"She Has Her Mother's Laugh" - New York Times Science Writer Carl Zimmer on Heredity and the Genomics Revolution

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with award-winning New York Times science writer and columnist Carl Zimmer on his critically acclaimed book, "She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions and Potentials of Heredity" on the dramatic scientific discovery underway fueled by genomics. He discusses the genome's role in understanding heredity and how personalized medicine will be advanced once the science and medical communities master their knowledge of how genomics impact health and disease.

COVID Investigator Praises Community Health Workers: “Huge Innovation”

Philip Zelikow, co-author of the new book "Lessons from the COVID War,” has an important finding as the U.S. still grapples with the tough questions from the pandemic:

“We point out in the report that community health workers can play this extraordinary role…where we had them [during the pandemic], they were really effective and that’s like a huge innovation that should punch out to us as a lesson from this war and can have a dramatic effect in America,” says Zelikow.

He also explains to Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter that “to this day, most patients who get COVID are not being properly treated with available medications.” Zelikow concludes a lack of preparedness is one of the main reasons the country performed so badly during the past three years.

Dr. Roni Zeiger, CEO of Smart Patients

This week, Mark and Margaret speak with Dr. Roni Zeiger, CEO of Smart Patients, a clinical trials search engine and online community for cancer patients, their caregivers and clinicians to share information about best practices in cancer treatment.

Dr. Robert Zarr, ParkRx Advisor, National Park Service

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Robert Zarr, pediatrician at Unity Health in Washington, DC and founder of the ParkRx movement, which seeks to help patients achieve optimal health by prescribing the use local park spaces. Dr. Zarr discusses the science behind the movement and the development of a national data base for clinicians around the country to prescribe park time for improved mental health, physical wellbeing and reduced obesity rates among their patients.

United States Preventive Services Task Force

Conversations on Health Care® focuses today on the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force and its recent recommendations for breast cancer screening. Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter will speak with Dr. Kristen A. Zarfos, a surgeon and a national breast cancer expert. Dr. Zarfos has earned national praise for her advocacy for women’s health.

Pulitzer Prize Winner Explains Why “There Is No Way of Getting the Risk of Future Pandemics…Down to Zero”

The Atlantic staff writer Ed Yong says the threat of future pandemics requires society to aggressively face and fix racial, economic and health disparities.

The acclaimed journalist also explains how his reporting is showing big differences in how COVID is still affecting the U.S. — some communities are “cautiously optimistic” while others are “nearing…the height of the Omicron surge in terms of new admissions.”

Conversations on Health Care hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter also talk with Yong about the need for the public health profession to have a strong politically- and socially-minded voice, as it did in its earlier days.

Telemedicine Champion Dr. Peter Yellowlees Discusses Impact of Telehealth on Access to Care

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Peter Yellowlees, President-elect of the American Telemedicine Association which seeks to improve health care delivery through better use of remote medicine technologies. Dr. Yellowlees discusses his decades of work at the University of California Davis advancing the use of telemedicine in clinical and behavioral care.

COVID’s 3rd Year: Experts Speak

We’re proud to have again served as a platform for trusted, informed experts during the third year of the pandemic.

This week “Conversations on Health Care” looks back on some of the most insightful comments from doctors and scientists who are on the frontlines of fighting COVID. In addition to NIH’s Dr. Anthony Fauci we had as our guests Dr. Peter Hotez from Baylor College of Medicine, Dr. Zeke Emanuel at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Michael Osterholm from the University of Minnesota, Dr. Mary Bassett with the New York City Health Department and others.

Listen in as hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter capture their insights about these extraordinary medical challenges.

Health Policy Moves in ’22 Set the Stage for New Year

The health care public policy debates that swirled in 2022 will continue to make news in 2023. These issues ranged from the Dobbs abortion decision to the outcome of the midterm elections.

Many of the nation’s leading experts joined “Conversations on Health Care” during the past 12 months to share their perspectives.

Join hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter as we look back at the year that was in health care policy.

How Groundbreaking NIH Research is Expanding to Birth-to-Four-Year-Olds

For nearly the first decade of the National Institutes of Health’s “All of Us” Research Program — aimed at increasing diversity in genetic research — a major component was missing: kids.

“Children are approximately 24% of our population in the U.S. and 100% of our future,” Dr. Sara Van Driest, director of pediatrics for NIH’s All of Us Program, told hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter. “In order to provide them with the very best care for the future and have them benefit from this resource, we need to include them.”

The journey is personal for Katrina Yamazaki, Ph.D., principal investigator for Community Health Center, Inc., in Connecticut, a partner organization in All of Us. Yamazaki and her husband adopted three boys through the foster care system.

“We don’t know a whole lot about their … biological families’ medical history,” Yamazaki said. “The idea that this program will one day be able to provide some of [that] missing information to me and my husband, in order to become health advocates for our children is really important to me.”

The NIH in August began limited enrollment in the program for children age 4 and under.

“We started with that youngest age group so we can follow them the longest,” Van Driest said.

Community Health Center, Inc., for its part, is partnering with community-based organizations such as the Hartford Public Library to build trust, raise awareness of the project and make a fun atmosphere through activities.

All of Us intends to change what might be seen as a “one-size-fits-all” approach to health care. It aims to encompass 1 million individuals of diverse backgrounds but doesn’t focus on particular diseases or conditions, Van Driest said. The diversity, too, goes beyond culture, touching geography, age and socioeconomic status.

