In this episode, Therese Markow and Richard Conniff discuss his book "Ending Epidemics," which explores the history of infectious diseases and vaccines. Richard highlights the evolution from ancient humoral theories, which thrived for nearly 2000 years, to modern germ theory, emphasizing the importance of cleanliness and vaccination. He recounts the development of the smallpox vaccine by Edward Jenner and the polio vaccine by Jonas Salk, noting initial resistance and the success of widespread vaccination. He also addresses the current resistance to COVID-19 vaccines, stressing the importance of balancing vaccine risks against disease risks. He also warns of the dangers of withdrawing from global health organizations like the WHO.

Key Takeaways:

• The Semmelweis Reflex is the tendency of people to stick with what they already believe and ignore clear evidence that it’s wrong.

• Smallpox has been eradicated. In many areas, they were still using Jenner’s vaccine, which still worked up until 1980.

• With some viruses, illnesses are dormant but can crop up later in life, such as chickenpox and shingles. Viruses hide in the nervous system

• When you are thinking about vaccines, think about the disease, and then think about what the relative risk of the vaccine is versus the risk of the disease.

"The problem is that people can develop these imaginary problems with vaccines because they do not have any conception of how awful the disease is that the vaccine is preventing." — Richard Conniff

Episode References:

• Ending Epidemics: A History of Escape from Contagion - https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262552974/ending-epidemics/

• The Species Seekers: Heroes, Fools, and the Mad Pursuit of Life on Earth - https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393341324

Connect with Richard Conniff:

Professional Bio: https://mitpress.mit.edu/author/richard-conniff-39217/

Website: https://strangebehaviors.wordpress.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-conniff-9689a02/

Connect with Therese:

Website: www.criticallyspeaking.net

Threads: @critically_speaking

Email: theresemarkow@criticallyspeaking.net

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

In this episode, Therese Markow and Dr. MacKenzie Pellin discuss the cancer rates in dogs and cats, the types of cancer we tend to see in our four-legged friends, and the challenges of diagnosing cancer in pets. Dr. Pellin also breaks down some of the main differences of cancer in breeds of dogs and cats, and the reasons why those types of cancer are more common based on the pet’s structure. Finally, Dr. Pellin emphasizes the importance of routine veterinary care and early detection for your pets.

Key Takeaways:

• Dogs and humans are diagnosed with cancer at about the same rate - about 25% over their life, with about 50% at geriatric ages. About ⅓ of all cats will be diagnosed with cancer throughout their lifetime.

• Large and giant breed dogs are more predisposed to bone cancer. Dogs with long noses are more likely to get nasal tumors. Snub-nosed dogs are more likely to have tumors in their heart space.

• In cats, certain types of viruses, like FIV of FeLV can be transmitted to other cats, which can then mutate into cancer. These seem species-specific and cannot be transmitted to other species like dogs or humans.

• Monitor your dog or cat’s habits enough that you can tell when things change. You know them, you know their habits, trust your gut, and take them in if things seem unusual.

"Be aware of your animal's habits, and if things start to change, pay attention to that and take them into your clinic for a checkup." — Dr. MacKenzie Pellin

Connect with Dr. MacKenzie Pellin:

Professional Bio: https://www.vetmed.wisc.edu/people/mackenzie-pellin/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mackenzie-pellin-962a66b6/

Connect with Therese:

Website: www.criticallyspeaking.net

Threads: @critically_speaking

Email: theresemarkow@criticallyspeaking.net

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

In this episode, Therese Markow and Dr. John Hutton discuss the impact of early reading exposure on brain development in infants and young children. He explains that babies are born with 100 billion brain cells, each with around 1,000 connections and that these connections are shaped by experiences. Dr. Hutton emphasizes the importance of a nurturing home literacy environment, which includes regular reading routines and interactive reading. He also addresses the negative effects of excessive screen time on brain development, particularly in preschoolers, and advocates for reducing screen usage to allow for more real-world engagement. Additionally, he highlights programs like Reach Out and Read and Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library that aim to increase access to books for children from underprivileged backgrounds.

Key Takeaways:

• It takes a long time for the human brain to develop compared to other animals. Humans are uniquely more sensitive to experiences in their environment than other organisms because of this long development process.

• The Home Literacy Environment can be divided into quantitative (such as the number of books and amount of time spent reading) and qualitative (such as questions asked, format of books, interest in reading, etc.) components.

• There is no “reading network” built-in to the brain. If kids aren’t taught to read, they are not going to just magically know how to read.

• Do your best to form your own routines, and try to make reading fun, enjoyable, and nurturing.

• Kids want to emulate their parents. If we want them to use less screen time, as adults, we must also have less screen time.

