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	When politics replaces medical science as the arbiter of truth, the casualty is public health by Gavin Yamey and Boghuma Titanji British Medical Journal USA   Aug. 2026   The vilification of Anthony Fauci by U.S. Senate Republicans will erode trust in science, curtail international research collaborations, and deter scientists and health experts from entering public service, say Gavin Yamey and Boghuma Titanji.   At last week’s U.S. Senate committee hearing, Anthony Fauci, former director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), faced hours of hostile questioning from Republican Senators. They accused the 85 year old physician-scientist of lying, covering up evidence, and misleading the American public during the covid pandemic.   Republican members of the Senate committee have now voted to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress. The hearing, including Fauci pleading the fifth amendment, fuelled anger among the MAGA political base and conservative influencers, energising them ahead of the upcoming midterm elections—but a more lasting harm from the hearing will be damage to science and trust in public health.   Fauci has devoted more than 50 years to public service, leading NIAID and the US through the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the 2001 anthrax attacks, SARS, pandemic influenza, Ebola, Zika, and other infectious disease threats.   Beyond the White House briefing room, he helped transform HIV from an almost uniformly fatal disease into a manageable condition through sustained investment in clinical trials, basic science, and global research infrastructure.   Yet to many Senate Republicans and the US secretary of health and human services, Robert F Kennedy Jr—whose book The Real Anthony Fauci reportedly got a sales boost from the show trial—Fauci is a villain. The Republican senator Rand Paul, chair of the committee hearing, has said that he wants to see Fauci behind bars, baselessly arguing that Fauci has lied to Congress.   During the hearing the Republican senator Ron Johnson accused Fauci of “sabotaging” access to ivermectin (a parasite treatment) and hydroxychloroquine (for treatment of malaria), despite rigorous evidence showing that neither drug provides meaningful clinical benefit for covid-19.   Paul revived claims that SARS-CoV-2 was engineered in a laboratory in China that had US research funding and that Fauci helped to cover up these origins, despite the lack of evidence supporting those allegations and the substantial body of scientific evidence consistent with zoonotic origin. Johnson pushed vaccine misinformation, arguing that the covid vaccine was highly deadly and calling it “experimental gene therapy.”   This was juicy entertainment for vaccine sceptical viewers, but the political theatre risks causing lasting damage to public health in at least four ways.   Firstly, trust in lifesaving science will be affected. When research shows that a vaccine is effective and safe but Republican politicians say that scientists are lying, it drives down public trust in vaccines, especially among Republican voters.   Over a 15 month period in 2021-22, an estimated 232,000 US deaths could have been prevented among unvaccinated adults had they been vaccinated with at least a primary series of the covid vaccine.   When the next pandemic hits, we fear that the politicisation of science will lead Republican voters to demand unproven treatments and eschew vaccination.   Secondly, even before the trial, the Trump administration had set its sights on destroying international research collaborations. Republicans doubled down on this wish at Fauci’s hearing. They expressed particular suspicion about collaborations involving virology, China, or both. But while safeguards must always be in place, banning international collaborations on infectious disease research will make pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response harder.   Through international sharing of viral samples, Bundibugyo virus Ebola—currently causing an outbreak concentrated in the Democratic Republic of the Congo—was discovered and sequenced by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in collaboration with Ugandan researchers. The US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority is now supporting evaluation of a monoclonal antibody for treating this strain of Ebola, which was patented by US CDC scientists.   Shutting down international research collaborations will make it harder to rapidly develop safe and effective vaccines, treatments, and diagnostics in the next pandemic.   Thirdly, watching Republican senators cursing at Fauci and knowing that he and his family receive harassment and death threats will deter scientists and health professionals from public service.   In August 2025 a man fired more than 180 shots into the CDC headquarters to protest about covid vaccines. Instead of dampening down the antivaccine rhetoric, Republican politicians have continued it.   Young scientists and public health academics watch these hearings closely and witness the worsening rhetoric. They see a career servant portrayed as a criminal, subjected to harassment, and public health leaders requiring security protection.   