Howie and Harlan are joined by Kate Heilpern, president of Yale New Haven Hospital, to discuss the hospital's 200-year history, the financial pressures facing health systems, and how Yale New Haven is balancing innovation with its mission to serve the local community. Harlan examines the growing burden of U.S. healthcare costs; Howie highlights encouraging trends in infant mortality, life expectancy, overdose deaths, and cancer survival.

Show notes:

Healthcare Costs

"National Health Expenditure Projections, 2025–34: Strong Utilization Growth Initially, Legislative Impacts Later"

"KFF Health Tracking Poll: Health Care Costs, Expiring ACA Tax Credits, and the 2026 Midterms"

"Americans See Health Care Costs, Deficit, Inflation as Big Problems Facing the Nation"

"How Much and Why ACA Marketplace Premiums Are Going Up in 2027"

"U.S. Health Care from a Global Perspective, 2026"

"The Cost of Health Insurance for a Family Jumps to $27,000"

Zack Cooper

"FDA approves Trutakna for IgA nephropathy"

Kate Heilpern

Yale New Haven Hospital: Vision, Mission, and Values

Yale New Haven Hospital: History and Heritage

"A Bicentennial Milestone: Yale New Haven Hospital Reflects on 200 Years of Care"

Megan L. Ranney

Azita Emami

CDC: Social Determinants of Health

Health & Veritas Episode 188: "Kate Heilpern: Jumping into the Deep End"

American Hospital Association: "Costs of Caring"

Adams Neurosciences Center

Positive Trends in Mortality

CDC: Infant Mortality Quarterly Provisional Estimates

"Life Expectancy in U.S. Hit Record High of 79 Years in 2024, CDC Says"

CDC: "Provisional Data: U.S. Death Rate Fell to a Record Low in 2025"

CDC: Provisional Drug Overdose Data

CDC: Maternal Mortality Rates in the United States, 2024

"American Cancer Society Releases Latest Cancer Statistics"

In the Yale School of Management's MBA for Executives program, you'll get a full MBA education in 22 months while applying new skills to your organization in real time.

Yale's Executive Master of Public Health offers a rigorous public health education for working professionals, with the flexibility of evening online classes alongside three on-campus trainings.

Email Howie and Harlan comments or questions.

In this special episode, Howie and Harlan revisit their conversation with trauma surgeon Selwyn Rogers, whose book Healing the Gun Violence Epidemic: Ending Violence, Rebuilding Communities, and a Trauma Surgeon's Vision for Restoring Hope was published on July 7.

Show notes:

Selwyn Rogers: Healing the Gun Violence Epidemic: Ending Violence, Rebuilding Communities, and a Trauma Surgeon's Vision for Restoring Hope

Albert Ko

"Selwyn Rogers named associate editor of prestigious New England Journal of Medicine"

Selwyn Rogers: "Hope—Beyond Firearm Trauma"

Selwyn Rogers: "Structural Racism and Firearm Injury: Operationalizing Health Equity in Trauma Care"

Brain Death: What it is, Stages & Criteria

New York Times Live Updates: Supreme Court Birthright Citizenship Case

Annual Gun Violence Data 2023

In the Yale School of Management's MBA for Executives program, you'll get a full MBA education in 22 months while applying new skills to your organization in real time.

Yale's Executive Master of Public Health offers a rigorous public health education for working professionals, with the flexibility of evening online classes alongside three on-campus trainings.

Email Howie and Harlan comments or questions.

Howie and Harlan are joined by Jessica Federer, managing director of the Women's Health Fund and a member of the Yale Institutional Review Board, to discuss how investors can help address the dearth of research on medical problems facing women and why she's optimistic about the future of women's health. Harlan explains how caps on indirect costs affect institutional staffing and research agendas; Howie reports on a lawsuit filed by 26 states against the Trump administration over bureaucratic hurdles to accessing Medicaid coverage.

