WNYC’s THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW

WNYC and NY1 will co-host a debate with the candidates in the NY-12 Democratic primary race to replace US Representative Jerry Nadler on Tuesday, June 9 at 7pm. Participating candidates include scientist Nina Schwalbe...

In the Race to Replace Jerry Nadler, Dunn and Schwalbe Challenge the Boys’ Club Narrative

International public health expert Nina Schwalbe and civil rights attorney Laura Dunn have been frequently ignored or left out, despite the fact that each brings different and, in some cases, more experience than the others, and are polling not far behind Conway. Earlier this week the Wall Street Journal did the same, even after interviewing Schwalbe...

Street Chat: Nina Schwalbe for Congress

Nina Schwalbe is running for Congress: "I Citibike and I subway. What we need is green space in this city, that is part of health and mental health." Watch Nina bike around Central Park with Alex Duncan while discussing the things that matter...

W42ST Reader Survey Shows Lasher Leading NY-12 Race, with Bores Second — but Many Voters are Still in Play

A W42ST reader survey of 430 respondents shows Micah Lasher leading the Democratic primary race to replace longtime Congressman Jerry Nadler — with a significant bloc of readers still undecided. George Conway, the lawyer and anti-Trump commentator, received 10.5 percent, followed by public health expert Nina Schwalbe at 9.1 percent, Jack Schlossberg at 7.2 percent...

WHO Raises Ebola Risk Level to Very High

"The WHO provides the global background for US disease preparedness. In public health, people only pay attention when things break down and the WHO's response to the Ebola outbreak was hobbled by the US withdrawal and defunding. This doesn't make Americans safer and as a result, we learn about diseases through twitter..."

The Left Has No Easy Choice in NY-12

The only candidate in the race running explicitly on the Left is Nina Schwalbe. Her campaign has struggled to catch fire in a post-Citizens United world in which no level playing field exists, and competition requires huge sums of cash. The resulting competitive race between only white men feels almost too on-the-nose as a representation of Trump-era social regression...

The Candidate Trying to Fight Past the Boys Club Vying for Retiring Rep. Nadler's seat

In the deep blue confines of Manhattan's 12th Congressional District, four men are usually considered the leading contenders to succeed retiring U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler. Then there's Nina Schwalbe, a public health professional with a long-standing connection to the district who has been fighting to break into the crowded race ahead of the Democratic primary in June...

Who Will Replace Jerry Nadler? Meet the Six Candidates W42ST Readers are Watching in NY-12

For the first time in more than three decades, Manhattan’s 12th Congressional District is facing an open race. Nina Schwalbe is a public health expert whose campaign centers on health care, pandemic preparedness, housing, climate, democracy reform, immigration and economic justice...

US Ebola Spending Plunged 99% in Five Years Since Last Outbreak

“This is what happens when you defund the public health systems designed to keep us safe,” said Nina Schwalbe, a senior scholar at Georgetown University’s Center for Global Health Policy & Politics, who helped establish USAID’s Covid-19 vaccine access initiative...

‘We’re not ready’: US lags on pandemic preparedness after Covid, experts say

Officials also need to get better at communicating uncertainty, said Nina Schwalbe. “We say things too simply, and then people lose their trust.” But people can handle uncertainty “because the world is an uncertain place”, she said...

Inside Jack Schlossberg’s Chaotic Campaign to Revive Camelot

At a recent candidate forum, for example, the candidates were asked to name their top accomplishments in public service. Ms. Schwalbe said she had distributed 500 million Covid-19 vaccines; another candidate discussed helping launch a ferry service in the East River...

Kennedy scion Jack Schlossberg opposes military support for Israel, claims US already lost war in Iran

Candidate Nina Schwalbe said she also supported a US ban on selling weaponry to Israel. “The destruction in Gaza is unacceptable. I’m ashamed America has supported it,” she said...

What do Democratic candidates running for New York’s 12th Congressional District have in store for theater community if elected?

Next month, the Democratic primary takes center stage, and a handful of hopefuls are vying to replace retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler in New York’s 12th Congressional District. Their hopeful territory also happens to include New York’s vibrant theater community...

Four Men Are in the Back of a Taxi. Where Are the Women?

A high-profile New York congressional race is full of qualified women candidates. As ever, they’ve been left out of the frame. When four men are framed as the candidates to watch, it reinforces the idea that leadership looks a certain way — and that anything outside of that frame is peripheral...

