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Public Health is Dead

Public Health is Dead

Public Health is Dead 15 Episodes Jun 24, 2026

Public Health is Dead is an award-winning public health advocacy show that critically examines failures in public health, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. It explores how to prepare for future pandemics and reinvent systems that perpetuate inequality. Through historical tales and interviews with advocates, the podcast offers an anti-establishment guide to surviving the new age of pandemics with a punk rock attitude.

Episodes

Hantavirus Horrors and Hubris - PHMC Jun 24, 2026 00:43:13 "Should you be worried?" is the wrong question for the media to be asking about public health issues. We need good information to make good decisions. But global public health leaders seem more concerned about avoiding panic than avoiding pandemics. When a virus started spreading human-to-human on a cruise ship in May, public health communication faltered as panic-management took the helm. All abo
TIME for Pandemic Gaslighting - PHMC Apr 24, 2026 00:57:32 This is a piece from the "pandemic-is-over-bro-just-trust-us" hall of fame. Daniella & MJ (host of "Everything is Public Health") deconstruct TIME magazine's "The COVID-19 Pandemic Will Be Over When Americans Think It Is" from January 2023. This one has it all, folks. There's mansplaining, risk assessments without assessing risks, ignoring Long COVID, a fundamental misconstruction of what public h
Legacies of Colonialism in Public Health Apr 15, 2026 01:08:16 Public health has been used as a tool of empire for centuries. Keeping settlers healthy enough to maintain colonial control over land, resources, and capital is a part of public health’s history. It’s also part of its present. *Content Note: This episode contains mentions of residential schools and colonial violence. (Transcript HERE). In this episode, hear about Renee Bach, an ill-famed recent ch
Everything is Tuberculosis - PHMC Jan 21, 2026 00:44:44 Book report! What Daniella & MJ liked and didn't like about John Green's newest book, "Everything is Tuberculosis". Written in the age of COVID, does he address the thing TB is known for: airborne disease transmission? Can he separate himself from tired old tropes of white saviourism in Africa? Do we think the book does enough to challenge the systems producing inequity in the first place? Hit pla
SPECIAL: Beyond Baggy Blues—how to stop COVID in hospitals Dec 25, 2025 00:41:15 If you go into hospital, you shouldn’t have to worry about getting more sick. Many people get COVID, flu, and other airborne infections from being in hospital, even though it’s preventable. This is a policy failure. And it's fixable.Dr. Dick Zoutman, Board Chair at the Canadian COVID Society, and professor emeritus at Queen’s University, shows us 5 ways to stop COVID from running rampant at hospit
Bad Press: How the media manufactures consent in the age of COVID Nov 28, 2025 01:15:47 Most people get a lot of what they know about public health from what’s in the news. But what’s in the news—and the way it’s talked about—is not always clear or accurate. This episode tracks how the media has contributed to the alarming decline of public health and played a role in blocking meaningful understanding and action on COVID. What is reported and how it's framed can have a huge impact on
Measles on the Backburner - PHMC Sep 3, 2025 01:01:10 Canada could lose its measles elimination status, which says a lot about the state of public health overall. Media coverage leaves much to be desired when it comes to informing the public about measles vaccines, airborne transmission, and social determinants of health, especially with a new school year beginning. Daniella & MJ chew over the hits, swings, and misses in a recent measles episode of C
Still Masking After All These Years - PHMC Jul 16, 2025 00:53:31 This is Public Health Media Club—a chatty and critical exchange about public health in the media!Daniella (of "Public Health is Dead") & MJ (of "Everything is Public Health") do a crossover episode about COVID, people still masking, and "The Science"! First up, from the Atlantic: The Evermaskers (archived link). *This episode pairs nicely with the previous special episode on Public Health is Dead,
SPECIAL: "But My Therapist Said"—COVID-Informed Therapists Chat Jun 28, 2025 01:04:48 Ever heard anyone say they can't care about COVID anymore because it's bad for their mental health? Or their therapist said people still masking have "COVID anxiety"?Well, here are three mental health professionals who have a thing or two to say about that! Meet Pierre, Briana, and Ji-Youn, who share their perspectives on what the Western therapy world is often missing when it comes to COVID and c
How to Stop an Epidemic: When SARS Came to the ER May 21, 2025 00:58:40 In March 2003, one SARS patient showed up in a Vancouver emergency room and another went to a Toronto emergency room. But two very different sequences of events unfolded.Dr. Lyne Filiatrault was working in the Vancouver ER that day. Her team leapt into action and—with a little luck and a lot of preparation—prevented SARS from spreading at the hospital. A government agency immediately put in protec
Something's in the Air (The Airborne Transmission Error) Mar 9, 2025 00:54:41 How a mixup about airborne transmission led to one of the biggest public health errors in history. 5 years since the COVID pandemic began, public health has yet to clearly address it. A lot of disease spread happens through the air we share. And most people don’t know.Over the last century, our growing understanding of pathogens and the ways they spread allowed public health to mitigate, eliminate
An Air-Raising Experience at the Orpheum Theatre Dec 22, 2024 00:30:20 A field trip to the Orpheum Theatre in Vancouver to learn more about their ventilation system, built after the 1918 flu pandemic. Ladies and Gentlethems, the show you’ve all been waiting for, the show that will keep you glued to your seat! A show all about preventing diseases and pathogens and, sometimes, things that go bump in the night. Join Daniella on a journey through the belly of an old vaud

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