This is hardly an advertisement for a career in public service, at a time when Kennedy and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) director, Jay Bhattacharya, have already decimated the NIH and CDC by laying off thousands of critical federal staff.   Finally, the show trial distracts people from Trump’s own missteps in managing covid and from the damage of Trump, Kennedy, and Bhattacharya dismantling US public health.   While lawmakers revisit the covid pandemic, the immediate challenges facing public health today demand congressional attention—including falling childhood vaccination rates, annual measles cases in 2026 hitting a 35 year high, and uncontrolled cyclospora outbreaks making more than 11,000 people sick and killing two.   More than a million Americans died during the covid pandemic. That tragedy deserves rigorous, bipartisan inquiry to understand what worked and what failed. It would generate lessons on preparing for the next pandemic rather than fuelling political theatre. It would examine supply chains, public communication, structural inequities, workforce protection, data systems, and scientific decision making.   Scientists are not beyond criticism, but any criticism must be grounded in evidence and not conspiracy theories. When politics replaces science as the arbiter of truth, the ultimate casualty is not Fauci: it is the health of the American public.   * Gavin Yamey, is professor of global health and public policy at the Center for Policy Impact in Global Health, Duke Global Health Institute, Duke University. Boghuma Titanji is assistant professor of medicine at the Division of Infectious Diseases, Emory University School of Medicine.   http://www.bmj.com/content/394/bmj-2026-100529 http://www.acponline.org/acp-newsroom/leading-medical-professional-societies-patient-sue-hhs-robert-f-kennedy-jr-for-unlawful-unilateral http://publications.aap.org/aapnews/news/32580 http://oneill.law.georgetown.edu/press/professors-michele-bratcher-goodwin-and-lawrence-o-gostin-on-the-trump-administrations-termination-of-key-health-advisory-committees-and-members/   * World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has issued a statement underscoring the critical role of vaccination for public health.   “Every parent wants to keep their children safe, and vaccines are among the most powerful tools for doing that, making deadly diseases preventable.”.. “Vaccination policy should be guided by rigorous, independent and transparent review of the best available science, not by political influence.” http://news.un.org/en/story/2026/08/1168124 Visit the related web page
	Killing humanitarians is part of a broader attack on international humanitarian law by OCHA, Inter-Agency Standing Committee, UNICEF   May 2026   States must act to protect Civilians in Armed Conflict   Protecting Civilians in Armed Conflict is a Responsibility that Member States and the UN Security Council Must Uphold. Statement by Principals of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC):   "As the Protection of Civilians Week unfolds in New York, we strongly condemn and raise the alarm about the growing and blatant violations of International Humanitarian and Human Rights Law meant to protect civilians in armed conflict.   Across conflicts, civilians, including children, are killed, injured, and displaced at an alarming scale. Sexual violence is used as a tactic of war, overwhelmingly affecting women and girls and devastating lives. Homes, schools, places of worship, hospitals, including maternal wards, are destroyed or damaged, as are civilian infrastructure and assets, such as water systems, transport network, markets, food production. Essential services are collapsing. Forced displacement is accelerating.   Conflict-induced hunger and famine are spreading, often driven by unlawful siege tactics, starvation, and the arbitrary denial of humanitarian access. This is happening despite the existence of clear obligations under International Humanitarian Law and the framework reaffirmed by UN Security Council resolution 2417 (2018), which condemns the deliberate starvation of civilians and the use of hunger as method of warfare.   And a decade after the adoption of UN Security Council resolution 2286 (2016) that demands the protection of the wounded, sick, and medical personnel, violence, attacks and threats against healthcare workers and facilities continue with impunity. More than 10,000 incidents against health care facilities and workers have been verified to date.   Aid workers are also under attack and killed in unprecedented numbers. More than 1,000 humanitarian colleagues have been killed over the past three years. Many others are arbitrarily detained. Often the first to respond, staff from national and local organisations and community initiatives pay an unacceptably high toll. Many women-led-organisations addressing lifesaving protection and gender-based violence are being attacked.   From Gaza to El Fasher, and from Kharkiv to Beirut, the use of explosive weapons in populated areas is devastating civilian lives. At the same time, new technologies, including drones and artificial intelligence, are reshaping warfare and expanding the battlefield.   