Show notes:

Indirect research costs

Yale Research Support: Facilities and Administrative (F&A) Costs

Yale University: Colleges and Universities Rate Agreement

"NIH Indirect Costs Policy for Research Grants: Recent Developments"

Jessica Federer

Yale School of Public Health

Megan L. Ranney, Dean of the Yale School of Public Health

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

The Women's Health Fund

Yale School of Medicine: Basmah Safdar

Health & Veritas: Basmah Safdar

Women's Health Research at Yale

"Women's Health Research at Yale and SWHR's Symposium Highlights the Power of Collaboration to Advance Women's Health Research"

"CARE for women: Investing in care delivery to improve women's lives and livelihoods"

LinkedIn: Jessica J. Federer

Health & Veritas: Live at the Yale Innovation Summit 2026

"What Is a General Partner in Venture Capital (VC)?"

"April Koh (Co-Founder & CEO, Spring Health) Featured on Cover of TIME"

"Closing the Gap: How Yale Is Advancing Women's Health Research"

Medicaid work requirement

"States Sue CMS Over Medicaid Work Requirements Rule, Citing Departure from Earlier Guidance on Medical Frailty"

Massachusetts v. Oz [pp. 208-231]

Health & Veritas: Ryan Schwarz

In the Yale School of Management's MBA for Executives program, you'll get a full MBA education in 22 months while applying new skills to your organization in real time.

Yale's Executive Master of Public Health offers a rigorous public health education for working professionals, with the flexibility of evening online classes alongside three on-campus trainings.

Email Howie and Harlan comments or questions.

Howie and Harlan are joined by Yale School of Public Health biostatistician Bhramar Mukherjee to discuss how statisticians help researchers turn observations into evidence. Harlan examines a new study linking updated COVID vaccination to lower cardiovascular risk and explains why a headline-grabbing result may not settle the question; Howie discusses new Medicaid work requirements and the danger that administrative hurdles could cost vulnerable patients their coverage.

Show notes:

The COVID-19 Vaccine and Cardiovascular Health

"2024-2025 COVID-19 Vaccine and Major Adverse Cardiovascular Events Among US Veterans"

"Target Trial Emulation—A Unifying Approach for Causal Inference From Observational Data | Research, Methods, Statistics"

"Risk Reduction: Absolute vs. Relative Explained"

Bhramar Mukherjee

"Ten Core Concepts for Ensuring Data Equity in Public Health"

Bhramar Mukherjee: "Privacy-enhancing sequential learning under heterogeneous selection bias in multi-site electronic health records data"

Michigan Genomics Initiative

NIH: All of Us Research Program

Megan Ranney, Dean of the Yale School of Public Health

Big Data Summer Immersion at Yale

"The big data paradox and significance"

'What Is Variance in Statistics? Definition, Formula, and Example"

Medicaid work requirements

Center for Health Care Strategies: Summary of Federal Medicaid Work Requirements

"CMS Requires More Restrictive Definition of Medical Frailty in New Medicaid Work

Requirements Rule"

Cleveland Clinic: Frailty

"Coverage losses, substantial confusion in Arkansas following implementation of Medicaid work requirements"

In the Yale School of Management's MBA for Executives program, you'll get a full MBA education in 22 months while applying new skills to your organization in real time.

Yale's Executive Master of Public Health offers a rigorous public health education for working professionals, with the flexibility of evening online classes alongside three on-campus trainings.

Email Howie and Harlan comments or questions.

Howie and Harlan are joined by Ingrid Katz, director of the Yale Institute for Global Health, to discuss why HIV continues to spread despite the existence of cheap and effective treatment, what AIDS activism can teach us about tackling chronic diseases like hypertension, and what outbreaks like Ebola reveal about the consequences of fragile health systems. Harlan reports on a breach of UK Biobank data and what it means for the future of open science; Howie highlights two recent papers illustrating the importance of vitamin C and the danger of treating it as a cure-all.

