Why Should I Trust You?

That’s the challenge facing Dr. Sandro Galea, dean of the brand-new Bursky School of Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis. It is the first major school of public health to open in the United States after the pandemic.

In the wake of COVID, with trust in public health fractured and many Americans viewing the field as partisan, Galea is advocating that his field engage rather than draw lines. He believes public health will be stronger if it listens to all sides and embraces disagreement while still advocating for its values. He argues that the strategy is to widen the tent rather than shrink it, without compromising science or principles, or engaging with bad-faith actors.

The approach raises a critical question: as public health endures crippling funding cuts, vaccine policy is in turmoil, Medicaid faces major spending reductions, and trust in scientific expertise is low, is this the time for public health to reach across the divide, or resist and fight? 

Hosts:

Brinda Adhikari

Tom Johnson

Maggie Bartlett

Dr. Mark Abdelmalek (off this wk)

Guest:

Dr. Sandro Galea, Dean of the Bursky School of Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis. 

Substack:

https://sandrogalea.substack.com/

Author of Why Health? What We Need to Think About When We Think About Health

Purple Public Health:

https://healthierfutureslab.org/research/purple-public-health

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Dr. Debra Houry, the former CDC chief medical officer; emergency physician Dr. Craig Spencer; pediatrician and author Dr. Joel “Gator” Warsh; and MAHA supporter Nancy Fuller join us as we dig into President Trump’s brand-new executive order revamping the recommended schedule for vaccinating America’s children.

The order reduces the number of vaccines recommended universally for children from 17 to 11, calls for the MMR vaccine to be broken up into three separate shots, and directs the administration to explore spacing childhood vaccines out across separate visits. It also directs the Department of Justice to examine whether parents’ rights are being protected in states that do not offer religious exemptions from school vaccination requirements.

So…what exactly happened yesterday? Does it actually change anything? How are frontline doctors and MAHA supporters processing the President’s controversial comments at the signing ceremony? Is this latest effort to overhaul the schedule heading straight back to the courts? And how might this high-profile move affect the nation’s growing health polarization and eroding trust in public health?

Hosts:

Brinda Adhikari

Tom Johnson

Maggie Bartlett

Dr. Mark Abdelmalek (on call)

Guests:

Dr. Debra Houry, former Chief Medical Officer, CDC; emergency physician

Dr. Joel "Gator" Warsh, pediatrician, Integrative Pediatrics; substack author Between a Shot and a Hard Place

Dr. Craig Spencer, ER physician, professor Brown School of Public Health

Nancy Fuller, MAHA supporter, mother to a son with autism and epilepsy

Sources:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/07/public-health-maha-rfk/688014/?gift=jf1JNTlPW3HiCUoNqhv9pL4QDDQrO5E0bwhsoINyCrk

https://drgator.substack.com/p/breaking-trump-just-tried-to-rewrite

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What if one of the biggest public health debates of the next decade isn't about vaccines, Ozempic, or chronic disease? What if it's about air conditioning? The world’s temperatures are getting dangerously warmer. Europe is the world's fastest-warming continent with estimates that this summer the heat contributed to 10,000–14,000 deaths over just a few weeks. The United States suffers deadly heat waves too. But Europe experiences much higher heat-wave related death tolls. One major difference people are pointing to? Air conditioning. Americans have a LOT more of it than Europeans do.

Defenders of Europe's lower use of air conditioning argue that simply installing more AC isn't the answer. Critics say: this has gone too far. Too many people are dying. Just get air conditioning already.

But beneath this debate are some very big questions: What do we owe one another in a warming world? What does adaptation look like? And who bears the costs when our solutions create new problems?

Hosts:

Brinda Adhikari

Tom Johnson (off)

Maggie Bartlett

Dr. Mark Abdelmalek (off)

Guests:

Noah Smith, economist, publisher of Noahopinion substack.

Thomas Chatterton Williams, staff writer The Atlantic,, author of Summer of Our Discontent and Self Portrait in Black and White.

David Wallace Wells, writer/columnist, The New York Times.  Author The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming. 

