Why Should I Trust You?

Has the Lindsay Clancy trial quickly become a proxy for something larger? — arguments about psychiatry and medication, motherhood and mental illness, personal responsibility, and whether our medical system is fundamentally failing the people who depend on it? 
And in choosing sides, are we at risk of turning one horrific case into evidence for conclusions that go far beyond what this particular tragedy can actually tell us?
We’re joined by two psychiatrists and an ER physician today to talk about all this. 

Hosts:
Brinda Adhikari
Tom Johnson
Maggie Bartlett
Dr. Mark Abdelmalek

Guests:
Dr. Julia Riddle, a reproductive psychiatrist and researcher focused on reproductive mental health. She is an Assistant Professor at the UNC Center for Women's Mood Disorders, where she runs a clinic for patients. 
Dr. Anne Zink, emergency medicine physician and public health leader who served as Chief Medical Officer for the State of Alaska before and during the pandemic. Senior Fellow at the Yale School of Public Health
Dr. Bryan Shapiro, a psychiatrist at UC Irvine Medical Center, treating outpatients and training primary care physicians & nurse practitioners on prescribing psychiatric medications.  He is the Medical Director at Outro, a company in which he has a financial stake, and which works to safely taper patients off antidepressants.

Resources:
National Maternal Mental Health Hotline: 1-833-TLC-MAMA

National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-8255
988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline .  Call or text 988, or chat at 988lifeline.org
For training MDs/DO/NPs/PAs: https://ncrptraining.org/ 
NCMatter Access Line Toolkits: https://www.med.unc.edu/ncmatters/provider-tools/toolkits/
OB Tool kits: https://www.mcpapformoms.org/Toolkits/Toolkit.aspx?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1
PSI international: https://postpartum.net
Postpartum Support International 1-833-943-5746

Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe! 

Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@whyshoulditrustyou.net

That’s the challenge facing Dr. Sandro Galea, dean of the brand-new Bursky School of Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis. It is the first major school of public health to open in the United States after the pandemic.
In the wake of COVID, with trust in public health fractured and many Americans viewing the field as partisan, Galea is advocating that his field engage rather than draw lines. He believes public health will be stronger if it listens to all sides and embraces disagreement while still advocating for its values. He argues that the strategy is to widen the tent rather than shrink it, without compromising science or principles, or engaging with bad-faith actors.
The approach raises a critical question: as public health endures crippling funding cuts, vaccine policy is in turmoil, Medicaid faces major spending reductions, and trust in scientific expertise is low, is this the time for public health to reach across the divide, or resist and fight? 

Hosts:
Brinda Adhikari
Tom Johnson
Maggie Bartlett
Dr. Mark Abdelmalek (off this wk)

Guest:
Dr. Sandro Galea, Dean of the Bursky School of Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis. 
Substack:
https://sandrogalea.substack.com/
Author of Why Health? What We Need to Think About When We Think About Health
Purple Public Health:
https://healthierfutureslab.org/research/purple-public-health
Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe! 

Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@whyshoulditrustyou.net

Dr. Debra Houry, the former CDC chief medical officer; emergency physician Dr. Craig Spencer; pediatrician and author Dr. Joel “Gator” Warsh; and MAHA supporter Nancy Fuller join us as we dig into President Trump’s brand-new executive order revamping the recommended schedule for vaccinating America’s children.
The order reduces the number of vaccines recommended universally for children from 17 to 11, calls for the MMR vaccine to be broken up into three separate shots, and directs the administration to explore spacing childhood vaccines out across separate visits. It also directs the Department of Justice to examine whether parents’ rights are being protected in states that do not offer religious exemptions from school vaccination requirements.
So…what exactly happened yesterday? Does it actually change anything? How are frontline doctors and MAHA supporters processing the President’s controversial comments at the signing ceremony? Is this latest effort to overhaul the schedule heading straight back to the courts? And how might this high-profile move affect the nation’s growing health polarization and eroding trust in public health?

