Healthwatch with Dr. Leana Wen: Heat hazards, Paxlovid, CDC chief

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3fWJhizjI0V90O5aCrusEe

It’s another edition of theMidday Healthwatch, our monthly conversations about public health with Dr. Leana Wen.

We’ll be talking with Dr. Wen today about the public health challenges caused by this summer’s intense heat; the continued under-use of Paxlovid as a medication that can reduce the severity of COVID infections; and her assessment of the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC — Dr. Mandy Cohen — who was appointed by President Biden and sworn into office last month.

Plus, Dr. Wen has been writing about other public health issues. These include the importance, especially for older adults, of getting the new RSV vaccine when it’s available, the FDA’s approval of the first-ever pill to treat post-partum depression; and what roles Artificial Intelligence might soon play in medicine.

Dr. Wen is one of America’s most trusted and knowledgeable public health experts, and she has been a regular guest on our show since her time as the Baltimore City Health Commissioner, from 2015-2018. Today, the emergency physician serves as a research professor of healthy policy and management at the George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health. She’s also a columnist for the Washington Post, a medical analyst for CNN, and a non-resident senior fellow at The Brookings Institution. And she’s the author of Lifelines: A Doctor’s Journey in the Fight for Public Health.