The rise of white nationalism and anti-science movements, news on gender and health, Indigenous knowledges, and wide-ranging updates in global health and public health are reported in the column this week.
We also share a tribute to Professor Rinaldo Bellomo AO, described as “one of the most visionary and influential clinician-scientists of our time”, who passed away on Tuesday following a short illness.
The quotable?
Affordable dental care is one of the essential pillars to keep people healthy.”
In focus
UN News: Guterres welcomes election of Pope Leo ‘at a time of great global challenges’
UN News reports that His Holiness Pope Leo XIV – born Robert Francis Prevost – is the first person from the United States to lead the Catholic Church, although he also holds Peruvian citizenship after working in the Latin American country for many years.
The Secretary-General said he looks forward to building on the long legacy of cooperation between the UN and the Holy See – nurtured most recently by the late Pope Francis – to advance solidarity, foster reconciliation, and build a just and sustainable world for all.
Following his death, the UN Secretary-General recalled that “Pope Francis was a transcendent voice for peace, human dignity and social justice” who “leaves behind a legacy of faith, service and compassion for all — especially those left on the margins of life or trapped by the horrors of conflict.”
In focus: news in AI
Coded for privileged access: How Big Tech weakens rules on advanced AI
Nature: Medical AI trained on whopping 57 million health records
“The model, called Foresight, predicts hospitalisations, heart attacks and hundreds of other conditions, and researchers trained it on de-identified data from 57 million patients in England’s National Health Service (NHS). Foresight can currently be used only for research related to COVID-19, which must be done in a secure ‘data environment’ operated by the NHS.”
Nature: Walking in two worlds: how an Indigenous computer scientist is using AI to preserve threatened languages
“As an artificial intelligence (AI) researcher at the software-development company SynthBee in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and as co-founder of the First Languages AI Reality (FLAIR) programme at the Mila–Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute in Montreal, Canada, Michael Running Wolf holds a deep understanding of both the technology underlying AI and the societal benefits it could unlock. And as the son of Lakota and Cheyenne parents, he also knows how technology and data have been weaponized to harm Indigenous communities. Running Wolf therefore approaches his work — in which he revitalizes disappearing languages using AI and virtual-reality tools — with patience, empathy and a healthy dose of scepticism.”
Global health
Bill Gates – My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth
Nature: Historic pandemic treaty is a triumph in a world being torn apart
The draft treaty represents the first time the world has agreed the bare bones of a plan focused on prevention of, preparedness for, and response to a pandemic. It took more than 3 years and 13 formal rounds of meetings to negotiate. The text must be agreed by the world’s health ministers at the World Health Assembly in Geneva later this month. After that, to become international law, at least 60 countries must incorporate it into their own national laws, a process called ratification.
Nature: Eugenics is on the rise again: human geneticists must take a stand
“In 1924, motivated by the rising eugenics movement, the United States passed the Johnson–Reed Act, which limited immigration to stem “a stream of alien blood, with all its inherited misconceptions”. A century later, at a campaign event last October, now US President Donald Trump used similar eugenic language to justify his proposed immigration policies, stating that “we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now”.
“If left unchallenged, a rising wave of white nationalism in many parts of the globe could threaten the progress that has been made in science – and broader society – towards a more equitable world.
“As scientists and members of the public, we must push back against this threat — by modifying approaches to genetics education, advocating for science, establishing and leading diverse research teams and ensuring that studies embrace and build on the insights obtained about human variation.”
Health Policy Watch: WHO Recommends Code to Outlaw Health Workers from Performing Female Genital Mutilation
BAT answers questions on lobbying, tax and health warnings at its AGM
WHO: Global data highlight overuse of broad-spectrum antibiotics
Midwives: Critical in every crisis
Trumpism
https://www.npr.org/2025/04/29/nx-s1-5380816/climate-assessment-authors-released
Nature: Trump freezes ‘gain of function’ pathogen research ― threatening all US virology, critics say
Science News: Two cities stopped adding fluoride to water. Science reveals what happened
“When politicians decide to withhold a safe and effective public health intervention like fluoridation, they are imposing a hidden health care tax on everyone in their state or community”: researcher Jennifer Meyer.
Scientific American: The Scary Implications of U.S. Government Attacks on Medical Journals
First Nations
https://www.journalofglobalindigeneity.com/issue/11830
Public health
https://www.finder.com.au/insights/state-of-womens-wealth-report-2025
BMC Public Health: Men’s mental health and suicide prevention service landscape in Australia: a scoping review
“Men represent the majority of suicide deaths globally and men are more likely to die by suicide without contact with formal mental health services. In Australia, three-quarters of suicide deaths are men. If services were better able to meet their needs, men might be more likely to seek help. In this scoping review, we sought to describe the formal and informal service landscape for men at risk of suicide in Australia, and to determine the extent of research evidence for the effectiveness of these in lowering suicidality, and improving mental health or help-seeking behaviours. We limited our investigation to Australian services, in order to comprehensively identify all community and health system services….
“The service landscape for Australian men is broad. However, there appears to be substantial overlap in the components offered by services and initiatives. The prevalence of awareness and education-based offerings is disproportionate to evidence about men’s preferences for support. There is a lack of high-quality evaluations. We conclude that the cohesiveness of men’s suicide prevention approaches must improve through service development and policy.”
Services available to Croakey readers are here.
https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-025-22676-6
The effectiveness of air-cleaning technologies against COVID-19 transmission in healthcare settings
Conference Watch
International Network of Indigenous Health and Knowledge Development Conference
Publications cited:
- The dichotomy of commissioning Indigenous health and wellbeing program evaluations: What the Funder wants vs what the Community needs
- A scoping review of commissioning practices used in the evaluation of Indigenous health and wellbeing programs: Protocol article
RANZCP
Value-Based Health Care Congress
Environmental Health Australia conference
ANZCA (Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists)
Vale
RACP marks the loss of a giant in medical research
#CroakeyREAD
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