Dearest Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, I still remember sharing grandchildren photos in World Health Organization (WHO) HQ. What joy they bring. Your leadership in ensuring our grandkids grow up in a healthier, safer world, on a habitable planet is vital. We owe it to our children to safeguard health & the environment

Tomorrow's oral arguments on EMATLA is the most crucial SCOTUS ruling on abortion since Dobbs

At stake is a cardinal ethical & legal value
No pregnant woman should be turned away from an ER

Abortion is healthcare, pure & simple

Federal law guarantees urgent care for everyone

A very special day for me. Working today with Steve Solomon World Health Organization (WHO) to get Pandemic Accord over the finish line. Dinner at my home with Tony Fauci, Chris Grady, Michele Goodwin & special friends

It teaches me there are great humanists in our world

And a joyful 20 bike commute.

Geneva negotiators are the most important moment in global health since 1948. Let’s get the #PandemicAccord past the finish line washingtonpost.com/health/2024/04…

. Jeremy Farrar World Health Organization (WHO) calls for heightened alert to avian flu. It’s too early to press the panic button but one day the virus could spread among humans & cause the next pandemic. We have to be ready for that day

usatoday.com/story/news/hea…

Governance of #PandemicAccord & IHR needs clarity & cohesion

Consider the spaghetti governance:

★Subdivision of WHA (INB) negotiates PABS/One Health
★Cte E of Exec Bd
★A COP
★Civil society frozen out
★WHO Secretariat
★ Who governs Accord, IHR, PABS?
★ Coordination absent

Monitoring & compliance are absent from the #PandemicAccord

Sans accountability, norms are just words on paper

Pandemic Accord uses 'as appropriate' 27 times

WGIHR draft out today has a compliance committee

That's good

The compliance committee should cover both instruments

Kudos to Nina Schwalbe for courageous advocacy for accountability & yet from all I've heard in Geneva it wasn't going to happen. Still, the Accord should charge the COP with developing robust mechanisms for compliance & financing b/c without those, norms are just a piece of paper.

My take on the April 16 Pandemic Accord draft:

WHA will adopt a binding treaty in May
But the hard work will just begin
Key Future decisions:

* PABS: 20% products reserved & $ payments
* Supply chain & logistics
* Diversified manufacturing
* One Health
*Financing
*Compliance

Kudos to UK for smoking ban for those born after 2009. NZ recently repealed a similar law. Tobacco control advocates have posited 'endgame' scenarios for years. There is no free choice in quitting tobacco. Smoking is addictive and deadly.