Causes or Cures

Send us a textCome one, come all, with your sarcasm hats and senses of humor, while Dr. Eeks provides pandemic updates and her perspective on why Big Pharma has our privileged selves between its teeth and is prolonging the pandemic. *Opinions do not reflect anyone Dr. Eeks works for.Don't be so serious, it's unbecoming & no one gets out of here alive. 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!Support the show

Send us a textIn this podcast, Dr. Eeks discusses the current battle over the COVID-19 vaccine boosters, and how that ties into mandates, building the public's trust and what's happening in the rest of the world. Follow Dr. Eeks on Instagram here.Or Facebook here.Or TwitterOr YoutubeContact her through her website here: Blooming Wellness Support the show

Send us a textIn this episode, Dr. Eeks (Dr.  ErinKate Stair) chats with Dr. Jonathan Baktari about the rise of the Delta variant and the changing recommendations regarding masks; Delta and kids and whether kids should be required to wear face masks; issues with testing; vaccines and vaccine equity; natural immunity and what he thinks the future of the pandemic looks like. Dr. Baktari is a pulmonary and critical care medical doctor who also serves as CEO of  e7Health and US Drug Test Centers. He has served as clinical faculty for several medical schools, including the University of Nevada. You can read more about his bio here. Follow Dr. Eeks on Instagram here.Or Facebook here.Or TwitterOr YoutubeContact her through her website here: Blooming Wellness Support the show

Send us a textIn this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Mary Pegington about her research into why young women gain weight. Mary is a research dietitian with the Prevent Breast Cancer Research Unit in Wythenshawe Hospital, Manchester.  She will discuss the reasons young women gain weight and have trouble losing it, when they are most at risk of gaining weight, life events and factors that lead to increased weight gain in young women, diets that put young women at a heightened risk of gaining weight, and she will also dispel common age-related myths about when most women gain weight and have trouble keeping it off. 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.Subscribe to her newsletter here!Support the show

Send us a textIn this episode, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Katie Sturgeon about the link between diet, exercise and breast cancer outcomes and survivability. This podcast will explore what diet, lifestyle changes and exercise program is optimal for improving breast cancer outcomes and survivability and why. Dr. Sturgeon will dive into the research. The podcast will also explore best preventive measures pre-menopausal women can take to lower their risk of getting breast cancer. Dr. Sturgeon is a researcher and assistant professor at Penn State Cancer Institute and works in the Department of Public Health Sciences, Division of Epidemiology. Her research focuses on how exercise and lifestyle changes impact chronic diseases and cancer. 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!Support the show

Send us a textIn this episode Dr. Eeks chats with the obesity doctor, Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford, about all things obesity. In the first part of the podcast, they discuss why obesity is a disease and why every public health measure fails to lower obesity rates in the US. Dr. Stanford will explain the relationship between obesity and sleep, what a set point is and why that is so important, and the relationship between obesity and stress. They also discuss what to do for people who are "doing everything right" but still unable to lose weight. In the last part of the podcast they discuss how addressing obesity fits in with the Body Positive and Fat Acceptance movements, both prominent in society and on social media, and where her message about obesity intersects with theirs and where it deviates."Dr. Stanford, MD, MPH, MPA, MBA, FAAP, FACP, FAHA, FAMWA, FTOS practices and teaches at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)/ Harvard Medical School (HMS) as one of the first fellowship-trained obesity medicine physician in the world. Dr. Stanford received her BS and MPH from Emory University as a MLK Scholar, her MD from the Medical College of Georgia School of Medicine as a Stoney Scholar, her MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government as a Zuckerman Fellow in the Harvard Center for Public Leadership, and her executive MBA as a merit-based scholarship recipient from the Quantic School of Business and . She completed her Obesity Medicine & Nutrition Fellowship at MGH/HMS after completing her internal medicine and pediatrics residency at the University of South Carolina. She has served as a health communications fellow at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and as a behavioral sciences intern at the American Cancer Society. Upon completion of her MPH, she received the Gold Congressional Award, the highest honor that Congress bestows upon America’s youth. Dr. Stanford has completed a medicine and media internship at the Discovery Channel. An American Medical Association (AMA) Foundation Leadership Award recipient in 2005, an AMA Paul Ambrose Award for national leadership among resident physicians in 2009, she was selected for the AMA Inspirational Physician Award in 2015. The American College of Physicians (ACP) selected her as the 2013 recipient of the Joseph E. Johnson Leadership Award and the Massachusetts ACP selected her for the Young Leadership Award in 2015. She is the 2017 recipient of the HMS Amos Diversity Award and Massachusetts Medical Society (MMS) Award for Women’s Health. In 2019, she was selected as the Suffolk District Community Clinician of the Year and for the Reducing Health Disparities Award for MMS. She was selected for The Obesity Society Clinician of the Year in 2020. In 2021, she has been awarded the MMS Grant Rodkey Award for her dedication to medical students and the AMA Dr. Edmond and Rima Cabbabe Dedication to the Profession Award which recognizes a physician who demonstrates active and productive improvement to the profession of medicine through community service, advocacy, leadership, teaching, or philanthropy." Follow Dr. Eeks on Instagram Or Facebook here.Or TwitterOr YoutubeSubcribe to her Newsletter here!Listen to her parody, Support the show

