The Present Illness

Community Care Isn’t a Simple Fix for Veteran Care - One Veteran’s Emergency Reveals the Cost of VA Cuts.

• Scott Colom wins Senate seat in Mississippi - first Black senator in state since Reconstruction
• Lynching in America database
• Mississippi Couldn’t Stop Scott Colom’s Victory—but It Wasn’t for Lack of Trying

Event: Alyssa will be at Books, Inc. in Palo Alto on Tuesday, November 17, in conversation with Matt O’Hara talking about his book The Flying Death: Poison, Plunder, and The Quest for A Miracle Medicine in the Amazon.

VA Hospital

• How Trump’s Dismantling of the VA Left a Veterans Hospital in Crisis
• Deported veterans celebrate Veterans’ Day in Mexico
• Active duty spouses deported
• Censorship in response to VA pulmonologists warning about cuts

More Topics

• Dr. Ann Lawani, USF nurse abducted by ICE
• Emergency physician shooting
• Nvidia Chinese Spy scandal
• Pete Hegseth impeachment procedural vote

💊Take Two and Call Me in the Morning💊

• Latest Iran Lego video
• Serena Williams/IShowSpeed battle on the tennis court
• Holiday Knitting - Doodles by Pacific Knit - examples of cute socks
• Woobles Advent Calendar

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Credits

• Production by Arghavan Salles & Alyssa Burgart
• Editing by Alyssa Burgart
• Music by Joseph Uphoff
• Social Media by Arghavan Salles

Don’t take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This show is for informational purposes, is meant to be fun, and is certainly not medical advice. Please, take your medical questions to a qualified professional. Nothing we say represents our employers or anyone else. 

So many firsts in the Midterms! Big Healthcare wins! The HELP Committee has a lot of changes ahead!

Note: Russell Brand verdict

Big Firsts in the Midterms

• Women governors make history
• Black governors make history
• 10 governors make history
• Trans and non-binary people elected to office
• Age of current members of Congress
• JD Vance’s post about the election

Health Committee

• HELP Committee and the Health Subcommittee - Politico
• Meet the Doctors and Scientists Who Won in the Midterms - TIME

💊Take Two and Call Me in the Morning💊

• Mockumentary about humans taking robots’ jobs
• Arghavan gathered many funny posts about the midterms across three posts on her Instagram
• Jesse Welles’ Midterms song

Text us!

Thanks for listening to The Present Illness! 

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Credits

• Production by Arghavan Salles & Alyssa Burgart
• Editing by Alyssa Burgart
• Music by Joseph Uphoff
• Social Media by Arghavan Salles

Don’t take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This show is for informational purposes, is meant to be fun, and is certainly not medical advice. Please, take your medical questions to a qualified professional. Nothing we say represents our employers or anyone else. 

Matthew Perry spent $7 million on rehab. The doctors who sold him ketamine charged $55,000. Plus, Tennessee execution physician thinks he’s like Jesus.

Note: This episode is a couple of days later than usual due to unforeseen circumstances.

• Sir Patrick Stewart’s death
• A round up of reactions to Sir Patrick Stewart’s death

Matthew Perry

• Matthew Perry’s autobiography
• Five people charged in Matthew Perry’s death
• Matthew Perry’s earlier hospitalization

Mark Fowler

• New Yorker interview with Mark Fowler “I’m not incompetent.”
• Unmasked: the doctor who helps put prisoners to death
• Episode 54: we talked about Christa Pike’s attempted execution
• Episode 53: we discuss the unique effects of ketamine

Other News:

• JD Vance complains about hospital interpreters
• RFK Jr’s racist comments

💊Take Two and Call Me in the Morning💊

• Tom Hoyle and MAGA cult, interview on The Handbasket
• Saerijane’s video of fat jumping onto her face

Text us!

Thanks for listening to The Present Illness! 

Follow us on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube @ThePresentIllness

Credits

• Production by Arghavan Salles & Alyssa Burgart
• Editing by Alyssa Burgart
• Music by Joseph Uphoff
• Social Media by Arghavan Salles

Don’t take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This show is for informational purposes, is meant to be fun, and is certainly not medical advice. Please, take your medical questions to a qualified professional. Nothing we say represents our employers or anyone else. 

