Howie and Harlan are joined by health policy writer Jonathan Cohn to discuss the RFK Jr. food agenda, the barriers to universal healthcare in the U.S., and working alongside former political adversaries at The Bulwark. Harlan reports on a lawsuit exposing gaps in the privacy of medical-records systems; Howie highlights new research suggesting that a sharp drop in opioid overdose deaths may be temporary.

Show notes:

Data Privacy

"Epic's lawsuit against Health Gorilla raises broader issues about the future of data sharing, industry executives say"

The Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement

Jonathan Cohn

The Bulwark

The Bulwark: The Breakdown

Jonathan Cohn: "The Real Story Behind the Minnesota Welfare Fraud Scandal"

Jonathan Cohn: "How Somalis Became the New 'Welfare Queens'"

FDA: Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) Advertisements

FDA: Unique Device Identifiers

Jonathan Cohn: "Trump's Assault on Health Care, Seen from a Country That Does Health Care Better"

Jonathan Cohn: Sick: The Untold Story of America's Health Care Crisis—and the People Who Pay the Price

Jonathan Cohn: "Michelle Obama Will Be Accepting Your Apologies Now"

"RFK Jr.'s new dietary guidelines go all in on meat and dairy"

Opioid Deaths

CDC: Provisional Drug Overdose Death Counts

"Did the illicit fentanyl trade experience a supply shock?"

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 health law and policy expert Sara Rosenbaum to discuss how incremental reform expanded healthcare access—and the urgent work now underway to prevent those gains from being undone. Harlan explores how AI is quietly filling gaps in the healthcare system; Howie highlights a milestone in the prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission.

Show notes:

AI as a Healthcare Tool

OpenAI: "AI as a Healthcare Ally"

"Cost Leads Americans' Top-of-Mind Healthcare Concerns"

"Physician sentiments around the use of AI in health care: motivations, opportunities, risks, and use cases"

OpenAI: Introducing ChatGPT Health

Sara Rosenbaum

"The Policy Entrepreneur"

KFF: Children's Health Insurance Timeline

Sara Rosenbaum: "A 'Shift in Kind': A Medicaid Work Requirement Would Radically Change Health Policy"

Sara Rosenbaum: "Implementing Medicaid Work Reporting Requirements: Defining A 'Serious Or Complex Medical Condition'"

Sara Rosenbaum: "Who's Affected by Medicaid Work Requirements? It's Not Who You Think"

"South Carolina reports 124 new measles cases as outbreak grows"

"Medical Groups Will Try to Block Childhood Vaccine Recommendations"

CDC: About the Vaccines for Children (VFC) Program

Sara Rosenbaum: "A Twenty-First Century Vaccines For Children Program"

Sara Rosenbaum: "Nearly 5.6 Million Community Health Center Patients Could Lose Medicaid Coverage Under New Work Requirements, with Revenue Losses Up to $32 Billion"

Sara Rosenbaum: "How Medicaid Built Community Health Centers and Health Centers Returned The Favor"

KFF: 5 Key Facts About Medicaid and Provider Taxes

"How New Limits on State Provider Taxes Will Affect Medicaid Funding"

Preventing Mother-to-Child Infection

"WHO validates Brazil for eliminating mother-to-child transmission of HIV"

Health & Veritas Episode 178: Sarah DeSilvey: Creating Space for Healing

"Why Syphilis Cases in Newborns Are Rising Even as STIs Decline"

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 bonus episode, Howie and Harlan are joined by Ania Jastreboff, a Yale School of Medicine endocrinologist and an expert on the science of obesity. They discuss her new book, co-authored with Oprah Winfrey, which reframes obesity as a treatable disease rooted in biology—not a failure of willpower.

Show notes:

Ania Jastreboff and Oprah Winfrey: Enough: Your Health, Your Weight, and What It's Like To Be Free

Yale Obesity Research Center (Y-Weight)

The Oprah Podcast: "Oprah and Yale Researcher Break Down How Weight Loss Drugs Affect the Brain"

The Oprah Podcast: "Oprah and Dr. Ania Jastreboff on How People Treat You Differently After Weight Loss"

Ania Jastreboff: "Tirzepatide for Obesity Treatment and Diabetes Prevention"

Ania Jastreboff: "Once-Monthly Maridebart Cafraglutide for the Treatment of Obesity — A Phase 2 Trial"

Mayo Clinic: Semaglutide (oral route)

Eli Lilly: What to know about orforglipron: An investigational oral GLP-1

"CagriSema for Weight Loss: Study Results, Availability, and How Other GLP-1s Compare"

Eli Lilly: What to know about eloralintide: An investigational amylin receptor agonist injection

Cleveland Clinic: "Should You Microdose GLP-1 Drugs?"

