Following this week’s shooting in Uvalde, Andy speaks with a mother who knows the pain parents of the victims are experiencing. Rhonda Hart lost her 14-year-old daughter, Kimberly, in the 2018 Santa Fe High School shooting in Texas, and talks about how she continues to fight for gun reform despite the uphill battle. Joining the conversation is reporter Jennifer Mascia and former firearms executive Ryan Busse, who explain why politicians won’t act on gun reform despite widespread bipartisan conse...
May 27, 2022•57 min
For those overwhelmed by the news of yet another infectious disease outbreak by the name of monkeypox, this episode is for you. With an equal dose of relief and urgency, Andy invites one of the world’s leading experts on monkeypox, UCLA professor Anne Rimoin, to explain why the disease is spreading now and how concerned we should be. You’ll be reassured but also encouraged to pay attention — at the very least for the sake of those at risk around the globe. Keep up with Andy on Twitter @ASlavitt ...
May 25, 2022•43 min
COVID-19 variants are evolving around the world, impacting the trajectory of the pandemic and our ability to fight it. Andy speaks with microbiologist Katherine Wu, who’s been writing for the Atlantic about how surges in North Korea, China, and South Africa will affect the U.S. and what we can do about it. She expresses cautious optimism about variant-specific vaccines, worry over zero-COVID policies in parts of Asia, and insight into what the virus will do next. Keep up with Andy on Twitter @AS...
May 23, 2022•50 min
The echoes of white nationalism have seeped into talking points espoused by conservative media and the GOP party. The shooting in Buffalo is the latest example of where those dangerous thoughts can lead. Andy speaks with hate crime researcher Jeannine Bell and extremism reporter Andy Campbell about how Republican politicians and political pundits spouting anti-immigrant and anti-Black hate leads directly to someone taking action on those beliefs. Is this a quest for country-wide reconciliation a...
May 20, 2022•51 min
Our nation’s children are experiencing some of the highest levels of stress in history due to the pandemic, yet they lack the skills to properly verbalize and manage their mental health. The good news? It’s not too late for adults to lend a hand, and you don’t have to be a primary caregiver to do so. Mental health expert Dr. Nzinga Harrison teaches Andy about the seven Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs) that build a child's sense of belonging, and how to help any young person in your life acc...
May 18, 2022•54 min
With the 2022 primaries underway and the midterms in less than six months, CNN’s John King has his iconic magic wall prepped and ready for election coverage. Tracking the races more closely than arguably anyone else, John gives Andy his insider take on Trump’s effect on the primaries so far, whether Democrats will turn out for the midterms with the same force they did in 2018, and the key House and Senate races that’ll decide who controls Congress. Keep up with Andy on Twitter @ASlavitt . Follow...
May 16, 2022•52 min
Women make up more than half of the U.S. population, yet less than a third of the nation’s elected leaders. It’s not because they’re not winning. It’s because they’re not running. And studies show that the gender gap in political ambition is just as big today as it was 20 years ago. Why, and how do we change that? Andy poses those questions to gender and politics researcher Jennifer Lawless and She Should Run founder Erin Loos Cutraro. Walk away from this interview with practical tips on how to ...
May 13, 2022•56 min
You asked, we answered! Andy asks Dr. Ashish Jha, current White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator, the top 10 questions submitted by listeners, including our overall risk levels, what’s next for vaccines, how to diagnose long COVID, and minute by minute timing of the approval process for young kids. He explains who’s still dying from COVID, predicts when waves will hit different parts of the U.S., and breaks down the best therapeutics. Keep up with Andy on Twitter @ASlavitt . Follow Dr. Ash...
May 11, 2022•59 min
As the U.S. hits the tragic milestone of 1,000,000 deaths, Andy talks with Dr. Deborah Birx to explore how it happened and some of the most pivotal moments of President Donald Trump’s COVID response. Birx says she knew she wouldn’t win any popularity contests when she agreed to serve as the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator under Trump in 2020. She was right. Andy gives Birx a chance to respond to criticisms that her public praise of Trump undermined the opportunity to save more lives...
May 09, 2022•52 min
A post-Roe America could become a reality soon, if Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s draft ruling becomes the court’s final decision. From the West Alabama Women’s Center in Tuscaloosa, Robin Marty tells Andy how the decision would impact her patients from day one, and urges Americans with privilege to consider how far they’ll go to protect the rights of others. Andy asks Columbia Law School professor Carol Sanger which of Alito’s arguments stuck out to her and what people can do today to hel...
