Inside A Rare Conversation Between MAHA Grassroots and Public Health Leaders

Why Should I Trust You?

In today’s episode: a conversation between two sides that don’t typically speak with each other—mainstream public health leaders and voices from the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement. These groups often talk about each other, but rarely to each other.

Five MAHA members from their state chapter in Ohio. Five public health leaders. We had met and developed relationships with them over months of discussing their vision of health in this country. And a few weeks ago, we invited them to have a conversation with each other. They all agreed.

On today's episode, we play the conversation in three sections. Following each section, we are joined by the Dean of Yale School of Public Health's Megan Ranney and MAHA Ohio's Grassroots Coordinator Elizabeth Frost who were on the call, to dig into their reactions.

This dialogue comes at a critical moment for public health and science, as the Trump administration slashes funding and jobs in a sharp reorientation of America’s health agencies and scientific research infrastructure. The divisions between these two camps run deep—over vaccines, the role of government, over health itself, and the polarizing figure of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s current health secretary. Trust is eroding on all sides.

So we asked: what if we tried to bridge the gap? Do these sides actually have more in common than they think? Would they be willing to be open and honest with each other? Would they get stuck on the conversation over vaccines?

What you will hear is an important starting point -- with more conversations planned for the future.

Hosts:

Brinda Adhikari

Tom Johnson

Maggie Bartlett

Dr. Mark Abdelmalek

Guests:

MAHA Grassroots from Ohio:

Elizabeth Frost**

Nancy Fuller

Donald Wiggins

Daniel DeLuca

Mark Harris

Public health leaders:

Megan Ranney**

Reed Tuckson

Katelyn Jetelina

Craig Spencer

Paul Offit

**Were on the group zoom conversation with MAHA and public health as well as podcast guests today

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Chapters

1. Inside A Rare Conversation Between MAHA Grassroots and Public Health Leaders (00:00:00)

2. Intro and Headlines: Public Health Meets MAHA (00:00:17)

3. Why and How Did this Meeting Happen? (00:02:15)

4. Meet Megan Ranney from Yale SPH and Elizabeth Frost from MAHA (00:04:06)

5. Part 1 of 3 of MAHA-PH Convo: Their Stories. Meet Danny DeLuca MAHA (00:07:20)

6. Meet Katelyn Jetelina, Public Health (00:09:10)

7. Intro Nancy Fuller, MAHA (00:10:38)

8. Intro Megan Ranney, Public Health (00:13:37)

9. Intro Donald Wiggins, MAHA (00:17:23)

10. Intro Craig Spencer, Public Health (00:18:34)

11. Intro Mark Harris, MAHA (00:21:30)

12. Intro Paul Offit, Public Health (00:24:44)

13. Talking about Part 1 with Megan and Elizabeth and the pod team (00:26:38)

14. Part 2 of 3: MAHA-PH conversation. What worries them? Elizabeth on Corporate Capture (00:37:33)

15. Offit Discusses Making a Vaccine (00:40:35)

16. Meet Reed Tuckson, Public Health (00:44:40)

17. Donald: Science Communication v Science (00:44:54)

18. Therapeutics vs Vaccines (00:47:27)

19. Talking about Part 2 w Megan, Elizabeth and the pod team (00:51:59)

20. Part 3 of 3 of the MAHA-PH Conversation: Vaccines, Cuts to HHS, Information Sharing (01:10:33)

21. Craig on NIH and Funding Cuts (01:16:16)

22. Mark on MAHA and the Funding Cuts (01:19:36)

23. Katelyn on Science Communication (01:23:58)

24. Reed on Coalition Building (01:28:20)

25. Nancy on Medicaid (01:29:28)

26. Megan on Where We Go From Here (01:31:15)

27. Talking About Part 3 with Megan, Elizabeth and pod team (01:33:08)