Causes or Cures
Dr. Eeks
"For the Nerds and the Nerd Nots"Causes or Cures is a health podcast hosted by Dr. Eeks—an independent, grassroots show driven by curiosity and a passion for breaking down complex health topics into bite-sized, easy-to-understand insights. Dr. Eeks (ErinKate Stair, MPH, MD) works as a consultant in the realm of public health, applied epidemiology, and health communication. She's all about making science relatable and often uses a blue-collar sense of humor to drive the message home.On this podcast, Dr. Eeks talks with experts from around the world (doctors, researchers, public health pros, and more) to dive into the latest hot topics in health and research, all in a down-to-earth kind of way. She also includes people with compelling stories of healing and "characters" because life is too boring and short to leave out characters. ;)DISCLAIMER: Some topics are more controversial than others, so keep in mind that this is information only and not health advice. If you are battling an individual health issue, always check in with your doctor & don't run with anything on podcast as advice. Dr. Eeks doesn't endorse any of her guests' views, and despite a strict health routine, nor does she endorse any products, supplements, oils, magic socks or potions. (If an episode is sponsored by a company she likes, she will say so in the show notes.) While she has a MD, she does not practice medicine (she's a full-time public health nerd) so she does not give out medical advice nor should you treat anything on this podcast as medical advice. Causes or Cures is not a "news site." It's about having conversations, and Dr. Eeks is confident that she can have a respectful conversation with anyone, even people who think far differently than she does. (At least that's been her experience at hole-in-the-walls & on the NYC sidewalks.) The point is to not take anything here as Gospel. Sometimes Dr. Eeks' dog Barnaby makes his opinion known, but the good news is that he's a smart dog. Most importantly, she hopes this podcast encourages folks to stay curious, empathic, hopeful, compassionate, honest, open-minded, and engaged. Freedom of discussion is a beautiful thing, delightfully messy, and one that many take for granted.*The views on this podcast do not reflect the views of anyone she contracts with or consults for on various public health projects. You can help keep Causes or Cure independent and ad-free by hitting the "Support" button in the upper corner.You can contact Dr. Eeks through her website, bloomingwellness.com.SIGN UP for her Newsletter HERE: https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/sl/xnqmy06
Episodes
Mentioned books
Apr 26, 2022 • 45min
On Losing her Sons to the Opioid Epidemic and Navigating Grief, with Cheryl Juaire
Send us a textIn this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Cheryl Juaire, founder of Team Sharing, INC. Cheryl will discuss Team Sharing, a not-for-profit for parents who have lost their kids to substance abuse disorder, including opioids, and why she started it. She will talk about what it was like to navigate loss and grief after losing two of her sons to the opioid epidemic and how Team Sharing helps parents and family members navigate through grief. She will also discuss what she thinks the public health response to the opioid epidemic should look like, and she will talk about what it was like to personally address the Sackler Family, owners of the disgraced pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma that led a wide and false marketing campaign that misinformed patients and providers about the addictive potential of prescribed opioids. (If you are interested in joining a virtual 5K on May 7th to help raise money for TeamSharing, the sign-up link is here! For a great cause!)You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com.Follow Dr. Eeks on Instagram here.Or Facebook here.Or Twitter.Subcribe to her newsletter here!Support the show
Apr 23, 2022 • 28min
The First Potential Case of Deer to Human COVID-19 transmission, with Dr. Brad Pickering
Send us a textIn this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Brad Pickering about COVID-19 spillover from humans into other animals, particularly his work on viral spillover into white-tailed deer in Canada, as well as the case he and his team discovered that might be the first, identifiable case of deer to human transmission of the virus. He will discuss the unique mutations in the deer viral samples, the potential first case of deer to human transmission (how it was identified and how it might have occurred), vaccine effectiveness against the deer viral samples and what this potential spillover and spillback might mean for managing the COVID-19 virus going forward. Dr. Pickering is the head of the Special Pathogens Unit at the National Center for Foreign Animal Disease for the Canadian Government. You can read his study here. You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com.Follow Dr. Eeks on Instagram here.Or Facebook here.Or Twitter.Subcribe to her newsletter here!Support the show
Apr 18, 2022 • 37min
How the Pharmaceutical Industry Influences UK's Parliamentary Groups & Why It Matters, with Emily Rickard
