Health & Veritas

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.

Howie and Harlan discuss the end of flu season, vaccine effectiveness, and the challenge of rebuilding public confidence in immunization. Also: new cholesterol guidelines that push earlier treatment, measles outbreaks and the erosion of herd immunity, a court ruling pausing changes to vaccine guidelines, signs of stabilization at the NIH, new evidence on football and brain injury, and a MedPAC report suggesting Medicare Advantage plans are overpaid.
Show notes:
Looking Back at the Flu Season
CDC 2024–2025 Influenza Season Summary
CDC: Influenza-Associated Pediatric Deaths 
CDC Weekly US Influenza Surveillance Report
CDC: Interim Estimates of 2025–26 Seasonal Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness 
New Cholesterol Guidelines
2026 ACC/AHA/AACVPR/ABC/ACPM/ADA/AGS/APhA/ASPC/NLA/PCNA Guideline on the Management of Dyslipidemia
"ACC/American Heart Association Issue Updated Guideline for Managing Lipids, Cholesterol"
Lipoprotein (a): Levels & Testing
Apolipoprotein B (Apo B) Test 
"Major changes to cardiovascular guidelines suggest taking statins as young as 30" 
"Statins: How They Work & Side Effects"
American Heart Association PREVENT Online Calculator 
Measles Update
CDC: Measles Cases and Outbreaks 
U.S. Measles Tracker 
South Carolina Department of Public Health: 2025 Measles Outbreak 
Utah Department of Health and Human Services: Utah measles outbreak response 
CDC Measles Vaccine Recommendations 
What's Happening at the NIH?
"NIH will spend its full budget this year, agency director promises House appropriators" 
"NIH chief calms nerves on grants, hiring" 
"WATCH: Dr. Jay Bhattacharya testifies at NIH oversight hearing before House panel" 
Harlan Krumholz: "Grant Applications With a Result-Based Orientation" 
New Mexico's Measles Success
CDC: Measles Outbreak—New Mexico, 2025 
Football, Brain Health, and the Biology of Repetitive Hits
"Cognitive and Neuropsychiatric Function in Former American Football Players" 
"Inflammation, Limbic White Matter Microstructure, and Clinical Symptoms in Retired American Football Players With Repetitive Head Impacts" 
ACIP Lawsuit
"Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP)" 
"Judge blocks RFK Jr. advisers' vaccine changes" 
"Federal judge stalls health secretary RFK Jr.'s overhaul of vaccine policy" 
"Federal Judge Puts Brakes on RFK Jr's Vaccine Agenda" 
Medicare Advantage Under the Microscope
MedPAC: March 2026 Report to the Congress: Medicare Payment Policy 
"Congressional advisers call to rein in Medicare Advantage spending amid industry pressure"

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.