Health & Veritas

Greg Licholai, a lecturer at Yale and seasoned biotech entrepreneur, joins the discussion to share insights from his diverse career. He delves into the role of contract research organizations in clinical trials, emphasizing their impact on both large and small pharmaceutical companies. Licholai highlights the optimism surrounding innovations in gene therapies and CRISPR, while addressing the challenges of access and payment. He also tackles innovation bottlenecks in the clinical trial process, advocating for improved technology to facilitate participation.

The conversation dives into the current telehealth decline, with major providers like Teladoc facing challenges post-COVID. They discuss alarming H5N1 bird flu developments and advise against raw milk due to safety risks. The lengthy waits for specialty care appointments are highlighted, revealing serious access issues in healthcare. Additionally, retailers like Walmart are scaling back their primary care initiatives, raising questions about the future of accessible healthcare.

Join bioethicist Arthur Caplan of NYU as he tackles medicine's toughest ethical dilemmas. He critiques biomedical profit motives, arguing for community-focused ethics over individualism in pandemics. Caplan reflects on his changing views regarding assisted dying and face transplants, emphasizing the need for public engagement in bioethics. The hosts also touch on malaria's global impact and the need for better funding and prevention strategies. It's a riveting discussion on how ethics can shape healthcare for the better.

Scott Berkowitz, a cardiologist and chief population health officer at Johns Hopkins Medicine, discusses the urgent shift from fee-for-service to value-based care. He highlights how current incentives distort priorities in healthcare delivery and advocates for sharing quality data across specialties to enhance patient value. Berkowitz also emphasizes the need for integrating various healthcare services under a unified population health strategy while sharing personal insights on mentorship and balancing leadership with family commitments.

Howie and Harlan are joined by Atheendar Venkataramani, a physician, health economist, and director of the Perelman School of Medicine's Opportunity for Health Lab, to discuss the powerful role of economic opportunity in population health outcomes. Harlan reports on two studies where treatments' unexpected benefits leapt ahead of understanding why they work. Howie reflects on the business model of the pharma industry and the market reaction to anti-obesity drugs. Links: Opportunity for Health | Home "College Affirmative Action Bans and Smoking and Alcohol Use among Underrepresented Minority Adolescents in the United States: A Difference-in-differences Study" "Police Killings and Their Spillover Effects on the Mental Health of Black Americans: A Population-based, Quasi-experimental Study" "Officer-Involved Killings of Unarmed Black People and Racial Disparities in Sleep Health" Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System | Home "Building Black Wealth — The Role of Health Systems in Closing the Gap" KFF | Understanding Mergers Between Hospitals and Health Systems in Different Markets "In Hospitals, Affordable Housing Gets the Long-Term Investor It Needs" American College of Cardiology 73rd Annual Scientific Session & Expo "Semaglutide in Patients with Obesity-Related Heart Failure and Type 2 Diabetes" "Coronary sinus reducer for the treatment of refractory angina (ORBITA-COSMIC): a randomised, placebo-controlled trial" "A Placebo-Controlled Trial of PCI for Stable Angina" "Trial of Lixisenatide in Early Parkinson's Disease" "The Cream of The Crop: 5 Biotechs That Outrank Most Stocks" "How High Can Eli Lilly Stock Go? $1,000 A Share, One Analyst Says" Learn more about the MBA for Executives program at Yale SOM. Email Howie and Harlan comments or questions.

Howie and Harlan are joined by Kate McEvoy, executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors, to discuss the programs' underappreciated advances in holistically addressing health, housing, and food security. Reflecting on the upcoming election, Harlan notes that facts matter, whether in medicine or politics. Howie reports on the dangers of glyoxylic acid in hair straightening products. Links: "Trump Leads Biden in Six of Seven Swing States, WSJ Poll Finds" "Takeover: Hitler's Final Rise to Power" "The Forgotten History of Hitler's Establishment Enablers" The Future of Health Policy in a Partisan United States "Netflix blockbuster '3 Body Problem' divides opinion and sparks nationalist anger in China" "The Future of American Democracy Depends on Improving U.S. Health" Wikipedia | Glyoxylic acid Kidney Injury and Hair-Straightening Products Containing Glyoxylic Acid American Cancer Society | Formaldehyde and Cancer Risk Kaiser Family Foundation | 10 Things to Know About the Unwinding of the Medicaid Continuous Enrollment Provision Kaiser Family Foundation | Medicaid Postpartum Coverage Extension Tracker CMS | NHE Fact Sheet Moral Injuries in Healthcare Workers: What Causes Them and What to Do About Them? NCDHHS | Healthy Opportunities Pilots HealthTech4Medicaid | About Learn more about the MBA for Executives program at Yale SOM. Email Howie and Harlan comments or questions.

