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In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Karen Van Nuys and Dr. Neeraj Sood about the pricing of insulin in the United States. It's no secret that insulin is unaffordable for many Americans who need it. This discussion will center around how the price of insulin is set, all the players involved, and who is to blame for the high price of insulin in the US. We will explore who benefits the most from increasing insulin prices, whether or not the Inflation Reduction Act will make a significant difference, and what can practically be done to make insulin more affordable for more Americans.
Dr. Van Nuys is the executive director of the Value of Life Sciences Innovation program and a fellow at the USC Schaeffer Center. She is also a research assitant professor at the USC Price School of Public Policy.  You can learn more about her work here.
Dr. Sood is a professor at the USC Price School of Public Policy with joint appointments at the USC Keck School of Medicine and USC Marshall School of Business. He is also a senior fellow at the USC Schaeffer center and you can learn more about his work here.


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In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks sits down with medical historian Dr. Elena Conis, author of Vaccine Nation: America’s Changing Relationship with Immunization. Together they trace how U.S. attitudes toward vaccines (especially from the 1960s onward) have swerved with culture wars, political shifts, scientific discoveries, and biotech breakthroughs. From polio pride to modern pushback, they unpack why public trust rises and falls, how mandates gain or lose traction, and what sparks waves of skepticism.

What we cover

• Origin story: Why Dr. Conis wrote Vaccine Nation and the flashpoints that drew her in.
• 1960s → today: Civil‑rights activism, women’s liberation, environmentalism, and new tech reshape the vaccine narrative.
• Trust on a roller coaster: When enthusiasm morphed into doubt, and back again.
• Mandates & might: The tug‑of‑war between public‑health authority and personal choice.
• Anti‑vax waves: What ignited them, who rode them, and how they steered policy and science.
• Science vs. spin: How epidemiology, media, and politics co‑evolved.

Dr. Conis is a writer, historian of medicine, and an associate professor at the graduate school of journalism in the department of history at the University of California, Berkley. Previously she was a professor of history at Emory University and an award-winning health columnist for the Los Angeles Times. You can learn more about her here and order her book Vaccine Nation here.

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In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Mandy Gulla about the PADs for Parkinson's Program, the first program of its kind in North America that teaches dogs how to detect an odor associated with Parkinson's Disease. 
In the podcast, she will provide an overview of Parkinson's Disease, talk about a dog's sense of smell and how good it is, and discuss when they first discovered an odor associated with Parkinson's Disease. She will discuss how the program trains the dogs to detect the odor, their accuracy rate, more specifics about the dogs that join the program, the importance of early detection, and the overall goals of the program.
Dr. Gulla is a holistic physician and founder and medical director of the Living Medical Arts Center that serves the San Juan Islands. Her dog Piglet is one of the biodetection dogs in the PADs for Parkinson's Program.

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 In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks talks with Dr. Rachel Stein, Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at West Virginia University, about the Amish community’s experience during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. Stein’s research focuses on community building and health in Old Order Amish communities, and she shares how she became interested in studying them. The conversation dives into Amish values and way of life, how they responded to the pandemic, and what risk-reduction strategies—if any—they used.

We discuss their excess death rates during COVID-19, their perspectives on preventive medicine and vaccination in general, and their specific views on the COVID-19 vaccines. Dr. Stein also explains where the Amish turn for health information, how that differs from mainstream society, and what role “misinformation” may or may not play. Finally, she touches on the Amish lifespan and cultural attributes that may give them health advantages compared to the wider population.

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In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks sits down with Dr. Thais Russomano to explore the fascinating topic of human health in space. Dr. Russomano will discuss the changes the human body undergoes in space, the health challenges of living on Mars versus the Moon, and how medicines might behave differently in these environments. She’ll also touch on the diagnostic tools required for space missions, long-term health monitoring, and how clinical trials could be conducted in space. Finally, Dr. Russomano will share her insights on the possibility of humans living on Mars one day and the health considerations involved in such an endeavor.

