Public Health is Dead

"Should you be worried?" is the wrong question for the media to be asking about public health issues. We need good information to make good decisions. But global public health leaders seem more concerned about avoiding panic than avoiding pandemics. When a virus started spreading human-to-human on a cruise ship in May, public health communication faltered as panic-management took the helm.

All aboard, friends! We're dissecting a New York Times piece on hantavirus transmission. 

Hear what MJ and Daniella have to say about hantavirus coverage, public health misinformation, and how reporting on science desperately needs improvement. "Better safe than sorry" seems like common sense but public health leaders and the media still haven't learned from COVID pandemic comms mistakes (or the others before that). What will it take?

Transcript here

RESOURCES: 

NYT Hantavirus article - Hantavirus Doesn't Spread Easily, but Officials May Be Downplaying Risks 
VOX Today Explained ft. Lawrence Gostin

RELATED EPISODES:
The Airborne Transmission Error - Something's in the Air - Public Health is Dead

PHMC is edited by MJ of Everything is Public Health

This is an independent, listener-supported show. If you like what you hear, and you'd like to support production costs for more of Public Health is Dead, visit publichealthisdead.com! 

This is a piece from the "pandemic-is-over-bro-just-trust-us" hall of fame. Daniella & MJ (host of "Everything is Public Health") deconstruct TIME magazine's "The COVID-19 Pandemic Will Be Over When Americans Think It Is" from January 2023. This one has it all, folks. There's mansplaining, risk assessments without assessing risks, ignoring Long COVID, a fundamental misconstruction of what public health does, and an underlying please, won't somebody think of the shareholders?!    

Pandemics are inconvenient for business as usual, so there was—and continues to be—a push from those who benefit from business as usual to convince us all that mitigating COVID is impossible. The author tries to convince the reader that returning to the status quo is the right and only thing to do. 

The other piece referenced near the end of this episode is: Prepare for the Ultimate Gaslighting by Julio Vincent Gambuto (2020).

Transcript HERE (coming soon). 

CREDITS

This is an independent, listener-supported show. If you like what you hear, and you'd like to support production costs for more of Public Health is Dead, visit publichealthisdead.com! 

Public health has been used as a tool of empire for centuries. Keeping settlers healthy enough to maintain colonial control over land, resources, and capital is a part of public health’s history. It’s also part of its present.

*Content Note: This episode contains mentions of residential schools and colonial violence. (Transcript HERE).

In this episode, hear about Renee Bach, an ill-famed recent character in the long line of drop-in missionaries or "voluntourists" who go to Africa to “help” poor people and end up doing a lot of harm. Featured guest, Professor Matiangai Sirleaf, discusses her paper “White Health in International Law”, breaks down how the interests of whiteness have always been at the forefront of public health globally. How has the COVID pandemic response reinforced global hierarchies of care and concern? Can public health move towards emancipatory futures?

We hear about show host Daniella’s university exchange trip to Ghana as an African-born immigrant to Canada, why race is usually not relevant to public health research but *racism* is, how experiments on Indigenous children shaped Canada’s food policy, and the little-known history of the Hepatitis B vaccine—a public health advancement which has been under recent scrutiny (for the wrong reasons) by RFK Jr. and his public health demolition crew. We also meet Daniella’s mom, an immunologist who shares her experience as a medical doctor in Zimbabwe and her response to growing anti-vax ideas in the West.

Epidemiology methods partly grew from the massive data and surveillance possibilities that existed in captured populations. This same data collection and surveillance can perpetuate harm, especially when AI is involved. Hear how First Nations communities have established OCAP® (Ownership, Control, Access, Possession) in response to harmful research practices in the past.

Has public health shed its colonial lens? And what do these legacies of colonialism mean for addressing ongoing and future pandemics?

RESOURCES

CREDITS

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Visit the episode webpage for an AirFanta air purifier discount code for listeners!

