Slate Health

This week, John Dickerson and David Plotz are joined by Vox’s Marin Cogan @marincogan to discuss the extreme weather, heat, and floods that are wreaking havoc across the United States and around the world; the social media phenomenon of Threads; and the American love-hate relationship with cars.    Here are some notes and references from this week’s show: Cara Buckley for The New York Times: “To H...

Danny Lavery welcomes Leslie Cohen-Rubury, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, and host of “Is My Child a Monster?”, A Parenting Therapy Podcast. Lavery and Cohen-Rubury offer advice to someone who’s parents might interfere with her decision to be a surrogate mother for her friends. Another letter writer is wondering how to tell their mom about being abused by their teacher when they were 16. Also,...

The 4th of July was the hottest day yet—not just of the summer but of recorded human history. Between waves of Canadian wildfire smoke, malaria reappearing in the United States, and deaths from heat, this might be the year that we’re forced to reckon with what life will be like on our newly hotter planet. Guest: Jeff Goodell, contributing writer at Rolling Stone and the author of the upcoming book...

On this episode: Elizabeth Newcamp is joined by Jamie Grayson, who you may know as ‘the baby gear guy.’ As we’re in the midst of summer road trip season, it’s time to revisit car seat safety. Luckily, Jamie is here to cut through the confusion while actually making safety fun. He explains how to pick the right seat for you, when to move from a carseat to a booster to the front seat, and even when...

It can take years for a water crisis in a predominantly Black city or town to make national news. But contaminated water often harms communities for generations. Beyond the ongoing health threats, dirty water can stifle business and economic development, driving down educational achievement, property values and investment. On today’s episode of A Word, Jason Johnson is joined by journalist Adam Ma...

A shortage of basic chemotherapy drugs to treat cancer is jeopardizing the care of hundreds of thousands of patients. The drugs aren’t expensive, or patented—so where are they?  Guest: Ed Yong, science journalist at The Atlantic. Host: Lizzie O'Leary If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes...

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s politics, such as they can be parsed, are a mix of conspiracy theories and vibes. But in a post-Trump landscape, and with RFK polling at 20 percent among Democratic presidential candidates, cranky contrarians have to be taken seriously—right? Guest: Vera Bergengruen, investigative correspondent at Time magazine. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate P...

Semaglutide, otherwise known as Ozempic, has been making headlines as a weight loss drug – despite only having FDA approval to treat diabetes. Now, some say it doesn’t just quell cravings for food – it helps quiet cravings for alcohol, drugs, and other compulsive behaviors. For years, researchers have been studying Ozempic’s effectiveness as an addiction cure in animals. What have they found? And...

Saturday marks the one-year anniversary of the end of Roe – a historic decision that’s led to long lines, clinic closures, and a flood of abortion bans across the country. Planned Parenthood has always been in the political crosshairs… but now, their role is arguably more important than ever. What does America’s largest abortion provider look like in the post-Roe era? We sit down with its CEO to f...

On this week’s episode of The Waves, one year after the Supreme Court decision that set off a national crisis in reproductive health care, we’re taking a look at what the end of Roe has wrought. Countless lives have been affected: There's the people who've traveled across the country to get their lives back, the people who've been forced against their will into pregnancy and childbirth, and those...

Police killings of Black men have their own grim, but established, rituals in American society. But what happens to those who survive police violence? On today’s episode of A Word, Jason Johnson is joined by Leon Ford, who survived being shot multiple times by Pittsburgh police more than a decade ago. In his new memoir An Unspeakable Hope, Ford candidly describes his legal, physical, and mental he...

On this week’s episode of The Waves, we’re talking about menstruation. Period. Slate senior producer Cheyna Roth is joined by author and anthropologist Dr. Kate Clancy. Kate recently published her extensive study on menstruation, Period and they dig into why Western culture has constantly looked at menstruating bodies with shame, how this impacts scientific studies and healthcare for women and gen...

This episode is a part of Opinionpalooza. Slate’s coverage of Supreme Court decisions. We consider this coverage so essential that we’re taking down the paywall for all of it. If you would like to help us continue to cover the courts aggressively, please consider joining Slate Plus. And sign up for the pop-up newsletter to see the latest every week in your inbox. On this week’s Amicus, a sobering...

