News Releases

  • Rural Public Health: “Less Messaging, More Listening”

    Instead of focusing on Robert F. Kennedy Jr., many public health experts based in rural communities are focusing on the social and economic landscape that gave rise to the popularity of extreme figures like RFK Jr. They are also concerned about the loss of healthcare infrastructure and the risk of H5N1, or bird flu, in rural areas. 


  • Netanyahu Pivots to Escalating Attacks on West Bank

    “It seems clear that Netanyahu only agreed to the nominal ceasefire in Gaza in exchange for a greenlight from Trump to escalate violence in the West Bank. When Trump was elected, Finance Minister Smotrich told his staff to prepare to annex the West Bank. American officials from Trump’s pick for UN Ambassador Elise Stefanik to even former President Bill Clinton have expressed support for the extreme right-wing Zionist position that Israel has a Biblical right to the West Bank. Yet if Israel annexed the West Bank,” this would tank Trump’s stated plans “for Israeli-Saudi normalization. …”


  • Trump’s “Manifest Destiny” and U.S. Treaty-Breaking Record

    “The United States is a treaty-breaking nation. In the first century of its existence, the United States signed more than 300 treaties with Indigenous nations, more than any foreign power. And it violated every single Indigenous treaty. Today, the United States has the worst record of ratifying international human rights and environmental treaties and has always broken its treaties, pacts, and promises. The recent U.S.-led and supported genocide in Palestine, in defiance of international law, is a case in point.”


  • The Hill: Genocide Lawsuits vs. Democrats Foreshadow Primary Challenges

    “Like other plaintiffs in the Northern California case, I believe that our lawsuit is on solid ground of justice,” Solomon wrote. “The arms shipments to Israel’s military have violated the Constitution, the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide and U.S. federal laws – including the Leahy law, which prohibits the government from ‘using funds for assistance to units of foreign security forces where there is credible information implicating that unit in the commission of gross violations of human rights.’ The namesake of the law, former Sen. Patrick Leahy, says it is being violated.


  • The Legacy of the Polio Vaccine

    In an interview for Think Global Health, an immunization expert discussed the historic importance of the polio vaccine and the continued risk of future polio transmission. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine activist and the presumptive nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, has previously suggested that the polio vaccine causes cancer and does more harm than good.  WALTER ORENSTEIN; [email protected]      Orenstein is a professor emeritus at the Emory School of Medicine and former head of the U.S. immunization program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In his interview with Think Global Health, Orenstein noted that the…


  • Is Blinken Trying to Stop a Ceasefire?

    Jeremy Scahill reports: “The Trump Factor: Gaza Ceasefire Deal Appears Close.” Al Jazeera reports that “Israel kills 62 in a day.” The Guardian reports: “Israel admits soldiers used ambulance in raid on refugee camp.” On Tuesday, protesters confronted Blinken, one shouting: “Secretary Blinken: Your legacy will be genocide. You will forever be known as Bloody Blinken, Secretary of Genocide. You have the blood of hundreds of thousands of innocent people on your hands…” 


  • Life Expectancy in the U.S.

    The U.S. is failing to keep pace with its peer nations when it comes to increases in life expectancy. Researchers at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation estimated that U.S. life expectancy is forecasted to increase from 78.3 years in 2022 to 80.4 years in 2050––a modest increase which lowers the country’s global ranking.


  • War Crimes: Who Are the Criminals?

    “Who are the criminals? U.S. news coverage of five former or current presidents gathered for the funeral of President Jimmy Carter never hinted that hideous wars of choice along with massive increases in weapon sales had marked the administration of each of the five. There was no mention of President Biden’s order to send $8 billion of weapons to Israel. This gathering of U.S. presidents is referred to as ‘The World’s Most Exclusive Club.’ Exclusive indeed. What other club of so few has caused so much suffering to so many?”


