America Dissected Crooked Media

For so many Americans, pets are members of the family. And our interactions with animals — in our homes, on our farms, and in the wild — shape our health in some important ways. Abdul reflects on what he’s learned about health working in animal welfare. Then he sits down with Melissa Miller, an animal care expert, disaster field responder, trainer, and county animal care and control director to talk about how pets shape our health, how to do our best for our fur babies, and what can go wrong when we fail them.

Public health professionals are people, too. Too often, though, we don’t think about them that way — their needs, their hopes, and aspirations, their individual skills and areas of passion. But if we want a functional public health system, we really should. Abdul reflects on the experience of leading public health teams. Then he speaks with Dr. Brian Castrucci, President and CEO of the de Beaumont Foundation and co-author of a new book, “Building Strategic Skills for Better Health: A Primer for Public Health Professionals,” about how to build a better public health workforce.

Last summer’s blockbuster “Oppenheimer” took home best picture for a stirring portrayal of the man behind the world’s most dangerous weapon. But there’s a part the story left out: the devastation wrought by nuclear weapons testing on communities here in the US. Abdul reflects on the broader fallout of producing weapons of war. Then he talks to Tina Cordova, co-founder and Executive Director of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, and Dr. Chanese Forté, a scientist with the Global Security Program of the Union of Concerned Scientists about the testing fallout — and what it spells for the future.

In a time when AI is creating new realities faster than we can make sense of them, we need to imagine possible future scenarios to prepare. Which is why a new novel by Marschall Runge, Dean of the University of Michigan Medical School, is so prescient. In his book “Coded to Kill,” Runge helps us imagine what could go wrong, even if so much can go right. Abdul reflects on the critical role of imagination in science. Then he sits down with Dean Runge to talk about what his book can teach us about how we prepare for a future of artificial intelligence in medicine.

Maternal and child health inequities by race are a blot on our national fabric. But fixing them isn’t about one silver bullet — it’s about systems coming together to do their part. Abdul reflects on the struggle for birthing equity. He interviews Dr. Natalie Hernandez, one of the authors of the “Practical Playbook” on maternal health inequities to understand how sectors can come together to save Black moms and babies.

All of us live in bodies. But what happens when those bodies change in ways that rob us of critical life experiences? That’s the question that so many people face after mastectomy. Abdul reflects on the idea of embodiment and the role that healthcare plays in shaping it. Then he interviews Dr. Stacy Tessler Lindau, an obstetrician/gynecologist and scientist designing a bionic breast to help people who’ve lost their breast regain some of the critical functions that they too often lose.