Send us a textIn this podcast, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Cecilia Rikap of Argentina, Dr. Marc-Andre Gagnon of Canada and Dr. Mercedes Garcia Carrillo of Argentia who, along with a few other researchers, conducted a study and wrote a paper titled: "Whose shoulders is health research standing on? Determining the key actors and contents of the prevailing biomedical research agenda."In the podcast, they will discuss what the dominant biomedical research agenda is and why it's so important; what its chief contents are; the players that have the most influence over the dominant research agenda (including how much industry influences it), and what is not included in the agenda and why that is important. They will also suggest ways to improve the contents of the agenda and ensure that no one has a monopoly over influencing it. In addition, they talk a little about science, funding and vaccine access as it relates to the current pandemic.Dr. Mercedes García Carrillo is a biologist and a CONICET postdoctoral scholar. Currently, she is part of the Cancer Systems Biology and Philosophy Laboratory at the Institute of Biosciences, Biotechnology and Translational Biology of the University of Buenos Aires. Her research is focused on studying the impact of commonly used herbicides on human cell lines and microbial soil communities. Mercedes holds a PhD in Industrial Chemistry from the University of Buenos Aires. Her PhD research was focused on the development of emergent food preservation techniques for the treatment of fruit and vegetable beverages. Dr. Cecilia Rikap is a tenure researcher at the CONICET, Argentina’s national research council, and visiting professor of the IDHES, Université Paris Saclay. She is also an associate researcher of COSTECH, Université de Technologie de Compiègne and CEPED, IRD/Université de Paris, and a professor at the Universidad de Buenos Aires and Universidad Nacional de Quilmes. Her research is centered around the rising concentration of intangible assets, focusing on power relations and the distribution of data and innovation-related economic gains, resulting geopolitical tensions, and the effects on knowledge commons & development. She is the author of the book Capitalism, Power and Innovation: Intellectual Monopoly Capitalism Uncovered (Routledge, 2021). She holds a PhD in economics from the Universidad de Buenos Aires. Dr. Marc-André Gagnon is Associate Professor at the School of Public Policy and Administration at Carleton University (Ottawa, Canada). He is a Research Fellow with the WHO Collaborating Center on Governance, Accountability and Transparency in the Pharmaceutical Sector. His research focuses on pharmaceutical policy and on the political economy of the drug industry. More specifically, his on-going research focuses on comparative analysis of health care coverage (and pharmacare), on innovation policy and intellectual property in the knowledge-based economy, as well as institutional corruption in pharmaceutical research. He holds a PhD in political science from York University, a Diplôme d’études approfondies in economics from Paris-I Sorbonne and École Normale Supérieure de Fontenay/Saint-Cloud. His did his postdoctoral studies in Law with the Centre for Intellectual Property Policy at McGill University and in Ethics with the Edmond J. Safra Centre for Ethics à l’Université Harvard.You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com.Follow Dr. Eeks on Instagram here.Or Facebook here.Or Support the show

Send us a textWe hear a lot about COVID Long Haulers and the symptoms they experience, but are there any predicting factors for becoming one? In this podcast, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Chuck Downs about his ongoing research on COVID Long Haulers. He discusses predicting factors for becoming a Long Hauler ( including age, sex, BMI); one's risk of becoming a COVID Long Hauler when he/she has asymptomatic COVID vs symptomatic COVID; the most common long-haul symptoms and how long they last; if vaccinations help Long Haulers or not, and the predominant theories about why long-haul symptoms happen in some people.Dr. Downs was the Associate Dean for Research at the University of Miami and is an Associate Professor at the School of Nursing and Health Studies. He and his team have published several papers on COVID long-haul symptoms. 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!Support the show

Send us a textMany countries and states are considering vaccine passports that would show proof of COVID-19 vaccination in order to enter certain places and do certain things. While the idea has merit, there are many ethical, legal and social concerns. In this podcast, Dr. Eeks chats with Dimitry Kochenov, "The Passport Professor", about concerns over vaccine passports, including privacy issues; the further stigmatization of marginalized communities; the "immunoprivileged"; what we know and don't know about the science of the vaccines; the potential for the politicalization of vaccines; who will enforce vaccine passports; and personal liberties vs government mandates. Dimitry Kochenov leads the Rule of Law research group at CEU Democracy Institute in Budapest and teaches Global Citizenship at CEU Legal Studies department in Vienna. He's an author, having written the book Citizenship and several scholarly papers, and has been a researcher or professor at numerous universities, including Oxford, Princeton and NYU. He's written or co-authored several papers on vaccine passports, including this one and his latest, The Commission against the Internal Market and EU Citizens Rights: Trying to Shoot down Sputnik with the 'Digital Green Certificate."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! Support the show

Send us a textIn this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Steven Hyman about PANDAS, Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal Infections. A child with PANDAS might have a Strep throat infection and then develop psychiatric symptoms soon after. Dr. Hyman will discuss what PANDAS is, why it's considered controversial, what the medical community thinks about it and their approach, research shortcomings, how potential patients with PANDAS are treated and how that treatment is different than conventional psychiatric treatment, as well as prognosis and outcomes. He also will discuss the broader implications of PANDAS, which is a bacterial or viral infection being the cause of psychiatric symptoms and disorders in both adults and kids, and what that means for the future of the field. Dr. Hyman is a trained psychiatrist and director of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. He is a graduate of Yale and Harvard Medical School and  previously served as the director of the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health. He is currently the president of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, past president of the Society for Neuroscience and founding president of the International Neuroethics Society. 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!Support the show