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.

Howie and Harlan are joined by Josh Geballe, head of Yale Ventures, to discuss how changes in Yale's mindset, policies, and support systems have helped turn university research into impactful companies. Harlan examines the growing problem of AI-hallucinated citations in published research; Howie provides an update on the deadly Andes hantavirus outbreak aboard a cruise ship.

Show notes:

Fake Citations

"Fabricated citations: an audit across 2·5 million biomedical papers"

JACC Journals

Josh Geballe

Yale Innovation Summit 2026

Yale Ventures

Joe Tsai

Alibaba Group

Craig Crews

"Yale Spinout Halda Therapeutics Announces $3B Acquisition by Johnson & Johnson"

"D-Wave Announces Agreement to Acquire Quantum Circuits Inc., Establishing World's Leading Quantum Computing Company"

"Arvinas and Pfizer Enter into a Transaction with Rigel Pharmaceuticals for the Exclusive Global Rights of VEPPANU (vepdegestrant)"

Yale Ventures: Healthtech Works

Yale Ventures: Planetary Solutions

Alexion

BioLabs

Hantavirus Outbreak

Hantavirus

"Passengers from virus-stricken cruise ship fly to home countries"

"French woman with hantavirus has severe form of disease, is in 'final stage of supportive care'"

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 Lee Schwamm, the Yale School of Medicine's associate dean for digital strategy & transformation and chief digital health officer of the Yale New Haven Health System, to discuss how the system is working to rapidly evaluate and deploy AI tools without compromising patient safety and oversight. Harlan highlights vaccine studies reportedly held back from publication and argues for greater scientific transparency; Howie reports on a deadly outbreak of Andes hantavirus aboard a cruise ship.

Show notes:

Suppressing Science

"F.D.A. Blocked Publication of Research Finding Covid and Shingles Vaccines Were Safe"

"Safety Monitoring of Multiple Health Outcomes Following 2023–2024 COVID-19 Vaccination among Medicare Beneficiaries Aged 65 Years and Older in the United States" One of the studies initially blocked by the FDA, published in medRxiv.

Akiko Iwasaki: "Freedom of scientific inquiry: reclaiming space for controversy"

Lee Schwamm

"What is digital transformation?"

"Use of Ambient AI Scribes to Reduce Administrative Burden and Professional Burnout"

Imaging and radiology

"What Is Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM)? An Expert Guide"

"Platform Solutions vs. Point Solutions: What's the Difference?"

"A prospective clinical feasibility study of a conversational diagnostic AI in an ambulatory primary care clinic"

"A scoping review of silent trials for medical artificial intelligence"

"Heart failure risk stratification using artificial intelligence applied to electrocardiogram images: a multinational study"

Center for Health Care Innovation

"Beyond Sterling Hall: Artificial Intelligence is a 'Natural'"

Institutional Review Board

"What is hyperscale?"

AgileMD: eCART

"Geoff Hinton: On Radiology"

"What is a private cloud?"

"What Is a GPU?"

Lee Schwamm on what makes an excellent digital patient experience:

• An excellent digital patient experience is one that moves complexity away from the patient and makes it easy for patients to access, navigate, and coordinate care across the continuum without needing to fragment their care across multiple healthcare delivery systems.

• It provides seamless longitudinal continuity of identity, so patients are never asked twice for the same information and their preferences endure between sessions and across experiences. This intelligent hyper-personalization enables care journeys that meaningful, effective and seamlessly intermingle traditional and digital care.

• At a macro level, these experiences are delivered equitably and adjust to the patient's level of digital engagement, engendering trust and conveying empathy. An equitable digital front door is one that opens easily for everyone, allows access to the needed services, and improves clinical care and operational efficiency rather than simply digitizing existing ineffective or byzantine processes.

• Lastly, excellent digital patient experiences are not just built but are maintained and curated, through continuous measurement, iteration, and alignment to the needs of patients rather than the organizational structure of the health system.

Hantavirus

Oceanwide Expeditions Press Releases

Hantavirus

"What Is Hantavirus, the Rare Disease That Killed Betsy Arakawa?"

"Hantavirus cluster linked to cruise ship travel, Multi-country"

Updates from the World Health Organization on X

"'Super-Spreaders' and Person-to-Person Transmission of Andes Virus in Argentina"

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 Medicine liver specialist Wolfram Goessling, who reflects on his experience surviving a rare cancer and how it reshaped his approach to patient care, communication, and leadership. Harlan discusses a Utah pilot program that is letting AI authorize prescription renewals, prompting alarm from physicians; Howie reports on a study challenging the effectiveness of a widely used knee procedure.