Related articles by our guests:

Europe's Resistance to Air Conditioning is Driving It Insane: Noah Smith

https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/europes-resistance-to-ac-is-driving

The Overlooked Reason Why Europe Doesn't Have AC: Thomas Chatterton Williams

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/06/europe-heat-wave-air-conditioning/687729/

We Need to Retrofit the Planet. The Heat Wave Proves It: David Wallace Wells

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/01/opinion/heat-wave-europe-america.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

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Few figures in America are as polarizing as Dr. Anthony Fauci. To some, he is the veteran scientist who helped steer the nation through the COVID-19 pandemic. To others, he is the face of government overreach who suppressed the lab leak theory to avoid accountability for research funding decisions they believe contributed to the pandemic.

This week, those worlds collided in a Senate hearing room as the retired former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases was subpoenaed to testify before an inquiry led by his longtime critic, Republican Senator Rand Paul. Fauci accused the senator of having an "unhinged obsession" with him and seeing him sent to jail before invoking his Fifth Amendment right and declining to answer questions. Senator Paul, in turn, accused Fauci of deception and of refusing to accept responsibility.

In today's episode, we ask: Why, six years after the pandemic began, are we still talking about Anthony Fauci? Was this hearing a legitimate effort to uncover new facts about COVID-19's origins, assign accountability and learn from the past, or was it driven by political point scoring and vengeance? 

Joining us are Dr. Katelyn Jetelina of Your Local Epidemiologist and David Wallace-Wells of The New York Times to unpack what remains one of the most consequential and bitter public health debates of our time.

Hosts:

Brinda Adhikari

Tom Johnson

Maggie Bartlett

Dr. Mark Abdelmalek

Guests:

Katelyn Jetelina, founder and CEO of Your Local Epidemiologist

David Wallace-Wells, columnist and opinion writer, The New York Times

Jetelina on Fauci:

https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/its-time-to-leave-the-man-alone

Wallace-Wells on Fauci:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/04/24/magazine/dr-fauci-pandemic.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

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If a new pandemic struck tomorrow and scientists developed a vaccine in record time, would you take it? In this episode, we hear from a group of friends of the show and newcomers who describe themselves as vaccine-hesitant. Once broadly supportive of vaccines, they explain how their experiences during the pandemic changed their views. From concerns about mRNA technology and the speed of development to public health messaging and mandates, we explore how and why their perspectives changed, and trust was lost. While a large body of scientific research holds that the COVID vaccines were safe and significantly reduced severe illness and death, we examine why that evidence remains unpersuasive to them today, just as it was during the pandemic. Finally, we tackle what that means for their trust in the broader medical and public health community today.

Hosts:

Brinda Adhikari

Tom Johnson

Maggie Bartlett

Dr. Mark Abdelmalek

Guests:

Aaron Everitt, Ft. Collins, Colorado

Jeff Hutt, Corpus Christi, Texas

Lori O'Connell, Darlington, Pennsylvania

Daniel DeLuca, Athens, Ohio

Theresa Dixon, Frederick, Maryland

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Dr. Robert Malone and Dr. Craig Spencer are two influential voices on health in America today, reaching very different audiences. And it's no secret that on many critical issues, they fundamentally disagree. Yet as a deadly Ebola outbreak unfolds in Central Africa, they find themselves agreeing on more than you (or they) might expect. 

In this episode, the two physicians discuss what allowed the outbreak to spiral, the geopolitical priorities that shape the world's response to outbreaks (too often reacting to crises rather than investing in preparedness), whether the dismantling of parts of America's global health infrastructure played a role, and what America's role should be in supporting global public health going forward. Dr. Malone also opens up about his break with the MAHA movement and its leadership, and where he disagrees with the administration's approach to global public health.

Hosts:

Brinda Adhikari

Tom Johnson

Dr. Mark Abdelmalek

Maggie Bartlett (producer)

Guests:

Dr. Robert Malone, physician, vaccine researcher. 

Dr. Craig Spencer, physician, public health professor Brown School of Public Health.

