Healthy Communities Online

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with renowned vaccine expert Dr. Paul Offit, Director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. A member of the FDA COVID Vaccine Advisory Panel and co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine, Dr. Offit points to the growing body of data around the safety and efficacy of the mRNA-based COVID vaccines, that it’s safe for all populations, including children and pregnant women, and…

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This week hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter welcome Dr. Rachel Levine, Assistant Secretary for Health at the US Department of Health and Human Services, the first transgender presidential appointee approved by the Senate. A pediatrician with a focus on child and adolescent behavioral health, and former Pennsylvania Health Secretary, Dr. Levine focuses on the dramatic toll exacted on the nation’s children by the pandemic, the need to advance health equity for the LGBTQ and all vulnerable populations, and the…

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This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter welcome recent Senior Advisor to the Biden White House COVID Response Team, Andy Slavitt, discussing his new book: “Preventable: The Inside Story of How Leadership Failures, Politics and Selfishness Doomed the U.S. Coronavirus Response”. He outlines the ‘sins’ that led to the previous administration’s failed response to the pandemic, and talks about President Biden’s approach to correct course, by taking full responsibility for outcomes and being frank with the American people. He…

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This week hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Anthony Fauci, Chief Medical Advisor to the Biden Administration’s COVID-19 Team. They discuss the decades of science behind the ‘remarkable’ vaccines, the decision by the US and G7 members to scale up global vaccine donations, and the virulent variants that pose a greater risk to the unvaccinated. He also predicts the dramatic discovery around COVID-19 will pave the way for a vaccine for HIV/AIDS within the decade.

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with former US Congressman Patrick Kennedy, founder and CEO of The Kennedy Forum, an organization dedicated to advancing policies and best practices to improve access to mental health and addiction services. Congressman Kennedy, who co-sponsored the 2008 Mental Health Parity Act, addresses the devastating toll the pandemic has had on mental health and addiction, and talks about Biden Administration efforts to address the mental health crisis through expanded health coverage and…

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This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, COVID-19 Technical Lead at the WHO. They discuss the world’s lack of readiness and supply chain infrastructure to confront the pandemic. She says the lessons learned from this collective ‘trauma’ is sparking new efforts to build more robust surveillance and response systems for emerging pathogens, the concerning new variant out of India, and the need to accelerate global vaccinations to stop the continued spread of the…

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