Untangling Variants & Outbreaks: Can Vaccines & Natural Immunity Outrun Delta?

Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share on
LinkedIn
+

Hubwonk host Joe Selvaggi talks with author, surgeon, and public health expert Dr. Marty Makary about the COVID-19 Delta Variant, the durability of natural and vaccinated immunity, the benefits of booster shots, and the health risks for children as we move into the fall.

Guest:

Dr. Martin Makary is a surgical oncologist and chief of the Johns Hopkins Islet Transplant Center. He is a clinical lead for the Johns Hopkins Sibley Innovation Hub and serves as Executive Director of Improving Wisely, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation project to lower health care costs in the U.S. by creating measures of appropriateness in health care. Dr. Makary’s research focuses on the creation and evaluation of new health care innovations. He is the creator of the Surgery Checklist, publishing its first description and later served on the W.H.O. Safe Surgery Saves Lives committee. He led the W.H.O. workgroup to create global measures of surgical quality. Dr. Makary has published over 200 scientific articles, including the first description of “frailty” impacting surgical outcomes, the original studies on safety culture measurement in hospitals, and an evaluation of the Orphan Drug Act. He is a leading voice for physicians, writing in The Wall Street Journal, and is the author of The New York Times best-selling book, Unaccountable, about patient safety and physician-led transparency efforts in health care. Dr. Makary is the founder of the Johns Hopkins Center For Surgical Outcomes Research and Clinical Trials and is the recipient of numerous grants to evaluate the effectiveness of new surgical technology and new interventions in health care. He serves jointly as a professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a professor of health policy & management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He has pioneered new pancreas operations at Johns Hopkins, including the laparoscopic Whipple procedure. He performed the first series of laparoscopic islet auto-transplantation and other laparoscopic operations in field of surgery. Dr. Makary is among the few highest-volume laparoscopic pancreas surgeons in the United States. He is the recipient of the National Pancreas Foundation Nobility in Science Award. Dr. Makary is a graduate of Bucknell, Thomas Jefferson and Harvard University. He completed his surgical training at Georgetown University and his fellowship at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Get new episodes of Hubwonk in your inbox!

Recent Episodes:

Eight Billion Minds: Unsustainable Population Bomb or Infinite Resource?

Hubwonk host Joe Selvaggi talks with Cato Scholar and author Marian Tupy about his new book, Superabundance: The Story of Population Growth, Innovation, and Human Flourishing on an Infinitely Bountiful Planet, focusing on the contrast in policy perspectives between those who see humans consumers of finite resources and those who recognize the unlimited potential of human ingenuity.

MBTA Safety Overhaul: Retooling Teams For Trustworthy Transit

/
This week on Hubwonk, host Joe Selvaggi talks with transit advocate and expert Chris Dempsey about ways in which structural change in the MBTA's safety oversight can be reformed to improve performance, engender greater trust amongst the region’s riders, and reduce transportation congestion in our growing economy.

Climate Death Toll: Will A Warming World Overwhelm Human Resiliency?

This week on Hubwonk, host Joe Selvaggi talks with climate scientist and Johns Hopkins lecturer Dr. Patrick Brown about his recent paper, Human Deaths from Hot and Cold Temperatures and Implications for Climate Change, on the factors that contribute to high climate-related mortality, and those that lead to better resiliency.

Legal Property Theft: Legal Defense Against Town Taxman Taking Neediests’ Deeds

This week on Hubwonk, host Joe Selvaggi talks with President of PioneerLegal and retired federal judge, Hon. Frank J. Bailey, about PioneelLegal’s work to advocate for the U.S. constitutional prohibition against the practice of municipalities taking an the entire value of a property to settle a relatively small tax debt, a procedure legal in Massachusetts and thirteen other states.

Right To Save: Paying Healthcare Consumers To Shop For Value

This week on Hubwonk, host Joe Selvaggi talks with healthcare policy expert Josh Archambault about the findings from his Cicero Institute report, The Right to Save: The Next Generation of Price Transparency. He outlines how to incentivize healthcare consumers to utilize price information to reduce out-of-pocket costs, and lower healthcare costs for everyone.

Grading State Governors: Do Higher Taxes Equate To Higher Value?

This week on Hubwonk, host Joe Selvaggi talks with Cato Institute’s Chris Edwards about the new report he co-authored entitled, "Fiscal Policy Report Card on America’s Governors 2022." They discuss how Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker’s fiscal stewardship compares with other states, and explore whether higher tax rates and spending correlate with better state performance and resident satisfaction.

The Causes and Potential Cures for Inflation

This week on Hubwonk, Harvard economist and Pioneer Institute board member Ed Glaeser interviews Larry Summers, former U.S. Treasury Secretary and President Emeritus of Harvard University, for a special episode on the origins of inflation, its impact on the American economy, and a roadmap to recovery.

Republicans at a Crossroads: Weighing the Boost and Baggage of the Trump Train

This week on Hubwonk, host Joe Selvaggi talks with political scientist and author, Northeastern University Professor William Mayer, about the new book he has edited, The Elephant in the Room: Donald Trump and the Future of the Republican Party. They discuss how former president Trump has changed, and has been changed, by the GOP, and which path the Republican party is likely to take in the future.

Supreme Judicial Preview: Court Poised To Face Controversy

This week on Hubwonk, host Joe Selvaggi talks with constitutional scholar Thomas Berry about the important questions being decided in the more high profile cases facing the newly opened session of the Supreme Court. They discuss how the addition of newly appointed Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson could add a fresh perspective on the concept of originalism.

Income Inequality Explored: Wage Gap Overlooks Government Intervention

This week on Hubwonk, host Joe Selvaggi talks with John F. Early, economist and author of the newly released book, The Myth of American Inequality, about the history of income inequality, its true size, and trends. They also discuss how census data used in policy decision-making misses nearly all the effects of government intervention and distorts the truth about the income American families actually have to spend.