May 06, 2022•43 min
Early on in the pandemic, people of color were nearly twice as likely to die from COVID-19. Those health inequities weren’t surprising to Dr. Joneigh Khaldun, who was among the first public health officials in the nation to demand her state of Michigan collect race and ethnicity data on COVID patients. In fact, solving them has been her life’s work. Now the chief health equity officer at CVS Health, Joneigh tells Andy where her passion for improving the health of underserved communities stems fr...
May 04, 2022•53 min
Since the beginning of the pandemic shutdown, In the Bubble has been your home for facts, guidance, and a slice of hope in a hopeless time. Now, as we emerge from our COVID bubbles, there are still lots of issues that Andy wants to help break down without weighing you down. That’s why In the Bubble is expanding to three days a week. In addition to timely and important information about COVID-19, the show will make sense of the breaking and slow burn news cycles with thoughtful opinions and exper...
May 03, 2022•2 min
Many parents with young children have one question: When will my kid be eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine? They got one step closer to an answer this week, when Moderna filed an Emergency Use Authorization for a vaccine the company says is safe and effective for kids ages 6 months through 5 years. FDA Commissioner Robert Califf tells Andy what’s holding up approval, why getting the dose right is so critically important, and whether rumors that the FDA would wait for data on a three-dose vaccine fr...
Apr 28, 2022•53 min
For decades, the messenger RNA (mRNA) platform was seen as too unstable and expensive to be used in vaccines or therapeutic medicines. That changed when the COVID-19 pandemic sparked enough urgency, resources, and money to bring about a breakthrough. Andy speaks with Uwe Schoenbeck, the chief scientific officer for Pfizer's Emerging Science & Innovation team, about what makes the mRNA platform more nimble than conventional methods and its potential future uses, including a game-changing flu ...
Apr 27, 2022•46 min
Some passengers ripped off their masks in jubilee while others froze in horror when airlines across the country announced mid-flight that a Florida judge had struck down the CDC’s travel mask mandate last week. What does this ruling mean for air travel and daily commutes on public transit? Andy speaks with epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina about why you should keep your mask on and how to minimize your risk while traveling amid unmasked passengers. And global health law professor Lawrence Gostin e...
Apr 25, 2022•55 min
What if we could take the best of what we learned from the pandemic to build a better and more equitable health care system? What would it look like? That question is at the center of Andy’s conversation with CVS Health’s Executive Vice President Alan Lotvin. Alan envisions a future where the expertise of pharmacists and nurse practitioners is better utilized to help aid the labor shortage. And he believes wearable health technology could become as essential as your wallet, leading to fast, conv...
Apr 20, 2022•56 min
Andy sits down with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, who is cautiously optimistic that a vaccine for children under 5 will get approved by June and a variant-specific vaccine that better protects against Omicron will be approved in the fall. Albert stresses the seriousness of Long COVID, comparing its severity to cardiovascular diseases. And Andy traces a throughline between the harrowing journey of Albert’s parents, who narrowly escaped the Holocaust, and the CEO’s own journey racing the clock to crea...
Apr 18, 2022•56 min
Last Day is back for season 3, and in episode 1, our team travels to Montana, where cowboy culture reigns supreme, everyone is armed, and 86% of firearm deaths are suicides. There, we meet a couple that represents all the contradictions at the root of America’s gun debate: One is a suicide prevention advocate, and the other is the most adamant Second Amendment supporter we’ve ever met. Plus, our team tries out shooting some really big guns. To hear the next episode of Last Day, search for Last D...
Apr 16, 2022•53 min
While COVID caseloads are decreasing in many parts of the United States, many people who have been afflicted throughout the past two years of the pandemic are still suffering with what is commonly called "Long COVID." COVID-19 isn't the first virus to cause long-term illness, but Andy digs into what we know — and don't know — about these lingering symptoms. In Andy's conversation with two experts — Yale's Akiko Iswasaki and Mount Sinai's David Putrino — we'll learn more about hypotheses for why ...
Apr 13, 2022•56 min
Andy talks with disaster expert Juliette Kayyem about how to prepare for scary and unpredictable things, from hurricanes to cyber attacks. As the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Intergovernmental Affairs, Juliette accepts that disasters will happen and helps people, companies, and governments “fail safer,” as she puts it. She explains to Andy why a Russian cyber attack on U.S. soil would likely come in the form of an oil, gas, or water disruption. Putting in some hard wo...
Apr 11, 2022•38 min
Andy speaks with former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch about how she anticipates the Russian invasion of Ukraine playing out and why the fight for democracy can take decades. She explains how her parents' experience fleeing totalitarian regimes in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany led her to join the U.S. Foreign Service, and relives her painful role as a key witness in the 2020 impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump in which she testified that the President pressured the State D...
