Healthcare Unfiltered

Tara Haella (@tarahaelle), independent science/health journalist, joins the show to discuss her reporting on vaccine hesitancy long before the pandemic (the “trenches of the mommy wars”), how this previous work aligns with today’s COVID vaccine hesitancy, and how cognitive bias plays a substantial part in our individual feelings toward vaccines. Tara explains the longstanding history of vaccine hesitancy, how she came to initially distrust the CDC, how vaccine hesitancy was likely exacerbated by political motives when COVID hit, how much blame public health messaging may have toward COVID vaccine hesitancy, and a host of other interesting, controversial topics. View Tara’s personal website. https://tarahaelle.net/ Check out Chadi’s website for all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes and other content. www.chadinabhan.com/ Watch all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes on Youtube. www.youtube.com/channel/UCjiJPTpIJdIiukcq0UaMFsA

Chris Arnade (@Chris_arnade), long-time writer and author of “Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America,” joins the show to discuss his recent experience walking America and how his views on politics and the COVID-19 response have changed as a result. Chris shares his unique upbringing and professional background, ways in which he satisfied his early interest in long walks and what he made of these walks, and how this interest developed into touring the U.S. and photographing the people he encountered. Chadi and Chris discuss the “real America” and break down the “rows” of people in the country, how leaders have failed the lower class when it comes to COVID messaging, and many other interesting topics. Check out “Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America.” https://www.amazon.com/Dignity-Seeking-Respect-Back-America/dp/0525534733 Check out Chadi’s website for all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes and other content. www.chadinabhan.com/ Watch all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes on Youtube. www.youtube.com/channel/UCjiJPTpIJdIiukcq0UaMFsA

Chadi hosts a truly inspiring pediatrician, author, philanthropist, humanitarian, and self-described “healer”: Noha Baz. Dr. Baz opens up about her unique childhood beginning in France and moving to Lebanon, some harrowing stories about young patients being refused care because of lack of money to pay for treatment, her eventual founding of “Les Petits Soleils” in 1997 to provide medical care for children living in Lebanon not benefiting from health coverage, maintaining her focus despite political turmoil in Lebanon, her deep love for food and how she incorporates it into her work, and a whole lot more. Check out Chadi’s website for all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes and other content. www.chadinabhan.com/ Watch all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes on Youtube. www.youtube.com/channel/UCjiJPTpIJdIiukcq0UaMFsA

Chadi welcomes two experienced medical writers, Marielle Fares and Tom Lang, to explain what “medical writing” entails and who the intended audience is, the difference between regulatory and medical education writing as well as patient education and scientific publications, how medical projects come in and what types of instructions and materials medical writers are given, the ins-and-outs of the revision process, what it means when medical writers are listed in the acknowledgments of published clinical research, and many more points of interest. View Tom Lang’s instructive publications on medical writing. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1934465143/ref=cm_sw_r_em_api_glc_i_C5VAJPX36K9384Z844CY https://www.amazon.com/dp/1930513690/ref=cm_sw_r_em_api_glc_i_7ZKVGTQ9G44AJ9KV2RA1 Check out Chadi’s website for all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes and other content. www.chadinabhan.com/ Watch all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes on Youtube. www.youtube.com/channel/UCjiJPTpIJdIiukcq0UaMFsA

Naveen Pemmaraju (@doctorpemm), MD, department of leukemia, University of Texas MD Anderson Center, joins the show to discuss how researchers approach the investigation of rare diseases. Chadi and Dr. Pemmaraju break down the latter’s distinguished work in blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm (BPDCN)—a rare, aggressive hematologic cancer—as well as other rare and orphan diseases. Context for the rare and orphan disease drug development pathway, granular classification for malignancies (particularly in hematology), and so much more is provided in this thorough, fascinating dialogue. Check out Chadi’s website for all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes and other content. www.chadinabhan.com/ Watch all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes on Youtube. www.youtube.com/channel/UCjiJPTpIJdIiukcq0UaMFsA