Wars have rules that apply to all parties to conflict. The problem is not a lack of law. The problem is the failure to uphold them consistently, the erosion of accountability and inaction, even in the face of atrocities.   Protecting civilians is a legal obligation and a moral imperative. For the sake of our shared humanity, rules that protect civilians must be upheld.   http://interagencystandingcommittee.org/inter-agency-standing-committee/statement-principals-iasc-protecting-civilians-armed-conflict-responsibility-member-states-and-un http://www.unocha.org/news/un-heads-condemn-failure-protect-civilians-growing-threats-their-security   20 May 2026   Briefing to the UN Security Council on the protection of civilians in armed conflict - by Edem Wosornu, Director, Crisis Response Division for OCHA, on behalf of Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator:   "One civilian was killed approximately every 14 minutes in 2025. These are only the deaths that the United Nations could document across 20 armed conflicts. We know the real toll is far higher in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in Sudan, in Ukraine, in the occupied Palestinian territory and beyond.   I saw some of this devastation myself over the past year during my visits to countries affected by war.   Civilians, including children, are killed in their homes, in markets, at work, at school, on roads, and while fleeing for safety. All too often, they are not collateral damage. They are the target.   Explosive weapons continue to tear through towns and cities, destroying not only lives but the systems that sustain them such as power grids, water networks, schools, and hospitals.   Health care is under attack. Ten years after this Council adopted Resolution 2286 on the protection of health care in armed conflict, the situation has only gotten worse.   In 2025, the United Nations recorded more than 1,350 attacks on medical care across 18 conflicts. Hospitals and ambulances were hit. Medical personnel were killed, detained, intimidated, or criminalized simply for doing their jobs.   Conflict‑driven hunger has deepened. 147 million people faced acute food insecurity in 2025, driven largely by armed conflict. Two famines were confirmed – not because food was unavailable, but because of the way parties conducted hostilities, used siege tactics, and denied humanitarian access. Food has become a weapon of war.   Sexual violence remains widespread. The United Nations reported over 9,300 cases last year – the overwhelming majority women and girls – many of whom will struggle to get the basic assistance they need. We know that number unfortunately is much higher.   Children are abducted and recruited to fight. Too many are injured and killed – a direct result of the use of explosive weapons in densely populated areas. Information and Communication Technology, including social media, is used to abduct, to extort, and recruit children.   Journalists are targeted. According to UNESCO (the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), 186 journalists were killed while covering wars and conflict zones between 2022 and 2025 – a 67 per cent increase compared to the period 2018-2021.   Persons with disabilities are left behind when bombs fall and warnings fail.   Last month, the Emergency Relief Coordinator, Tom Fletcher, briefed this Council on attacks against humanitarian workers. Since then, eight more colleagues were confirmed killed in 2025. Already in 2026, 144 humanitarian workers have been reported killed, injured, abducted or detained as they try to serve those in need.   New technologies are intensifying these risks. Armed drones and artificial intelligence are accelerating the pace and reach of violence, often in densely populated areas. The use of drones increased by 4,000 per cent from 2020 to 2024 across conflicts. The impact is not only physical. The impact is psychological – constant fear, constant disruption. The consequences for children are alarming.   None of this is inevitable. These patterns are the result of choices. The choice by parties of conflict to ignore their obligations to protect civilians, and, too often, to target them.   The choice by some to adopt increasingly permissive interpretations of international humanitarian law, hollowing out the very rules designed to protect civilians during war. The choice to subordinate the protection of civilians to claims of military necessity or exceptional threat. The choice to let impunity prevail.   The choice to harness technology to increase lethality, sow devastation, and spread misinformation, instead of using it to better protect civilians.   And the choice to attack the United Nations Charter, humanitarian norms, and the tools built over decades – that extraordinary scaffolding meant to protect people from and during war.   My message to this Council and to the United Nations membership is simple: there is another path. Other choices are possible. They must be made. They must be made because protecting civilians, ensuring respect for the law, and ending impunity is not only a legal and moral obligation.   It is also in Member States’ shared interest. In a world where conflicts are rising and rearmament is accelerating, unrestrained force and unapologetic brutality do not make anyone safer. They put everyone at risk.   