Apr 06, 2022•47 min
Andy talks with Dr. Peter Marks about the FDA’s authorization of a fourth round of vaccines for those 50 and older. As the director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research at the Food and Drug Administration, Marks is the man most responsible for our vaccines and the speed at which they were developed. Andy gets the inside scoop from him to help answer questions from listeners about boosters, such as: Who should get another shot? Should you mix and match? And when will we see vaccine...
Apr 04, 2022•39 min
When he wasn’t busy taming electricity and being a Founding Father of the United States, Benjamin Franklin was encouraging inoculations to combat the smallpox pandemic of the 18th century. Franklin bitterly regretted not inoculating his 4-year-old son, Francis, who died from smallpox when an outbreak hit Philadelphia in 1736. Andy talks to filmmaker Ken Burns, whose new PBS documentary on the founding father comes out April 4, about Franklin’s role during the smallpox pandemic, how he balanced h...
Mar 30, 2022•1 hr 3 min
While states like Texas and Florida target LGBTQ+ youth and families, Andy digs into the top issues affecting our nation's health with Admiral Rachel Levine, a pediatrician currently serving as Assistant Secretary for Health. Dr. Levine, who is the nation's first openly transgender four-star officer, discusses her commitment to finding solutions to improve youth mental health, the opioid epidemic, and health equity. She and Andy also reflect on the profound difference one supportive adult can ma...
Mar 28, 2022•41 min
Andy tackles the pressing need for more COVID funding with two guests who are fighting to make it happen: outgoing White House Coronavirus Coordinator Jeff Zients and former COVID Transition Team member Dr. Zeke Emanuel. What will happen if the U.S. can't afford to pay for a fourth round of vaccines? And what is holding Congress up? Zeke and Andy also discuss the plan Zeke is spearheading for the next phase of the pandemic, and Andy puts Zeke through a lightning round where he asks him about var...
Mar 23, 2022•51 min
Andy brings Harvard epidemiologist Bill Hanage back to discuss what the US can expect to see with the new Omicron subvariant BA.2. How will our bump compare to what we’re seeing in Europe? And how will people navigate it with the nationwide relaxation of vaccine and mask mandates? Plus, they revisit some of their previous conversation about the original strain of Omicron from six weeks ago to see how well their predictions held up. Keep up with Andy on Twitter @ASlavitt and Instagram @andyslavit...
Mar 21, 2022•51 min
Andy begins by talking about the rise in COVID cases around the world and what that could mean for us here in America. Then, listen in as Andy and Silicon Valley Congressman Ro Khanna have a wide-ranging conversation about the war in Ukraine, the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, and what it takes to build bridges both across the aisle and within one’s own party. Ro explains his views on how far the U.S. should go to defend Ukraine, what it means to be a "progressive capitalist," and how...
Mar 16, 2022•54 min
Andy gets to the bottom of Vladimir Putin's escalating nuclear threats with U.S. Senator Tim Kaine and Hans Kristensen, Director of the Nuclear Information Project with the Federation of American Scientists. Plus, Senator Kaine details his personal two-year-long struggle with long COVID and his new bill, the Comprehensive Access to Resources and Education (CARE) for Long COVID Act. Keep up with Andy on Twitter @ASlavitt and Instagram @andyslavitt. Follow Senator Kaine @timkaine and Hans @nukestr...
Mar 14, 2022•55 min
As mask mandates and vaccine requirements go away and life starts to look similar to the way it did in February 2020, Andy talks with world-renowned virologist David Ho, who says his career has been defined by two pandemics: HIV/AIDS and COVID-19. David tells Andy what he makes of people relaxing their precautions, how long he thinks COVID will remain problematic for us as a society, and what future vaccines and therapies could look like. Plus, David recounts his decades researching HIV/AIDS, wh...
Mar 09, 2022•49 min
As Russia cracks down on the truth about the war in Ukraine, Andy connects with Jim Sciutto, CNN’s Chief National Security Correspondent, on the ground in Lviv. Jim tells Andy about some of the Ukrainians he’s spoken with: a member of parliament, a law student-turned-volunteer medic, and a family fleeing to safety. They also discuss the convoy outside Kyiv and what Putin’s next steps may be. Keep up with Andy on Twitter @ASlavitt and Instagram @andyslavitt. Follow Jim on Twitter @jimsciutto. Joi...
Mar 07, 2022•36 min
