Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Liz Zuccala

Madhu Pai, MD, PhD @madhupai.bsky.social · 1d

The gaze reversed: global health through local eyes

@thirushanaidu.bsky.social reviews @seyeabimbola.bsky.social’s book in @thelancet.com

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

The gaze reversed: global health through local eyes

Seye Abimbola's The Foreign Gaze: Essays on Global Health takes a kaleidoscopic view of the effects of outsider visions and imaginaries on the recipients, contexts, and places that hold attention in g...

www.thelancet.com

7 20

Reposted by Liz Zuccala

The Medical Journal of Australia @mja.com.au · 3d

NEW in InSight+

University of Technology Sydney plans to cut public health at the worst possible time, writes Associate Professor Daniel Demant

Read more: buff.ly/iNituWK

1 2 2

Liz Zuccala @drzucc.bsky.social · 2d

Australian women having a heart attack are less likely to be promptly diagnosed and treated compared to men, although the gender gap in cardiac care is (slowly) narrowing:

www.abc.net.au/news/health/...

Original research article via @mja.com.au: www.mja.com.au/journal/2025...

#genderequity

Heart attack signs look different in women. It affects the care they receive

Australian women having a heart attack are less likely to be promptly diagnosed and treated compared to men, although the gender gap in cardiac care is narrowing.

www.abc.net.au

1

Liz Zuccala @drzucc.bsky.social · 2d

Very proud to have curated this Special Issue in the @mja.com.au on #gender & health.

Amid growing backlash against #genderequity & diversity, we sought to elevate work informed by evidence & respect for the rights, dignity and perspectives of affected populations.

www.mja.com.au/journal/2025...

Special issue on gender and health: listening to the voices of patients

www.mja.com.au

4 7

Reposted by Liz Zuccala

Dr Heather McCormack @heathermccormack.bsky.social · 13d

📢 New publication alert!
This came out last week while I was off in conference land. “Systemic challenges for meaningful partnerships in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health and medical research grant applications: a critical reflection”, published in MJA www.mja.com.au/doi/10.5694/...

Systemic challenges for meaningful partnerships in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health and medical research grant applications: a critical reflection

Examination of an Australian government scheme to fund health and medical research targeted at Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people 

www.mja.com.au

1 1 1

Reposted by Liz Zuccala

Barrie Shannon @barrieshannon.com · Aug 29

Honoured to be named on this paper just published in MJA, brilliantly led by Dr Kade Booth at UON. We articulate the urgent need to address inequity in cervical cancer prevention for trans Australians 🌈🎓

Advancing equity: the urgent need to include trans and gender diverse people in cervical cancer prevention in Australia

Click on the article title to read more.

doi.org

1 10

Reposted by Liz Zuccala

Johanna Joyce @johannajoyce.bsky.social · Sep 1

Cells swapping their #mitochondria - this sounded like science fiction 🧪 when the first studies started coming out!

But now this has been observed in #cancer, #yeast, #molluscs, and under normal physiology - as a way to regulate energy demands, metabolism, cell fate & much more - true #powerhouses!

Cells are swapping their mitochondria. What does this mean for our health?

Researchers are studying why the energy factories are moving between cells and whether the process can be harnessed to treat cancer and other diseases.

www.nature.com

7 28 80

Reposted by Liz Zuccala

Sherry Pagoto, PhD @drsherrypagoto.bsky.social · Sep 1

This morning 9 former CDC Directors, whose tenures date back to 1977, published this warning in the NYT:

RFK Jr is a danger to public health.

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/o...

Opinion | We Ran the C.D.C.: Kennedy Is Endangering Every American’s Health

www.nytimes.com

26 530 1.4K

Reposted by Liz Zuccala

Matthew Herper @matthewherper.bsky.social · Aug 28

However bad you think things are at the CDC they are worse.

That's the takeaway from this well-reported story from Daniel Payne w/back-up from an all-star STAT team.

Must-read.

www.statnews.com/2025/08/28/c...

Inside the CDC director's ouster: Kennedy demanded acceptance of new vaccine policies; Susan Monarez refused

Susan Monarez’s resistance to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s moves to assert control over vaccine guidance is at the center of her dismissal as CDC director

www.statnews.com

3 65 150

Reposted by Liz Zuccala

Jocalyn Clark @jocalynclark.bsky.social · Aug 28

We need a circling of the wagons (journals) to support #CDC & against the weaponising of public health.