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.

Julie Rovner, chief Washington correspondent for KFF Health News, joins Howie and Harlan to make sense of the fight over ACA subsidies and reflect on her decades of health policy reporting. Harlan reports on a new wave of breakthroughs in obesity treatment; Howie provides updates on the measles outbreak and a record-setting flu season.

Show notes:

Obesity treatments

"Lilly's triple agonist, retatrutide, delivered weight loss of up to an average of 71.2 lbs along with substantial relief from osteoarthritis pain in first successful Phase 3 trial"

"Arrowhead's gene-silencing drugs cut fat in early obesity studies"

"Novo launches Wegovy weight-loss pill for sale in US"

"Older Americans Quit Weight-Loss Drugs in Droves"

Julie Rovner

What the Health? podcast

What the Health? podcast: "Time's Up for Expanded ACA Tax Credits"

What the Health? podcast: "What Do Republicans Really Want on Health Care?"

"Trump wants GOP's flexibility on Hyde Amendment"

Congressional Research Service: The Hyde Amendment

Healthcare.gov: Health Savings Accounts

"Republicans unveil health care plan to counter Democratic effort to extend ACA subsidies"

119th Congress: H.R.1

KFF: "The Impact of H.R. 1 on Two Medicaid Eligibility Rules"

KFF: "Implementation Dates for 2025 Budget Reconciliation Law"

KFF: "Health Care Costs and Affordability"

Flu and Measles

CDC: Weekly US Influenza Surveillance Report

"Flu cases, hospitalizations are rising sharply in CT"

Connecticut Department of Public Health: Weekly Respiratory Viral Disease Report

CDC: Measles Cases and Outbreaks

CDC: Vaccination Coverage and Exemptions among Kindergartners

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 a bonus episode, Howie and Harlan welcome oncologist, bioethicist, and public health expert Ezekiel Emanuel to discuss his new book, which counters the wellness industry by offering simple, evidence-based guidelines for health.

Show notes:

Ezekiel Emanuel: Eat Your Ice Cream: Six Simple Rules for a Long and Healthy Life

"Loneliness and social isolation as risk factors for mortality: a meta-analytic review"

"How Social Isolation Is Killing Us"

"Is Full-Fat Dairy Healthier?".

"High- and Low-Fat Dairy Consumption and Long-Term Risk of Dementia: Evidence From a 25-Year Prospective Cohort Study"

"Milk and Health"

Ezekiel Emanuel: "I'm a Harvard-trained oncologist: 6 nutrition myths I wish would die—the 'answer to a longer life is so simple'"

"This Test Might Be the Best Way to Track Fitness and Longevity"

Health & Veritas Episode 200: An Ongoing Conversation about Health and Healthcare

Ezekiel Emanuel: Why You Should Skip Dry January

U.S. Surgeon General Advisory: Alcohol and Cancer Risk

U.S. Surgeon General Advisory: Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation

U.S. Surgeon General Advisory: Protecting Youth Mental Health

"The Changing Public Image of Smoking in the United States: 1964–2014"

"Tobacco taxes as a tobacco control strategy"

"Celebrities Are Making Smoking Cigarettes Cool Again"

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 the 200th episode of Health & Veritas, Harlan offers end-of-the-year reflections on medicine drawn from his editor's notes in JACC (the Journal of the American College of Cardiology), and Howie provides updates on gun violence, flu, measles, and the health benefits of yoga.

Show notes:

Editor's notes by Harlan Krumholz

"The Day I Became a Doctor"

"When Your Patient Dies"

"Rethinking Physician Certification: A Call for a Modern, Meaningful Standard"

Gun violence, flu, and measles

"Mass shootings outnumber annual days in U.S., children are missing school due to measles, Covid-19 is peeping around the corner, and some hope"

"Measles outbreaks worsen in South Carolina, Arizona and Utah"

"Connecticut reports first measles case in years"

"New Flu Variant May Be Triggering Spike in Severe Disease"

"High-Dose Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness against Hospitalization in Older Adults"

"Pfizer Reaffirms Full-Year 2025 EPS Guidance and Provides Full-Year 2026 Guidance"

The benefits of yoga

"Yoga for chronic non‐specific low back pain"

"Yoga-based interventions may reduce anxiety symptoms in anxiety disorders and depression symptoms in depressive disorders: a systematic review with meta-analysis and meta-regression"

"Effect of Yoga on Frailty in Older Adults"

"Yoga in autoimmune disorders: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials"

"Long-term effects of yoga-based practices on neural, cognitive, psychological, and physiological outcomes in adults: a scoping review and evidence map"

"Yoga isn't just for flexibility. It may also protect brain health."