"Books, more than anything, are a catalyst that brings grown-ups and kids together to exchange language, to exchange emotions, to show love and affection, and that can be a source of nurturing for all these different aspects of development that are related to that experience." — Dr. John Hutton

Episode References:

• Read Aloud 15 Minutes: https://readaloud.org/

• Reach Out and Read: https://reachoutandread.org/

• Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library: https://imaginationlibrary.com/usa/

• Dr. John Hutton Introduces the SHARE STEP Method for Reading with Young Children: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuQhnbrwutw

Connect with Dr. John Hutton:

Professional Bio: https://profiles.utsouthwestern.edu/profile/226447/john-hutton.html

Twitter: https://x.com/drjohnhutton

Books: https://www.bluemanateepress.com/our-authors#/dr-john-hutton/

Connect with Therese:

Website: www.criticallyspeaking.net

Threads: @critically_speaking

Email: theresemarkow@criticallyspeaking.net

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

In this episode, Therese Markow and Dr. Adina Wise discuss the complexities of Parkinson’s disease, including its causes, symptoms, and the role of environmental factors, such as air pollution. They discuss who Parkinson’s primarily affects, the genetic factors at play, the higher incidents in specific regions, and the increase in the frequency of Parkinson’s cases. They also talk about the recent advancements including continuous infusion therapy and stress that early detection is crucial, though challenging due to ethical considerations.

Key Takeaways:

• Movement disorders are one of the few areas of medicine where diagnosis continues to rely heavily on careful observation.

• Parkinson’s is a heterogeneous disorder, not a single disease. Every case is a little different with the well-known motor symptoms - such as tremors, stiffness, and slowness, but also equally important non-motor symptoms - like sleep disturbances, mood changes, cognitive impairment, and more.

• Parkinson’s mostly appears in people over the age of 60. For early-onset Parkinson’s (before the age of 50) accounts for about 4-10% of all cases. In these early-onset cases, there tends to be a stronger genetic influence.

• The number one thing you can do to keep your brain healthy right now is regular aerobic exercise.

"Environmental factors, genes, lifestyle - these all may influence whether Parkinson’s manifests. This makes the Parkinson’s genetics quite complicated." — Dr. Adina Wise

Connect with Dr. Adina Wise:

Professional Bio: https://profiles.mountsinai.org/adina-wise

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adinawise

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/awise.md/

Connect with Therese:

Website: www.criticallyspeaking.net

Threads: @critically_speaking

Email: theresemarkow@criticallyspeaking.net

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

Most of us take for granted that the seafood we eat is healthy and better for the atmosphere. But there are hidden costs in our increasing consumption of seafood that we don’t see. Why? Because these costs are accrued on the high seas and under the sea where few journalists endeavor to cover them. Sea slavery, overfishing, pollution, and loss of revenue for people already struggling to make a living are extensive, but not well known. Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times investigative reporter Ian Urbina has seen these horrors firsthand and talks with us today about his book “The Outlaw Ocean” and his foundation of the same name.

Key Takeaways:

• Approximately 50 of our seafood is farmed, and the other 50 percent arrives to consumers via practices involving human abuse and serious environmental damage.

• Much of the farmed fish eat fish-meal that is derived from massive overfishing of fish less desirable for eating (but nonetheless ecologically important) and other species, such as whales, sharks, and turtles) caught up in the fishing process. Cooked, ground up, and used to feed the farmed fish.

• We tend to think about greenhouse gases as being the driver of global change, but these practices are wreaking severe havoc on the planet, underwater.

• Human abuse and slavery are often involved in the fleets that harvest from the sea. Invisible people, disposable people.

• Because all of the above take place out of sight, the damage usually goes unseen due to a lack of journalistic coverage. It’s expensive to document but it's critical that it’s brought to light.

"There is a dark irony to aquaculture and raising fish on land and in pens. It was meant, and supported for many years by environmentalists, as a way to slow the rate of depletion of the wild fish. Now, because those aquaculture fish are being fed pelletized wild-caught fish, it's actually speeding up the rate of ocean depletion." — Ian Urbina

Connect with Ian Urbina:

Twitter: twitter.com/ian_urbina

Facebook: facebook.com/IanUrbinaReporter

Website: theoutlawocean.com

Book: theoutlawocean.com/book

YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCykiIhv2wP4-BftEiKb241Q

Instagram: instagram.com/ian_urbina

Connect with Therese:

Website: www.criticallyspeaking.net

Twitter: @CritiSpeak

Email: theresemarkow@criticallyspeaking.net

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

Breast cancer is on the rise, especially in women under 40. This is pretty scary and the increase points to something environmental. In today’s episode, Therese Markow and Dr. Kris McGrath talk about one of these environmental factors and how our individual underarm hygiene may play a role in our risk for breast (and prostate) cancers earlier in life. Dr. McGrath has had a long-time interest in this trend and they discuss some of his work on the relationship between underarm shaving and the use of deodorants and antiperspirants.

Key Takeaways:

• The majority of breast cancer is environmental or lifestyle-related. Only 5-10% of breast cancer is due to genetic causes. So what are the factors?