  • The “Double Lie of ‘Human Shields’” and Israel’s Targeting of Healthcare in Gaza

    Dr. Sidhwa wrote the piece “Based on extensive investigations in previous conflicts, reporters should treat Israeli claims of Palestinians using human shields with extreme skepticism.” Also see from Craig Mokhiber: “Every accusation a confession: Israel and the double lie of ‘human shields,’” which states: “Multiple human rights reports show that Palestinian armed groups do not use human shields, but Israel does. Israel’s false claims about Palestinian human shields are just attempts to justify its own targeting of civilians.” Dr. Sidhwa can talk about specific patients he treated who are now traumatized and broken, see talk from Wednesday. He says: “Israel is attempting to depopulate…


  • The U.S. Is Manufacturing Doubt About Gaza’s Famine

    “This phony dispute about the humanitarian reports in the North is designed to obscure these facts and pave the way for Israel’s continued assault on the people of Gaza. As Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, and numerous reports have corroborated, Israel has demonstrated a clear intent to commit genocidal acts against the Palestinians. U.S. officials and media have been instrumental in running cover for this crime.”


  • Election Perspectives

    GWENDOLYN MINK Professor of politics at the University of California at Santa Cruz, Mink said today: “What’s wrong with the two-party system is not that there are only two parties. What’s wrong is that ours is a middle-class party system that leaves out a host of programmatic alternatives and choices, and correspondingly demobilizes millions of…

  • Keeping Millions From Voting

    MARC MAUER Co-author of the report “Losing the Vote: The Impact of Felony Disenfranchisement Laws in the United States,” Mauer is assistant director of The Sentencing Project. He said today: “America has just replaced Russia as the world leader in its rate of incarceration and incarcerates far more prisoners than any other nation — nearly…

  • A Missing Campaign Issue: Economic Apartheid

    JOEL BLAU Author of Illusions of Prosperity: America’s Working Families in an Age of Economic Insecurity, Blau said today: “The economic fissure in American society is the great unmentionable of this year’s presidential campaign. Between 1977 and 1999, the after-tax income of the top fifth increased 43 percent, while the after-tax income of the top…

  • Military Spending and Policy

    WILLIAM HARTUNG President’s fellow at the World Policy Institute, Hartung said today: “When Gore and Bush have addressed the Pentagon budget, they have talked about how much to increase it, not whether to do so. That is remarkable if you consider that at $311 billion per year, the United States is already spending more on…

  • The Environment: Behind the Rhetoric

    PATTI GOLDMAN A managing attorney with Earthjustice Defense Fund, Goldman said today: “Differences between Bush and Gore include the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, which came up in the debates. There are also differences in the priority and strategies for recovering Pacific salmon…. Gore favors having labor and environmental protection in trade agreements while Bush has not…

  • Bush and Gore Agree Death Penalty Deters; But What Are the Facts?

    Last night, presidential candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore agreed that the death penalty is an effective deterrent. “I think the reason to support the death penalty is because it saves other people’s lives,” Bush said during the debate. Gore agreed, saying: “I support the death penalty…. I think it is a deterrence. I…

  • Big Oil Gets Bigger: Chevron and Texaco

    Chevron has just agreed to acquire Texaco for $36 billion. This follows the BP-Amoco and Exxon-Mobil mergers. The following analysts are available for comments: WENONAH HAUTER Director of Public Citizen’s Critical Mass Energy Project, Hauter said today: “This trend towards more consolidation in the oil industry is bad for consumers in the long run and…

  • Perspectives on Mideast Crisis

    MARC ELLIS Director of the Center for American and Jewish Studies at Baylor University in Texas and author of Oh Jerusalem: The Contested Future of the Jewish Covenant, Ellis said today: “The escalation of the Israeli helicopter gunships firing into civilian areas is just appalling…. Justice would mean a shared real sovereignty of all of…

  • Interviews Available on Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

    ALLEGRA PACHECO An Israeli Jewish human rights lawyer who represents Palestinians in the West Bank, Pacheco is now a fellow at the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe. She wrote in The New York Times last week: “Since 1994, Palestinians have seen the influx of 50,000 new Jewish settlers into the West Bank and Gaza, the paving…

  • Revolution in Yugoslavia?

    ROBERT HAYDEN Director of the Center for Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pittsburgh and author of Blueprints for a House Divided: The Constitutional Logic of the Yugoslav Conflict, Hayden said today: “The army has broken with the regime. The state media has been taken over by the opposition. It’s a real…

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