As the fight for trans rights, including gender-affirming medical care, heads through state legislation, activists and medical providers are stepping up to testify. While explaining her perspective as a medical professional, a Little Rock pharmacist, who is trans, was asked about her genitalia in the middle of the Arkansas general assembly.  This is the first installment in What Next’s Pride Month...

On this week’s episode of The Waves, it’s all about the beauty industry. Senior writer and editor at New America, Julia Craven is joined by author and NPR host-at-large Elise Hu. They discuss Elise’s new book, Flawless - a remarkable investigation into the Korean beauty world. They also unpack the hustle culture inherent in beauty, how Eurocentric beauty trends are everywhere, and more.  In Slate...

Sleep is objectively worse when splitting a bed. Yet that’s the default for most couples. But that doesn’t mean sharing the covers is easy. Especially when one person is having trouble falling or staying asleep. On this episode of How To!, the second in a two-part series, co-host Carvell Wallace continues the conversation with Dr. Wendy Troxel, author of Sharing the Covers: Every Couple’s Guide to...

A national ban on abortion remains so unpopular that even Republican presidential candidates won’t commit to one. However, a law from the 1870s, depending on how it's interpreted and enforced, could ban both abortion pills and the procedure across America.  Guest: Mary Ziegler, law professor at UC Davis and author of Roe: The History of a National Obsession. If you enjoy this show, please consider...

Vanessa isn’t a night owl. Yet, often, you can find her lying awake desperately trying to turn off her brain. When her partner stays over she often resorts to the couch just to get some rest. On this episode of How To!, co-host Carvell Wallace brings in Dr. Wendy Troxel. She is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in sleep medicine and the author of the book, Sharing the Covers: Every Cou...

Bats have been linked to a “greatest hits” list of infectious diseases—not just COVID-19, but SARS, Marburg, and even ebola. And now, 1.8 billion people are living in “jump zones” where the next viral spillover may occur. Guest: Ryan McNeill, London-based deputy editor for the Reuters global data-journalism team. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members...

On this week’s episode of The Waves, we’re unpacking medical mysteries. Science writer and Slate contributor Eleanor Cummins is joined by Allison Behringer. Allison is the host and creator of the KCRW podcast, Bodies. Now in its fourth season, every episode of Bodies digs into a person’s medical mystery. Eleanor and Allison talk about Allison’s own ‘body story,’ why female bodies contain so many m...

When a Democratic pro-choice representative defected from her party, North Carolina Republicans instantly secured a veto-proof supermajority in the state legislature. Then, they quickly sent a bill that restricts abortion to their Democratic governor’s desk, and overrode his veto, ending North Carolina’s time as an abortion destination in the southeastern United States. Guest: Rebecca J. Kreitzer,...

‘I’ve got bad news’ is a sentence no one wants to hear. But at some point, all of us will either have to deliver bad news or will be on the receiving end. So what can make these gut-wrenching conversations go less horribly? On this episode of How To!, co-host Amanda Ripley brings in Dr. Robert Arnold, co-founder of Vital Talk, and Maura, a social worker at a level one trauma center to talk about h...

On this episode: Jamilah Lemieux sits down with journalist Virginia Sole-Smith to discuss her new book, Fat Talk: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture. This conversation is a special collaboration with Slate’s The Waves podcast. Virginia talks about the body shame kids face, reclaiming the word ‘fat,’ and supporting kids in the bodies they’re in. They also talk about how parents, grandparents, and...

Guns are now the leading cause of death for children in America. Each tragedy can be visceral, whether it’s in your community or across the country. And it’s especially heartbreaking when your kid voices that fear directly, as our listener Allison recently experienced. On this episode of How To!, co-host Amanda Ripley brings in Melinda Wenner Moyer. Melinda is an author and science journalist with...

April is Autism Awareness and Acceptance month, and might be the only time of year when many Americans think about neurodiversity. But for many families, receiving an autism diagnosis for a child can set off an all-consuming search for doctors, therapists, and education that can work for their kids. That’s more complicated for African-American families, who have to overcome systemic racism in scho...