ATS Breathe Easy

Regulation is key to keeping our air clean, which in turn keeps us healthy. But the Trump Administration has been cutting funding and attempting to slash important clean air rules that jeopardize the planet and our health. What do these policy changes mean, and how can organizations help fight back? Part of the answer is going to federal courts. Nicholas Nassikas, MD, Harvard Medical School, and A...

 The "One Big Beautiful Bill" passed as HR1 is projected to dramatically cut Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Host and Air Health Our Health podcast creator Erika Moseson, MD, MA, speaks with Texas-based pediatric pulmonologist Shade Afolabi, MD, about how these potential cuts could lead to devastating consequences, including children being unable to access medical care...

As 2025 comes to a close, the ATS Breathe Easy podcast is highlighting one of our most important episodes of the year on the importance of environmental justice, both for the quality of our air and for the quality of life of future generations.  Erika Moseson, MD, of the Air Health Our Heath podcast hosts this week's episode with guest Daniel Croft, MD, MPH, ATSF. Dr. Croft is associate professor...

 Endotrachael intubation is a highly important critical care procedure, and as such, clinicians are working to improve the procedure to ensure the best patient outcomes. As Stephanie DeMasi, MD, MS, assistant professor of emergency medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, goes through the detailed review she wrote, along with her colleagues, on different evidence-based decisions clinician...

 Lung cancer is commonly associated with smoking. However, among people diagnosed with lung cancer, the proportion who have never smoked has been increasing, and there are many reasons why a person who has never smoked may develop this disease. Lori Sakoda, PhD, MPH, ATSF, a research scientist and epidemiologist at Kaiser Permanente Northern California, explains what factors may come into play, wh...

The lung Composite Allocation Score (CAS) was implemented in 2023, and has shown to increase lung transplant rates and lower waitlist mortality. Host Alice Gallo de Moraes, MD, of the Mayo Clinic, interviews experts Mary Raddawi, MD, of Columbia University Irving Medical Center, and Amy Skiba, of the Lung Transplant Foundation, on the importance of CAS and how it has changed outcomes for lung tran...

 This Giving Tuesday, we have a special episode of the ATS Breathe Easy podcast. Wildfires are a destructive phenomenon that decimates communities, infrastructure, and wildlife. But wildfires and wildfire smoke are also severely damaging to human health, especially for those who have lung disease. Stacie Reveles, of the Cystic Fibrosis Research Institute, talks about her struggles living in wildfi...

 Smoking is the main risk factor for COPD in the United States and many other countries. However, it is important to recall that there are other causes of COPD, from birth experiences to environmental exposures. COPD expert Meilan K. Han MD, MS, University of Michigan Health, discusses non-smoking causes of COPD, what patients can do to manage their symptoms, and how clinicians and communities can...

Exercise is key for managing symptoms for COPD patients. On World COPD Day, host Amy Attaway, MD, Cleveland Clinic, talks to Rachel Evans, MD, University of Leicester, and Russell Winwood, a patient advocate known as the "COPD Athlete", about how exercise can improve patient outcomes. They also discuss the annual Big Baton Pass, an international COPD awareness event, the importance for pulmonary r...

As new studies uncover better treatments and practices, it is important to develop new clinical practice guidelines to ensure patients receive the best care. Julio A. Ramirez, MD, Norton Healthcare and University of Louisville, and co-lead of the guideline panel, dives into the process of creating an update clinical practice guideline for community-acquired pneumonia with host Eddie Qian, MD, Vand...

 This episode was created in collaboration with, and first posted on, The Itch podcast. Mucus plugging is a challenge in asthma care. It’s thick, sticky mucus that blocks the airways and doesn’t respond to regular inhalers. Even when inflammation improves, these plugs can lower lung function, limit how well medicine works, and make asthma harder to control. In this episode, The Itch breaks down th...

 Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a group of lung diseases that cause airflow obstruction and other respiratory problems. There are various options for treating COPD, including the highly effective controller medication that helps improve a patient's lung function in the long-term. But as Antonio R. Anzueto, MD, professor of pulmonary and critical care at the University of Texas Hea...