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 Basmah Safdar, a Yale School of Medicine emergency physician and an expert on sex-specific differences in cardiovascular and microvascular health, which have important implications for the understanding and treatment of heart attacks, long COVID, and other conditions. Harlan reports on Australia's ban on social media for kids, and a Medicare pilot program that will pay providers based on improved outcomes in chronic conditions. Howie unpacks the consequences of the CDC's change to its recommendations for newborn hepatitis B vaccination.

Show notes:

Social Media and Kids

"Australia's Social Media Ban for Children Takes Effect"

Health & Veritas Episode 197: Peter Hotez: Mapping the Anti-Science Machine

Medicare's ACCESS Payment Model

CMS: ACCESS (Advancing Chronic Care with Effective, Scalable Solutions) Model

Basmah Safdar

"Medical School Enrollment Reaches 100,000 Students for the First Time"

Health & Veritas: Episode 176: Live at the Yale Innovation Summit 2025

"Myocardial ischemia in women: lessons from the NHLBI WISE study"

"Sex Differences in COVID-19 Immune Responses Affect Patient Outcomes"

"Scientists unravel mystery of sex disparities in COVID-19 outcomes"

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

"Basmah Safdar, MD, FACEP, Appointed Director, Women's Health Research at Yale (WHRY)"

Women's Health Research at Yale

"Women's Health Research at Yale: The Prologue"

"History of Women's Participation in Clinical Research"

"Policy: NIH to balance sex in cell and animal studies"

"Heart attack symptoms often misinterpreted in younger women"

Harlan Krumholz: "Sex Difference in Outcomes of Acute Myocardial Infarction in Young Patients"

"Women's Health: More Than 'Bikini Medicine'"

"Celebrating Carolyn Mazure"

"Women's Health Research at Yale: Our Research"

"Current Status of Gender and Racial/Ethnic Disparities Among Academic Emergency Medicine Physicians"

"New Women's Health Fund of Funds Launches to Activate $60B in Life Sciences Capital"

"Closing the women's health gap: A $1 trillion opportunity to improve lives and economies"

"Blueprint to close the women's health gap: How to improve lives and economies for all"

"Gates Foundation pledges $2.5 billion to women's health initiatives"

"Milken Institute Launches New Women's Health Network, Former First Lady Jill Biden Joins as its Chair"

Women's Health Research at Yale: Pilot Project Program Funding

Note: Deadline is December 22.

Women's Health Research at Yale: Collaborative

CDC and Hepatitis B

"Panel Votes to Stop Recommending Hepatitis B Shots at Birth for Most Newborns"

CDC: Hepatitis B Vaccine Safety

WHO: Hepatitis B

"New review finds no evidence to support delaying universal hepatitis B birth-dose vaccination"

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 Sudhakar Nuti to discuss his work improving healthcare for homeless New Yorkers, as a street-medicine doctor and a population-health leader at NYC Health + Hospitals. Harlan reports on a proposed law that would cut off funding for U.S. scientists who collaborate with colleagues in China; Howie provides updates on the measles outbreak and a leaked FDA memo claiming that COVID-19 vaccines have killed 10 children.

Show notes:

Science Across Borders

Subtitle C—SAFE Research Act

"U.S. Congress considers sweeping ban on Chinese collaborations"

Sudhakar Nuti

NYC Health + Hospitals

Street Medicine Institute

"Health Care beyond Clinic Walls—Sustaining and Scaling Up Street Medicine"

NYC Health + Hospitals: Street Health Outreach & Wellness Mobile Units

"Graduate and professional students tackle food insecurity"

California Depart of Public Health: Xylazine

Measles

CDC: Measles Cases and Outbreaks

"Tracking U.S. Measles Outbreaks"

World Health Organization: Weekly Epidemiological Record, 2025, vol. 100, no. 48

"Winning against measles: five charts that tell a remarkable 24-year story"

"Measles deaths down 88% since 2000, but cases surge"

FDA Leak

"Experts say top FDA official's claim that Covid vaccines caused kids' deaths requires more evidence"

"FDA's Prasad tells staffers agency plans to get tougher on vaccine regulation, blames child deaths on COVID shots"

"Thoughts on Vinay Prasad's Leaked Email"

"Myocarditis Cases Reported After mRNA-Based COVID-19 Vaccination in the US From December 2020 to August 2021"

"Fulminant Myocarditis and Cardiogenic Shock Following COVID-19 Infection Versus COVID-19 Vaccination: A Systematic Literature Review"

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 Peter Hotez, a vaccine expert and an outspoken opponent of health misinformation, to discuss vaccine skepticism and the forces—from wellness influencers to HHS secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—that amplify it. Harlan reports on research reinforcing the link between social media and mental illness; Howie highlights two potential areas of common ground with the administration's health policy.

