Healthy Communities Online

This week, Hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Alejandro Cravioto, Chair of SAGE, the international panel of experts making COVID-19 vaccine recommendations to the World Health Organization (WHO). Dr. Cravioto talks about their global team of scientists and the rigorous guidelines governing the approval process for emergency authorization for the Pfizer vaccine – as well as all others in the queue. He also discusses the need to scale up production for global distribution, as well as the…

Read More Read More

This week hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Paul Offit, Director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, co-creator of the rotavirus vaccine, and member of the FDA Advisory Committee that approved emergency authorization for the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer. Dr. Offit says development of this new vaccine is a remarkable achievement backed by decades of scientific research that the Advisory Committee found to be safe an efficacious for widespread…

Read More Read More

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter reflect on 2020 at the end of a year like no other. When the COVID-19 pandemic began to take hold, they welcomed many of the world’s most renowned infectious disease, virology, and epidemiology experts. From Dr. Anthony Fauci to Dr. Ashish Jha, from New York Times writer and “Pandemic” docu-series producer Dr. Sheri Fink, to innovative scientists like Dr. Eric Topol, Dr. Zeke Emanuel, Dr. Michael Osterholm to US Surgeon General Dr….

Read More Read More

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with notable vaccine scientist Dr. Peter Hotez, founding Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor University College of Medicine. Author of “Preventing the Next Pandemic: Vaccine Diplomacy in a Time of Anti-Science”, Dr. Hotez warns deaths from COVID-19 will continue to rise dramatically until a national program of masks, testing, and social distancing is in place. He warns that we are months away from widespread vaccine distribution,…

Read More Read More

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter welcome Dr. Michael Osterholm, newly appointed member of President-elect Biden’s COVID-19 Task Force. Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota, the renowned epidemiologist warns of dark days ahead as pandemic cases surge across America, but also sees great promise with the coming vaccines. Distribution, vaccine hesitancy and public skepticism will remain big hurdles.

This week hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with renowned Harvard Economist David Cutler, whose recent report in the Journal of the American Medical Association projects the pandemic’s expected toll on the US Economy. Cutler warns that the dramatic death toll, more chronically ill Americans and a contracted economy will lead to a loss of 16 trillion dollars over the next ten years.