Healthy Communities Online

Emmy award-winning actor Michael J. Fox shocked the world when he announced over 25 years ago that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Since then, he’s devoted his talents to eliminating Parkinson’s in our lifetime. Researchers with The Michael J. Fox Foundation now have impressive progress to report. They’ve developed a biomarker test to measure the protein alpha synuclein that’s helping to diagnose Parkinson’s with more than 90% accuracy, even proving effective at identifying people who may later develop…

Read More Read More

Originally broadcast February 15, 2024 About 1 in 5 colorectal patients are now under the age of 55, and colorectal cancer is now the leading cause of cancer death for men under age 50 and the second for women under 50. During Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month, we present this encore presentation of our interview with Dr. Alan Venook. Dr. Venook is with the University of California-San Francisco and is one of the nation’s leading colorectal cancer researchers. He explained to…

Read More Read More

Originally broadcast February 27, 2025. How reliable is the current research into the cause of Alzheimer’s disease? Award-winning author Charles Piller’s new book is “Doctored: Fraud, Arrogance, and Tragedy in the Quest to Cure Alzheimer’s”; it’s raising important questions about certain images that may have been manipulated to bolster the amyloid hypothesis as the cause of Alzheimer’s. Piller tells “Conversations on Health Care” that “what you have are a multitude of images — not just in Alzheimer’s disease but in…

Read More Read More

Dr. Louis Sullivan walked the halls of Congress and testified before committees when he was secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. That experience, working in a bipartisan fashion in the President George H.W. Bush administration, is valuable now. During Black History Month, we revisit our interview with Dr. Sullivan for lessons about leadership and the challenges that still exist in our healthcare system. Dr. Sullivan advocates for more Blacks to train to become doctors and explains…

Read More Read More

Originally broadcast February 13, 2025 $4.95 — that’s the record high price of a dozen of Grade A eggs in U.S. cities. Michael Osterholm, Ph.D., the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, says expect them to go even higher. That’s because H5N1, a form of bird flu, has affected more than 156 million commercial, backyard and wild birds in the United States in the last three years. Osterholm, with nearly 50 years of experience investigating infectious…

Read More Read More

Originally broadcast February 6, 2025 Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing health care—but how do we ensure it’s safe, effective, and responsible? Dr. Brian Anderson, CEO of the Coalition for Health AI (CHAI), explains to “Conversations on Health Care” how his organization is working to establish clear guidelines for responsible AI in health care. Formed in 2021 during the pandemic, CHAI has grown from eight organizations to nearly 3,000, bringing together healthcare leaders, tech companies, and policymakers to build industry-wide best practices….

Read More Read More