Send us a textContinuing our exploration of the pharmaceutical industry's influence on health and health policy at a global level, in this podcast, Dr. Eeks has a conversation with Emily Rickard about her research on how the industry influences the UK's All-Party Parliamentary Groups. She will explain what the All-Party Parliamentary Groups, particularly the health-related ones, are and what they do. She'll talk about both the direct and indirect ways the pharmaceutical industry influences those groups and why that matters from both a transparency issue and a health-policy one. Emily is a researcher and doctoral student with the Department of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Bath. You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com.Follow Dr. Eeks on Instagram here.Or Facebook here.Or Twitter.Subcribe to her newsletter here!Support the show
Apr 12, 2022 • 32min
What Indigenous Populations Can Teach Us About Preventing Dementia, with Dr. Margaret Gatz
Send us a textRates of dementia, including Alzheimer's Disease, are only increasing in developed nations as scientists race to find treatments and identify preventive strategies. In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Margaret Gatz about her research published in the Journal of the Alzheimer's Association titled: Prevalence of dementia and mild cognitive impairment in indigenous Bolivian forager-horticulturalists. In the podcast she will discuss these indigenous populations, including their lifestyle, diet and educational levels, how she conducted her research to assess their risks and rates of dementia, how their rates compare to the developed world, some intriguing findings, and what developed nations with growing rates of Alzheimer's disease can potentially learn from them in terms of risk factors for dementia and prevention. Dr. Gatz is a professor of psychology, gerontology and preventive medicine at the University of Southern California's Lenoard Davis School of Gerontology. Studies in her Gatz lab include age-related changes in cognition, depression, personality and preventive factors for Alzheimer's Disease and other kinds of dementia. You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com.Follow Dr. Eeks on Instagram here.Or Facebook here.Or Twitter.Subcribe to her newsletter here!Support the show
Apr 7, 2022 • 1h 5min
Whose Science is it Anyway? The Perils of Regulatory Capture in Research, with Dr. Andrea Saltelli
Send us a textIn this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Andrea Saltelli about his recent paper on regulatory capture titled: Science, the Endless Frontier of Regulatory Capture. He will discuss what regulatory capture is, what cultural capture is, what an epistemic ladder of corruption is and how all of these things impact science, influence policy and ultimately, all of us. He will use specific case studies to highlight elements of regulatory capture in science that make it easier to understand. He will also discuss ways to make regulatory capture less of an issue for science and subsequent policies. Dr. Saltelli has done a lot of research on physical chemistry, environmental science and applied statistics. His main area of focus is sensitivity analysis of model output, where statistical tools are used to interpret outputs from mathematical and computational models, and sensitivity auditing, an extension of sensitivity analysis applied to the entire evidence-generating process from a policy context. Till 2015, he worked at the Joint Research Center of the European Commission, leading a team devoted to econometrics and applied statistics. Between 2016-2020, he was associate professor at the Center for the Study of the Sciences of Humanity at the University of Bergen. His recent work includes the reproducibility of scientific results, principles of modeling & the ethics of quantification. You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com.Follow Dr. Eeks on Instagram here.Or Facebook here.Or Twitter.Subcribe to her newsletter here!Support the show
Apr 4, 2022 • 48min
The Case for Why Features of the US HealthCare System Caused the Opioid Epidemic, with Dr. Janet Currie
Send us a textIn this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Janet Currie about the factors that caused the opioid epidemic. They will discuss her recent research published in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, "The Opioid Epidemic was Not Caused by Economic Distress but by Factors that Could be More Rapidly Addressed." In this podcast, she will discuss the history of the opioid epidemic, how it started and explain why prescriptions for opioids and healthcare market policies are what fueled the epidemic, not economic factors. Dr. Currie is an economist and Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University and the co-director of Princeton's Center for Health and Wellbeing. She is also codirector of the Program on Families and Children at the National Bureau of Economic Research. She was named a Nomis Distinguished Scientist in 2019 and 1 of the top 10 women in economics by the World Economics Forum in 2015. She has served as the President of the American Society of Health Economics, The Society of Labour Economics and Vice President of the American Economics Association. She is considered a pioneer in the economic analysis of child development and her current research focuses on the socioeconomic differences in health, access to healthcare, and environmental threats to health. You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com.Follow Dr. Eeks on Instagram here.Or Facebook here.Or Twitter.Or TikTokRead her BookSubcribe to her newsletter here!Support the show
Mar 24, 2022 • 48min
Behind the Script: Unveilling Doctor-Pharma Relationships and the Limits of Transparency, with Dr. Joel Lexchin
