Health & Veritas

Howie and Harlan are joined by Yale School of Medicine neurologist Kevin Sheth to discuss how collaboration helps drive breakthroughs in brain health, including advances in detecting stroke and other neurological diseases earlier and more precisely. Harlan reflects on lessons from his family's recent experience navigating the healthcare system; Howie examines the expanding marketplace for GLP-1 weight-loss drugs and the challenges of ensuring safe and appropriate use.
Show notes:
The Family Perspective
Cleveland Clinic: Percutaneous Coronary Intervention
"What's the Difference Between a CCU and an ICU?"
Kevin Sheth
Alva Health
Mayo Clinic: Stroke
Video: Kevin Sheth at the Yale Innovation Summit
Sandra Saldana, PhD, MBA
"Buddy System" 
NIH: Multiple Principal Investigators
"Assessing the Decade of the Brain"
"Cerebrospinal fluid and plasma biomarkers in Alzheimer disease"
Kevin Sheth: "Burden of Ischemic and Hemorrhagic Stroke Across the US From 1990 to 2019" 
Endovascular Thrombectomy (EVT)
Ischemic vs Hemorrhagic Stroke
"What is cognitive reserve?" 
Cheaper Obesity Drugs
"Will Novo Nordisk's slashing of obesity drug prices save patients' money? It depends" 
"Novo Nordisk to halve US list price of Wegovy from 2027" 
"Walgreens Virtual Healthcare Adds Weight Management Services to Support Patients on Their Weight Loss Journey" 

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 economist Janet Currie to discuss how early-life investments in health, education, and environmental protection shape children's lifelong well-being and economic opportunity. Harlan highlights a new Medicare payment model that would reward measurable improvements in chronic disease outcomes; Howie reflects on the spread of medical misinformation and a new effort to push back.
Show notes:
The ACCESS Payment Model
CMS: ACCESS (Advancing Chronic Care with Effective, Scalable Solutions) Model
"ACCESS: What this new payment model means for physicians and patients"
"FDA Launches TEMPO: A First-of-Its-Kind Digital Health Pilot to Expand Access to Chronic Disease Technologies"
Janet Currie
"Welcoming Janet Currie: A Pioneer in the Economics of Children and Families Joins Yale"
Janet Currie: "Collective Bargaining in the Public Sector: The Effect of Legal Structure on Dispute Costs and Wages"
Janet Currie: "Child health as human capital"
Janet Currie: "Killing Me Softly: The Fetal Origins Hypothesis"
"Medicaid and Children's Health: 5 Issues to Watch Amid Recent Federal Changes"
Janet Currie: "Medicaid: What Does It Do, and Can We Do It Better?"
Janet Currie: "Does Head Start Make a Difference?"
Janet Currie: "Longer Term Effects of Head Start"
Janet Currie: "Lead and Juvenile Delinquency: New Evidence from Linked Birth, School, and Juvenile Detention Records"
Head Start Impact Study (HSIS) Series
Janet Currie: "Saving Babies: The Efficacy and Cost of Recent Changes in the Medicaid Eligibility of Pregnant Women"
Janet Currie: "Doctor Decision Making and Patient Outcomes"
Janet Currie's American Economic Association Presidential Address: "Investing in Children to Address the Child Mental Health Crisis"
"Addressing Common Misconceptions About the Child Mental Health Crisis"
Janet Currie: "To What Extent are Trends in Teen Mental Health Driven by Changes in Reporting?"
Janet Currie: "Rules versus Discretion: Treatment of Mental Illness in US Adolescents" 
Misinformation
Mayo Clinic: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS): Symptoms and causes
"Inside RFK Jr.'s push against the flu vaccine that he links to his voice condition"
Health & Veritas Episode 197: Peter Hotez: Mapping the Anti-Science Machine
"It's time for a new era of advocacy for physicians"
"Childhood Vaccination Rates Have Dropped Again, C.D.C. Data Shows"
"Take It From a Scientist. Facts Matter, and They Don't Care How You Feel."
"A small study on Covid vaccine safety sparks an online tempest"
Health & Veritas Episode 192: Akiko Iwasaki: What Have We Learned About Long COVID?

