A Shot in the Arm Podcast

To coincide with the 2023 Women Deliver Conference in Kigali, Rwanda in July 2023, Sharing the Mic explores the impact of the AIDS epidemic on girls and women who remain disproportionately affected by HIV. Joining Ben and co-host Frontline AIDS’ Oratile Moseki, are Vuyiseka Dubula of the Stephen Lewis Foundation, and Joyce Ouma from Y Plus Global to explain why HIV is a feminist issue. https://fro...

We reconnect with Robin Gorna, an internationally respected gender and HIV activist & writer to update us on what it has been like for her living with long COVID for 3 years, and we reflect on how the lessons of the HIV movement from the last thirty years, can help guide us in this new era of pandemics preparedness and response. https://robingorna.com https://unaids.org/en https://www.cdc.gov http...

The first full day of the #WHA76 - speeches and networking. (Not) Taiwan and Russia on the UN floor. Behind the scenes, efforts brewing to ensure we don't forget COVID, as the world prepares for the "polycrises" that face us... Elisha are joined by Lois Chingandu, Frontline AIDS. This is a special live streamed series with the Global Health Council.

The Global Health Council is joining A Shot In The Arm Podcast to provide accessible, daily updates on all the news coming out of the 76th World Health Assembly. In this introductory episode, Ben Plumley and GHC President & CEO Elisha Dunn-Georgiou explore what to expect, from a pandemics treaty, Universal Health Coverage,  non-communicable diseases, a diagnostics declaration, to the fight to secu...

Each year the San Francisco Community Health Center holds “The Show Of Hope” to raise funds for its essential life-saving work that provides a safety net for those who fall through the existing safety nets. This year saw the opening of its very first dedicated space for and by trans men and women, providing comprehensive wellness services for clients in SF’s Tenderloin and beyond. We hear about it...

In the first episode of this new season of Sharing The Mic with Frontline AIDS, we talk choice in HIV prevention, why it’s essential to protect girls and women in sub Saharan Africa, and why the world needs to step up to make exciting new biomedical innovations available to them, as a matter of urgency.  Introduction: Lois Chingandu, Interim Executive Director, Frontline AIDS Hosts: Ben Plumley, H...

In the aftermath of COVID lockdowns, how have health, career and life opportunities changed for Kenyan teenage girls & young women? ”Twende (let’s go) Out” with Heidi Larson’s Global Listening Project in Nairobi to understand how changing social norms are helping - and hindering the country’s post-COVID generation of young people.  Guests: Lilian Otiso, Executive Director, LVCT Health Farida Nzila...

Coinciding with the launch of a new global campaign by ReSurge International to promote greater awareness & funding for local surgical teams to provide life-changing reconstructive care, we meet Jim Chang and Natalie Meyers of ReSurge, along with ground-breaking Zimbabwean surgeon, Godfrey Muguti, to ask why 18 million die every year from surgically preventable diseases - and what can be done abou...

Ben and Yvette have a rather vigorous but hugely engaging conversation with friend of the Pod, Dr. Kimberly Smith, the Head of R&D for ViiV Healthcare, on what’s needed to ensure that the potential of long acting injectable antiretrovirals - for both HIV prevention & treatment - are realized for girls and women in sub-Saharan Africa. With its costs and manufacturing complexity - will CabLA be a tr...

We have two CROI Episodes today - and this episode, brought to you with APHA, AVAC and CASPR, Yvette and Ben chat with Dr. Nyaradzo Mgodi University of Zimbabwe and Ntando Yola, APHA, to take stock of the results of the Mosaico trial (which was recently discontinued because, while safe, it was ineffective), the role of bNAbs (broadly neutralizing antibodies) in treating or potentially cure rapidly...

In today’s CROI episode, Yvette and Ben chat with Professor Monica Gandhi, UCSF and medical director of SF General’s famous Ward 86, exploring what the science at CROI is telling us about the links and disconnects between HIV, COVID, Mpox and other infectious disease threats - and what it all means for every day people trying to navigate lockdowns, prevention choices and treatment options. https:/...

Join Ben Plumley and Yvette Raphael, live from CROI 2023 (the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections - THE conference for the latest science on viruses, bacteria and other pandemic threats), as they profile the data they want to learn about - from HIV prevention, treatment and cure, to Mpox, COVID and other bugs - as well as Yvette’s opening plenary speech on the leadership of wom...