“One of the goals of research is to connect the dots,” she said. Given the scope of the project, “there will be so many dots that we’ll be able to connect,” Van Driest said.

 “If we fail to include a group of individuals or an aspect of diversity, we miss out on that uniqueness. That limits us in what we’re able to understand about humanity in general,” she said. “It also limits research and learning about that group of individuals. And it limits downstream how clinicians can care about individuals and give them the very best possible outcomes.”

Dr. Keith Yamamoto, Vice Chancelor for Science Policy and Strategy at UC San Francisco

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Keith Yamamoto, Vice Chancellor for Science Policy and Strategy and Executive Vice Dean for Research at the School of Medicine at UC San Francisco. He discusses strategies for informing the incoming Trump administration - to ensure ongoing support for the nation's biomedical research community, the need to advance precision medicine protocols and goals, and improvements needed to advance medical training and academic research in the 21st century.

Pulitzer Prize Winners Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn Chronicle America’s ‘Deaths of Despair’ in Their Latest Book “Tightrope”

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter welcome Pulitzer Prize winners, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof and journalist and consultant Sheryl WuDunn. The prolific husband-and-wife writing team discuss their latest book about a humanitarian crisis happening right here in America. In “Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope”, they explore the decline in life expectancy and the rise of ‘deaths of despair’ in the US. They also examine solutions to address this growing public health crisis.

25-64 Year Olds Are Dying Earlier and Here’s Why: Our Conversations with VCU’s Dr. Steven Woolf

This week on Conversations on Health Care, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Steven Woolf, Distinguished Chair in Population Health at Virginia Commonwealth University - and Health Equity Director Emeritus and Senior Advisor at the V-C-U Center on Society and Health. He talks about their just-released report – showing a decline in life expectancy among working aged adults in the US – a result of the lingering effects of the recession, the opioid crisis and other so-called deaths of despair. The data show this trend has been underway since the 1980’s and has now hit critical mass.

Daniel Wolfson, Executive Vice President and COO of the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Daniel Wolfson, Executive Vice President and COO of the ABIM Foundation, which recently launched the “Choosing Wisely” campaign in conjunction with Consumer Reports and nine medical societies. The campaign seeks to reduce the overuse of unnecessary medical tests which waste limited healthcare resources, pose additional risks to patients and drive up healthcare costs in this country.

ABIM Foundation's Daniel Wolfson Analyzes Impact of Choosing Wisely Campaign at 5 Years

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Daniel Wolfson, CEO of the ABIM Foundation of the American Board of Internal Medicine, five years into their "Choosing Wisely" campaign, which seeks to minimize waste in health care. Mr. Wolfson discusses the growing number of medical entities in 20 countries now committed to reducing unnecessary prescriptions, diagnostic tests and elective procedures that not only add billions of dollars to health care costs but lead to patient harm as well.

Scott A. Wolfe, Executive Director of the Canadian Association of Community Health Centers

This week on Conversations on Health Care, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Scott A. Wolfe, Executive Director of the Canadian Association of Community Health Centres and Acting Coordinator of the International Federation of Community Health Centres. Mr. Wolfe discusses inherent differences between the American and Canadian health systems, as well as the growth of the community health center model of care in Canada as well as around the world.

AI, Blockchain and Cybersecurity: HIMSS CEO Hal Wolf on Topics Dominating Upcoming Global Conference

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Hal Wolf, President and CEO of HIMSS - the Health Information Management Systems Society which seeks to advance information technology in health care. He discusses the upcoming HIMSS 2019 Global Conference, the largest gathering of its kind in the world on topics such as Artificial Intelligence, Voice Technology, Cybersecurity and Blockchain which are expected to dominate this year's event.

Dr. Garen Wintemute, Director of the Violence Prevention Research Program

This week on Conversations on Health Care, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Garen Wintemute, Director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California at Davis. Dr. Wintemute is an ER physician and renowned researcher on the causes of gun violence, the impact on public health and the policies required to stem the gun violence epidemic.

Dr. Garen Wintemute, Director of the Violence Prevention Research Program

This week on Conversations on Health Care, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Garen Wintemute, Director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California at Davis. Dr. Wintemute is an ER physician and renowned researcher on the causes of gun violence, the impact on public health and the policies required to stem the gun violence epidemic.

Trump vs. Harris on Health Care: Experts Explain Each Side

The countdown is on to election day with health care issues hanging in the balance as never before. The biggest one: Abortion and reproductive rights. Andrea Ducas, the Vice President of Health Policy at the Center for American Progress, says “What you see with Vice President Harris is a candidate who’s committed to protecting women’s freedoms, to protecting women’s right to choose.”

On the other side of the political spectrum is Wayne Winegarden, Ph.D., the Senior Fellow in Business and Economics at Pacific Research Institute, and Director of PRI’s Center for Medical Economics and Innovation. He and his colleagues believe that patients are not in control of the health care system and that we suffer from an opaque and complex pricing structure that harms patients. Winegarden’s free market approach means he advocates for doing away with the Obamacare subsidies that Congress must consider, as they soon expire.

As Kamala Harris and Donald Trump engage voters at rallies, online and on TV, our guests provide the policy perspectives that will undergird the thinking of the administration that will take power. Join hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter for this important conversation.