America Dissected

So much of public health revolves around collective action — that is government working on our behalf to do things like fund biomedical research, regulate polluting factories, or clean our water. But what happens when we lose trust in government? Adam Conover is a comedian and host of the podcast Factually, as well as the new Netflix series “The G Word.” He joined Abdul to talk about how he uses c...

Following the murder of George Floyd in the context of the pandemic, communities across the country rushed to recognize the public health scourge of racism — a clear, but long ignored public health crisis. But if we declare racism a public health crisis, what do we do about it? Abdul reflects on the consequences of hollow words and speaks to Dr. Matías Valenzuela, Director of the Office of Equity...

More than 50% of the thinking part of the human brain is dedicated to processing visual information. We are, in a word, visual beings. And yet around the world, our vision is getting worse — and we’re not quite sure why. Abdul talks about the life-changing impact of correcting vision. Then he speaks with Sarah Zhang, staff writer at The Atlantic, about what we know about the growing burden of near...

Green juices, skincare, yoga. We all want to keep up with our health. But what happens when corporations, influencers, and snake oil salesmen prey on our insecurities to sell us something we don't need, or worse soemthing, that could harm us? Abdul sits down with Rina Raphael, author of the newly released "The Gospel of Wellness," to break down the people, the systems, and the failures that have a...

What would have happened if, like flouride, the COVID vaccine would have just been in the water? That’s one of the questions Malcolm Gladwell asks in his latest season of Revisionist History — a season about how we know what we know, and how we implement that knowledge to help people. He joins Abdul to talk about the science and practice of public health, how the way we talk about it gets in the w...

Organ transplantation is one of the miracles of modern medicine. And yet the system that we use to manage is anything but miraculous. Organs are damaged or lost, and people die because of it. Abdul talks about the logistics underneath so much of what we do in healthcare, and then he interviews Greg Segal, co-founder of Organize, an advocacy organization focused on reforming the broken organ donati...

Traditional science-based medicine has some gaps—but what happens when grifters and scammers take advantage? Dr. Abdul El-Sayed leads us inside the underbelly of the cult of wellness. Dr. Jen Gunter, Twitter’s “Resident Gynecologist,” helps us understand modern quackery—and how we can apply scientific principles to make our best health decisions.   This episode originally aired in September 2019.

The pandemic drove major increases in depression, anxiety, and ADHD. But rates of ADHD–and its treatment–have been skyrocketing even before the pandemic. Abdul reflects on how our surroundings may be driving this. He sits down with Casey Schwartz, author of “Attention, a Love Story” to learn more about the history and future of ADHD.

The anti-abortion movement notched a terrible win six weeks ago. But reasserting the right to a safe, legal abortion nationwide forces us to go back in time and understand the opposition. Abdul sits down with Prof. Karissa Haugeberg, a historian of the anti-abortion movement, to understand how it formed–and what it will take to fight back.

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 is a lot of things…including a healthcare reform bill. Along with extending healthcare subsidies for 13 million people, it also, for the first time, allows Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices. Abdul lays out what the Inflation Reduction Act means for prescription drug prices and sits down with Prof. Aaron Kesselheim, a physician, attorney, and prescri...

It’s early August–it’s hot and sunny. And for many people, it’s sunburn season. But the long-term consequences of sun exposure can be a lot worse than just a sunburn. Americans have fewer and worse sunscreen options than their counterparts abroad–and those options mean fewer people will wear it. Abdul speaks with Amanda Mull, staff writer at the Atlantic, about the bureaucratic issue standing in t...

50 years ago, it was discovered that the United States Public Health Service and the CDC–the federal government–had left nearly 400 Black men with syphilis untreated for 30 years to study the long term consequences of the disease. They told these men that they were providing them free healthcare. The consequences of this inhumane, disgusting study still echoes among Black Americans today–leaving m...

The president of the United States has COVID. Again. Abdul reflects on what this signals in the pandemic–and our politics. Then he sits down with Dr. Megan Ranney, Emergency Medicine physician and Academic Dean of Public Health at Brown University.