Show notes:

The UK Biobank Data Breach

UK Biobank

NIH: All of Us Research Program

"UK Biobank health data listed for sale in China, government confirms"

"UK Biobank: Confidential patient health details still online three months after leaks, BMJ finds"

Ingrid Katz

HIV

PEPFAR

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria

Differentiated Service Delivery

Hypertension

"Prevalence, Awareness, and Treatment of Hypertension in 37 African Countries: Trends From 2003 to 2022"

Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs)

Treatment Action Campaign

"Health & Veritas Episode 224: Nicholas Christakis: The Science of Human Connection"

CDC: Ebola Outbreak: Current Situation

South African president Thabo Mbeki

"More than Two Decades Since the Abuja Declaration: A Way Forward for Ending AIDS as a Public Health Threat by 2030"

Vitamin C

Linus Pauling

"High-Dose Intravenous Vitamin C and Mortality and Organ Dysfunction in Severe Burn Injury: The VICTORY Randomized Clinical Trial"

"High-Dose Vitamin C in Burns: Time to Stop"

"A 7-Year-Old Girl with Limping and Leg Pain"

In the Yale School of Management's MBA for Executives program, you'll get a full MBA education in 22 months while applying new skills to your organization in real time.

Yale's Executive Master of Public Health offers a rigorous public health education for working professionals, with the flexibility of evening online classes alongside three on-campus trainings.

Email Howie and Harlan comments or questions.

Howie and Harlan discuss healthcare headlines including proposed changes to federal research funding, an outbreak of New World screwworm in Texas cattle, and the debate over free expression after researchers were removed from the American Diabetes Association meeting for distributing an editorial critical of federal science policies. They also examine the future of generic GLP-1 drugs, a new Medicare model for heart failure care, and a court ruling with implications for international physicians practicing in the United States.

Show notes:

Research Grants

NIH: NOT-OD-25-132: Supporting Fairness and Originality in NIH Research Applications

Akiko Iwasaki

Health & Veritas Episode 192: Akiko Iwasaki: What Have We Learned About Long COVID?

Stuart Buck

"White House proposes new rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants"

U.S. Constitution: Article II

Skinny Labeling and the Supreme Court

"Supreme Court Upholds Preventive Services Requirement Under ACA"

"Supreme Court Rejects Colorado Law Banning 'Conversion Therapy' for L.G.B.T.Q. Minors"

Hikma Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. v. Amarin Pharma, Inc. (24-889)

"Hikma v. Amarin: Supreme Court Weighs Future of 'Skinny Labeling'"

Value-Based Care

CMS: Value-Based Care

CMS: Hospital Readmission Reduction

New World Screwworm

CDC: New World Screwworm

USDA: New World Screwworm Economic Impact Report

USDA: Eradicating New World Screwworm with Sterile Insect Technique

American Diabetes Association Meeting

"Join the ADA in New Orleans for the 2026 Scientific Sessions"

NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya

Diabetes Care: "Misguided Brushes of a Pen Continue to Dismantle and Destroy Biomedical Research in the United States: We Can No Longer Afford Complacency and Fear. We Must All Act Now!"

"Diabetes researchers ousted from conference after criticizing Trump"

H-1B Visas

Presidential Proclamation on Restriction on Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Workers

"Federal judge blocks Trump's $100,000 H-1B visa fee"

"Health Care Professionals Sponsored for H-1B Visas in the US"

Exchange Visitors and the J-1 Classification

In the Yale School of Management's MBA for Executives program, you'll get a full MBA education in 22 months while applying new skills to your organization in real time.

Yale's Executive Master of Public Health offers a rigorous public health education for working professionals, with the flexibility of evening online classes alongside three on-campus trainings.

Email Howie and Harlan comments or questions.

Howie and Harlan are joined by Mark Siegel, director of Yale's internal medicine residency program, to discuss his approach to mentoring young physicians and building a medical community grounded in purpose and compassion. Harlan examines a breakthrough targeted therapy that could reshape the treatment of pancreatic cancer and other hard-to-treat cancers; Howie tracks the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and argues that policy decisions are hampering the global response.

