About this episode: Innocent Grant is a family planning advocate from Tanzania. In this episode: How Grant’s experiences approaching mis- and disinformation about sexual and reproductive health at home are now helping him to frame this work as the U.S. threatens to cut a portion of its global funding of family planning. He also discusses the threats to major progress in outcomes like maternal mortality and the economic empowerment of young families—and how advocates can find common ground rooted...
Apr 16, 2025•16 min•Season 11Ep. 883
About this episode: In the early months of the new administration, several thousand CDC employees were dismissed, were asked to leave, or resigned. In this episode: what we know about these personnel losses, a look at some critical programs that may no longer exist, and concerns about what this means for America’s health. Guest: Dr. David Fleming served as Deputy Director for Science and Public Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2000-2003 and has had a long career in g...
Apr 14, 2025•15 min
About this episode: Consumer products from auto makers to housing developers to streaming and food delivery services all have impacts on our health. In this episode: A look at the Building H Index, which calculates a health score for these products and services and makes recommendations to companies about how to make their products healthier. Note: Building H is a program of the nonprofit Public Health Institute and the Index does not receive any funds from the companies that are rated. Guest: S...
Apr 09, 2025•16 min•Season 11Ep. 881
About this episode: Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services abruptly fired around 10,000 employees, 3,500 of which were within the FDA alone—an organization of around 18,000 total employees as of January 2025. In this episode: A look at the work of the FDA and how it may be hampered by such significant cuts, and how patients may be among those most impacted. Guest: Dr. Robert Califf served as the FDA Commissioner under Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Host: Dr. Josh Sharfste...
Apr 08, 2025•23 min•Season 11Ep. 880
About this episode: The Department of Health and Human Services’s abrupt termination of $11 billion in health funding to states has interrupted projects across the country. In this episode, a look at one state—Connecticut—where the state with federal approval had been using the funding to upgrade aging technology and respond to urgent threats like measles. Note: This conversation was recorded prior to a federal judge’s issuing of a temporary restraining order blocking the cuts—for now. Guest: Dr...
Apr 07, 2025•13 min•Season 11Ep. 879
About this episode: People come to the emergency department seeking all kinds of urgent care. What if they could also get treatment for opioid addiction? In this episode: a look at how one rural hospital started prescribing buprenorphine to ER patients, and how scaling up treatment while reducing stigma at hospitals across the US is now helping thousands of patients every year. Guest: Arianna Campbell is an emergency department and addiction medicine PA at Marshall Medical Center in Placerville,...
Apr 03, 2025•16 min•Season 11Ep. 878
About this episode: For 25 years, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance has been a global effort to purchase and distribute lifesaving vaccines to the poorest of countries and help them build up their health systems. Now, it’s the latest chop in a blitz of proposed federal funding cuts to global health. In this episode: an overview of Gavi’s innovative model that buys vaccines for 50% of the world’s children and has prevented around 19 million deaths, and the catastrophic potential if the U.S. withdraws it...
Apr 02, 2025•17 min•Season 11Ep. 877
About this episode: Amidst an ongoing outbreak of a deadly clade of mpox in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs has been part of the response team. Working with local partners, CCP has developed community outreach and strategic communications campaigns to help protect people, reduce transmission, and get the outbreak under control. When USAID funding was abruptly canceled, the program was granted a waiver to continue work. But now, as the wai...
Mar 31, 2025•17 min•Season 11Ep. 876
About this episode: As a follow up to our recent episode titled The Potential Impacts of Cuts To Medicaid, we’re partnering with our friends at the Tradeoffs podcast. Guest hosts Dan Gorenstein and Ryan Levi, longtime health reporters, take a deeper look at why many Republicans believe a smaller Medicaid program would be a better Medicaid, what proposed cuts might look like, and the challenges Republicans may face in trying to get cuts passed in Congress. Guests: Dan Gorenstein is the executive ...
Mar 27, 2025•26 min•Season 11Ep. 875
About this episode: Medicaid helps make health care accessible to millions of adults and children in the U.S. In this episode: a look at the potential impacts of federal budget cuts on states, hospitals, physicians, and the beneficiaries themselves. Guests: Dr. Gerard Anderson is an expert in health policy and a professor in Health Policy and Management and International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Jennifer Wolff is an expert in policy relating to the care ...