The fall of Roe has opened up the risk that authorities could use data from period tracking apps or internet searches in legal proceedings in abortion ban violations. But Big Tech may already be tracking a lot more about your health than you know. Todd Feathers and Simon Fondrie-Teitler of The Markup join Abdul to share their reporting.

For most of human history, people believed that blood flow was a one-way thing. The discovery that blood flowed two ways–that there was a circulatory system–didn’t happen until the mid-1600s. And it took more than a century for that discovery to be formally adopted by most scientific institutions. Abdul goes back in history to help us understand the resistance to science in the present. He intervi...

As HIV/AIDS ravaged the gay community in the 1980s, the federal government was slow to respond owing to anti-LGBTQ stigma. ACT UP–the “AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power”–sprang up to hold government officials, pharmaceutical companies, and society at large accountable. One offshoot of that movement was Gran Fury, which weaponized art and graphic design in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Abdul speaks wit...

Roe v. Wade — the Supreme Court Decision protecting reproductive rights in America for half a century — was dashed last week. Abdul sits down with Prof. Kate Shaw, co-host of Strict Scrutiny to answer your questions about the ruling and its implications for reproductive health. Then he interviews Attorney General Dana Nessel of Michigan — a state with a draconian abortion ban on the books — about...

Another school shooting, more thoughts and prayers. But maybe this time its different. Abdul talks about the way that school shootings have shaped the lives, fears, and anxieties of a whole generation of young people. Then he sits down with John Woodrow Cox, author of “Children under Fire,” to talk about the blast radius of gun violence among children.

A global monkeypox outbreak has infected over a thousand people worldwide. Monkeypox is nowhere as transmissible as COVID, but the choices our public health system makes now could shape how many people could be infected in the long term. Abdul interviews Prof. Anne Rimoin, an infectious disease expert, about monkeypox, what it is, why it’s spreading, and how we should be thinking about in the wake...

It’s pride month – a moment when LGBTQ+ Americans ought to feel out and proud. And yet that is becoming harder to do in an America where politicians are attacking the community through discriminatory policies designed specifically to stigmatize and exclude. Abdul talks about the way that exclusionary policy shapes mental health and speaks with Heather Zayde, a mental health provider who specialize...

Not even two weeks since the white supremacist murder spree in Buffalo that took 10 lives at a grocery store, another gunman entered an elementary school and killed 19 kids and two teachers. It’s true, people kill people. But when they do, there’s a reason they usually use guns. It’s because they’re the most effective — particularly the ones meant for war. Abdul reflects on the back-to-back murder...

Mental health among young people is worse than it’s ever been. Millennials and Generation Z are the first generation whose financial outlook looks worse than the generations before it. But that’s not even what weighs heaviest on many young peoples’ minds — the notion that the very Earth on which we are building is in crisis causes a unique kind of existential dread. Abdul sits down with the Execut...

Anti-abortion activists always try to depersonalize abortion, as if its some abstract issue that doesn’t involve real people. With the impending fall of Roe v. Wade, Abdul re-personalizes it. He speaks with obstetrician/gynecologist Dr. Heather Irobunda about what the fall of Roe would mean for millions of people and how it would affect her practice.

America’s healthcare system is broken — not because someone broke it, but because it was built haphazardly to begin with. But why was it built that way? A recent episode of NPR’s “Throughline” podcast, which “goes back in time to understand the present” explored how a series of choices throughout the 20th century doomed us to our current system. Abdul sits down with their hosts, Ramtin Arabloui an...

Millions of people with diabetes simply can’t live without insulin. Discovered over a century ago, it’s patent was sold for $1. But today, pharmaceutical corporations have arbitrarily raised insulin prices, leaving those who can’t afford it having to ration it–or worse, go without it. Abdul breaks down why insulin has become the epitome of pharmaceutical company greed. Then he talks to the leaders...