At Jewish forum, NY-12 candidates wrestle with anti-Zionism and antisemitism.

Just across town from an anti-Israel protest the night before, Democratic candidates for Congress gathered at Stephen Wise Free Synagogue on the Upper West Side...

Candidates vying to represent Upper West Side in Congress in heated forum.

A forum for candidates running to represent New York’s 12th Congressional District in the House turned unexpectedly spicy when front-runners Jack Kennedy Schlossberg and Micah Lasher began trading barbs. Asked at one point if she had anything to add, Nina Schwalbe, a public health researcher, who has long led international vaccine efforts, said, “No. I’m happy to watch the boys fight"...

Met Opera patrons warned of measles exposure after La Bohème matinee

Opera lovers who caught a matinee of La Bohème at the Metropolitan Opera House last month later received emails from the Met Opera letting them know that one of their fellow attendees had measles, the opera house has confirmed... “There is a balance between panic and responsible public health,” Schwalbe said. “That's where it really depends on the details of the case”...

12 Questions with the Underdogs of New York’s 12th Congressional District Race

Nina Schwalbe, Public Health ’93, is a sixth-generation New Yorker and public health leader who has long focused on vaccine distribution and health care equity. Schwalbe’s other work has included negotiating lower prices for cervical cancer vaccines and championing the recognition of same-sex couples working at the United Nations...

Artificial intelligence for research capacity strengthening: Two reviews and a pathway to shift power in global health

Global health research has been shaped by inequalities rooted in colonial legacies. Researchers in wealthier countries have, in general, led the establishment of research priorities and knowledge generation. Artificial intelligence tools are rapidly changing how research is done...

Explosive measles outbreaks are a sign of things to come

The immediate priorities are clear: restore a truly independent Advisory Committee on Immunisation Practices, reinstate the CDC and NIH staff and funding that form the backbone of American public health, and reverse the defunding of our global disease surveillance systems. These are not partisan demands. They are the minimum requirements for a functioning public health system...

Nina Schwalbe discusses her bid for Jerry Nadler's congressional seat 

On the campaign trail, Schwalbe is bringing a different kind of experience to the race: public health expertise. Schwalbe has made her scientific background a cornerstone of her run for Congress. She joins NY1 political anchor Errol Louis on “Inside City Hall” to make her case for the seat. 

Meet a candidate in contentious NY congressional race

Democratic candidate Nina Schwalbe joins PIX on Politics Daily with Dan Mannarino to discuss her platform focused primarily on health care. Nina, herself, is a public health expert who worked on the country’s COVID-19 response under the Biden Administration.

Public health takes center stage in US midterm campaigns: ‘It’s already been politicized’

“The Trump administration has taken an axe to our health and our rights,” said Nina Schwalbe, a public health leader who is running to represent New York’s 12th congressional district. “This is nothing short of malice, neglect and ignorance.”

Nina Schwalbe: global health advocate running for US Congress

Profile, in one of the world's oldest and most prestigious medical journals highlights Schwalbe’s extraordinary career in global health and her urgent call to restore scientific expertise and evidence-based leadership to the U.S. Congress. The profile details Schwalbe's work leading vaccine procurement and delivery programs that reached more than 100 countries.

District Twelve's Candidate Interview with Public Health Advocate Nina Schwalbe

"Nina Schwalbe is a public health practitioner and advocate who is running for Congress in New York’s Twelfth District. I spoke to her last week for my podcast District Twelve, which you can check out on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or right here on this page"...

A WSR Conversation With Candidate Nina Schwalbe in the Race to Represent the UWS in Congress

WSR: Hi Nina, let’s start here. This is your first time running for political office, why was this the right moment and right race to do so?

Schwalbe: There’s no time to waste in changing what’s happening in Washington D.C. I’m a public health expert and advocate, and on Day 1, this current administration destroyed public health, both at home and abroad. Nobody in Congress was standing up for it...

The Race at the Center of Everything

Although the less well-known candidates (those outside of the Lasher, Bores, Schlossberg trio) will be hard pressed to accumulate a critical mass of attention between now and June 23rd. Dr. Nina Schwalbe, particularly to those unfamiliar with her campaign, stole the show on multiple answers, offering interesting and nuanced perspectives on public health...

