Podcast
The CommonHealth
Hosted by CSIS Global Health Policy Center | Center for Strategic and International Studies · EN
The CommonHealth is the podcast of the CSIS Bipartisan Alliance for Global Health Security. On The CommonHealth, hosts J. Stephen Morrison and Katherine Bliss delve deeply into the puzzle that connects pandemic preparedness and response, HIV/AIDS, routine immunization, and primary care, areas of huge import to human and national security. The CommonHealth replaces under a single podcast the Coronavirus Crisis Update, Pandemic Planet and AIDS Existential Moment.
Produced by Marla Hiller.
42episodes
Episodes
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Helen Branswell, Stat News infectious diseases and global health reporter: “Is the solution making it harder for individuals to get vaccines?”
May 29, 202500:37:38Tap to summarizeFor Helen Branswell, the celebrated Stat News reporter, the SARS outbreak of 2003, while she was based in Toronto, was a thunderclap moment. Jump forward 22 years: Secretary Kennedy on May 28, posted a one-minute video on X announcing he is not recommending Covid vaccines for healthy children and pregnant women -- an “unprecedented” unilateral decision without any normal process. “It came out of the mind of the individuals who wrote it.” What does this bold step signal? The public is voting with its feet in the low uptake of Covid vaccines by the older and more vulnerable population. Yet it is not clear why the government has to take active measures to make vaccines less available to healthy individuals. CDC should play a lead role in deliberations but is cut out. The CDC director position is vacant, and no acting director is in place. Will vaccine producers need to run new field trials for updated boosters? “They (the Trump administration) have been quite unclear in what they are asking for.”127 days into the second Trump administration, how to characterize things? “I would characterize it as exhausting.” “The change has been massive, and it is not over.” What gives you hope? “That is a very hard question.”
Transcribe →Dr. Kate O’Brien, WHO: “The success of vaccines is that, basically, nothing happens.”
May 21, 202500:28:49Tap to summarizeIn this episode, Dr. Kate O’Brien, Director of the Department of Immunization, Vaccines, and Biologicals at the World Health Organization (WHO) shares her perspective on the state of global immunization programs halfway through Immunization Agenda 2030; the challenges associated with current measles outbreaks in the United States and around the world; why people who have never seen children die from preventable diseases may seem complacent about vaccines; steps that can be taken to strengthen vaccine confidence while ensuring equitable access to immunization programs; and what’s at risk as the United States and other funders cut support for biomedical research and development at a moment when there are numerous promising products to prevent infectious diseases in the research and development pipeline.
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