Vaping and e-cigarettes are often incorrectly thought of as thought of as safe, but research has proven this to be untrue. They are particularly unsafe for the developing brain of children and adolescents. Laura Crotty Alexander, MD, from the University of California, San Diego, explains to host Erika Moseson, MD, MA, that not only does vaping often lead to users moving on to traditional tobacco p...

Learning how to perform procedures on patients is an important part of medical training, but how do programs decide what to teach? And how do they integrate the latest technology? Host Eddie Qian, MD, from Vanderbilt University Medical Center, talks to Meredith Pugh, MD, MSCI, and Kaele Leonard, MD, of Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Together, they discuss how they think about working with t...

On this episode of the ATS Breathe Easy podcast, host Amy Attaway, MD, of Cleveland Clinic, continues her discussion with asthma expert Njira Lugogo, MD, of University of Michigan. They talk about collaborations in the pulmonary field, the importance of clinical trials, and career advice for those looking to join the field of pulmonology.  In case you missed it, check out part one here: https://ww...

Federal cuts to the the NIH and other key research organizations have left both researchers and patients paying the price. Erika Moseson, MD, of the Air Health Our Heath podcast, talks with Mary Rice, MD, MPH, of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, about how these cuts have not only hurt her research on helping patients with respiratory illnesses, but the larger impact they have on science...

In light of the news of Paul Offit, MD, being fired from the FDA’s advisory committee on vaccines by Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr., as well as Florida’s decision to end school vaccine mandates, we are re-releasing this vital episode on the importance of vaccines. On this episode of ATS Breathe Easy, host Patti Tripathi welcomes two leading experts to discuss the critical role of vacc...

 On this week's episode of the ATS Breathe Easy podcast, host Amy Attaway, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic, talks with Reynold Panettieri, MD, from Rutgers University on the BATURA trial, an at-home trial for those with moderate-to-severe asthma which ended early due to its highly successful results. Asthma patient Heather also talks about how the medication tested in the study, known as AIRSUPRA, has...

As anti-inflammatory rescue therapies begin making their way to patients with asthma, new questions about implementation of this life-saving therapy are emerging, prompting more exciting research from scientists and clinicians. In the first part of this mini-series on anti-inflammatory rescue therapies, host Amy Attaway, MD, of Cleveland Clinic, discusses these questions and more with asthma exper...

Artificial intelligence is a tool that clinicians and researchers are implementing in their practices and research, but what about its use in teaching the newest generation of doctors? Richard M. Schwartzstein, MD, of Harvard Medical School, discusses using AI for diagnostic education and developing cases, how it can work as a physician-support tool, and more with host Eddie Qian, MD, of Vanderbil...

We're taking a breather this August as we work on bringing you more great episodes of the ATS Breathe Easy podcast. But we're not going off the air - instead, we're bringing back some of our best episodes of the last season. See you in September for season two!  Amy Attaway, MD, hosts the latest ATS Breathe Easy episode with former ATS President Monica Kraft, MD, and Asthma and Allergy Network's C...

We're taking a breather this August as we work on bringing you more great episodes of the ATS Breathe Easy podcast. But we're not going off the air - instead, we're bringing back some of our best episodes of the last season. See you in September for season two! Rolling back major EPA policies that protect our health from air pollution exposure is dangerous and even fatal in some cases. This episod...

 We're taking a breather this August as we work on bringing you more great episodes of the ATS Breathe Easy podcast. But we're not going off the air - instead, we're bringing back some of our best episodes of the last season. See you in September for season two! Erika Moseson, MD, of the Air Health Our Heath podcast hosts this week's episode with guest Daniel Croft, MPH, ATSF. Dr. Croft is associa...

We're taking a breather this August as we work on bringing you more great episodes of the ATS Breathe Easy podcast. But we're not going off the air - instead, we're bringing back some of our best episodes of the last season. See you in September for season two!  On this episode of ATS Breathe Easy, host Patti Tripathi welcomes two leading experts to discuss the critical role of vaccines in protect...

The second part of our ATS Breathe Easy series on the SOAR Act, in collaboration with the Pulmonary Hypertension Association (PHA) . This episode was first posted on PHA's PH Insights podcast . Host Jaeger Spratt, MSW, highlights the voices of long-time pulmonary hypertension patient advocates Amy Burant and Colleen Connor, who share their experiences with oxygen access and how those challenges ha...