Top Tweet

NY-12 congressional candidate Nina Schwalbe cross-country skied to West Side Rag's candidate profile this morning.

https://x.com/GusSaltonstall/status/2025963290732408850/photo/1

Pandemic preparedness

The World Health Organization has doubled down on the May 2026 deadline for an annex on the pandemic agreement. It would be a mistake for negotiators to seek “consensus for the sake of consensus,” said Nina Schwalbe, senior scholar at Georgetown University’s Center for Global Health Policy and Politics.

State Forward

The World Health Organization has welcomed a pointed move by California, New York, and Illinois to join its Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network, or GOARN — even as the U.S. government in Washington, D.C., steps back from the U.N. health agency. Nina Schwalbe warns that this isn’t a substitute for national leadership. “There is no viable workaround to a functioning CDC partnering with the rest of the world through WHO,” she says.

Nine Democrats Take the Stage - and the Fight to Succeed Nadler Begins

The two-hour forum — jointly hosted by Broadway Democrats, Hell’s Kitchen Democrats and Columbia University College Democrats — drew a crowd that packed the venue, plus another 400 viewers on Zoom. Near the end of the evening, Schwalbe — a public health professional who helped lead the Biden Administration’s global vaccine effort — said she wished public health had received more attention. “Every time I sit in our subway system in New York I think, ‘We’re screwed.’ We’re not ready for the next pandemic.” If elected, she added, “I will be the only Democrat in Congress with a PhD in public health.”

Nina Schwalbe, public health scientist and vaccine superstar, is running for Congress.
If she wins, she will be the only Democratic member of Congress with a PhD in public health.

“I’m Nina Schwalbe, and I’m running for Congress, and I’m everything Donald Trump warned you about,” she said.

When she heard Jerry Nadler’s seat in her district, New York’s 12th, was up for grabs—she’s a sixth generation New Yorker, born and bred—Nina made a decision that not many with her background and credentials would make: she would run for Congress.

ANTI-ICE IN NY-12

Several of the Democrats running to succeed Nadler showed at a Wednesday candidates forum that they’re on the same page when it comes to the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement tactics: They want ICE abolished.

“We’ve got to abolish ICE. We can’t reform it, we’ve got to abolish it,” said Nina Schwalbe, a public health researcher.

Power on display in Davos, but does dialogue wield any of it? What to expect at this week's World Economic Forum in Davos. Plus, one health leader announces her bid for U.S. Congress, while another criticizes the state of Nigeria's health system

From health to House. Nina Schwalbe, a long-time global public health leader, is running for Congress in New York’s 12th Congressional District, pitching herself as a candidate with real-world experience at a moment she says demands new leadership.

Schwalbe argues on LinkedIn that federal systems meant to keep people safe — and the guardrails of democracy itself — are under threat...

Trump announces withdrawal from 66 global organisations

On Jan 7, 2026, US President Donald Trump issued a presidential memorandum announcing the country’s withdrawal from 66 “organizations, conventions, and treaties [that] are contrary to the interests of the United States”. These include 31 UN and 35 non-UN organisations, several related to global health. Nina Schwalbe, CEO of Spark Street Advisors and Senior Scholar at Georgetown’s Center for Global Health Policy and Politics, called it “a huge blow”...

My best friend is running for Congress

My best friend is running for Congress in New York City. These things happen.

I’ve known her more than 40 years and we’ve been close all that time. She has lived all over the world, while I’ve mostly been hunkered down in Washington DC. But our paths overlapped physically and professionally. Now, I’m following her–figuratively–on this newest adventure.

NYC public school hosts Mamdani's political pick, flouting policy

NY-12 NODS: The influential Democratic clubs of New York’s 12th District will help determine the outcome of the packed primary to succeed retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler.

Several clubs are set to cohost a candidates' forum next week.

The primary is expected to be one of the most expensive in the state.

Democrat Nina Schwalbe, Public Health Leader, Takes on DC's Political Establishment as She Files to Run in NY-12 Primary

Nina is a renowned public health leader, vaccine scientist and advocate who has focused her career on fixing broken systems so people can live better, healthier and more affordable lives.

Democrat Nina Schwalbe, Public Health Leader, Takes on DC's Political Establishment as She Files to Run in NY-12 Primary

Driven by the recklessness of the current administration and the failure of the political establishment to stop it, New York health expert and activist Nina Schwalbe has declared herself as a candidate for the open Congressional seat in NY-12.