This is an independent, listener-supported show. If you like what you hear, and you'd like to support production costs for more of Public Health is Dead, visit publichealthisdead.com! 

Book report! What Daniella & MJ liked and didn't like about John Green's newest book, "Everything is Tuberculosis". 

Written in the age of COVID, does he address the thing TB is known for: airborne disease transmission? Can he separate himself from tired old tropes of white saviourism in Africa? Do we think the book does enough to challenge the systems producing inequity in the first place? 

Hit play and our opinions will be revealed!

Another crossover episode edited by MJ of Everything is Public Health.

RESOURCES

• Me-to-We/The Kielburgers' WE Charity Scandal
  • WE Charity misled donors about building schools in Kenya, records show [CBC]
  • WE is actually we [Briarpatch]
  • WE charity scandal - A simple guide to the new crisis for Trudeau [BBC]
• Canadian Medical Association's Apology for harms to Indigenous Peoples
• Tuberculosis among Inuit 
• How Europe Underdeveloped Africa - Walter Rodney

(Note/Correction: Daniella quotes a sentence from the book that says "Inuit people" but this is redundant as Inuit means "the people" in Inuktitut therefore should have only said "Inuit".)

This is an independent, listener-supported show. If you like what you hear, and you'd like to support production costs for more of Public Health is Dead, visit publichealthisdead.com! 

If you go into hospital, you shouldn’t have to worry about getting more sick. Many people get COVID, flu, and other airborne infections from being in hospital, even though it’s preventable. This is a policy failure. And it's fixable.

Dr. Dick Zoutman, Board Chair at the Canadian COVID Society, and professor emeritus at Queen’s University, shows us 5 ways to stop COVID from running rampant at hospitals. Infection control, hospital and public health leaders, here are some suggestions to get a handle on transmission now and in the future! 

This interview was recorded in early 2025.

RESOURCES
(See more on the episode webpage.)
Dr. Zoutman's Town Hall with the World Health Network: The Fight for Canadian Respirator Mask Standards
Swedish study on COVID infection in hospitals
Do No Harm BC's petition for masks in healthcare
@ratnegative's post about BCCDC wastewater cuts

Transcript available here.

CREDITS
Public Health is Dead is created, produced, written & hosted by Daniella Barreto
Music, mixing, and sound design by Alexandria Maillot
Fact checking on this episode by Roanne G.

This is an independent, listener-supported show. If you like what you hear, and you'd like to support production costs for more of Public Health is Dead, visit publichealthisdead.com! 

Most people get a lot of what they know about public health from what’s in the news. But what’s in the news—and the way it’s talked about—is not always clear or accurate.

This episode tracks how the media has contributed to the alarming decline of public health and played a role in blocking meaningful understanding and action on COVID. What is reported and how it's framed can have a huge impact on what people think and how they behave. And if public health leaders are the ones sending foggy messages through unquestioning journalists, it becomes difficult to address collective health threats—now and in the future. 

The interplay between public health institutions, politicians, and the media is so powerful it affects who suffers, who survives, and who doesn’t. And with the certainty of future pandemics coming along, honest and clear news media that serves the public can be a lifeline. It’s long past time to change the COVID narrative.

We talk to journalist, Julia Doubleday of The Gauntlet and researcher/science communicator, Kayli Jamieson about media narratives, propaganda, and why it's become so hard to get good COVID coverage as the pandemic smoulders on. This episode also features Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, former Technical Lead for COVID-19 at the World Health Organization. 

Note: When this episode discusses communications about COVID vaccines and effectiveness, it refers to mRNA vaccines against COVID generally. Presently, other vaccines like Novavax, which may perform better in some measures, are unavailable in Canada.

Find Julia at thegauntlet.news and Kayli on Instagram @wandering

We had some audio recording and technical issues with this episode but pulled through thanks to the painstaking work of our amazing mixer/sound designer/musician, Alexandria Maillot. The transcript is available on the ​episode webpage​.
 

