Health & Veritas
Howard Forman and Harlan Krumholz, two Yale physician-professors, discuss the latest news and ideas in healthcare and seek out the truth amid the noise.
Health & Veritas is produced with the Yale School of Management and the Yale School of Public Health.

Episodes
- PodcastEpisode 67Duration 36:31
Jeffrey Sonnenfeld: The CEO Whisperer
Howie and Harlan are joined by Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, an expert on leadership at the Yale School of Management, to discuss his decades of dialogue with top executives and his insights on healthcare leadership. Harlan reports on his new study exploring the causes of persistent hypertension; Howie reflects on CVS’s acquisition of Oak Street Health and asks who benefits from recent innovations in the healthcare industry.
Links:
Yale School of Management: Chief Executive Leadership Institute
“How Poisoned Tylenol Became a Crisis-Management Teaching Model”
“Why the Amazon, JPMorgan, Berkshire Venture Collapsed: ‘Health Care Was Too Big a Problem’”
“CVS Health to Acquire Oak Street Health”
“Amazon and One Medical Sign an Agreement for Amazon to Acquire One Medical”
Donald Berwick: “Salve Lucrum: The Existential Threat of Greed in US Health Care”
“CVS Health and RUSH collaborate to increase health care access for Chicago-area Medicare patients”
- PodcastEpisode 66Duration 38:31
Countering COVID Revisionism
Howie and Harlan discuss Howie’s recent bout of COVID-19 and the takeaways from new research on adverse events in hospitals, and they consider claims from Tucker Carlson of Fox News about the pandemic response.
Links:
“5 COVID mistakes Biden’s new chief of staff must admit”
Harlan Krumholz: “A prescription for the US FDA for the regulation of health misinformation”
“What older Americans need to know about taking Paxlovid”
NIH COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines | Molnupiravir
“Efficacy of Antiviral Agents against Omicron Subvariants BQ.1.1 and XBB”
“China Cautiously Takes to the Road for Lunar New Year”
“President Biden to end COVID-19 emergencies on May 11”
Donald Berwick: “Salve Lucrum: The Existential Threat of Greed in US Health Care”
“The Safety of Inpatient Health Care”
“Nearly 1 in 4 U.S. hospitalized patients experience harmful events, study finds”
“Trends in Adverse Event Rates in Hospitalized Patients, 2010-2019”
- PodcastEpisode 65Duration 34:58
Leora Horwitz: Toward a Continuously Learning Healthcare System
Howie and Harlan are joined by Leora Horwitz, director of the Rapid Randomized Controlled Trial Lab at NYU Langone Health, to discuss her work using experimentation to improve the delivery of care, and her experience as a clinician and researcher in the chaotic first months of the COVID-19 outbreak in New York City. Harlan reports on his new study examining the impact on patients of early-morning blood draws in hospitals; Howie reflects on new business models for delivering discounted generic drugs.
Links:
NYY Langone Health: Rapid Randomized Controlled Trial Lab
Leora Horwitz: “‘I Am Not the Same as I Was Before’: A Qualitative Analysis of COVID-19 Survivors”
Leora Horwitz: “Tweeting Into the Void: Effective Use of Social Media for Healthcare Professionals”
- PodcastEpisode 64Duration 33:04
Gil Addo: Building a Model for Virtual Specialty Care
Howie and Harlan talk with Gil Addo, CEO and co-founder of RubiconMD, which is aiming to expand access to specialty care by providing virtual consultations to primary care physicians. A new study from Harlan examines a loophole that is allowing unreliable medical devices to enter the market; Howie provides an update on legislature that will soon cause millions to lose Medicaid coverage.
Links:
RubiconMD: Virtual Specialty Care & Online Consultation
“Oak Street Health Acquires Virtual Specialty Care Provider RubiconMD”
“Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023: Medicaid and CHIP Provisions Explained”
“Medical bills still plague Americans, more than a decade after the ACA”
Learn more about the MBA for Executives program at Yale SOM.
- PodcastEpisode 63Duration 35:33
Healthcare Headlines
Howie and Harlan check in on health issues that are in the news—or will be soon. Harlan discusses his work measuring patient outcomes and new avenues of research on long COVID; Howie reports on the perverse effects of private equity investment in specialty healthcare practices and the looming deadline facing state Medicaid programs.
Links:
"What we learned about the NFL in the aftermath of Damar Hamlin’s cardiac arrest"
Céline Gounder: "Grant Wahl Was a Loving Husband. I Will Always Protect His Legacy."
