This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with former FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb whose new book outlines America’s epic failure in our response to the pandemic, leading to more than 700,000 deaths. “Uncontrolled Spread: Why COVID-19 Crushed Us and How We Can Defeat the Next Pandemic” examines the inherent flaws at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other public agencies that left us vulnerable to the raging pandemic. Dr. Gottlieb says the CDC and other agencies should be re-tooled to conduct more agile global disease surveillance, and that emerging therapeutics like Merck’s new oral COVID drug will be a game changer for treatment moving forward.

This week hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Michael Mina, Epidemiologist and member of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at Harvard where they are taking a multi-disciplinary approach to tackling the ongoing pandemic. Dr. Mina has long been a proponent of making cheap, rapid, at-home COVID tests available to all Americans as a much more effective way to curtail the pandemic’s spread. He says these tests which have been deployed successfully in other countries, are almost 100 per cent effective in identifying potential infectious ‘super-spreaders’, and that government should classify them as a public health, not a medical, tool to allow for more swift production and deployment. He also discusses their efforts to build a global surveillance system for future disease outbreaks.

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter welcome Dr. Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health, who also mapped the human genome. Dr. Collins laments the politicization of the pandemic, noting that ‘culture wars are killing people’. He urges patience on vaccine approval for families of younger children heading back to school, confident that scientific rigor will ensure vaccine safety. Dr. Collins, an avowed person of faith, urges faith-based resisters to trust the science that produced this life saving vaccine. He also discusses one of the largest protocols ever launched by the NIH to uncover the mysteries around long COVID syndrome, which is impacting an increasing number of COVID survivors.

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Lee Beers, President of the American Academy of Pediatrics on their science-based recommendation that all kids aged 2 and older should be masked in school and daycare in the face of the Delta Variant. They discuss their efforts to communicate the safety and efficacy of the COVID vaccines to patients and their families, and the AAP’s efforts to increase access to mental health services within the pediatric care setting.

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Garth Graham, Director, and Global Head of Healthcare and Public Health Partnerships at Google/YouTube overseeing the creation of credible health content – in partnership with multiple health institutions. They discuss their efforts to disrupt and remove health misinformation from their platform which receives 2 billion visitors per month. They talk about the partnership with the Biden Administration, the CDC, Harvard and England’s National Health Service to remove false information from the platform and drive visitors to credible health information about COVID-19 and all other health topics of interest.

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with renowned vaccine expert Dr. Paul Offit, Director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. A member of the FDA COVID Vaccine Advisory Panel and co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine, Dr. Offit points to the growing body of data around the safety and efficacy of the mRNA-based COVID vaccines, that it’s safe for all populations, including children and pregnant women, and sees it as a game changer for the future of vaccinology. He warns that the lack of global vaccination will impact vaccine effectiveness against growing threat of variants.

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter welcome Andy Slavitt, former Senior Advisor to the Biden White House COVID Response Team, discussing his new book: “Preventable: The Inside Story of How Leadership Failures, Politics and Selfishness Doomed the U.S. Coronavirus Response”. He outlines the ‘sins’ that led to the previous administration’s failed response to the pandemic, and talks about President Biden’s approach to correct course, by taking full responsibility for outcomes and being frank with the American people. He also discusses the significance of the Supreme Court’s latest decision upholding the Affordable Care Act.

This week hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Anthony Fauci, Chief Medical Advisor to the Biden Administration's COVID-19 Team. They discuss the decades of science behind the 'remarkable' vaccines, the decision by the US and G7 members to scale up global vaccine donations, and the virulent variants that pose a greater risk to the unvaccinated. He also predicts the dramatic discovery around COVID-19 will pave the way for a vaccine for HIV/AIDS within the decade.

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Elena Rios, President and CEO of the National Hispanic Medical Association, representing the interests of the nation’s 50,000 Latino Physicians. She discusses the devastating toll the pandemic has taken on the nation’s Hispanic population who have suffered a greater death toll and significant economic as well as mental health burdens. Dr. Rios NHMA’s efforts to improve pipelines for young Latinos to enter the medical field, and for measures to address health inequity impacting communities of color.