Show notes:

Social Media and Mental Health

"Social Media Detox and Youth Mental Health"

"Study Finds Mental Health Benefit to One-Week Social Media Break"

Peter Hotez

Peter Hotez: Science Under Siege: How to Fight the Five Most Powerful Forces That Threaten Our World

Peter Hotez: Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel's Autism: My Journey as a Vaccine Scientist, Pediatrician, and Autism Dad

"Scientist pressured by Musk and Rogan to debate RFK Jr over anti-vaccine misinformation says he won't be part of 'Jerry Springer' show"

Peter Hotez on X

"Kennedy Says He Told C.D.C. to Change Website's Language on Autism and Vaccines"

"Wakefield's article linking MMR vaccine and autism was fraudulent"

"Four vaccine myths and where they came from"

"Large-Scale Exome Sequencing Study Implicates Both Developmental and Functional Changes in the Neurobiology of Autism"

"Risk of Autism after Prenatal Topiramate, Valproate, or Lamotrigine Exposure"

"Data investigation: Childhood vaccination rates are backsliding across the U.S."

"South Carolina's Measles Outbreak Shows Chilling Effect of Vaccine Misinformation"

"How a measles outbreak overwhelmed a small West Texas town"

"How polio came back to New York for the first time in decades, silently spread and left a patient paralyzed"

"Third infant in Kentucky dies of whooping cough as national cases stay high for second year in a row"

"Kennedy minimizes measles outbreak in wake of Texas death"

"RFK Jr. claims 'leaky' measles vaccine wanes over time. Scientists say he's wrong."

"RFK Jr. claims measles can be treated with vitamin A, linked to poor diet. Here's what science says"

"The Surprise Ending to the Trump-Mamdani Buddy Movie Has Heads Spinning"

"Operation Warp Speed was one of Trump's biggest achievements. Then came RFK Jr. and vaccine skeptics"

Health & Veritas Episode 196: The Cost Curve, Flu, and Other News

"Weaponized Health Communication: Twitter Bots and Russian Trolls Amplify the Vaccine Debate"

ACA Subsidies

"Trump was going to roll out a health care plan. Then Republicans weighed in."

"Trump Is Considering a Push to Extend Obamacare Subsidies"

Site-Neutral Payment

"The Trump Administration Moves Forward with Medicare Site-Neutral Payment Reform"

"Five Things to Know About Medicare Site-Neutral Payment Reforms"

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 the outlook for U.S. healthcare spending over the next five years, the state of seasonal and avian flu, and an expensive AI-based cardiac test.

Show notes:

Life expectancy and expenditures

"How does U.S. life expectancy compare to other countries?"

ACOs and cost savings

"After Fifteen Years, is Value-Based Care Succeeding?"

Health & Veritas Episode 115: Farzad Mostashari: Aligning Incentives to Fix Primary Care

World Prematurity Day

WHO: World Prematurity Day 2025

WHO: World Prematurity Day Key Messages

WHO: Preterm birth

AI concerns

"'It keeps me awake at night': machine-learning pioneer on AI's threat to humanity"

"Why neural net pioneer Geoffrey Hinton is sounding the alarm on AI"

"AI pioneer: 'The dangers of abuse are very real'"

"'Malicious use is already happening': machine-learning pioneer on making AI safer"

"Fathers of the Deep Learning Revolution Receive ACM A.M. Turing Award"

"Deep learning"

Bird flu

"First U.S. case of human bird flu in 9 months confirmed in Washington state"

Cleveland Clinic: Bird Flu (Avian Influenza)

"Flu in numbers: NHS faces one of worst winters ever, officials warn, amid concern over mutated strain"

"New flu virus mutation could see 'worst season in a decade'"

"Australia posts record-breaking flu numbers as vaccination rates stall"

FDA: Influenza Vaccine Composition for the 2025-2026 U.S. Influenza Season

Cardiology and AI

"Coronary CT angiography evaluation with artificial intelligence for individualized medical treatment of atherosclerosis: a Consensus Statement from the QCI Study Group"

"Medicare will pay more than $1,000 for AI to analyze a heart scan. Is that too much?"

Free speech and drug promotion

"High-Engagement Social Media Posts Related to Prescription Drug Promotion for 3 Major Drug Classes"

Health & Veritas Episode 195: Jerry Avorn: Countering the Drug Marketing Machine

Medicare premiums

"Medicare premiums to jump 10% heading into 2026"

"Social Security Announces 2.8 Percent Benefit Increase for 2026"

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid: 2026 Medicare Parts A & B Premiums and Deductibles

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.