Public Health Group Chat | Podcast Guru

Details

A podcast more reliable than your federal government. Hosted by public health professionals Ariel, Mattie, and Olivia, this podcast breaks down what’s actually happening in the world of health—without the jargon or spin, no background required. Each episode feels like catching up with friends who know how the system works and can explain why it matters to your everyday life. Expect the topic of the week, public health in pop culture, weekly recall updates, and the good news we all need to hear. Informative, honest, and occasionally unhinged…in the best way. All views shared in this podcast are our own. Episodes drop every other Friday.

Recent Episodes

In this episode, Ariel breaks down how GLP-1s are reshaping the U.S. economy, inspired by a talk she attended at Aspen Ideas Health. After a quick history (yes, there’s a Gila monster involved), she covers who’s using GLP-1s, what they cost, and the ripple effects: smaller grocery bills, fewer food trucks on the road, potential airline fuel savings, a clothing-spending boom, and changes in how people work out. Mattie and Olivia share their own GLP-1 experiences along the way. This episode’s g...

50 MIN

It’s SpOokY season, and Olivia and Ariel are digging into VAERS, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, where one doctor reported turning into the Hulk after his flu shot (and the report was accepted). Olivia explains VAERS as a smoke detector that beeps at both fires (proven vaccine injuries) and burnt toast (lots of unverified reports). She covers where VAERS came from, the real safety signals it has caught, and why raw reports are so easy to misread and easily fearmongered. Then they ...

58 MIN

In this episode, Ariel and Mattie discuss Elon Musk, wealth inequality, and his disastrous influence on public health. Earlier this year, Musk became the world’s first trillionaire after already existing as the wealthiest individual on planet Earth. Billionaires should not exist, and trillionaires are even worse. Wealth inequality is bad for health, and the US ranks high in wealth inequity. In addition to wealth inequality, we cover the elimination of dog to human rabies transmission in...

52 MIN

Ronald Reagan Ruined Everything: Part II

Part two of our Reagan deep-dive picks up where we left off, with Mattie walking us through more of the Reagan Administration decisions that are still shaping public health today: the War on Drugs and the punitive framework it built that we're still dismantling, the roots of the modern homelessness crisis, and the mental health policy choices that gutted the safety net for people who needed it most. If you loved Part One, you're going to love this one too. Also this week: Colorado's ext...

43 MIN

Ronald Reagan Ruined Everything: Part I

Part one of our Reagan deep-dive has Mattie leading the charge with Ariel along for the ride, digging into the economic and public health legacy of the Reagan era: Reaganomics and the trickle-down promise that never quite trickled, the AIDS epidemic and the years of federal silence while a generation was dying, and the "welfare queen" myth Reagan built a political career on — where that story actually came from, who it was designed to target, and how it's still doing damage in policy debates ...

55 MIN