Chadi welcomes back Bishal Gyawali (@oncology_bg), MD, PhD, Queen’s University Cancer Research Institute (Canada), to the show to discuss the history of the FDA’s accelerated approval regulatory pathway, how it is sometimes abused, how low-level surrogate endpoints are being used for approval, what happens (and what should happen) when confirmatory trials do not confirm clinical benefit for drugs approved through this pathway, how conflicts of interest may impact some regulatory decisions, and so much more. Dr. Gyawali raises some thought-provoking questions and critical points in this deep, nuanced discussion. Check out Chadi’s website for all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes and other content. www.chadinabhan.com/ Watch all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes on Youtube. www.youtube.com/channel/UCjiJPTpIJdIiukcq0UaMFsA

Continuing his ASH Annual Meeting coverage, Chadi invites Matt Maurer (@MaurerStats), MS, principal biostatistician, Mayo Clinic, and Alan Skarbnik (@ASkarbnik), MD, director of the lymphoma and CLL program, Novant Health (Charlotte, NC), to review the three prominent CAR-T studies in relapsed/refractory DLBCL presented at the meeting. Why were the results divergent and what does this mean for CAR-T’s utility in this setting? The trio break down the ins-and-outs of the trials – both from a statistician and practitioner point of view. Check out Chadi’s website for all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes and other content. www.chadinabhan.com/ Watch all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes on Youtube. www.youtube.com/channel/UCjiJPTpIJdIiukcq0UaMFsA

Chadi invites a trio of lymphoma experts to weigh the importance of the POLARIX trial – which was presented at the ASH Annual Meeting and looked at frontline therapy for patients with DLBCL. Matthew Matasar, MD, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, co-authored publication of the POLARIX study “Polatuzumab Vedotin in Previously Untreated Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma” in the New England Journal of Medicine and defends the its results with guests Liz Brem, MD, UC Irvine, and Daniel Landsburg, MD, University of Pennsylvania. Can polatuzumab vedotin supplant conventional R-CHOP as the standard of care for previously untreated DLBCL? As they work through the details of the study, the experts share whether they believe the data supports an immediate standard-of-care change or if more research is needed. Read the study published in NEJM https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2115304 Check out Chadi’s website for all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes and other content. www.chadinabhan.com/ Watch all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes on Youtube. www.youtube.com/channel/UCjiJPTpIJdIiukcq0UaMFsA

David Zweig (@davidzweig), published author and science journalist based in New York, joins the show to tackle one specific topic pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic: mask mandates for children in schools. David’s article “The CDC’s Flawed Case for Wearing Masks in School” was published in The Atlantic early this month and spotlights the “very shaky science” propped up by the CDC that has compelled many schools throughout the US to institute mask mandates for their students. Chadi and David analyze the data—fleshing out all of the details and scenarios—of mask wearing in schools in this fiery, no-holds-barred discussion that will surely ruffle some feathers. Read David’s article in The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/12/mask-guidelines-cdc-walensky/621035/ Check out Chadi’s website for all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes and other content. www.chadinabhan.com/ Watch all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes on Youtube. www.youtube.com/channel/UCjiJPTpIJdIiukcq0UaMFsA

Emily Landon, MD, Executive Medical Director, Infection Prevention and Control, University of Chicago, makes her long-awaited return to the show to provide an update on the status of COVID-19 in the US. Chadi and Dr. Landon discuss the proportion of people in America that have gotten their vaccine and booster, how Omicron has come along so quickly as an “escape” variant, how effective the vaccines are against contracting and fighting Omicron, whether vaccine mandates for healthcare workers are justifiable, why Omicron is likely to be worse in the US than in South Africa, when and where people should wear masks now, weighing the risk (ie, myocarditis) and benefits of vaccines for children, and so much more. Check out Chadi’s website for all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes and other content. www.chadinabhan.com/ Watch all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes on Youtube. www.youtube.com/channel/UCjiJPTpIJdIiukcq0UaMFsA