Hosts:
Brinda Adhikari
Tom Johnson
Maggie Bartlett
Dr. Mark Abdelmalek (on call)

Guests:
Dr. Debra Houry, former Chief Medical Officer, CDC; emergency physician
Dr. Joel "Gator" Warsh, pediatrician, Integrative Pediatrics; substack author Between a Shot and a Hard Place
Dr. Craig Spencer, ER physician, professor Brown School of Public Health
Nancy Fuller, MAHA supporter, mother to a son with autism and epilepsy

Sources:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/07/public-health-maha-rfk/688014/?gift=jf1JNTlPW3HiCUoNqhv9pL4QDDQrO5E0bwhsoINyCrk
https://drgator.substack.com/p/breaking-trump-just-tried-to-rewrite
Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe! 

Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@whyshoulditrustyou.net

What if one of the biggest public health debates of the next decade isn't about vaccines, Ozempic, or chronic disease? What if it's about air conditioning? The world’s temperatures are getting dangerously warmer. Europe is the world's fastest-warming continent with estimates that this summer the heat contributed to 10,000–14,000 deaths over just a few weeks. The United States suffers deadly heat waves too. But Europe experiences much higher heat-wave related death tolls. One major difference people are pointing to? Air conditioning. Americans have a LOT more of it than Europeans do.
Defenders of Europe's lower use of air conditioning argue that simply installing more AC isn't the answer. Critics say: this has gone too far. Too many people are dying. Just get air conditioning already.
But beneath this debate are some very big questions: What do we owe one another in a warming world? What does adaptation look like? And who bears the costs when our solutions create new problems?

Hosts:
Brinda Adhikari
Tom Johnson (off)
Maggie Bartlett
Dr. Mark Abdelmalek (off)

Guests:
Noah Smith, economist, publisher of Noahopinion substack.
Thomas Chatterton Williams, staff writer The Atlantic,, author of Summer of Our Discontent and Self Portrait in Black and White.
David Wallace Wells, writer/columnist, The New York Times.  Author The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming. 
Related articles by our guests:
Europe's Resistance to Air Conditioning is Driving It Insane: Noah Smith
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/europes-resistance-to-ac-is-driving
The Overlooked Reason Why Europe Doesn't Have AC: Thomas Chatterton Williams
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/06/europe-heat-wave-air-conditioning/687729/
We Need to Retrofit the Planet. The Heat Wave Proves It: David Wallace Wells
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/01/opinion/heat-wave-europe-america.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe! 

Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@whyshoulditrustyou.net

Few figures in America are as polarizing as Dr. Anthony Fauci. To some, he is the veteran scientist who helped steer the nation through the COVID-19 pandemic. To others, he is the face of government overreach who suppressed the lab leak theory to avoid accountability for research funding decisions they believe contributed to the pandemic.
This week, those worlds collided in a Senate hearing room as the retired former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases was subpoenaed to testify before an inquiry led by his longtime critic, Republican Senator Rand Paul. Fauci accused the senator of having an "unhinged obsession" with him and seeing him sent to jail before invoking his Fifth Amendment right and declining to answer questions. Senator Paul, in turn, accused Fauci of deception and of refusing to accept responsibility.
In today's episode, we ask: Why, six years after the pandemic began, are we still talking about Anthony Fauci? Was this hearing a legitimate effort to uncover new facts about COVID-19's origins, assign accountability and learn from the past, or was it driven by political point scoring and vengeance? 
Joining us are Dr. Katelyn Jetelina of Your Local Epidemiologist and David Wallace-Wells of The New York Times to unpack what remains one of the most consequential and bitter public health debates of our time.

Hosts:
Brinda Adhikari
Tom Johnson
Maggie Bartlett
Dr. Mark Abdelmalek

Guests:
Katelyn Jetelina, founder and CEO of Your Local Epidemiologist
David Wallace-Wells, columnist and opinion writer, The New York Times

Jetelina on Fauci:
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/its-time-to-leave-the-man-alone

Wallace-Wells on Fauci:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/04/24/magazine/dr-fauci-pandemic.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe! 

Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@whyshoulditrustyou.net