Recorded in MTV Studios in South Africa at the end of November, we look back at an insanely busy year for the MTV Staying Alive Foundation in creating content to help young people to make their own decisions about their health in Africa and South Asia, and reflect on big news for its future in 2023. Ben and Yvette chat with other members of the South African Board as well as podcast regular Georgi...

In between mince pies and braais, Yvette and Ben answer your emails and messages - contentious and occasionally comic from all over the world of global health innovation and equity. Don’t forget to keep your questions and coming - find us on all your favorite podcast platforms and social media sites! Yvette’s and Ben’s Bucket Hats are handmade in South Africa by Pozie at https://latobyveresources-...

Yvette Raphael welcomes co-host Ben Plumley to Tembisa, South Africa, for a World AIDS Day special, to reflect on the sometimes bumpy response from the country with the largest number of people living with HIV. And catch Yvette’s interview with Lolo Saliso, HIV & human rights activist from Advocates for the Prevention of HIV in Africa on how it is young people’s time to lead, building on the legac...

We are sharing the mic with Frontline AIDS again, to reflect on the recent Berlin World Health Summit, the G20 Summit in Indonesia, and ongoing negotiations towards a World Bank Pandemics Fund through the lenses of grass-roots communities on the frontline, and to ask, these pandemics preparation and response initiatives - who are they for? Joining Ben Plumley are Lois Chingandu, Director of Eviden...

Ben is joined by two giants of global health diplomacy, Ambassadors Mark Dybul and Eric Goosby, to take stock of how resilient the world is in sustaining existing infectious disease responses and preparing for future pandemic threats, by building on existing infrastructure - particularly optimized lab-based diagnostic networks. A Shot In the Arm Podcast is a member of the Health Podcast Network, a...

Ben catches up with infectious disease physicians Tamar Tchelidze and Ben La Brot, on how networks of lab-based and point of care tests can drive better diagnosing and management of infectious disease - and can PrEP and HIV treatment be the poster-child to prove this to skeptical policy makers? Sponsored by Roche Diagnostics. Guests Dr. Tamar Tchelidze, Disease Partner, Medical & Scientific Affair...

PBS NOVA “Ending HIV in America” has just premiered on PBS on the 5th of October, 2022, telling the story of an incredible scientific achievement and the public health work that still needs to be done to end HIV in America. In this episode, we meet the documentary’s director, Shayon Maitra, and two participants, friend of the podcast Professor Monica Gandhi from San Francisco, and the incredible B...

World leaders meet in New York this week, to commit - hopefully - $18 billion over the next three years to the Global Fund in its fight to end AIDS, TB and Malaria - as well as COVID-19, and in this episode, we are again sharing the mic with Frontline AIDS to explore how communities themselves lead country programs funded by the Global Fund, as well as the critical advocacy role they are playing r...

Ben meets Arthur Snell, former UK diplomat, host of the Doomsday Watch Podcast, and author of the Amazon UK bestseller “How Britain Broke The World” to explore how the greatest challenges facing the international community are radically changing global health priorities. Arthur reflects on the wide-ranging impacts of Russia’s ill-fated invasion of Ukraine, NATO’s retreat from Afghanistan, and what...

Just prior to AIDS 2022, Ben sat down with Steve Morrison, one of the world’s leading thinkers on how health fits into new trends in global security. He shares his views on the impact of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine, COVID-19 and other current and future infectious outreaks on nations’ security.  Guest: J. Stephen Morrison, Senior Pice President at the Center for Strategic and International Stu...

COVID-19 has upended society, from vaccine inequity, to healthcare and to the way we work. In this #aids2022 podcast, we look at how one San Francisco Bay Area-based multinational - Chevron - has responded to COVID-19, by building on its heritage of partnerships forged over 30 years of the AIDS response. Joining Ben, are friends of the podcast: Dr. Huma Abbasi, Chief Medical Officer, Chevron Dr. C...

It’s obvious really, that you can’t treat your way out of a pandemic without the right diagnostics to tell you who is infected, and with which variant of virus or bacterium - and in this episode Ben chats with two leading experts on how laboratory and point of care diagnostics form the essential backbone to any effective infectious disease public health program. Sponsored by Roche Molecular. Ben i...

In this episode we provide our listeners and viewers with an overview of the key Frontline AIDS activities at the upcoming AIDS 2022 conference in Montreal – particularly the launch of the Report “Protectors or Perpetrators?” – highlighting how unlawful policing practices are affecting the communities most affected by AIDS – and showcasing the leadership of those same communities in documenting an...