Episodes

Rocketing with Captain Kirk To A New Frontier: Astronaut Glen de Vries on New Era of Innovation In Space Travel and Health Care

Update (11/12/2021): We are devastated to learn of the sudden passing of Glen de Vries. He was a thoughtful, brilliant guest whose innovative ideas we were lucky enough to hear firsthand on the show. Our deepest condolences to his family. He will be missed.

This week hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Glen de Vries, Vice Chair for Health and Life Sciences at Dassault Systèmes and Founder and former CEO of Medidata, the first cloud based system supporting global clinical trials research. An astronaut aboard Jeff Bezos’ recent Blue Origin rocket flight with William Shatner of Star Trek fame, de Vries points to the scientific advances from the nation’s space program fueling the technologies that now support telehealth and precision medicine. Also author of The Patient Equation, he predicts a dramatic period of exponential growth in scientific and biologic discovery post-pandemic.

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Lies and Misinformation Led to Hundreds of Thousands of US Deaths: Yale’s Dr. Nicholas Christakis on Enduring Impact of COVID-19

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Nicholas Christakis, Director of Yale’s Human Nature Lab and expert on the influence of social networks on health and behavior. In his recent book, Apollo’s Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live” he examines the history of pandemics throughout human history, and says the ‘appalling” US response, driven by denial from the White House and amplified by social media channels led to hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths. He predicts the pandemic will wind down in 2022, and that a period of innovation and improvements to health care delivery will follow, based on lessons learned from this crisis.

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“Roe Hanging On By A Thread”: Planned Parenthood President Alexis McGill Johnson on Imminent Threat To Reproductive Rights

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Planned Parenthood Federation of America CEO Alexis McGill Johnson, on upcoming Supreme Court hearing on S.B.8., the Texas law banning abortion after 6 weeks. She discusses the record number of restrictive abortion laws across the country causing harm to patients and clinicians committed to providing family planning services, and the former administration’s Title X abortion ‘gag’ rule, which greatly hampered access to legally-guaranteed ‘right to choose’. She expects Roe-v-Wade will likely be permanently compromised with the current conservative configuration on the nation’s High Court.

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Mandates ‘Turbocharging’ Vaccination Rates: US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy on Vaccine Requirements, Boosters and Vaccinating Kids

This week hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter welcome “the Nation’s Doctor,” US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, Co-chair of President Biden’s White House COVID Task Force. Dr. Murthy explains the FDA’s latest approval for mixing vaccine brands for booster shots. He also addresses White House plans to roll out COVID vaccine support for the nation’s 5-11-year-olds pending FDA approval, and how vaccine requirements are ‘turbocharging’ vaccination rates. Dr. Murthy examines the growing crisis of unmet mental health needs, addiction, and overdose in this country, exacerbated by the pandemic. He also discusses an initiative he’s creating to address burnout in the health care profession.

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“Safety Comes First”: FDA Vaccine Advisory Panel’s Dr. Ofer Levy on Rigorous Process Around Vaccine Approval For Kids

This week we speak with Dr. Ofer Levy, Director of the Precision Vaccines Program at Boston Children’s Hospital, Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and member of the FDA COVID Vaccine Advisory Panel. He talks about the recent decision to reject boosters for all recipients 16 and older, saying they didn’t have enough data for younger populations to make that recommendation. He says the review process for emergency authorization for young children aged 5-to-11 will be thorough, rigorous and transparent to the public. His team is also currently working on developing a COVID vaccine, as well as other vaccines that could be deployed for cancer and even opioid use disorder and fentanyl overdose.

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Why COVID Crushed Us: Former FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb Details America’s Botched Pandemic Response

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.

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