgent, or potentially habit-forming.”
I'm a little addicted to making "slick" YouTube videos about my research. Here's the latest one: "The CIA's Fake Vaccination Campaign — and What It Cost Public Health"
youtu.be/ibuoF6EgrZk
Applications are now open for the University of Ottawa Summer Institute in Public Health Law, running online June 1–5. Designed for a wide range of attendees, no experience or legal training is required. www.ottawahealthlaw.ca/institute
Friends, offering up this deeply beautiful short in honour of 🇨🇦 National Film Day…
First Winter, an Oscar nominee in its year, tells the story of 1830s Irish arrivals here in the Ottawa Valley. 26 mins. Worth your time.
www.nfb.ca/film/first-w...
Why then, make the totally unrealistic suggestion that Canada join the EU? Perhaps his diagnosis of geopolitics is quite pessimistic. Alternatively, his goal was to provoke Canadians to imagine alternatives to reliance on the US or signal to the Trump administration that allies have options.
I would expect that the Finnish PM Stubb knows a fair bit about Canada (or at least federalism) having spent time in the US. I also assume that the foreign ministry has the capacity to explain Canadian federalism to the PM.
All of this begs the question, because it is all but impossible, what was the strategic objective of Finland’s PM when he suggested Canada join the EU?
Between Vance lecturing the Pope about theology and Poilievre telling Carney he's bad at economics, it's been a great week for confident men.
Yep
As a woman, I offer my sympathies to the Pope who is now being told hourly by very many random men what he actually means
The "public health enterprise" is simultaneously a branch of medicine, a function of government, and a progressive social movement. Evidence for the latter:
Outside the defence community, I don’t think people have understood the implications of meeting the 5% NATO spending target
In Canada, it triples defence spending to $150m, which rivals the entire main transfers to provinces
It also blows apart govt fiscal projections
cdhowe.org/publication/...
Free access to this new journal article from Dr. Michael Wolfson
utppublishing.com/doi/10.3138/...
It is quite normal for Cabinet committees to be chaired by someone other than what might be thought of as the lead minister. Helps promote critical scrutiny of proposal from lead department.
Also can reflect some people are better at serving as committee chair.
The Alberta health care procurement controversy, explained, by @moirawyton.bsky.social www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/alber... via @theglobeandmail.com
A WHOLE CIVILIZATION WILL DIE TONIGHT My son needs lunch, and I have to put his backpack together, but a whole civilization will die tonight, so I'm wondering if they've closed their schools. Like, a snow day, maybe, except instead of snow it's "keep your children home so if you die, you die together" — instead of "well open back up once the plows have cleared" it's "we don't know if we'll be here tomorrow, hold your babies tight." It's just "talk" I'm told, which I've been told before. "It's how the president makes his deals." But I've never heard anyone talk about other human beings this way, and I'm not certain I can look my son in the eyes if we all agree to stomach it one more time. A civilization will die tonight, but as I zip up his backpack and kiss him off to school I think: if this is what we call leadership then I'm not entirely sure ours isn't already dead. @michaelfdubois Mukad A QuBoy @michacifdubois
Brutal.