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We have a good one in store for you, we are recording it on Thursday morning, so you'll see it on here in the afternoon. Thanks for understanding and see you soon!

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One year ago, the Trump administration dismantled USAID, America's largest foreign aid agency. The administration argued the agency had become wasteful, ideological, and ineffective. Critics warned the consequences would be measured in lives lost.

A year later, what actually happened?

We speak with two individuals who know the agency and aid landscape, inside and out: Andrew Natsios, who served as USAID administrator under President George W. Bush, and Jeremy Konyndyk, a senior USAID official under the Obama and Biden administrations.

Did the warnings about the human cost of cutting aid come true? What reforms did USAID need but never receive? How much authority should a president have to reshape America's foreign aid? And what does the dismantling of USAID mean for America's role in the world?

This is a conversation about the future of U.S. foreign aid, one year after one of the most consequential changes to American foreign policy in generations.

Hosts:

Brinda Adhikari

Tom Johnson

Maggie Bartlett (producer)

Dr. Mark Abdelmalek (off)

Guests:

Andrew Natsios, former head of USAID under George W. Bush 2001-2006; author of Guns Are Not Enough: Foreign Aid in the National Interest; teaches at the Bush School of Government at Texas A and M University

Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International and a former senior USAID official who served in both the Obama and Biden administrations, leading its response to everything from Ebola to Covid-19. 

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On the very day the Supreme Court handed a major legal victory to Bayer Monsanto, a ruling backed by the Trump administration but viewed by many in the MAHA movement as a betrayal, two regenerative farmers were invited to the Oval Office.

They expected to witness President Trump sign an executive order promoting the kind of farming they've spent decades championing: bringing the natural ecosystem back to the farm, and thus restoring soil health and reducing reliance on pesticides.

Instead, they found themselves in the middle of a last-minute policy debate involving President Trump, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins, and Farm Bureau President Zippy Duvall.

What did that moment reveal about the competing pressures on the administration? More broadly, can regenerative agriculture move beyond a niche movement? And how do its advocates respond to critics who argue that today's farming methods work, are proven safe, and that transitioning away from them is impractical?

This week, we're joined by regenerative farming pioneers Will Harris and Dr. Jonathan Lundgren to discuss what they witnessed in the Oval Office and whether we are moving closer to a regenerative farming future. 

Hosts:

Brinda Adhikari

Tom Johnson

Maggie Bartlett

Dr. Mark Abdelmalek (off)

Guests:

Will Harris, fourth-generation cattleman and the owner of White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Georgia, He has served as President of the Board of Georgia Organics and as Beef Director for the American Grassfed Association.

Dr. Jonathan Lundgren, agro-ecologist and the founder of the Ecdysis Foundation and Blue Dasher Farm in Estelline, South Dakota. Spent more than a decade as a scientist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

An essay by Jon Jon Lundgren on the meeting:

https://www.ecdysis.bio/post/five-minutes

Politico:

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/01/trump-oval-maha-policy-live-debate-00983992

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It’s almost Independence Day, and we’re exploring one of the most influential political philosophies in America: libertarianism.

In the age of medical freedom and MAHA, libertarian ideas are helping shape debates over vaccines, public health, food regulation, and the role of government. But what exactly is libertarianism? Why has it become so persuasive to so many Americans? And where does today's movement depart from its roots?

Our guest is Katherine Mangu-Ward, Editor-in-Chief of Reason magazine, the country's leading libertarian publication.

We trace the history of modern libertarianism and its influence on today's politics from marijuana legalization and same-sex marriage to debates over tariffs, war, immigration enforcement, and executive power. We also examine where libertarian principles intersect with, and sometimes clash with, MAHA, asking whether a philosophy centered on individual liberty can support vaccine requirements, pesticide bans, or greater government regulation of the food industry.

Hosts:

Brinda Adhikari

Tom Johnson

Maggie Bartlett (off)

Dr. Mark Abdelmalek (off)

Guest:

Katherine Mangu-Ward, editor-in-chief, Reason magazine, widely considered the nation's most famous publication dedicated to libertarian ideas. 
Frequent guest author in the New York Times and other publications. 

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