America Dissected

Abdul breaks down the dangers of opening up too early for public health--and the economy. He talks to Commissioner Rita Nieves of the Boston Public Health Commission and Dr. Georges Benjamin, Executive Director of the American Public Health Association about what it’ll take to open up safely.

Abdul talks to Navajo National Council Delegate Carl Slater about why Navajo Nation faces one of the worst COVID19 outbreaks in America. He then talks to Rebecca Nagle, journalist and host of Crooked Media’s " This Land" podcast about the broader implications of COVID19 in Indian Country.

Abdul breaks down the similarities--and differences--between COVID19 and Ebola. He interviews Dr. Craig Spencer, an emergency doctor in New York on the front lines of the coronavirus response who also battled Ebola in West Africa, and Ron Klain, President Obama’s Ebola Czar.

Abdul talks to a third-grader, who's currently attending school remotely, about what it’s like to do home school during the pandemic. Then he'll speak with Nikhil Goyal, a sociologist and education researcher about what the lasting impacts of COVID19 may be on American education.

Abdul dissects how politics is a part of public health—and how our federal political leadership has gotten in the way of every step of our public health response to COVID19. Then he speaks with Ana Maria Archila co-Executive Director of the Center for Popular Democracy about how COVID19 is impacted Undocumented Americans.

Abdul dissects how COVID19 is forcing us to deal with how interconnected our world is, whether we like it or not. Then he speaks with Oussama Mezoui with the international aid organization Penny Appeal and Merith Basey of Universities Allied for Essential Medicines.

Abdul looks at why stay home orders still matter. He'll talk with Dr. Jason Bae, who spent 10 days in the Queens at the peak of COVID19, and Zenei Cortez, co-president of the National Nurses United who’s also working on the front lines.

Listeners share what they’re doing with their $1200 checks and then Abdul dissects how a check can be a powerful anti-COVID19 public health tool and speaks with former Presidential candidate Andrew Yang about the government checks and universal basic income more broadly.

Abdul looks at recent studies on people infected with coronavirus, and then talks about people who are among those most at risk for the disease. He'll talk with Dr. Ashwin Vasan, President of Fountain House , a non-profit supporting people suffering severe mental illness, and Professor John Pfaff who studies mass incarceration to understand how this pandemic affects society’s most vulnerable--and...

Abdul talks with Senator Bernie Sanders about Congress’s most recent COVID19 relief package and how the country might have responded if we were covered by Medicare for All.

Recently the CDC released a study that revealed that while African Americans make up only 13% of the population of the United States, they were 30% of the patients that were dealing with COVID-19. Abdul talks to LaMar Hasbrouck, a public health physician and former director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, about racial disparities in health. Later he connects with Corey McPherson, an o...

Abdul dissects the scenarios we have for getting out of social distancing and why we still need COVID19 testing. Later he interviews Dr. Rishi Desai, a former CDC disease detective who recently went viral (the good kind!) for his recent appearance on Fox News.

The drug hydroxycholoroquine has been all over the news because President Trump and other claim, without scientific evidence, that its a cure for COVID-19. But hydroxycholoroquine does have a lot of practical uses, and many people depend on it. Abdul speaks with a woman that relies on the drug to live, and is worried about its depletion. Then Abdul looks at the way that medications and vaccines ar...

Abdul dissects the unequal burden of COVID-19 by race, chats with Dr. Sarah Jukaku, a psychiatrist, who also happens to be his wife, about what she’s hearing from her patients. Later he talks with Professor Sandro Galea, a psychiatric epidemiologist, about what COVID-19’s long-term consequences might be for our mental health. Activity

Abdul talks to a local bookstore owner about going online after COVID and dissects how this will influence the economy. And Prof. Tara Sinclair, a macroeconomist joins us to talk about the economic forecast and what COVID-19 may mean for our economic outlook.

Abdul dissects how hospitals are struggling under the surge of COVID patients, while writer Naomi Klein joins us to talk about the “shock doctrine” of disaster capitalism. We'll find out what disaster capitalism means, how it's affected past disasters and how human behavior perceives everything from toilet paper to corporate bailouts.

As doctors, nurses, and hospital staff do battle on the front lines, how is the growing pandemic affecting these people and how are they coping? Abdul will talk with Dr. Aakash Shah, an emergency room doctor in New Jersey.

This week the Senate passed a historic, $2 trillion stimulus bill aimed at easing the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. The legislation, which is expected to pass the House of Representatives on Friday, will grant financial assistance to individuals and businesses - especially industries affected by the crisis, airlines and manufacturers, among others. But will it be enough? We’ll talk with Cong...

Host Abdul El-Sayed dissects the claim of a possible cure for COVID-19, and then we talk to Dr. Alison Galvani, an epidemiologist and infectious diseases modeler at Yale, about how long the current outbreak could last.

Abdul dissects the news of a vaccine, the concept of “flattening the curve,” and the notion of herd immunity. Ben Rhodes, former Deputy National Security Advisor, joins to dissect the Global Pandemic response and what went wrong.

Abdul dissects President Trump’s State of Emergency Declaration and the true number of cases in America. And we explore how the American public health system’s organized (and what went wrong) with Jon Auerbach, a former state and local health commissioner and CDC official.

The Coronavirus is now a global pandemic. How did we get here? What went wrong? What do we do about it now? Twice a week, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a physician and former city health commissioner, will keep you updated on what you need to know about COVID-19, what led us to this crisis in the first place, and what policies can lead us out. New episodes out every Tuesday & Friday, starting Tuesday 3/...

Do you ever go to a bakery and become utterly paralyzed by all the possibilities in the display case? A chocolate chip muffin sounds good, but so does a croissant. Are they gluten free? Made fresh daily? Unraveling the 2020 candidates’ healthcare plans can sort of feel the same way, just a whole lot more daunting. In this final episode of America Dissected (we’re crying too), Dr. Abdul El-Sayed wa...

Throughout this series, we’ve considered how the straining relationship between science and government has led to a variety of public health issues, from the rise of superbugs to the epidemic of loneliness. Here, we take our scalpel to the most obvious problem of them all: the American healthcare system itself. Dr. Abdul El-Sayed talks with Lisa Cardillo whose scary brush with the healthcare syste...

Today, many of us can take it for granted that our grandparents will live through our childhood— and that our children might get to meet them. Not that long ago, though, that wasn't so common. Not just because our grandparents didn't used to live that long, but because so many babies died before their first birthday. In most American communities, infant mortality is a thing of the past. But not in...