CREDITS 
Huge thanks to the Skeleton Crew for all their work on this episode: 
Hosted, produced, written, edited by Daniella Barreto
Music, Mixing, and Sound Design by Alexandria Maillot
Script editing by Lauren M. and Kevin Ball
Fact checking by Anika Sharma and Roanne G.

Additional music by Alex Productions, sound byte "Freaky Halloween"

RESOURCES
Some articles by Julia Doubleday: 

• "How the press manufactured consent for never-ending COVID reinfections"
• "Institutional COVID denial has killed public health as we knew it. Prepare to lose several centuries of progress."
• "Liberals joined conservatives to mainstream anti-vax beliefs about viruses and public health"

This episode is in memory of Leslie Lee III and Alice Wong — fierce public health and disability justice advocates. Leslie was living with Long COVID. They both encouraged me to keep making this podcast. May we all keep working towards the world they were fighting for. - DB

This is an independent, listener-supported show. If you like what you hear, and you'd like to support production costs for more of Public Health is Dead, visit publichealthisdead.com! 

Canada could lose its measles elimination status, which says a lot about the state of public health overall. Media coverage leaves much to be desired when it comes to informing the public about measles vaccines, airborne transmission, and social determinants of health, especially with a new school year beginning. Daniella & MJ chew over the hits, swings, and misses in a recent measles episode of CBC Frontburner ("Canada has a measles problem", May 16, 2025). 

Resources
How Mennonite women are building bridges between public health and community amid measles outbreak
(As referenced in the episode, here [from 22:22] is Dr. Bonnie Henry's November 2024 presser on H5N1 saying she finds the word "pandemic" triggering in her role as a public health leader.)

CREDITS
Public Health Media Club is a crossover public health show hosted by Daniella (of Public Health is Dead) and MJ (of Everything is Public Health). All audio editing by MJ.

To PHID listeners: ~Thanks for listening to this late summer crossover! Public Health is Dead post-summer production will be ramping up again. The horrors persist but so do we~

This is an independent, listener-supported show. If you like what you hear, and you'd like to support production costs for more of Public Health is Dead, visit publichealthisdead.com! 

This is Public Health Media Club—a chatty and critical exchange about public health in the media!
Daniella (of "Public Health is Dead") & MJ (of "Everything is Public Health") do a crossover episode about COVID, people still masking, and "The Science"! First up, from the Atlantic: The Evermaskers (archived link). 

*This episode pairs nicely with the previous special episode on Public Health is Dead, "But My Therapist Said"*

IMPORTANT: Let us know if you like this format! And if you want us to continue making crossover episodes like this. 
Of course, there's a lot to talk about since Everything is Public Health and Public Health is Dead. 

Follow MJ's show "Everything is Public Health" here. 

This is an independent, listener-supported show. If you like what you hear, and you'd like to support production costs for more of Public Health is Dead, visit publichealthisdead.com! 

Ever heard anyone say they can't care about COVID anymore because it's bad for their mental health? Or their therapist said people still masking have "COVID anxiety"?

Well, here are three mental health professionals who have a thing or two to say about that! Meet Pierre, Briana, and Ji-Youn, who share their perspectives on what the Western therapy world is often missing when it comes to COVID and collective care.

Like we often say on the show, all systems of oppression are connected.

NOTE: We recorded this conversation in early November 2024. This chat special is a bit of a departure from the regular narrative style episodes you’re used to on Public Health is Dead but you are in for some gems. It reaffirms choosing to care about each other by resisting COVID, ableism, and white supremacy. "We keep us safe" has to mean something!

(00:00) Introduction
(02:50) Meet Briana, Pierre, and Ji-Youn
(06:00) Is "COVID anxiety" a real thing?
(10:49) What does years of public health abandonment do to us collectively?
(14:00) Collective care and what we owe each other
(23:33) Relationship breakdowns
(39:31) How to have COVID conversations/set your own boundaries
(53:10) Messages to other therapists
(59:58) SPEAK ON IT, PIERRE!! (if you listen to nothing else, listen to this!)