Mar 26, 2025•19 min•Season 11Ep. 874
About this episode: According to the WHO, there are an estimated 300,000 drowning deaths worldwide each year and a quarter of them are children under 5. But because the risk factors are so diverse—from backyard swimming pools to monsoons to the fishing industry—preventing drowning deaths requires viewing the problem through a public health lens and investing in a multitude of approaches, many of which turn out to be beneficial to communities beyond basic water safety. Guest: Caroline Lukaszyk is...
Mar 24, 2025•15 min•Season 11Ep. 873
About this episode: Ketamine is in the news again. In this episode: a conversation about the differences between ketamine and esketamine—an FDA-approved medicine for treatment-resistant depression—why we’re hearing so much about ketamine right now, and the importance of administering esketamine in a clinical setting as part of a broader comprehensive mental health strategy. Guest: Dr. Paul Kim is a psychiatrist and director of the Johns Hopkins Treatment Resistant Esketamine Antidepressant Targe...
Mar 20, 2025•17 min•Season 11Ep. 872
About this episode: For some people with a high risk of ovarian cancer, a standard approach has been full removal of the reproductive organs. But new research points to a far less invasive procedure called a salpingectomy, or removal of the fallopian tubes, as a potential “game changer” in ovarian cancer. In this episode: understanding high grade serous carcinoma—the most common type of ovarian cancer—the lack of screening tools, and why fallopian tube removal isn’t yet available to more people....
Mar 19, 2025•19 min•Season 11Ep. 871
About this episode: A new report on misinformation and disinformation from the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine is helping to define what misinformation is and how it starts and how to combat it. In this episode: a conversation about the findings, and how to get away from misinformation as a name-calling contest. Guest: Vish Viswanath is the Lee Kum Kee Professor of Health Communication at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health and chaired the blue ribbon panel exami...
Mar 17, 2025•16 min•Season 11Ep. 870
About this episode: Questions about vaccines and autism have been around for a while despite multiple scientific studies that do not show a connection. In this episode: where the concerns started, the science behind why experts have concluded there is no link, and why these questions still persist. Guest: Dan Salmon is the director of the Johns Hopkins Institute For Vaccine Safety . Host: Dr. Josh Sharfstein is vice dean for public health practice and community engagement at the Johns Hopkins Bl...
Mar 14, 2025•20 min•Season 11Ep. 869
About this episode: In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic when there were no vaccines or treatments, convalescent plasma—antibody-containing blood from people who recovered from COVID—saved countless lives through Emergency Use Authorization. In this episode: special guest host Thomas Locke of MMI Monthly: From Bench To Breakthrough discusses the evolution of CCP therapy, from emergency use during the pandemic to now, nearly five years later, crossing the finish line with recent FDA approva...
Mar 13, 2025•12 min•Season 11Ep. 868
About this episode: John Green is a New York Times bestselling author and YouTuber known for writing books like The Fault In Our Stars . His latest book is about tuberculosis. In this episode: A conversation with John Green about why he chose to write about TB, the current state of public health and its challenges, and how the disease and its prevalance reflects so much back on us in terms of who we are as a society. Guest: John Green is the award-winning, #1 bestselling author of books includin...
Mar 12, 2025•15 min•Season 11Ep. 867
About this episode: In another episode in our series on vaccines: the different types of vaccines and how they work, and the logic and timing of the childhood vaccination schedule. Also: A conversation about measles vaccinations for children younger than 1 year. Guest: Dr. Bill Moss is the executive director of the International Vaccine Access Center at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Host: Lindsay Smith Rogers, MA , is the producer of the Public Health On Call podcast , an ...
Mar 11, 2025•21 min•Season 11Ep. 866
About this episode: At the bottom of the world’s oceans lie valuable deposits of cobalt, manganese, and other minerals. In today’s episode: a deep dive on deep-sea mining, the environmental impacts, and how the world might approach regulating mining in areas that technically belong to everyone. Guests: Andrew Thaler is a deep-sea ecologist, conservation technologist, and an ocean educator. Host: Lindsay Smith Rogers, MA , is the producer of the Public Health On Call podcast , an editor for Exper...
Mar 10, 2025•22 min•Season 11Ep. 865
About this episode: A measles outbreak that started in west Texas has sickened more than 150 people and killed a child. In today’s episode: the scope of the outbreak and how it’s spreading, the challenges of trying to control it, and claims about treatments including vitamin A, steroids, and antibiotics. Guest: Dr. Bill Moss is the executive director of the International Vaccine Access Center at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Host: Lindsay Smith Rogers, MA , is the producer...