As we did when medical journal editors worldwide condemned the first Executive Orders.

It’s tempting to think this destruction is only a US problem - but the underlying currents are everywhere.

Liz Zuccala @drzucc.bsky.social · Feb 28

In the past month we've seen astounding attacks in the US on science, medicine, health, academic freedom & human rights.

We've also seen leadership & calls for solidarity from institutions around the world in response.

A thread of commentaries & statements from scholarly journals & their editors 👇

2 10 28

Reposted by Liz Zuccala

Timmons Roberts @timmonsroberts.bsky.social · Aug 25

My lab's been attacked by an anti-wind group and their lawyers. They threatened the science funding of my whole university, to shut me and my undergraduate research assistants up.

NYT just covered it. 1/n

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/25/c...

Law Firm Pressures Brown University to Erase Research on Anti-Wind Groups

www.nytimes.com

20 2.2K 4.5K

Reposted by Liz Zuccala

Kris Karnauskas @oceansclimatecu.bsky.social · Aug 20

Editorial published today by the Editors-in-Chief of the @agu.org journals:
agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...

The Executive Order “Restoring Gold Standard Science” is Dangerous for America

This EO is an unconstitutional attempt to censor and punish U.S. scientists for publishing science that doesn't fit a political agenda This misleading and false misrepresentation of U.S. scientif...

agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

2 14 27

Reposted by Liz Zuccala

Naomi Klein @naomiaklein.bsky.social · Aug 19

🧵Excellent piece "They appear to have inverted the promise of the internet as an endless archive of information one can navigate for themselves. Do your own research has, in short order, become Get one canonical answer."

This helps explain why Trump/Vance have gone all in on AI...

Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · Aug 18

Hello. I wrote a nice long essay about AI and this very strange moment where we're constantly told we're living in the dawn of a strange new future but the only thing that's actually clear is that everyone feels pretty unmoored and uncertain. I hope you'll read it

AI Is a Mass-Delusion Event

Three years in, one of AI’s enduring impacts is to make people feel like they’re losing it.

www.theatlantic.com

8 140 460

Liz Zuccala @drzucc.bsky.social · Aug 18

Australia has 120 health workforce policies. But with no national plan, we’re missing the big picture
theconversation.com/australia-ha...

Australia has 120 health workforce policies. But with no national plan, we’re missing the big picture

Australia is awash with policies, but not the kind that would fix the workforce crisis. Here’s what would work instead.

theconversation.com

1

Liz Zuccala @drzucc.bsky.social · Aug 14

Paramedics are less likely to identify a stroke in women than men. Closing this gap could save lives – and money theconversation.com/paramedics-a...

Also see the original research article in @mja.com.au: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.5694/...

Paramedics are less likely to identify a stroke in women than men. Closing this gap could save lives – and money

In women, ‘atypical’ stroke symptoms can be overlooked, leaving them more vulnerable to misdiagnosis, delayed treatment and long-term harm.

theconversation.com

2

Reposted by Liz Zuccala

Prof Gavin Yamey @gavinyamey.bsky.social · Aug 11

This study was published in Annals of Internal Medicine; the journal is NOT retracting it just because of political pressure from the world's most extreme & dangerous anti-vaxx activist

The lead author, Anders Peter Hviid, says "I have not been targeted by a political figurehead in this way before"

Derek Beres @derekberes.bsky.social · Aug 11

A large-scale, government-funded study tracking 1.2M children over two decades found something Kennedy doesn't like, so he wants it retracted.

www.reuters.com/business/hea...

Exclusive: Medical journal rejects Kennedy's call for retraction of vaccine study

An influential U.S. medical journal is rejecting a call from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to retract a large Danish study that found that aluminum ingredients in vaccines do not increase health risks for children, the journal's editor told Reuters.

www.reuters.com

8 330 720

Reposted by Liz Zuccala

Amrish Baidjoe @amrishbaidjoe.bsky.social · Aug 1

Today published in the @thelancet.com , our overview of medical consultation related to woud care over 2024 in Gaza, lot of trauma cause by explosive weapons that don't belong in Urban settings. Proud of our teams.