Show notes:

A Cancer Breakthrough

Pancreatic cancer: Symptoms and causes

"Daraxonrasib or Chemotherapy in Previously Treated Metastatic Pancreatic Cancer"

"Multi-Selective RAS(ON) Inhibitor Nearly Doubles Survival Time in People With Metastatic Pancreatic Cancer"

"KRAS mutation: from undruggable to druggable in cancer"

Mark Siegel

Mark Siegel: Program Director Notes

Mark Siegel on Substack

Academic medicine

Signaling system

Mark Siegel: "What I've Learned in 63 Years"

Yale School of Medicine: Residency & Fellowship Programs

Mark Siegel: "A Sudden Loss Of Vision"

Health & Veritas Episode 224: Nicholas Christakis: The Science of Human Connection

Ebola

WHO: Bundibugyo virus disease outbreak, Democratic Republic of the Congo

WHO: Ebola, The Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2026

WHO: Alert and Response

"'We are catching up'—WHO chief on DR Congo's Ebola fight"

"Uganda Closes Border With Congo as Ebola Fears Rise"

"Kenyan Court Deals New Blow to Plans for U.S. Ebola Unit"

In the Yale School of Management's MBA for Executives program, you'll get a full MBA education in 22 months while applying new skills to your organization in real time.

Yale's Executive Master of Public Health offers a rigorous public health education for working professionals, with the flexibility of evening online classes alongside three on-campus trainings.

Email Howie and Harlan comments or questions.

Howie is joined by guest host Megan Ranney, dean of the the Yale School of Public Health, for a live episode recorded at the Yale Innovation Summit, featuring conversations with five innovators at the intersection of healthcare, public health, and entrepreneurship.

Jaya Dadwal, a recent graduate of the School of Public Health and founder of forEVA Health, focused on raising healthcare standards for the female body

Monique Rainford, a Yale School of Medicine ob-gyn and founder of Enrich Health, focused on addressing disparities in maternal health

Kimberley Steele, a bariatric surgeon and program director at the federal Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H)

Yusuf Ransome, a faculty member at the School of Public Health and founder of Soul Health, a faith tech solution focused on addressing the mental wellbeing of the "missing middle"

Janani Ramaswamy, head of IP and licensing services at Yale Ventures

Show notes:

The Yale Innovation Summit

Yale Innovation Summit 2026

Yale Ventures

Jaya Dadwal

forEVA

FDA: Essure Permanent Birth Control

"Problems Reported with Essure"

Jennifer McFadden

"Women's Health Strategy for England" A UK government report including the finding that 84% of women report that their voices have not been listened to in the healthcare system.

Polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS)

Monique Rainford

Megan Ranney and Monique Rainford: "Opinion: Over-the-counter birth control pill could make a huge difference"

Enrich Health

Monique Rainford: Pregnant While Black: Advancing Justice for Maternal Health in America

Sejal Hathi: "Nine Months of Medical Attention. Then Almost Nothing"

Kimberley Steele

Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H)

Lymphatic System: Function, Conditions & Disorders

ARPA-H: Lymphatic Imaging, Genomics, and Phenotyping Technologies (LIGHT)

ARPA-H: Groundbreaking Lymphatic Interventions and Drug Explorations (GLIDE)

"GLIDE set to prevent and cure human disease by targeting the lymphatic system"

Yusuf Ransome

Yusuf Ransome on LinkedIn: "The hardest part of building a solution is when your own family depends on it"

SOCAH Lab

Pew Research: "Spirituality Among Americans"

Janani Ramaswamy

"Arvinas Announces FDA Approval of VEPPANU (vepdegestrant) for the Treatment of ESR1m, ER+/HER2- Advanced Breast Cancer"

Arvinas

Yale Ventures: Accelerators, Programs, and Innovation Centers

HealthTech Works

In the Yale School of Management's MBA for Executives program, you'll get a full MBA education in 22 months while applying new skills to your organization in real time.

Yale's Executive Master of Public Health offers a rigorous public health education for working professionals, with the flexibility of evening online classes alongside three on-campus trainings.

Email Howie and Harlan comments or questions.

