Combatting Amnesia and Disinformation: The Barnes Lecture with Dr. Sania Nishtar

When Dr. Nishtar joined Gavi in 2024, she implemented a 180-day plan, which identified priorities for action during her tenure. This process led to the Gavi Leap, a new approach for global health institutions adjusting to unprecedented cuts in funding and support from traditional donor countries like the United States.

Gavi, a public-private global health partnership, works with the commercial sector to lower vaccine prices and co-share the costs with client countries. It maintains a strategic stockpile of vaccines for life-threatening diseases, including Ebola, yellow fever and cholera, and has the ability to mobilize funds quickly during outbreaks. Since its founding in 2000, Gavi has vaccinated over 1.2 billion children, saving more than 19 million lives, and it hopes to vaccinate another five hundred million children over the next five years, Nishtar said.

As medical disinformation has surged since the COVID-19 pandemic, and trust in public health interventions has waned, Dr. Nishtar stresses the need for clear communication and education about the importance of vaccines.

“I recently visited my ancestral graveyard,” she said, “where there are so many graves of children who died of infectious diseases. I don’t think people realize what it’s like to see a child die from diphtheria or measles. They don’t know how common infectious diseases can kill, how pneumonia can be a death sentence for children and families. I think we have a collective amnesia and that collective amnesia is more profound in the West.”

About the Barnes Lecture

 The Barnes Lecture was established in 2000 under the leadership of Professor Vincent Mor, who was then chair of the Department of Community Health. It is named in honor of Dr. Frederick W. Barnes who joined Brown in 1962 as a founding faculty member of Brown’s then new program in medicine. Dr. Barnes was passionate about educating future physicians within the context of a liberal arts environment like Brown. He began teaching the undergraduate course, The Informative Way of Life, which became wildly popular among students.

One of those students, James S. Zisson, endowed the lectureship in memory of his parents, viewing Dr. Barnes as the quintessential physician-scholar. Mr. Zisson graduated from Brown with honors in 1974, launching a career spanning entrepreneurship, investment management and leadership in the music industry as general manager of A&M Records. He also co-founded the Palm Healthcare Foundation and the Norma and Ian M. Zisson Comprehensive Breast Cancer Center of the Palm Beaches, in addition to serving on numerous boards as a trustee.

“Mr. Zisson passed away last year,” said Dr. Craig Spencer. “A regular fixture at this event every year before his death, we miss his presence, but are grateful that his commitment to public health will carry on because of his generosity.”