Dr. Russomano is an internationally recognized expert in space medicine. She holds both an M.D. and a Ph.D. in space physiology. She has worked as a space scientist at the Institute of Aerospace Medicine in Germany and founded the Microgravity Center, an international research hub for human space physiology. As a former head of the center, she has shaped much of the field. Additionally, Dr. Russomano has served as a professor of space physiology at King’s College London and a visiting professor at several universities worldwide. With numerous publications on space health, she is also the co-founder and director of InnovaSpace. You can read more about her and her work here. 

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In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Borja del Pozo Cruz, PhD, about his and his team's study recently published in JAMA Internal Medicine on the association between daily steps/step intensity and new cases of cancer, cardiovascular disease and death.  (To date, it is the largest population sample and analysis of adults wearing an accelerometer.)
In the podcast, Dr. Pozo Cruz will discuss his current research interests and why he is interested in the link between number of daily steps and health. He will explain how he and his team conducted the study and what they were measuring, including daily step counts, cadence-based metrics, and stepping intensity. He'll discuss their findings related to number of daily steps and association with cancer, cardiovascular disease and death, and if there were any differences noted among age groups. He'll answer the question, "Is there a magic number" of steps we should be taking to reduce our risk of disease and death. Finally he'll discuss limitations, potential individual and public health implications based on his findings and where he's taking his research next.
Dr. Borja del Pozo Cruz is a scientist, professor and senior researcher with the Department of Sport Sciences and Clinical Biomechanics at the Center for Active and Healthy Aging at the University of Southern Denmark.



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In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Emily Luisana about her recent study on dog bowl and dog food hygiene and the link to human and dog health published here.
In the podcast, Dr. Luisana will discuss how she became interested in this topic and provide an overview of the potential bacteria/viruses that may grow on dog bowls and the potential impact for dog and human health. She'll discuss results from her survey that assessed how many people knew about the FDA's pet dish cleaning recommendations as well as the most common current practices for handling/storing dog food and cleaning dog bowls. She'll describe results from a survey to assess bacterial growth on dog dishes among groups, one of which used the FDA guidelines, and discuss differences. Then she'll offer general guidance and a bit of nutritional wisdom for dogs.
Dr. Luisana is a practicing veterinarian and board-certified clinical nutritionist for veterinary medicine. You can read more about her here.

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In this podcast, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Christopher Murray about his recent article published in The Lancet (2022) titled The Global Burden of Cancer Attributable to Risk Factors, 2010-2019, a Systematic Analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019. This is the largest effort to date to determine the gobal burden of cancer due to risk factors. He will discuss what the global burden of disease study is, how he and his team estimated the burden of cancer, the risk factors and the assessment framework used to link specific cancers to specific risks, what percentage of cancer is attributed to risk factors, what the greatest risks are, differences in high income vs low income countries and public health implications.

Dr. Murray is Chair of Health Metrics Sciences at the University of Washington and Director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). He also leads the Global Burden of Disease collaboration ( a systemic effort to quantify the comparitive magnitude of health loss due to diseases, injuries and risk factors.)He is both a physician and a health economist and his work has led to innovative methods for strengthening health measurements, analyzing the performance of health systems and producing forecasts for the future state of health. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the White House, European Commission, WHO EURO and Africa CDC have used IHME forecasts and policy scenarios as sources of evidence.

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In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Carinne Chambers-Saini, CEO of DIVA and founder of the DIVA menstrual cup about how the mainstream dialogue around menstruation has changed over the years, what menstrual inequity and period poverty is, how the DIVA Cup works and its benefits over pads and tampons, anything we have to worry about with the DIVA Cup, and finally how she implemented a "menstrual health leave policy" at her company and how folks responded.

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In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Christoffer Clemmensen about his research on the psychedelic drug, psilocybin,  and its connection to weight and energy balance. This podcast will mostly cover his animal study published here in Translational Psychiatry. As there is renewed interest in psychedelics and, of course, the ongoing obesity epidemic that is increasing around the globe, this is a doubly timely topic.
Specifically, he will discuss psilocybin, how it works in the body, its relation to "cognitive flexibility", and how it might be used for obesity. He will explain the results of his animal study involving psilocybin, the dosing riddle,  and why he feels it should next be studied in humans.
Dr. Clemmensen heads the Clemmensen Group studies at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research. His research focuses on the biological regulation of body weight and aims to develop new therapeutic approaches for obesity and its metabolic consequences. You can learn more about him and his lab here.
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