Howie and Harlan are joined by Nicholas Christakis, director of Yale's Human Nature Lab, to discuss his research on social networks, human connection, and the forces that help societies cooperate and endure. Harlan discusses promising phase 3 results for retatrutide, Eli Lilly's experimental "triple G" obesity drug; Howie provides an update on the fast-growing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Show notes:

Obesity Drugs

"Lilly's triple agonist, retatrutide, delivered powerful weight loss in pivotal Phase 3 obesity trial"

"Triple–Hormone-Receptor Agonist Retatrutide for Obesity—A Phase 2 Trial"

Bariatric surgery

Nicholas Christakis

Human Nature Lab

Nicholas Christakis: Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society

Free rider problem

Phenotype

Stephen Pinker

The Enlightenment

Nicholas Christakis on YouTube: For the Love of Science

Nicholas Christakis: "The Spread of Obesity in a Large Social Network Over 32 Years"

Social contagion

Altruism

Wet lab vs. dry lab

Microbiome

Communicable vs. non-communicable diseases

Nicholas Christakis: "The Collective Dynamics of Smoking in a Large Social Network"

Nicholas Christakis on YouTube : "Learning in a Time of War"

Tymofiy Mylovanov

The president of the Kyiv School of Economics, who invited Christakis to lecture in Ukraine.

Ebola

CDC: Ebola Disease 2026

CDC: Ebola Disease Basics

"The Ebola virus spreading in Congo is a rare species with no vaccines or treatments"

Hypertension

Watch last week's episode on YouTube.

In the Yale School of Management's MBA for Executives program, you'll get a full MBA education in 22 months while applying new skills to your organization in real time.

Yale's Executive Master of Public Health offers a rigorous public health education for working professionals, with the flexibility of evening online classes alongside three on-campus trainings.

Email Howie and Harlan comments or questions.

Howie and Harlan discuss how AI is transforming medical research and publishing, the growing role of consumer health platforms and wearables, new advances in stroke treatment, and the debate over rising hospital costs. They also examine the FDA's approval of flavored vaping products and the nomination of a new surgeon general.

Watch a video version of this episode on YouTube.

Show notes:

Social Media

Health & Veritas on Instagram

Howie's viral reel on Hantavirus

Howie on X

AI and Research

Claude Code by Anthropic

medRxiv

Progress in Treating Strokes

"Endovascular Treatment of Medium-Vessel-Occlusion Strokes"

"Endovascular thrombectomy after large-vessel ischaemic stroke: a meta-analysis of individual patient data from five randomised trials"

"In Memoriam: Eugene Braunwald, MD, MACC"

The Costs of Healthcare

The Keckley Report

"The Hospital-Health Insurer War hurts Everyone"

Hospitals: Higher Value, Higher Prices

"This Is the Biggest Culprit for High Health Care Spending"

"It's The Prices, Stupid: Why The United States Is So Different From Other Countries"

Atrial fibrillation: symptoms and causes

Atrial fibrillation ablation

Health Care Affordability Lab

Zack Cooper's lab at Yale.

Wearables Venture into Healthcare

"WHOOP Expands Health Platform with On-Demand Clinician Access and New AI Features"

"Introducing ChatGPT Health"

"Introducing the all-new Fitbit Air"

"Dear Tim"

Myoung Cha's blog post on Apple's impact on health.

FDA Resignations Over Vape Policy

Health & Veritas Episode 78: Elizabeth Arleo: Advice for Working Mothers from a Women's Health Specialist

Howie discusses e-cigarettes and lung injuries.

Health & Veritas Episode 118: Lucila Ohno-Machado: AI and the Art of Medicine

Howie mentions mixed evidence for vaping as an alternative to smoking.

"With Commissioner Under Pressure, F.D.A. Opens Door to Flavored Vapes"

"FDA Commissioner Marty Makary Resigns—Trump Posts His Resignation Text"

"Top Kennedy Spokesman Resigns in Protest of Move to Allow Flavored Vapes"

The Financial Side of GLP-1s

Hims & Hers Investor Presentation

"Hims & Hers Health, Inc. Reports First Quarter 2026 Financial Results"

Surgeon General Nominees

"Trump Withdraws Nomination of Casey Means for Surgeon General"

"Exclusive: Deleted tweets reveal new surgeon general pick criticized Trump and RFK Jr. health policies"

"Trump's new surgeon general nominee has both praised and criticized his administration"

"The Madness in RFK Jr.'s Autism Method"

In the Yale School of Management's MBA for Executives program, you'll get a full MBA education in 22 months while applying new skills to your organization in real time.

Yale's Executive Master of Public Health offers a rigorous public health education for working professionals, with the flexibility of evening online classes alongside three on-campus trainings.

Email Howie and Harlan comments or questions.