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

War wounds caused by explosive weapons in Gaza: data from a 2024 study by Médecins Sans Frontières

As of July 23, 2025, Israel's military assault on Gaza has killed over 59 219 Palestinians, wounded an additional 143 045, and displaced nearly all of the 2·1 million people who live there.1 Triangula...

www.thelancet.com

3 4

Reposted by Liz Zuccala

Ian Weissman, DO @drianweissman.bsky.social · Jul 31

The former vaccine panel members wrote in a commentary that Kennedy — a leading voice in the anti-vaccine movement before becoming the U.S. government’s top health official — and his new panel are abandoning rigorous scientific review and open deliberation.
apnews.com/article/vacc...

Ousted vaccine panel members say rigorous science is being abandoned

Seventeen experts ousted from a U.S. vaccine committee are expressing little faith in what the panel has become. U.S. Health Secretary Robert F.

apnews.com

6 65 140

Reposted by Liz Zuccala

David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · Jul 26

The first planned migration of an entire country due to climate change is happening! Tuvalu, a Pacific island nation, is at risk of being submerged under rising sea level, so it has signed an agreement with Australia to allow 280 Tuvaluans to settle in Australia as permanent residents each year.

The First Planned Migration of an Entire Country Is Underway

The Pacific island nation of Tuvalu could be submerged in 25 years due to rising sea levels, so a plan is being implemented to relocate its population to Australia.

www.wired.com

120 3.2K 7K

Reposted by Liz Zuccala

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · Jul 22

there's an actual genre of analysis that acknowledges that for generations people used to buy and sell other humans, aided by a comprehensive system of apartheid that continued for generations later, but nevertheless blames the resurgence of open bigotry on a decade or so of cringe Tumblr posts

48 850 4.3K

Reposted by Liz Zuccala

Alex Sundermann, DrPH @sundermannaj.bsky.social · Jul 19

Scrolling EPA’s research newsletter. Huge impact everywhere.

Take this example of EPA showing common household cleaners may affect kids’ brain development 🧠

Now we won’t have that 🤷🏼‍♂️
www.epa.gov/sciencematte...

6 29 40

Reposted by Liz Zuccala

HELLody SchreiBOO @melodyschreiber.com · Jul 16

For the third time, Vinay Prasad reportedly overrules scientists and evidence-based policies

Endpoints News @endpts.com · Jul 15

FDA staff were overruled again by Vinay Prasad, who limited Moderna’s Covid vaccine to high-risk children under 12, arguing that healthy kids wouldn’t see sufficient clinical benefit.

Prasad again overrode FDA vaccine reviewers, this time on Moderna’s Covid shot for young kids

CBER chief Prasad overrides reviewers, approves Moderna's Covid shot only for at-risk kids 6mo-11yrs, marking his third override of review team recommendations.

endpoints.news

15 180 370

Reposted by Liz Zuccala

Madhu Pai, MD, PhD @madhupai.bsky.social · Jul 9

“lived experience must be considered a form of expertise”

www.bmj.com/content/390/...

Decolonisation of global health must include civil society

Power and resource imbalances experienced by African non-government organisations must be remedied to ensure that people with lived experience in the global south can participate meaningfully in creat...

www.bmj.com

8 35

Reposted by Liz Zuccala

Edward Nirenberg @enirenberg.bsky.social · Jul 9

Responses to the Sounding Board piece by Prasad and Makary are now posted:
www.nejm.org/doi/full/10....

Had I known that character limits would be so liberal I would have submitted a response, but these replies hit on all the key points.

An Evidence-Based Approach to Covid-19 Vaccination | NEJM

To the Editor: In their Sounding Board article (June 26 issue),1 Prasad and Makary ignore the fact that the risks of SARS-CoV-2 infection extend beyond acute outcomes such as hospitalization and de...

www.nejm.org

5 33 76

Reposted by Liz Zuccala

Amy Diehl, Ph.D. @amydiehl.bsky.social · Jul 7

This headline blames women & defines declining fertility as a problem. A smaller global population & footprint on the planet benefits the environment. There is also more individual freedom, women's economic empowerment & less adolescents giving birth. www.npr.org/2025/07/07/n...

As women have far fewer babies, the U.S. and the world face unprecedented challenges

Far more families are choosing to have fewer — or no — children. Many countries, including the U.S., now face a rapidly aging population that could begin to shrink.

www.npr.org

26 43 210