Harlan Krumholz: “Outcomes Research: Generating Evidence for Best Practice and Policies”
Harlan Krumholz: “Real-world Imperative of Outcomes Research”
Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy: Outcomes Research
"Families First Coronavirus Response Act Medicaid and CHIP Provisions Explained"
"Millions Could Lose Medicaid by April as Pandemic Rules Ease"
Learn more about the MBA for Executives program at Yale SOM.
- PodcastEpisode 62Duration 36:10
F. Perry Wilson: The Formula for Medical Misinformation
Harlan answers questions about the cardiac arrest suffered by Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin in a nationally televised football game; Howie reports on the rapid spread of the XBB 1.5 variant of COVID-19. And they are joined by F. Perry Wilson, a Yale nephrologist and an expert in the translation of medical research into clinical care, to discuss his new book, How Medicine Works and When It Doesn’t: Learning Who to Trust to Get and Stay Healthy.
Links:
“Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin suffers a cardiac arrest during Monday's game”
“What Is Cardiac Arrest? What to Know About Why Damar Hamlin Collapsed”
“Exposed: conman's role in prayer-power IVF ‘miracle’”
“The MMR vaccine and autism: Sensation, refutation, retraction, and fraud”
“Omicron offshoot XBB.1.5 could drive new Covid-19 surge in US”
Eric Topol: “A new variant alert”
Eric Topol on Twitter: “Why hasn't Paxlovid implementation lived up to its expectations?”
- PodcastEpisode 61Duration 36:42
Lisa Sanders: The Art of Diagnosis
Howie and Harlan are joined by Lisa Sanders, the Yale internist who writes the "Diagnosis" column in the New York Times. Harlan reports on new studies demonstrating the ineffectiveness of ivermectin in treating COVID-19, and the effectiveness of the bivalent booster in improving outcomes. And Howie reacts to headlines about frequent misdiagnoses in emergency departments.
Links:
Katelyn Jetelina: “Fall bivalent boosters: Science update round 4”
Eric Topol: “A quick update on the bivalent boosters”
“DeSantis calls for grand jury to investigate Covid-19 vaccines”
Diagnosis: Dr. Lisa Sanders on hard-to-solve medical mysteries
“Introducing 'Diagnosis,' a New Show From The Times and Netflix”
“Diagnostic Errors in the Emergency Department: A Systematic Review”
- PodcastEpisode 60Duration 33:16
Jeffrey Gruen: The Genetic Roots of Learning Disabilities
Harlan reports on a new study suggesting dramatic health benefits from bursts of vigorous activity; Howie explains how genetic science is starting to illuminate a mystery in his own medical history. And they are joined by Yale physician and scientist Jeffrey Gruen to discuss his work identifying the genetic variants associated with dyslexia and designing early interventions for kids with learning disabilities.
Links:
Dr. Jeffrey Gruen –The New Yale Program for Learning Disabilities Research
“Revenge of the gaslit patients: Now, as scientists, they’re tackling Ehlers-Danlos syndromes”
Learn more about the MBA for Executives program at Yale SOM.
- PodcastEpisode 59Duration 36:09
Kristen Nwanyanwu: Vision and Equity
Harlan reports on new research on effective prostate cancer screening; Howie explores the potential of the AI language model ChatGPT. And they’re joined by Dr. Kristen Nwanyanwu, a Yale ophthalmologist with a focus on closing the racial gap in the treatment of diabetic retinopathy.
Links:
“Prostate Cancer Screening with PSA and MRI Followed by Targeted Biopsy Only”
Kristen Nwanyanwu: “Addressing Disparities in Ophthalmic Research”
“U.S. Supreme Court rules on University of Michigan cases”
“The Pandemic’s Legacy Is Already Clear”
Minority Ophthalmology Mentoring
ChatGPT: Optimizing Language Models for Dialogue
Learn more about the MBA for Executives program at Yale SOM.
- PodcastEpisode 58Duration 34:18
Dr. Eric Topol: Pushing Medicine into the Future
Howie and Harlan are joined by Dr. Eric Topol, a physician and writer who is widely recognized both as a leading researcher and a public voice on medicine and health. They discuss his career turn toward genomics and digital health, and the fight against misinformation on Twitter.
Links:
“Adding Salt to Foods and Risk of Cardiovascular Disease”
Eric Topol: The Patient Will See You Now: The Future of Medicine Is in Your Hands (2015)
Eric Topol: Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again (2019)
Scott Gottlieb on LinkedIn: “The GLP-1s emerge as the largest class of peptide drugs of all time”
Learn more about the MBA for Executives program at Yale SOM.