What do we really see in You Can See Everything? Never forget that Elizabeth Holmes is a lying liar.

You Can See Everything

• Wired’s interview with Nathan Fielder
• Q&A with Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim at the New York Film Festival
• Whistleblower Tyler Schultz’s essay for STAT News
• John Carreyrou’s essay about You Can See Everything
• Reporter Matthew Herper’s essay

💊Take Two and Call Me in the Morning💊

• 2 Frog 601: muppet Les Mis parody
• Perla Soleil’s Dog on Neighborhood watch
• Richard Scarry’s Busytown with Marxist quotes

Text us!

Thanks for listening to The Present Illness! 

Follow us on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube @ThePresentIllness

Credits

• Production by Arghavan Salles & Alyssa Burgart
• Editing by Alyssa Burgart
• Music by Joseph Uphoff
• Social Media by Arghavan Salles

Don’t take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This show is for informational purposes, is meant to be fun, and is certainly not medical advice. Please, take your medical questions to a qualified professional. Nothing we say represents our employers or anyone else. 

Woman collects mountain of evidence that her co-worker poisoned her - now his criminal record has been expunged! Plus, we help you get ready to watch You Can See Everything about Elizabeth Holmes

Note: Summary of the new White House press secretary’s debut

Cadmium Poisoning

• Rong Yuan poisoned by David Xu
• Rong Yuan’s report
• Xu’s conviction expunged
• Video of David Xu poisoning Yuan’s water
• Texas attorney poisoned wife

You Can See Everything

• You can see everything
• Fall of Theranos
• Whistleblower Tyler Shultz
• The Dropout - fictional
• The Dropout Podcast - investigative journalism
• The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley - 2019 documentary

Other news

• Representative Ilhan Omar’s home raided by DHS
• Hundreds of trees cut down on DC golf course
• Sixth measles death
• RFK Jr announces vaccine clinic at NIH to investigate vaccine injuries

💊Take Two and Call Me in the Morning💊

• Thee Make That Magic series on Disney villains that had a point: Ursula, The Sanderson Sisters
• Coyote vs ACME

Text us!

Thanks for listening to The Present Illness! 

Follow us on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube @ThePresentIllness

Credits

• Production by Arghavan Salles & Alyssa Burgart
• Editing by Alyssa Burgart
• Music by Joseph Uphoff
• Social Media by Arghavan Salles

Don’t take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This show is for informational purposes, is meant to be fun, and is certainly not medical advice. Please, take your medical questions to a qualified professional. Nothing we say represents our employers or anyone else. 

Are we all going to get the plague? Why did Tennessee’s execution of Christa Pike “fail”? Unethical hep B research from RFK Jr continues. Measles update.

Note: Reactions to the president’s calls for attacking LA and SD (and his speech on Monday) are here

Plague

• Initial reports about person who died in Russia
• What Russia says about the person who died
• What was known as of 10/6/2026
• Dr. Angela Rasmussen’s overview of the situation
• Why Annie Jacobsen may not be the best source on this
• 2015 article Inside America’s secretive biolabs
• 2025 editorial On the Controversies Surrounding the Lab-Leak Theory of COVID-19

“Failed” Execution of Christa Pike

• Christa Pike, Child Rape Victim, Faces Execution for Crime She Committed as a Teenager
• American Board of Anesthesiologists prohibits anesthesiologists from participating in state-sanctioned killing
• Tennessee’s Medical Ethics Defense Act
• Will physicians invoke the Medical Ethics Defense Act to prevent state-sanctioned killing?
• Trump approved the military's 1st firing squad execution since WWII
• Exonerated Play (2000), TV film (2005)

Other updates:

• 5th measles death
• Update on unethical Guinea-Bissau study
• Hegseth’s humiliation kink
• FBI denies investigation into Nolan Wells’s death
• Nolan Wells autopsy
• Pathological findings in drowning
• “When Anesthesia Goes Wrong” Atlantic article on mitochondrial condition

💊Take Two and Call Me in the Morning💊

• Raha Akhavan becomes first Iranian woman to achieve open swimming Triple Crown
• Poems: “Failed ChatGPT” - Kate Baer
• Present for Arghavan: Persepolis pin

Text us!