Show notes:

The Prescribing AI

"Utah and Doctronic Announce Groundbreaking Partnership for AI Prescription Medication Renewals"

Doctronic AI Mitigation Agreement

"AI Prescribing Medications In Utah: A Flawed Regulatory Playbook"

"Utah medical board calls for 'suspension' of AI doctor experiment"

"The Status Quo Is the Biggest Risk" Doctronic responds to coverage of the Utah partnership.

Wolfram Goessling

Wolfram Goessling: Staying Alive: An Oncologist Fights His Cancer The publisher's site for Wolfram Goessling's book on his personal fight with cancer.

Staying Alive: An Oncologist Fights His Cancer The Amazon page for the book.

Facing Cancer The IMDB page for the documentary about Wolfram Goessling's experience.

Facing CancerWatch the documentary with English subtitles.

Angiosarcoma

Goessling Lab

"Wolfram Goessling, MD, PhD, to be Appointed Chair of YSM Internal Medicine, Chief of Internal Medicine at YNHH, & Physician-in-Chief for Medicine"

Hepatology

Gastroenterologist

"What Is Shared Decision Making?"

"Teach-Back: Intervention"

Liver Cancer

Jaundice

Appendicitis

"Meet Wolfram Goessling, New Chair of the Yale Department of Internal Medicine"

Longwood Symphony Orchestra

Knee Surgery

"Arthroscopic Partial Meniscectomy versus Sham Surgery for a Degenerative Meniscal Tear"

"Arthroscopic Partial Meniscectomy for Degenerative Tear—10-Year Outcomes"

"Analysis of Charges and Payments for Outpatient Arthroscopic Meniscectomy From 2005 to 2014: Hospital Reimbursement Increased Steadily as Surgeon Payments Declined"

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 take on tough questions at the intersection of medicine and society. They trace the deadly history of anti-vaccine activism, unpack Yale's report on trust in higher education, and explore the peptide craze. They also confront the rising moral distress among clinicians working in systems that too often prevent them from caring for patients the way they were trained to. Plus, student research assistant Tobias Liu stops by for a farewell conversation.

Show notes:

Tobias Segment

"Pharmaceutical Manufacturer Kickback Resolutions and Associated Financial Penalties, 2000-2025"

Anti-Vaccination

Alfred Russel Wallace

WHO: Smallpox

"US surpasses 1,000 measles cases for the 3rd time in 26 years"

Trust in Higher Education

"Report of the Committee on Trust in Higher Education"

"Yale Report Finds Colleges Deserve Blame for Higher Education's Problems"

"Report of the Committee on Freedom of Expression at Yale"

Peptides

WebMD: Peptides

"Peptides take off as a DIY treatment but is that a good idea?"

"A peptide in FDA's step"

Moral Distress

"Moral Distress and Occupational Burnout in US Physicians"

"The Moral Crisis of America's Doctors"

The Pitt

Psychedelics

"Trump expedites review of psychedelics to treat mental health disorders"

"U.S. Overdose Deaths Decrease Almost 27% in 2024"

2026 Breakthrough Prize

"Breakthrough Prize 2026"

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 Stephen Latham, a Yale School of Medicine senior research scholar and the director of the Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics. Stephen reflects on his journey to a career at the intersection of law and medicine, and explains why the legal definition of death is becoming less useful in an era of rapidly advancing medical technologies. Harlan unpacks recent analysis of smoking rates in the U.S.; Howie contextualizes recent accusations of Medicaid fraud in New York.

Show notes:

Smoking Rates

"Tobacco Product Use among U.S. Adults, 2023–2024"

"Smoking rates are at a historic low. You're not hearing about it from the government"

"Cigarette Smoking is Down Nationwide, but Not Equally Across All Groups"

Stephen Latham

American Medical Association

American Medical Association: Code of Medical Ethics

Oregon's Death with Dignity Act

"Harvard's grade inflation experiment"

"Professors face grading dilemma: too many A's, little taste for limits"

"Harvard University Plans To Delay Its Cap On A Grades For One Year"

"Cellular recovery after prolonged warm ischaemia of the whole body"

Uniform Determination of Death Act

Cleveland Clinic: Organ Donation and Transplantation

Bexorg

"Bexorg: The Yale Spinout That Figured Out How to Keep Brains Going Outside the Body"

Brain Perfusion - An Overview

"Political Theory, Values and Public Health"

"AI-guided CAR designs and targeted pathway modulation to enhance multi-antigen CAR T cell durability and overcome antigen escape"

"Conscience, Disobedience, and Standard of Care"

Medicaid

"Trump administration admits a glaring error in its accusations about New York health care fraud"

"5 Key Facts About Medicaid Program Integrity – Fraud, Waste, Abuse and Improper Payments"

"Medicare Program Integrity and Efforts to Root Out Improper Payments, Fraud, Waste and Abuse"

IRS: The tax gap

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 Medicine gastroenterologist Deborah Proctor, who reflects on her decades of work in Honduras and how her approach to service has shifted from short-term medical missions to sustained, community-driven partnership. Harlan reports on an AI breakthrough with implications for the security of healthcare systems; Howie marks National Public Health Week with a look at two centuries of major public health gains.