Morning Digest: Louisville's Democratic mayor faces a rematch with progressive challenger

"The destruction of the public health system is dangerous now and it will get worse,” Schwalbe told Straus News. “I’m a lifelong New Yorker, and I think there is space for people who have experience outside elected office.”

Exclusive: Health Activist Nina Schwalbe Enters Race to Replace Congressman Nadler

Health expert and community activist Nina Schwalbe is the latest candidate to toss her hat into the crowded race to succeed Jerry Nadler in Congress. She says the attacks on the public healthcare system by the Trump administration is a motivating factor. “The destruction of the public health system is dangerous now and it will get worse,” she warned in an exclusive interview with Straus News.

Exclusive: Health Activist Nina Schwalbe Enters Race to Replace Congressman Nadler

"Washington is systematically dismantling our democracy, putting New York, America, and the world at risk, and Congress is failing to stop it,” says Schwalbe. “This administration is fueling disinformation, propagates false science, and has cut even the most basic services."

Exclusive: Health Activist Nina Schwalbe Enters Race to Replace Congressman Nadler

“My family has lived in District 12 for six generations. I grew up and gave birth to my two sons here. I cared for my parents as they died here. District 12 is my home,” said Schwalbe.

Who's Running to Replace Jerry Nadler? 10 People and Counting.

How many people does it take to fill Representative Jerrold Nadler’s shoes? Technically one, but the number of Democrats fighting to succeed him, now that he has announced that he will not seek re-election, is far higher.

Why is the US pulling out of 31 U.N. groups? And what's the impact?

President Trump's executive order to withdraw the United States from 66 international organizations, agencies and commissions is reverberating across the globe. Many people who work in the international arena are parsing the order and working to understand the implications and impact.

What’s In — and What’s Missing — in the New U.S. Strategy for Global Health

"The private sector is all over this document. There's a lot of lip service to more efficient, etc. But really, this is about outsourcing to the private sector."

WHO formally adopts pandemic agreement after three years of negotiation

Nina Schwalbe, the founder of global health think tank Spark Street Advisors, described the treaty as “a landmark agreement… that will make countries better prepared for the next pandemic”.

Are Donald Trump and US politics bringing global health to its knees?

"Until recently, the USA provided about 30% of global health funding. It was dominant in supplying HIV/AIDS medication and funded a major part of medical research. Much of this has now stopped with Donald Trump restricting gender affirming care, withdrawing from the WHO and holding funds from USAID - and the list goes on."

WHO members reach deal on how the world would tackle future pandemics

"This is a historic moment and a show, that with or without the U.S., countries are committed to working together and to the power of multilateralism," Nina Schwalbe, the founder of global health think tank Spark Street Advisors, told Reuters.

Countries Agree on Treaty Aimed at Preventing Global Health Crises

“It shows that with or without the U.S., the world can pull together for global health, and a recognition that pandemics require global solidarity,” said Nina Schwalbe, a global health consultant who has held leadership roles in U.S. and international organizations and who followed the negotiations closely. “They pushed past their red lines and they got to agreement. That’s no easy feat for 191 states. And there’s a lot in there. It’s maybe not as strong as we wanted on many issues, but there’s lots to build on.”

Countries reach ‘historic’ agreement to tackle future pandemics, WHO says

“This is a historic moment and a show, that with or without the US, countries are committed to working together and to the power of multilateralism,” Nina Schwalbe the founder of global health think tank Spark Street Advisors, told Reuters.

Global health in crisis: a conversation with Nina Schwalbe

"The US provides 40% of international development assistance globally and about 30% in health. … The payment system has frozen, and the people who would need to turn it back on no longer work there. … There was a lot of pushback from activists that you can't stop HIV treatment midstream. … We don't have the CDC in the discussion anymore. They're not even in the room. … It's not if, it's when we have the next pandemic, and it may be here already. … These people have spent their whole life trying to make the world a better place, and in one email, they were fired."

World Health Organization Urges Trump to Reconsider Exit

President makes second attempt to leave UN health agency. Experts say decision could undermine health security worldwide.

What a debt ceiling breach could mean for health care

Health care experts warn that the impact of the U.S. breaching the debt limit could be stark.