Thanks for listening to The Present Illness! 

Follow us on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube @ThePresentIllness

Credits

• Production by Arghavan Salles & Alyssa Burgart
• Editing by Alyssa Burgart
• Music by Joseph Uphoff
• Social Media by Arghavan Salles

Don’t take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This show is for informational purposes, is meant to be fun, and is certainly not medical advice. Please, take your medical questions to a qualified professional. Nothing we say represents our employers or anyone else. 

Why do universities protect rapists? What happened at Cornell? Why was there so much ketamine? What is Title IX?  All that and more as we discuss Cornell and seven students being sued by survivor Jane Doe.

Stumbling in from:

• MAHA Summit agenda

Fact check:

• We call for the DA in the Cornell case to be replaced. NY Governor did so between recording and publication.
• The latest story to spark protest in India relates to the girl attacked in the park, but it is the latest in a series of attacks on girls that has ignited outrage.

Cornell University and DA Protects Rapists

• Independent Case Archive: Cornell Seven
• The civil lawsuit filed by Jane Doe
• Coverage of the lawsuit by the Cornell Sun
• Arghavan has multiple posts covering this story, including the names of the 7 men named in the lawsuit, in detail. You can find them here.
• The district attorney’s explanation for why he did not pursue the case in 2024
• Study on coercive SA behaviors
• SA as real threat to women

Ketamine

• Ketamine is a medication used for anesthesia
• Ketamine explainer; and another one
• Dept of Justice pamphlet on Drug Facilitated SA

Title IX

• Images from: Society of Women Engineers
• Politico article on Trump administration’s repeal of Biden
• Flip the Script approach can reduce SA by 46%
• Jennifer Freyd’s Center for Institutional Courage
• NWLC warns of harms to student survivors

Bonus News:

• Update on Riley Gaines case against NCAA
• 15 year-old girl abused in Tunisia
• Slew of rape cases in India
• 11 women found dead near Johannesburg, South Africa
• Fat Bear Week winner announced
• Lindsay Clancy trial update

💊Take Two and Call Me in the Morning💊

• Dimpey Studios birth control clip
• Jamiroquai Virtual Insanity song banned from the OR ; watch the OG music video

Text us!

Thanks for listening to The Present Illness! 

Follow us on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube @ThePresentIllness

Credits

• Production by Arghavan Salles & Alyssa Burgart
• Editing by Alyssa Burgart
• Music by Joseph Uphoff
• Social Media by Arghavan Salles

Don’t take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This show is for informational purposes, is meant to be fun, and is certainly not medical advice. Please, take your medical questions to a qualified professional. Nothing we say represents our employers or anyone else. 

Good news only for our First Anniversary of The Present Illness! Ms. Rachel’s Invitation to Moral Courage. Door Dash settlement for workers. Gondwana Supercontinent.

• Arghavan’s post with videos of the president without audio

Ms Rachel Advocates for Kids’ Safety

• Profile of Ms. Rachel in The Guardian
• Profile of Ms. Rachel in Rolling Stone
• Ms. Rachel’s support of Black-owned businesses
• Ms. Rachel’s Subway Takes
• Our episode on ICE detention with Dr. Lara Jones

More Good News Stories

• Pelican asks for help
• Trumpeter saves song
• Miley Cyrus on Dolly Parton mentorship
• Dolly Parton Airport
• Gondwana Supercontinent - studies one and two
• The hole in the ozone is closing
• DoorDash agrees to give $131 million in lost wages and fees to NYC and its workers

💊Take Two and Call Me in the Morning💊

• Josh Ramsay from Marianas Trench covers Defying Gravity
• Squirrels look like bobbleheads
• Squirrel Maxine gets her teeth filed—and more!

Text us!

Thanks for listening to The Present Illness! 

Follow us on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube @ThePresentIllness

Credits

• Production by Arghavan Salles & Alyssa Burgart
• Editing by Alyssa Burgart
• Music by Joseph Uphoff
• Social Media by Arghavan Salles

Don’t take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This show is for informational purposes, is meant to be fun, and is certainly not medical advice. Please, take your medical questions to a qualified professional. Nothing we say represents our employers or anyone else. 

