Public Health On Call

The Inflation Reduction Act contains some major changes for both Medicare and drug pricing with the potential to save Americans billions of dollars in drug costs. Hopkins health policy expert Jerry Anderson, who has spent decades working on Medicare issues, talks with Stephanie Desmon about the changes, why they took so long, and what still needs to be worked out. Also - we want to hear from you! PublicHealth.jhu.edu/PublicHealthOnCall/Survey

Throughout COVID-19, the FDA has been among many government agencies charged with communicating lifesaving information. Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about how the politicization of the pandemic raised the stakes for the FDA and how the agency is learning to adapt in an age of rampant misinformation. They also discuss the FDA's consideration of bivalent vaccines for authorization and what's next for the pandemic response.

Dr. Mark Gendreau, an emergency department physician in Boston, talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about the marvels of airplane ventilation, the transmission of diseases like flu, measles, and SARS in airplanes, the overall risk for COVID-19, and how travelers can more safely navigate the riskiest "choke points" during air travel.

Dr. Carolyn Sufrin joins the podcast to talk with Dr. Sharfstein about the implication of overturning Roe vs Wade for a special population—people who are incarcerated. Dr. Sufrin is an obstetrician/gynecologist and a researcher on reproductive health at Johns Hopkins.

The first case of paralytic polio in New York in decades has focused attention on a devastating virus with a long and terrible history. Olakunle Alonge, an associate professor of international health at Johns Hopkins, who's worked on polio eradication efforts around the world, speaks to Josh Sharfstein about what's behind the rise in cases and how the world can defeat polio—forever.

How should parents be thinking about their kids returning to school in the context of updated CDC guidelines on COVID, the potential for monkeypox outbreaks, and an uptick in other viruses? Experts Keri Althoff and Liz Stuart return to the podcast to talk with Stephanie Desmon about what's new this school year, making sense of COVID risks and guidelines, vaccine mandates for kids age 12 and up, and thinking about a "more holistic approach to health" that takes prevention of other illnesses into account.

What's the difference between COVID reinfection, rebounding, and a new infection? Are people contagious and can they have recurring symptoms with a COVID rebound? Can antivirals like paxlovid cause COVID rebounds? Can paxlovid prevent long COVID? Amesh Adalja returns to the podcast to talk with Josh Sharfstein and answer your questions sent to publichealthquestion@jhu.edu.

President Biden is poised to sign the historic Inflation Reduction Act that will, among other things, enact sweeping changes to the US energy sector and efforts to fight climate change. Tiernan Sittenfeld, the senior vice president of the League of Conservation Voters, talks with guest host Shelley Hearne about the bill and its game-changing potential for the environment and public health. They also discuss why major climate legislation has failed in the past and what needs to be done to ensure that implementation is successful.

Throughout the COVID pandemic, number crunching has been a way to understand and respond to the scope, spread, and spikes of outbreaks. The same goes for monkeypox. Epidemiologist Dr. Caitlin Rivers talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about what numbers should be considered to understand the full picture of the monkeypox outbreak and the effectiveness of the response. They also talk about the current limitations within public health to track down and report necessary data.

A new report confirms the origins of SARS-CoV-2 as a spillover event from a seafood market in Wuhan, China. Biosecurity expert Gigi Gronvall returns to the podcast to talk with Lindsay Smith Rogers about what we now know happened, why it took so long to pinpoint and confirm COVID's origins, and why this information is crucial for research and preventing future pandemics. Read the report here.