Those who believe war will never reach them, their families, or their people are living in a dangerous illusion. War does not respect borders. It does not respect privileges.   So, the law exists. The tools exist. What is needed now is the resolve, the leadership, the courage, and the moral clarity to hold the line and to push it forward.   Protecting civilians requires more than expressions of concern. Protecting civilians requires genuine commitment that translates into concrete action. To uphold the United Nations Charter and prevent disagreements from escalating into armed conflict.   To ensure respect for international humanitarian law, without exceptions, without selectivity, regardless of who the parties are. No reinterpretation. No exceptionalism. No double standards.   To avoid the use of explosive weapons in populated areas and call out those who raze entire cities to the ground. To stop the transfer of weapons when there is a clear risk they will be used against civilians. To safeguard medical care, humanitarian personnel and journalists; not stigmatize them, not criminalize them.   To keep human control over the use of force. To steer AI and technology toward greater, not lesser, protection of civilians. To help victims seek justice. And to end impunity.   Protecting civilians in armed conflict is not charity. It is the minimum that humanity and civilization require. It is central to peace and security.   It is a responsibility of this Council and of every Member State that signed the United Nations Charter. And it is what many people around the world expect the Member States of the United Nations to do. It cannot be outsourced, it cannot be postponed, it cannot be diluted. It is the choice we have to make, now.   http://www.unocha.org/news/ocha-tells-security-council-protecting-civilians-cannot-be-outsourced-postponed-or-diluted http://www.unocha.org/news/over-1000-aid-workers-killed-often-hands-member-states-un-relief-chief-demands-action http://www.icrc.org/en/statement/icrc-president-un-security-council-open-debate-protection-civilians-armed-conflict http://www.icrc.org/en/statement/icrc-ifrc-world-red-cross-red-crescent-day-call-uphold-protections-civilians-medical-personnel-humanitarian-workers-communities-depend-on http://globalprotectioncluster.org/publications/2474/communication-materials/advocacy-note/poc-advocacy-note-civilian-protection-2026 http://civiliansinconflict.org/press-releases/joint-civil-society-statement-ahead-of-the-2026-open-debate-on-the-protection-of-civilians-in-armed-conflict/   11 April 2026   End impunity for violations of the rules of war - Principals of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee   "We are alarmed by the sustained violations of the rules of war and international humanitarian law.   In just the last month across the Middle East, thousands of civilians have been killed and injured. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced, many multiple times. The numbers continue to rise and essential services are increasingly difficult to access.   Health workers, hospitals and ambulances have been targeted. Schools have been struck. Civilian infrastructure – including bridges, residential buildings, houses, water facilities and power plants – has been destroyed.   This leaves us especially concerned about women and children and others with specific needs. Global supply chains are also impacted, with food and fuel prices on the rise.   Our humanitarian colleagues have been caught up in the hostilities. Aid workers have been killed or injured in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, in Iran and in Lebanon in alarming numbers, national staff and local organizations, working courageously on the humanitarian front lines every day.   We strongly condemn all attacks on civilians, including humanitarian and health workers, as well as civilian objects. We demand that all parties – whether Member States of the United Nations or armed groups – respect their legal obligation to protect civilians, including humanitarian personnel, and civilian infrastructure.   All violations must be met with accountability. Even wars have rules, and these rules must be respected".   http://interagencystandingcommittee.org/inter-agency-standing-committee/statement-principals-inter-agency-standing-committee-end-impunity-violations-rules-war-0 http://www.unicef.org/press-releases/statement-principals-inter-agency-standing-committee http://www.icrc.org/en/statement/icrc-ifrc-world-red-cross-red-crescent-day-call-uphold-protections-civilians-medical-personnel-humanitarian-workers-communities-depend-on   April 2026   Violence against health care in conflict   A decade after world leaders pledged to protect health workers and facilities in conflict, violence against health care has only deepened. In 2025, the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition documented 2,546 attacks in 33 countries — including hospitals bombed, medical staff kidnapped, and drone strikes targeting search-and-rescue teams. Funding cuts have further gutted health services in nearly three-quarters of conflict-affected countries. Our report, Care in the Crosshairs presents the full scope of this crisis and calls on states and international institutions to act.   http://insecurityinsight.