Send us a textIn this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Joel Lexchin about his recent research published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine titled: A Ray of Sunshine: Transparency in Physician-Industry Relationships Is Not Enough. He will discuss what the Sunshine Act was designed to accomplish in terms of being transparent about physician-industry relationships, what it actually did, and how it did or did not change physician behavior, industry behavior and consumer behavior. Dr. Lexchin is a professor at the York University Faculty of Health where he taught pharmaceutical policy, an emergency medicine physician, and an Associate Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto. He is a Fellow in the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and the author of over 160 peer-reviewed publications. He was a member of the Ontario Drug Quality and Therapeutics Committee and chair of the Drugs and Pharmacotherapy Committee of the Ontario Medical Association for 2 years.You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com.Follow Dr. Eeks on Instagram here.Or Facebook here.Or Twitter.Subcribe to her newsletter here!Support the show
Mar 21, 2022 • 40min
Exploring the Spiritual Realm: A Conversation with a Modern Exorcist, Msgr. Stephen Rossetti
Send us a textExploring the Spiritual RealmWhere spiritual belief meets health, culture, and skepticism Disclaimer: This episode discusses spiritual and metaphysical beliefs that are not evidence-based medical treatments. Nothing in this conversation is medical or health advice. If you have a health concern, please seek care from a licensed clinician. This is entertainment only. In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Msgr Stephen Rossetti about his work as an Exorcist. He has conducted hundreds of exorcisms. In this podcast, he will describe what it means to be possessed and how possessions manifest, how one discerns possession from an underlying mental or physiological issue, who Spiritual Sensitives are and why they are important, what happens during an exorcism and some of his scarier moments, how long exorcisms take and what he says to the doubters. Msgr. Rossetti is the author of A Diary of an American Exorcist. He has a Ph.D in psychology and is a licensed psychologist, is a graduate of the US Air Force Academy and is President of the St. Michael Center for Spiritual Renewal and a research associate professor at the Catholic University of America in Washington. He helped create the app, Catholic Exorcism , which provides deliverance and exorcism prayers in English and Spanish and maintains an active blog. You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com.Follow Dr. Eeks on Instagram here.Or Facebook here.Or Twitter.Subcribe to her newsletter here!You can support the Show here.Support the show
Mar 9, 2022 • 1h 19min
Unmasking Deception: The Covert Hand of Drug Companies in Epistemic Corruption and Medical Science, with Dr. Sergio Sismondo
Send us a textIn this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Sergio Sismondo, a professor of philosophy at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada about his work titled "Epistemic Corruption, the Pharmaceutical Industry and the Body of Medical Science" published in Frontiers Research Metrics and Analytics. His years of empirical research has shed light on the various ways drug companies influence the practice of medicine and the body of medical science for profit. His research also allowed him to develop a framework for understanding the relationship between politics and pharmaceutical companies. In addition to his research, he has published two books titled: An Introduction to Science and Technology and Ghost-Managed Medicine, Big Pharma's Invisible Hands.(Keep in mind that this is a podcast. It's a conversation and/or philosophical discussion, not news.)You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com.Follow Dr. Eeks on Instagram here.Or Facebook here.Or Twitter.Read Manic Kingdom here.Listen to her short audio parody on the wellness industry here.Subcribe to her newsletter here! You can support the Show here. Support the show
Mar 7, 2022 • 34min
Ethical Science: Exploring Alternatives to Animal Testing in Research, with Neuroscientist Dr. Katherine Roe
Send us a textIn this episode of The Causes or Cures Podcast, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Katherine Roe, a neuroscientist working on developing evidence-based strategies to replace animals in scientific research. While preclinical studies with animals is widely accepted in scientific research as a necessary step, many people worry about the welfare of the animals and wonder if there are viable, better alternatives. Some researchers do not want to do research on animals and struggle with the idea that they might have to, to advance their career. In this podcast, Dr. Roe will discuss potential alternatives to animal research, her view on how valuable and applicable results from animal trials are for humans, the "pressure to publish" and how that might lead to unnecessary animal trials, and why she believes it is more valuable for overall human heatlh to fund other kinds of research. Dr. Roe is a neuroscientist who used to work at the National Institute of Health. She is the chief of the scientific advancement outreach division at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).(Keep in mind that this is a podcast. It's a conversation and/or philosophical discussion, not news.)You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com.Follow Dr. Eeks on Instagram here.Or Facebook here.Or Twitter.Read Manic Kingdom here.Listen to her short audio parody on the wellness industry here.Subcribe to her newsletter here!You can support the Show here.Support the show