Arghavan is suing the National Institutes of Health. Sydney Sweeney’s ads fuel sports betting. Ed Sheeran fires Macklemore from tour to appease a billionaire, Epstein-connected stadium owner. Mitch McConnell would probably fail a capacity assessment. Hyrox poop challenge.

• Salles v NIH lawsuit
• ACLU press release re: NIH lawsuit
• Don’t forget to check your voter registration!

Advertising, Sports, and Violence Against Women

• Sydney Sweeney’s ad
• Women athletes respond to the ad
• Calloway golf club ad
• Steve Sarkisian is dismissive of Holly Rowe
• Arch Manning’s comments
• Steve Sarkisian’s statement

Macklemore Fired for Promoting Peace

• Macklemore’s initial statement
• Ed Sheeran’s statement
• Robert Kraft’s statement
• Aaron Rowe’s statement
• Lukas Graham’s statement
• Finneas’s statement

Other Topics:

• Pennsylvania’s fourth measles death
• Mitch McConnell round-up
• Hyrox race becomes biohazard
• Jasmine Crockett honors Chris Brown
• Airlines cut back flights due to fuel costs

💊Take Two and Call Me in the Morning💊

• Matthew Rhys takes home two Emmys
• South Park cartoon becomes South America
• Kitty in a Lion Bag

Text us!

Thanks for listening to The Present Illness! 

Follow us on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube @ThePresentIllness

Credits

• Production by Arghavan Salles & Alyssa Burgart
• Editing by Alyssa Burgart
• Music by Joseph Uphoff
• Social Media by Arghavan Salles

Don’t take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This show is for informational purposes, is meant to be fun, and is certainly not medical advice. Please, take your medical questions to a qualified professional. Nothing we say represents our employers or anyone else. 

Mamdani releases 9-11 files. Open AI takes the credit for math program solve. Whose work did they steal? Louisiana tries to get the Fifth Circuit hears to impose national restrictions on Mifepristone.

Note: Mamdani releases over 170,000 pages of documents on 9/11

• Falling Man essay
• Essay about Bobby McIlvaine and his family’s grief after his death
• Humans of New York shares Tyree Bacon’s story of how rescuing a burn victim saved his life
• The story of the so-called Dust Lady (Marcy Borders)
• Some moving audios to listen to, if so inclined:
• Linda Gronlund called her sister from flight 93
• Betty Ong called the airline from flight 11
• Brian Sweeney called his wife from flight 175
• Melissa Doi called 911 from the south tower
• Kevin Cosgrove called 911 from the south tower
• Brooke Jackman called her mom from the north tower

AI Math Feud:

• Summary of the Navier-Stokes/Buckmaster/Alpöge/OpenAI/Anthropic story
• Arghavan’s post including statements from OpenAI, Buckmaster, and Alpöge
• Jacob Coxon’s original posts about his resignation

Mailed abortion pills, FDA, Louisiana:

• Fifth Circuit Judges Press Louisiana on Standing as Mifepristone Stays Available by Mail with No Ruling Yet
• Ectopic Pregnancy Deaths Have Nearly Doubled. It’s Worse in States With Abortion Bans.

Other News

• Watch the Elizabeth Holmes documentary trailer (Book: Bad Blood; Alyssa’s essay on Holmes)
• Lindsay Clancy mistrial—jurors speak out
• McConnell watch update - expected to vote on farm bill on Sept 14; meat processing, veterinary care etc
• Sarah Kendzior’s Essay on Iran, Israel, and Epstein

💊Take Two and Call Me in the Morning💊

• Hamilton/EDM mashup
• Hamilton cast performs My Shot at 2016 Obama White House event. (note: the play was already on Broadway at the time after opening in August 2015.)
• Dog wants his toys repaired when owner is at sewing machine

Text us!

Thanks for listening to The Present Illness! 

Follow us on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube @ThePresentIllness

Credits

• Production by Arghavan Salles & Alyssa Burgart
• Editing by Alyssa Burgart
• Music by Joseph Uphoff
• Social Media by Arghavan Salles

Don’t take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This show is for informational purposes, is meant to be fun, and is certainly not medical advice. Please, take your medical questions to a qualified professional. Nothing we say represents our employers or anyone else.