• Both breast cancer and prostate cancer are hormone-driven cancers.

• More research needs to be done, but there already is a significant and scary relationship between underarm hygiene and breast and prostate cancers.

"In my paper, I showed that the earlier you began underarm habits, shaving your underarms and applying antiperspirant deodorant three times a week or more, the diagnosis of breast cancer began at a younger age, especially if you started using these products before the age of 16." — Dr. Kris McGrath

Connect with Dr. Kris McGrath:

Professional Bio: feinberg.northwestern.edu/faculty-profiles/az/profile.html?xid=15819

Connect with Therese:

Website: www.criticallyspeaking.net

Twitter: @CritiSpeak

Email: theresemarkow@criticallyspeaking.net

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

In this episode, Therese Markow and Mark Greene discuss the pervasive issue of mansplaining, a phenomenon where men explain things to women despite their lesser expertise. Mark explains that mansplaining is rooted in "Man Box Culture," a set of rigid masculine rules that discourage emotional expression and promote dominance. He highlights that these rules, which include not showing emotions and being a breadwinner, have been ingrained since the Industrial Revolution and are still prevalent today. Mark emphasizes the need for men to unlearn these behaviors to form meaningful connections and improve their mental health. He also discusses the impact of these cultural norms on men's professional and personal lives, advocating for a shift towards more inclusive and emotionally open masculinity.

Key Takeaways:

• No culture is monolithic. No culture is non-changeable.

• Mansplaining is one direct product of a culture of masculinity that says: Don't show your emotions. Always be tough, be right, know more.. Never talk about anything deep.

• Man Box Culture is not traditional masculinity

• The breaking of connection is what leads to Man Box Culture and the increased rates of suicide in teenage boys and mental health challenges in adult men.

• Authentic, deep, caring relationships require emotional sharing. If you spend your life mansplaining, you don’t have connection.

"My work is around the idea that we want to get men to wake up to the limitations of Man Box Culture and shift that culture to a healthier culture of expression and connection." — Mark Greene

Episode References:

• Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1608464660

• The Man Box Study by Equimundo: https://www.equimundo.org/resources/man-box-study-young-man-us-uk-mexico/

• When Boys Become Boys by Judy Chu: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0814764800

• Niobe Way: https://www.niobe-way.com/

• Catalyst: How Combative Cultures Prevent Men from Interrupting Sexism: https://www.catalyst.org/research/combative-culture-sexism-infographic/

• The Good Men Project: https://goodmenproject.com/

Connect with Mark Greene:

Website: https://remakingmanhood.com/

Twitter: https://x.com/remakingmanhood

Book: The Little #MeToo Book for Me: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0983466963

Book: The Relational Book for Parenting: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1979378657

Remaking Manhood Podcast: https://remakingmanhood.com/2019/04/01/the-podcast/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrkgreene/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/remakingmanhood/

Connect with Therese:

Website: www.criticallyspeaking.net

Threads: @critically_speaking

Email: theresemarkow@criticallyspeaking.net

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

In this episode, Therese Markow and Dr. Anna Stokke discuss the decline in math education, noting that students lack basic arithmetic skills, hindering their ability to grasp complex concepts across multiple subjects. Dr. Stokke highlights the persistence of ineffective teaching methods, such as constructivism, despite evidence supporting direct instruction. She advocates for a return to systematic, explicit teaching methods to build a strong foundation in math. They also stress the importance of parents questioning educational practices and seeking evidence-based research.

Key Takeaways:

• Math is cumulative. It is like a ladder. To teach a student algebra, they need to know what happens before that.

• If you don't learn the basic math at the time you should, times tables, for instance, you should really know by the end of grade three, and then you don't get that fixed, it's just going to snowball.

• Memorization practices are sometimes called drill and kill. However, if students don’t get that practice, they will fall behind early on.

• There is a lot of evidence from cognitive and neuroscientists that learning basic mathematics actually contributes to your problem-solving abilities for a range of different problems, not just mathematical ones.

"The decline in math is well documented in North America. We don't know why that is, but it's fairly clear that these changes in education seem to correlate with the decline in scores. It's very concerning, and I think we could turn it around if we'd focus on more of a bottom-up approach, building the foundation and using good instructional techniques." — Dr. Anna Stokke

Episode References:

• NCTM: https://www.nctm.org/

• Project Follow Through: https://www.nifdi.org/what-is-di/project-follow-through.html

• Sold a Story: https://features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/

Connect with Dr. Anna Stokke:

Professional Bio: https://www.annastokke.com/cv

Twitter: https://x.com/rastokke

Website: https://www.annastokke.com/

Podcast: https://www.annastokke.com/podcast

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqqz6R2IoI5te260LbQeI5A

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-stokke-5b095626a/

Connect with Therese:

Website: www.criticallyspeaking.net

Threads: @critically_speaking

Email: theresemarkow@criticallyspeaking.net

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.