This week hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Walensky defends the science behind lifting mask restrictions for vaccinated Americans, examines the ongoing research on vaccine efficacy against emerging COVID variants and possibility of a need for booster shots. She also outlines efforts underway by the CDC and the Biden Administration to leverage provisions in the American Recovery Act to address health inequity by strengthening the nation’s public health infrastructure

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, COVID-19 Technical Lead at the WHO. They discuss the world’s lack of readiness and supply chain infrastructure to confront the pandemic. She says the lessons learned from this collective ‘trauma’ is sparking new efforts to build more robust surveillance and response systems for emerging pathogens, the concerning new variant out of India, and the need to accelerate global vaccinations to stop the continued spread of the pandemic.

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with former CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden, President and CEO of Resolve to Save lives, an initiative of Vital Strategies seeking to save 100 million lives globally by addressing cardiovascular disease and preventing pandemics. Dr. Frieden discusses their report on building a stronger global health infrastructure that can deploy rapidly to contain the next threat. He talks about work with GOP pollster Frank Luntz to develop messaging to tackle vaccine resistance, and applauds the FDA’s recent decision to ban the sale of menthol cigarettes as a bold public health move.

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with leading infectious disease expert Dr. Carlos Del Rio, Executive Associate Dean at the Emory University School of Medicine, and lead researcher on HIV/AIDS and now, COVID-19. Dr. Del Rio applauds the Biden Administration’s achievement of 200 million vaccine doses delivered in the US, but warns vaccine resistance in this country, and lack of supply globally, must be addressed to bring the pandemic fully under control. He lauds the remarkable science around mRNA technology that will have far reaching implications for tackling many diseases.

This week hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter welcome Dr. Ashish Jha, Dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. Dr. Jha is a world renowned expert on pandemic preparedness and addresses concerns around the rare blood clot risk with the J&J vaccine, saying the brief pause in distribution is further evidence our scientific surveillance is working. He also talks about the impact of the pandemic to propel meaningful change in public health in the US, and the global health infrastructure as well.

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Bechara Choucair, White House Vaccinations Coordinator. Dr. Choucair discusses the remarkable pace of vaccine distribution in recent weeks, and the Biden Administration’s plans to deliver 200 million vaccines in 100 days. He addresses the challenges at vaccine production facilities, the impact of the American Rescue Plan on efforts to scale up vaccine production and delivery, as well as the important role played by community health centers to address the health needs the most vulnerable populations impacted by the pandemic.

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with renowned infectious disease expert Dr. Celine Gounder, who served as a COVID advisor on the Biden transition team. Dr. Gounder says we are in a race between vaccinations and the variants driving coronavirus infections in the US and around the world. She warns that we must scale up our genomic surveillance of the variants as they pose a continued threat to containment of the pandemic.

This week Mark and Margaret speak with Dr. Eric Topol, Director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute. Dr. Topol calls drug maker AstraZeneca’s recent controversial under-reporting of complete safety data to US regulators for its COVID-19 vaccine ‘disturbing’ and ‘unprecedented’ in his clinical trial career. He calls the rapid development of highly successful and effective COVID vaccines one of biomedicine’s greatest achievements and predicts the pandemic crisis will pave the way for more remarkable scientific breakthroughs, and a greater opportunity for the growth of personalized medicine via smartphones.

This week hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Michael Osterholm, renowned pandemic expert and Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Policy and Research (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota. A recent advisor to President Biden’s transition team, Dr. Osterholm warns of another COVID-19 surge on the horizon as the more contagious UK variant, which is causing more lockdowns across Europe, is becoming the dominant strain in the US. He says vaccination rates must be accelerated, and that more equitable distribution of vaccines around the world will be the only way to get the pandemic under control.

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Rick Bright, Sr. Vice President for Pandemic Preparedness and Response at The Rockefeller Foundation, former chief of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) at HHS, and member of the Biden Transition Team on COVID-19. Dr. Bright is launching a new pandemic preparedness initiative at The Rockefeller Foundation, creating the first-of-its-kind national and global pandemic surveillance infrastructure to alert governments around the world about emerging pandemic threats. Dr. Bright resigned his post at BARDA after filing a whistleblower complaint against the previous administration for mishandling of the pandemic response.

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Ernest Grant, President of the American Nurses Association, the largest organization representing the nation’s 4.3 nursing professionals and the patients they serve. He talks about the myriad challenges nurses have faced throughout the pandemic, the need to ensure more protection is put in place to shield them against the effects of COVID-19 and other workplace harm, and plans to advance the nursing the profession across the health care spectrum, beyond the pandemic.