Mar 07, 2025•16 min•Season 11Ep. 864
About this episode: A large-scale, multi-country autism study involving more than 175,000 individuals is hoping to find interplay between genes and the environment that may influence autism diagnosis and symptoms. But proposed NIH funding cuts could imperil the study’s future. In this episode: A look at an NIH-funded study that hopes to improve the quality of life for people with autism and their caregivers, and find better tools for diagnosis and treatment. Guests: Christina Ladd-Acosta is the ...
Mar 06, 2025•15 min•Season 11Ep. 863
About this episode: Research shows that seed oils, like sunflower and sesame, can contribute to better health. So why are wellness influencers talking about a group called “the hateful eight,” which include non-seed oils like soybean and canola? In this episode: a breakdown of what seed oils are (and aren’t), misconceptions around inflammation and omega 6’s, and how processed foods play into the conversation. Note: This episode mentions Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and was recorded prior to his confir...
Mar 05, 2025•16 min•Season 11Ep. 862
About this episode: Neglected diseases like mycetoma, Chagas disease, and leishmaniasis impact more than a billion people worldwide every year and kill hundreds of thousands. In this episode: Why these illnesses don’t get widespread attention or the resources needed for prevention, diagnosis and treatment, and how in a shifting global funding landscape, cross-sector collaboration is key to alleviating suffering. Guests: Delali Attipoe is the North America director of the Drugs for Neglected Dise...
Mar 04, 2025•15 min•Season 11Ep. 861
About this episode: In today’s episode: defining sex, gender, and gender identity, and why the concepts of gender and gender identity help with the understanding of and response to health challenges. Guests: Sari Reisner is an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan. Host: Dr. Josh Sharfstein is vice dean for public health practice and community engagement at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, a faculty member in health policy, a pediatrician, and former secretary of Maryl...
Mar 03, 2025•15 min•Season 11Ep. 860
About this episode: The abrupt halt of USAID funded programs around the world has caused confusion and chaos, and the consequences are likely to have a long tail. In today’s episode: Joe Amon, an expert in global aid and human rights, discusses some of the direct and indirect impacts of disengaging from this work. Guests: Joe Amon is the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health and Human Rights . Host: Dr. Josh Sharfstein is vice dean for public health practice and community engage...
Feb 28, 2025•12 min•Season 11Ep. 859
About this episode: Firearm purchaser licensing laws that have provisions such as enhanced background checks and in-person applications curb homicides and suicides, they’re bipartisan, and a majority of Americans—including gun owners—support them. In today’s episode: A look at a new report with recommendations for building a safer gun-buying process and why now is the time to implement these solutions. Guests: Josh Horwitz is co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center For Gun Violence Solutions . S...
Feb 26, 2025•17 min•Season 11Ep. 858
About this episode: Although cannabis is legal in nearly half of all U.S. states, policy is complicated. There's federal law, which prohibits the sale of THC-containing cannabis but not hemp. There's state law, which is an even more complex patchwork. In this episode: A new report looks at how this hazy landscape is impacting public health policy and equity. Guests: Dr. Yasmin Hurd is a neuroscientist and the director of the Addiction Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in N...
Feb 26, 2025•22 min•Season 11Ep. 853
About this episode: In today’s episode: A discussion with Dr. Lisa Cooper, the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity, about opposition to the terms "diversity," "equity," and "inclusion." Guests: Dr. Lisa Cooper is a public health physician, a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins and a winner of a MacArthur genius grant for her work to understand and reduce health disparities. Host: Dr. Josh Sharfstein is vice dean for public health practice and community engagemen...
Feb 25, 2025•16 min•Season 11Ep. 857
About this episode: Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, some states have imposed severe restrictions on access to abortion. In this episode: New research on what's happened to infant death and birth rates in these states. Guests: Suzanne Bell is a Johns Hopkins demographer the department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health . Alison Gemmill is a Johns Hopkins demographer and perinatal epidemiologist in the department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health . Host: Lindsay Smith ...
Feb 24, 2025•16 min
About this episode: During the pandemic, CDC recommendations about masking and other issues were the source of controversy. Some have asked whether the agency can better communicate the basis of its recommendations — and even seek public input along the way—to increase public understanding and acceptance. In today’s episode, Johns Hopkins cardiologist Dr. Joseph Marine and Dr. Peter Lurie of the Center for Science in the Public Interest join the podcast to discuss how the CDC can communicate mor...
Feb 21, 2025•18 min•Season 11Ep. 855