Find Pierre at Queering Psychology, Briana at her website, and Ji-Youn at their website. 

CREDITS
Public Health is Dead is created, hosted, written and produced by Daniella Barreto
Outro music for this episode by Alexandria Maillot

N.B. It’s a bad idea for you to take medical advice from podcasts. Good thing this show does not offer medical advice! The point of Public Health is Dead is to share experiences and information that might help public health as a field and increase our collective knowledge. As always, if you have particular personal medical concerns of your own you should talk to your own medical providers.

This is an independent, listener-supported show. If you like what you hear, and you'd like to support production costs for more of Public Health is Dead, visit publichealthisdead.com! 

In March 2003, one SARS patient showed up in a Vancouver emergency room and another went to a Toronto emergency room. But two very different sequences of events unfolded.

Dr. Lyne Filiatrault was working in the Vancouver ER that day. Her team leapt into action and—with a little luck and a lot of preparation—prevented SARS from spreading at the hospital. A government agency immediately put in protections and built a firewall against SARS in BC, protecting staff, patients, and the public. Nobody died.

In Toronto, however, SARS exploited a system unprepared for the unknown. It was the largest outbreak outside Asia. It shook the city and left healthcare workers and patients under-informed and under-protected. 44 people died. Many more contracted it as it was left to smoulder beneath shoddy protections.

In the aftermath, the SARS Commission report detailed the far-reaching failures in Toronto and how great work from healthcare workers and science advisors staved off a far worse outcome. The report laid out instructions for how to avoid such a preventable public health tragedy in the future. 

Hear how Dr. Filiatrault and her team put the precautionary principle into practice against SARS in 2003, what public health can still learn from this story for the events of today, and what we need from good public health leaders heading into a future where more pandemics threaten us all.

TRANSCRIPT HERE

(04:26) Chapter 1: Vancouver - Dr. Filiatrault's story
(18:34) Chapter 2: Toronto - A city unprepared
(35:58) Chapter 3: What makes a good public health response?
(50:01) Chapter 4: Safety at work
(53:05) Chapter 5: What's in a good public health leader?

*Correction: throughout this episode I refer to Scarborough Grace Hospital as Scarborough General Hospital, which is incorrect. Scarborough Grace Hospital is now called Birchmount Hospital and exists under the umbrella of the Scarborough Health Network, which also includes a Scarborough General Hospital.

LINKS/RESOURCES

What makes a good public health leader​
SARS Commission Final Report

CREDITS
Public Health is Dead is created, hosted, produced, written and edited by Daniella Barreto.
Music, sound design and mixing by Alexandria Maillot.
Fact checking and production support from Anika S.
Editing support from Kevin Ball, Anika S. and Lauren M.

*As this episode mentions, a disproportionate number of healthcare workers who keep the system running in Canada are Filipino. The Filipino community in Vancouver is reeling from a violent attack at this year's Lapu Lapu festival. Much of the healthcare we have access to in Canada works because of the frontline labour of Filipino people, many who are women and immigrants. If you can, instead of chipping in to support this episode, please consider sending funds to the ​community-led Kapwa fund ​*to support people affected by this awful event.**\

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N.B. It’s a bad idea for you to take medical advice from podcasts. Good thing this show does not offer medical advice! The point of Public Health is Dead is to share experiences and information that might help public health as a field and increase our collective knowledge. As always, if you have particular personal medical concerns of your own you should talk to your own medical providers about it because I am just a voice in your headphones. (Service providers might also benefit from the contents of this show.)

This is an independent, listener-supported show. If you like what you hear, and you'd like to support production costs for more of Public Health is Dead, visit publichealthisdead.com!