Tom Hird

Lead poisoning affects 800 million children each year but receives very little global attention and funding — that needs to change. Read key takeaways from experts from @open_phil, @Stanford, @UNICEF, and more on the sidelines of UNGA 80 👇 Sponsored by @open_phil

The developed world has eliminated leaded fuel and lead in paint. @c_don7, @notanastronomer and James Hu explain that it will be surprisingly easy to do this in the developing world too, and why doing so matters. worksinprogress.co/issue/the-end-…

"Many global health problems are thorny and difficult. Lead, unusually, is not one of those. We already know how to reduce lead exposure. Rich countries have already done it." Great new @WorksInProgMag piece by @C_Don7 @notanastronomer and James Hu

New in the NYT: pesticides like paraquat cause >100k deaths to suicide per year, and means restriction works - following bans in China, their pesticide suicide rate fell ~60%. Props to @jsnwden and @GiveWell for their early work here; @open_phil is proud to continue it.

1/6 Our Global Health and Wellbeing staff often use back-of-the-envelope calculations, or BOTECs, to estimate a grant’s potential impact. A 🧵 on some real-life examples from OP grantmaking:

🚨 Lead research grants 🚨 Please share! New @CGDev call for research proposals on reducing lead poisoning in the developing world. Three broad areas: 1. Sources: where is the lead coming from 2. Impacts: measuring harms from lead 3. Solutions: evaluating policy tools

GiveWell revisited its cost-effectiveness estimate of GiveDirectly unconditional cash transfers: we think they're 3-4x more CE than we'd previously estimated, & about ~30-40% as CE as our marginal funding opps. Blog: blog.givewell.org/2024/11/12/re-… Main analysis: givewell.org/international/…

You: High-impact research ideas to help understand and mitigate the global burden of lead poisoning 👍 🤝🤝🤝🤝🤝🤝🤝 Us (@Cgdev): An RfP with up to $1 million total to get your big ideas off the ground 👇 cgdev.org/blog/wanted-yo…

"Today, USAID, UNICEF and @open_phil are... launching the Partnership for a Lead-Free Future... We’ve mobilized more than $150 million — more than 10 times the current global investment each year." Launch event today 7pm UK / 2pm ET - watch at leadfreefuture.org

Today at #UNGA79, 2pm ET @UNICEF & @USAID are convening public and private partners to launch the Partnership for a Lead-Free Future. The Partnership will address the scourge of lead poisoning in children in low-and-middle income countries, where over 90% of the global harm from lead occurs. Join the dialogue to create a #LeadFreeFutureForEveryChild on leadfreefuture.org

The new EU Commission must lead the way in tackling the lead poisoning epidemic. @CGDev experts propose the Commission should: 🇪🇺 Pledge to end lead poisoning within the EU 💶Invest in new tech ✅Improve regulation And more: bit.ly/3XJ9JyW

@albrgr We (@RethinkPriors) recently re-checked the evidence on this on behalf of @GiveWell: the conclusion remains: "There's no quantitative evidence of nets leading to depletion". Details here: rethinkpriorities.org/publications/i…

A thread about how science should work, ways to cheaply save lives, peer review, and diarrhea 👇

I’ve read a lot of stuff about #mpox already that is wrong or at least confused. And it’s not that surprising. The situation is pretty complicated and confusing. I tried to disentangle a few things for @NewsfromScience here (thread to come later): science.org/content/articl…

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In 1995, treatment options for HIV were completely transformed. I made this chart with data from the NCHS, showing the impact of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). It profoundly improved the survival of people with HIV & reduced the risks of passing it on to others.

AMC for broad-spectrum antivirals - yes please

Happy to be naive on what are good/bad aesthetics - but, after a week of Gdocs/sheets, I (still) like to watch this sometimes youtube.com/watch?v=UqJJkt…

Wow, that went well...Twice-Yearly Lenacapavir or Daily F/TAF for HIV Prevention in Cisgender Women | New England Journal of Medicine nejm.org/doi/full/10.10…

The new Chancellor could boost UK GDP by 4.4% with this one simple trick... In our latest briefing, @luciacoulter @leecrawfurd & Tammy Tan highlight the economic and social cost of childhood lead poisoning, a hidden epidemic which costs the UK 4.4% of annual GDP.