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/2025-SHCC-Annual-Report.pdf http://safeguarding-health.com/2026/05/01/2026-call-to-action-to-end-violence-against-healthcare/ http://safeguarding-health.com http://insecurityinsight.org/ http://phr.org/news/with-hospitals-and-medics-increasingly-under-fire-countries-must-implement-un-resolution-to-protect-health-care-in-conflict-phr/   New York, 8 April 2026   Statement to the United Nations Security Council by Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, pursuant to resolution 2730 (2024) on the safety and security of humanitarian personnel and the protection of United Nations and associated personnel:   "In 2025, at least 326 humanitarians were recorded as killed across 21 countries, bringing the total number of humanitarians killed in three years to over 1,010.   We recognise, grieve and honour each of our 326 colleagues, and commit the work ahead to their memory.   Of those over 1,000 deaths, more than 560 were in Gaza and the West Bank, 130 in Sudan, 60 in South Sudan, 25 in Ukraine and 25 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.   That number – over 1,000 – compares to 377 recorded as killed globally over the previous three years – so that’s almost tripling the death count.   This is not an accidental escalation – it is the collapse of protection.   These humanitarians were killed while distributing food, water, medicine, shelter. They died in clearly marked convoys and on missions coordinated directly with authorities.   And, too often, they were killed by Member States of the United Nations.   Humanitarians know we face risks. It is the nature of our work, the places in which we operate.   These deaths are not because we are reckless with our lives. They are because parties to the conflict are reckless with our lives.   So, on behalf of over a thousand dead humanitarians and their families, we ask: why?   Is it because the world no longer believes in Security Council resolution 2730, in which you spoke with such moral urgency about ending violence against humanitarians?   Is it because international humanitarian law, forged by a generation of wiser political leaders for just such a time as this, is no longer convenient?   Is it because it is more important to protect those designing, selling, supplying and firing lethal weapons – including drones, cyber tools, artificial intelligence – than protecting us?   Is it because those killing us feel no cost for their actions? How many were prosecuted? How many of their leaders resigned? On how many investigations did the UN Security Council insist? Were you ever selective in your outrage?   Or is it because Member States see these numbers as collateral damage, part of the fog of war? Or worse, are we now seen as legitimate targets?   And perhaps the most chilling question: if these deaths were ‘preventable,’ why then were they not prevented?   Over 110 Member States have chosen to act together through the political declaration on the protection of humanitarians.   Yet across multiple crises, humanitarians are not just being killed. Our action is being restricted, penalized, delegitimized. We are told where not to go, whom not to help.   We are harassed or arrested for doing our job. And we are lied about – and those lies have these consequences.   And, of course, when humanitarians are harmed, aid often stops. Clinics close, food doesn’t arrive.   In Yemen, 73 UN and dozens of NGO personnel remain arbitrarily detained by the Houthis. In Afghanistan and Yemen, women humanitarians are prevented from doing their jobs. In Gaza, Israel restricts UN agencies and international NGOs. In Myanmar, insecurity and access constraints cut off aid to over 100,000 people in a single month.   And in Ukraine, drone attacks have forced aid groups to pull back from frontline communities.   In all these cases, the results of the deaths of humanitarians is too often the death of hope for millions who rely on them.   These trends, alongside the collapse in funding for our lifesaving work, are a symptom of a lawless, bellicose, selfish and violent world. Killing humanitarians is part of the broader attack on the UN Charter and on international humanitarian law.   International humanitarian law was never, and is not now, an academic exercise. In honour of our colleagues killed, and in solidarity with those now risking their lives, we ask you to act with much greater conviction, consistency and courage.   I normally conclude with three asks of this Council. But it seems insulting to over one thousand colleagues killed to echo back to you the commitments of SCR 2730: protection, integrity, accountability.   We come here not to remind you of these commitments, but to challenge you to uphold them. Because if we cast aside these hard-won principles, then the integrity of this Council, and the laws we are here to protect, die with our colleagues".   http://www.unocha.org/news/over-1000-aid-workers-killed-often-hands-member-states-un-relief-chief-demands-action http://news.un.org/en/story/2026/04/1167267
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