Strange Science

Jay Bhattacharya, Professor of Medicine and Economics at Stanford University, speaks for 45 minutes here with Nick Hudson of Panda. We all deserve access to intelligent and principled discussion such as this. It is largely absent.

The Covid Killing Fields

Knutt Wittkowski is an international expert in infectious disease epidemics who previously led the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Research Design at Rockefeller University Hospital in New York. At this lunch interview on a New York City sidewalk he talks for 20 minutes about Covid-19. He argues with clarity that we cannot fight the spread … More The Covid Killing Fields

So Hard to Watch

The UK are being dragged into a socio-economic crisis bigger than anything they have seen since World War 2, and for what reason? Mental health, food supply chains, unemployment, a widening wealth divide, health care access crisis, and so many other seemingly insurmountable issues are crashing down simultaneously on this nation. Some of the reasons … More So Hard to Watch

Wicked Problems and Collective Impact

Wicked problems appear impossible to solve. They are complex, long-standing, seemingly intractable, and there are divergent opinions about the ways to address them. Wicked problems do not occur in a vacuum. They are enmeshed in wider social, cultural and political issues. Typically, governments and other organizations attempt to fix wicked problems through a particular lens … More Wicked Problems and Collective Impact

Making WHO Accountable

Description of the problem: WHO has received user feedback on an elevated risk for false SARS-CoV-2 results when testing specimens using RT-PCR reagents on open systems. This is from the WHO Information Notice for IVD Users (In Vitro Diagnostic Users), dated 7 December and published online 14 December 2020. That’s almost exactly 11 months after … More Making WHO Accountable

Politics, Poverty, Phylogeny and Poetry

Kung Future in Cambodia are starting a maternal-child nutrition project with a small foundation sponsorship received recently. Unable to travel there, it is an Australian-English-Cambodian partnership underway with untrained local staff implementing the work via support through Zoom meetings. At a time when extra and intensive support is needed most in the face of hunger … More Politics, Poverty, Phylogeny and Poetry