Howie and Harlan are joined by Margo Harrison, an OB-GYN and femtech entrepreneur, to discuss how innovative solutions to women's health problems offer deeper understanding and expanded choices. Harlan and Howie each offer a caveat emptor for lightly regulated, unproven supplements and treatments such as Prevagen and hydration spas. Links: "Prevagen Review: A Word of Caution" "Prevagen®: Analysis of Clinical Evidence and Its Designation as a '#1 Pharmacist Recommended Brand'" "NY Jury Rules Some Claims About Prevagen Are Misleading" "Effects of a Supplement Containing Apoaequorin on Verbal Learning in Older Adults in the Community" Mate Fertility: Home Dahlia Ventures Margo Harrison, MD: Assistant Adjoint Professor, OB-GYN-Basic Repro Science Margo Harrison: LinkedIn "Use of Cesarean Birth at Mizan Tepi University Teaching Hospital, Mizan Aman, Ethiopia" "Postpartum Contraceptive Use Among Denver-Based Adolescents and Young Adults: Association with Subsequent Repeat Delivery" "Warnings grow about risky IV drips and injections at unregulated med spas" "FDA highlights concerns with compounding of drug products by medical offices and clinics under insanitary conditions" "Drip bar: Should you get an IV on demand?" "Are Your Therapies FDA Compliant?"

Howie and Harlan are joined by Yale health economist Zack Cooper to discuss his work on surprise medical bills and the impact of high healthcare costs on households, wages, and the economy. Harlan reports on Hippocratic AI's efforts to develop AI nurses. Howie looks at the global effort to eradicate tuberculosis. Links: "Hippocratic AI banks $53M backed by General Catalyst, a16z, Memorial Hermann, UHS and other health systems" "Polaris: A Safety-focused LLM Constellation Architecture for Healthcare" Yale | Eli Whitney Students Program Touching the Dragon: And Other Techniques for Surviving Life's Wars The Price Ain't Right? Hospital Prices and Health Spending on the Privately Insured "Costs Can Go Up Fast When E.R. Is in Network but the Doctors Are Not" "Bankrupt Envision Healthcare approved to split in two, cut debt" "The Company Behind Many Surprise Emergency Room Bills" Surprise! Out-of-Network Billing for Emergency Care in the United States "Medical LLM developer Hippocratic AI gets $53M at $500 valuation" The Breakthrough of Large Language Models Release for Medical Applications: 1-Year Timeline and Perspectives World Health Organization | World Tuberculosis Day Partners In Health | Tuberculosis "WHO urges investments for the scale up of tuberculosis screening and preventive treatment" "The latest twist in John Green's anti-tuberculosis story: working with governments" Learn more about the MBA for Executives program at Yale SOM. Email Howie and Harlan comments or questions.

Howie and Harlan are joined by Robert Alpern, a Yale nephrologist and the former dean of the Yale School of Medicine, to discuss the importance of a fiscal base for enabling a medical school to deliver top-quality training, research, and clinical care. Harlan asks whether widespread norovirus is a reason to call it quits on shaking hands. Howie reports on a study of the increased mortality among those with ADHD. "Nephrologist Robert Alpern Named Dean of Yale School of Medicine" "UT Southwestern: From Army" Shacks to Research Elites" "National Clinician Scholars Program" "A 'bittersweet' end: Historic merger creates one of the nation's largest hospitals" "Yale New Haven Health: Smilow Cancer Hospital" "Alpern will not seek a fourth term as School of Medicine dean" "Alpern to Step Down After Current Term as Dean" "Cleveland Clinic: Norovirus" "State of Affairs: March 12: Flu, measles, norovirus, and interesting Pew results" "Norovirus has entered the chat" "ADHD Pharmacotherapy and Mortality in Individuals With ADHD" "Overdiagnosis of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in Children and Adolescents" "Racial Disparities in Diagnosis of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in a US National Birth Cohort" "Longitudinal associations between digital media use and ADHD symptoms in children and adolescents: a systematic literature review" Learn more about the MBA for Executives program at Yale SOM. Email Howie and Harlan comments or questions.

In this engaging discussion, Robert Rohrbaugh, a Yale psychiatry professor focused on antiracist clinical practices, shares insights on combating bias in healthcare. He explores the historical ramifications of medical eugenics and its connection to today’s society. Robert emphasizes the importance of antiracist documentation in clinical settings and details strategies for supporting clinician wellbeing during the pandemic. Lastly, he discusses innovative approaches to integrating mental health support in primary care, including the use of digital therapies.