Show notes:

AI Breakthrough

Anthropic: Project Glasswing

"Anthropic Claims Its New A.I. Model, Mythos, Is a Cybersecurity 'Reckoning'"

Glasswinged Butterfly

"Cybersecurity incident forces Brockton Hospital to use paper records"

Thomas Friedman: "Anthropic's Restraint Is a Terrifying Warning Sign"

Hard Fork podcast

Deborah Proctor

Gastroenterologist

Honduras Children's Project

Deborah Proctor: Every Child Counts: Breaking the Cycle of Poverty by Educating One Child at a Time

Voluntourism

Teletón

Yale Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center

Public Health Progress

National Public Health Week

World Health Day

Life Expectancy

History of smallpox vaccination

Cholera in Victorian London

"A History of the Surgeon General's Reports on Smoking and Health"

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

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 trauma surgeon Selwyn Rogers, who reflects on caring for victims of gun violence and speaking with families in their darkest moments—and explains why the problem must be understood as a shared societal responsibility. Harlan examines new evidence suggesting U.S. healthcare spending has grown more slowly than expected; Howie discusses a retracted Lancet article that highlights the risks of undisclosed conflicts of interest.

Show notes:

Healthcare Costs

"Has the United States Bent the Health Care Cost Curve?"

David M. Cutler

"Baumol's cost disease"

Harlan Krumholz: "Out‐of‐Pocket Annual Health Expenditures and Financial Toxicity From Healthcare Costs in Patients With Heart Failure in the United States"

Selwyn Rogers

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

Conflicts of Interest

"Retraction: Cosmetic talc powder"

"Historians Unearth a Conflict of Interest, Prompting a Retraction by The Lancet Journal"

Johns Manville Trust Fund and Lawsuits

Mark Lanier

Health & Veritas Episode 215: Arya Singh: Beyond Accessibility

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 College and Yale School of Public Health graduate Arya Singh, who reflects on growing up with spinal muscular atrophy, what it takes to build a full life with a disability, and how family support and institutional culture shape what inclusion looks like in practice. Harlan reports on the rapid rise of AI as a front door to health information; Howie responds to the withdrawal of a proposed federal ban on indoor tanning for minors.

Show notes:

AI Health Advice

Health & Veritas Episode 207: Robert Wachter: AI Is Already Remaking Healthcare

"OpenAI rolls out ChatGPT for Healthcare, a gen AI workspace for hospitals and clinics"

"Anthropic Launches AI Healthcare Tools As Competition With OpenAI Heats Up"

"Doctronic raises $40 million as race to apply AI in clinical care heats up"

"KFF Tracking Poll on Health Information and Trust: Use of AI For Health Information and Advice"

Arya Singh

Health & Veritas Episode 35: Dr. Amy Justice: Unlocking the Insights in Healthcare Data Howie reflects on Arya Singh's graduation from Yale.

Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA)

"At Yale, Arya Singh overcame her fears—and found a new side of herself"

"This Yale student won't let a rare genetic disease stand in her way"

"A Mother's Moonshot"A Stanford Business profile of Loren Eng, Singh's mother.

Arya Singh: "What it's like to have a rare disease—and how clinical trials changed my life"

"For Arya" A Forbes article on Singh's parents.

Video: Yale College 2022 Class Day Exercises Singh's speech to her classmates.

"3 Rings, 2 College Students and 1 Big Risk" A New York Times "Vows" column on Singh's wedding.

Arya Singh: Courageous Calla & The Clinical Trial

Arya Singh: "Beyond broken elevators"

Arya Singh: "Making It Work for Students in Wheelchairs to Leave Home: Experiences and Decision Making Regarding the Residential College Experience"

Tanning Beds

"FDA pulls proposed rule barring teens from using tanning beds"

FDA: General and Plastic Surgery Devices: Restricted Sale, Distribution, and Use of Sunlamp Products; Withdrawal of Proposed Rule

"Molecular effects of indoor tanning"

"Indoor Tanning and the Risk of Overall and Early-Onset Melanoma and Non-Melanoma Skin Cancer: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis"

"Indoor Tanning Legislation: Here's Where We Stand"

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.