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 Evangelos Oikonomou, a cardiologist and data scientist at the Yale School of Medicine, to discuss how AI can extract overlooked signs of heart disease from routine ECGs, imaging studies, and electronic health records—and how to deploy these AI tools responsibly at scale. Harlan explains whether a widely covered study suggesting that coffee may lower the risk of dementia should change your daily brew; Howie grapples with the ethical questions surrounding a proposed hepatitis B vaccine trial in Guinea-Bissau.
Show notes:
Coffee and Dementia
"Coffee and Tea Intake, Dementia Risk, and Cognitive Function"
"Coffee linked to slower brain ageing in study of 130,000 people"
"2 to 3 Cups of Coffee a Day May Reduce Dementia Risk. But Not if It's Decaf."
Evangelos Oikonomou
"What Is Opportunistic Screening in Healthcare?"
Evangelos Oikonomou: "Artificial intelligence in medical imaging: A radiomic guide to precision phenotyping of cardiovascular disease"
Evangelos Oikonomou: "Non-invasive detection of coronary inflammation using computed tomography and prediction of residual cardiovascular risk (the CRISP CT study): a post-hoc analysis of prospective outcome data"
Evangelos Oikonomou: "Artificial intelligence-guided detection of under-recognised cardiomyopathies on point-of-care cardiac ultrasonography: a multicentre study"
"Fellow Focus in Four: Evangelos Oikonomou, MD, DPhil, Cardiovascular Medicine"
Health & Veritas Episode 80: Josh Geballe: Turning Yale Innovation into Startups
Evangelos Oikonomou: "TARGET-AI: A Foundational Approach for the Targeted Deployment of Artificial Intelligence Electrocardiography in the Electronic Health Record"
"Using AI to Guide AI"
"Are A.I. Tools Making Doctors Worse at Their Jobs?"
"The Robot Doctor Will See You Now"
Health & Veritas Episode 207: Robert Wachter: AI Is Already Remaking Healthcare
"A large language model for complex cardiology care"
Vaccine Trial Ethics
WHO: Statement on the planned hepatitis B birth dose vaccine trial in Guinea-Bissau
"Planned US-funded baby vaccine trial in Guinea-Bissau blasted by WHO"
"Guinea-Bissau suspends US-funded vaccine trial as African scientists question its motives"
"Guinea-Bissau Installs Military Ruler After Claims of a 'Fabricated' Coup"

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 geneticist and endocrinologist Joel Hirschhorn to discuss how thousands of genetic variants collectively shape disease and traits like height and obesity. Harlan reviews new research on diet soda and dementia; Howie surveys recent market swings, including the rise of Solace Health and the decline of Hims & Hers.
Show notes:
Diet Soda and Dementia
"Soda consumption and risk of dementia: The Northern Manhattan study" 
"Why One Cardiologist Has Drunk His Last Diet Soda"
Joel Hirschhorn
National Human Genome Research Institute: Mendelian Inheritance
MedlinePlus: FGFR3 gene 
Cleveland Clinic: Achondroplasia
National Human Genome Research: Polygenic Trait 
Hirschhorn Lab
"A saturated map of common genetic variants associated with human height" 
"What are single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs)?"
ScienceDirect: Genetic Variant
Joel Hirschhorn: "Genome-Wide Association Study of Quantitative Kidney Function in 52,531 Individuals with Diabetes Identifies Five Diabetes-Specific Loci"
Joel Hirschhorn: "Polygenic prediction of body mass index and obesity through the life course and across ancestries"
"Obesity Prediction Could Be Guided by Genetic Risk Scores"
"Genome-wide association study shows BCL11A associated with persistent fetal hemoglobin and amelioration of the phenotype of β-thalassemia" 
Society for Science: Noam Elkies
MIT: Eric S. Lander
Ups and Downs
"Understanding Creative Destruction: Driving Innovation and Economic Change"
"Solace Health raises $130M series C for advocacy platform"
"Molina Healthcare's stocks fall as company plans exit from Medicare Advantage" 
"Centene swings to loss but predicts stabilization in 2026"
"UnitedHealth limps into 2026 with a smaller business and fresh challenges"
"Hims & Hers Falls 14% After Pulling Copycat Wegovy Pill—Novo Nordisk Up 8%" 
"Compounding and the FDA: Questions and Answers"

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 an escalating measles outbreak in the U.S. and a project piloted by Yale School of Medicine professor Erica Spatz to deliver preventative care in barbershops and beauty salons. Also examined: flu season, nipah virus, and the perils of focusing on healthcare business models.
Show notes: 
Measles
CDC: Measles Outbreak Associated with an Infectious Traveler—Colorado, May–June 2025
CDC: Measles Cases and Outbreaks
Snohomish County Health Department: Snohomish County Confirms Three New Measles Cases
"Measles in an ICE facility is a public health failure"
Value-Based Care
"Value-Based Care: What It Is, and Why It's Needed"
"Supporting Value-Based Health Care—Aligning Financial and Legal Accountability"
American Hospital Association: 3 Ways AI Can Improve Revenue-Cycle Management
Preventative Cardiology
Yale School of Medicine: Erica Spatz, MD, MHS
Pressure Check
Marketplace Health Insurance
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services: Marketplace 2026 Open Enrollment Period Report: National Snapshot
Respiratory Illness
CDC: Weekly US Influenza Surveillance Report: Key Updates for Week 3, ending January 24, 2026
"After 3-week decline, flu cases rise across the US; RSV, COVID activity high in certain states"
Nipah Virus
CDC: About Nipah Virus
WHO: Nipah virus infection—India

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.