Federal cuts to the the NIH and other key research organizations have left both researchers and patients paying the price. Erika Moseson, MD, of the Air Health Our Heath podcast, talks with Mary Rice, MD, MPH, of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, about how these cuts have not only hurt her research on helping patients with respiratory illnesses, but the larger impact they have on science now and for future generations.
Read the article in STAT News about Dr. Rice's study: https://www.statnews.com/2025/08/08/trump-cuts-include-cost-saving-research/
In light of the news of Paul Offit, MD, being fired from the FDA’s advisory committee on vaccines by Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr., as well as Florida’s decision to end school vaccine mandates, we are re-releasing this vital episode on the importance of vaccines.
On this episode of ATS Breathe Easy, host Patti Tripathi welcomes two leading experts to discuss the critical role of vaccines in protecting children and high-risk populations. Dr. Offit, renowned scientist and vaccine advocate, and Tina Hartert, MD, MPH, professor of medicine and director of the Center for Asthma Research, provide an in-depth look at vaccine policies, hesitancy, and the consequences of declining immunization rates, including a measles outbreak.
Check out the ATS Vaccine Resource Center for more information: https://site.thoracic.org/clinicians-researchers/vaccine-resource-center
On this week's episode of the ATS Breathe Easy podcast, host Amy Attaway, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic, talks with Reynold Panettieri, MD, from Rutgers University on the BATURA trial, an at-home trial for those with moderate-to-severe asthma which ended early due to its highly successful results. Asthma patient Heather also talks about how the medication tested in the study, known as AIRSUPRA, has helped her manage her asthma better than ever before.
The BATURA Trial: https://www.nejm.org/doi/abs/10.1056/NEJMoa2504544
As anti-inflammatory rescue therapies begin making their way to patients with asthma, new questions about implementation of this life-saving therapy are emerging, prompting more exciting research from scientists and clinicians. In the first part of this mini-series on anti-inflammatory rescue therapies, host Amy Attaway, MD, of Cleveland Clinic, discusses these questions and more with asthma expert Njira Lugogo, MD, of University of Michigan.
This episode of the ATS Breathe Easy podcast is supported in part by AstraZeneca.
Artificial intelligence is a tool that clinicians and researchers are implementing in their practices and research, but what about its use in teaching the newest generation of doctors? Richard M. Schwartzstein, MD, of Harvard Medical School, discusses using AI for diagnostic education and developing cases, how it can work as a physician-support tool, and more with host Eddie Qian, MD, of Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
We're taking a breather this August as we work on bringing you more great episodes of the ATS Breathe Easy podcast. But we're not going off the air - instead, we're bringing back some of our best episodes of the last season. See you in September for season two!
Amy Attaway, MD, hosts the latest ATS Breathe Easy episode with former ATS President Monica Kraft, MD, and Asthma and Allergy Network's Chief Research Officer, De De Gardner, DrPH, discuss the benefits and challenges of biologics for asthma. What factors guide selection of a specific biologic for asthma? When should a patient transition from one biologic to another? This episode of the ATS Breathe Easy podcast is supported in part by AstraZeneca.
We're taking a breather this August as we work on bringing you more great episodes of the ATS Breathe Easy podcast. But we're not going off the air - instead, we're bringing back some of our best episodes of the last season. See you in September for season two!
Rolling back major EPA policies that protect our health from air pollution exposure is dangerous and even fatal in some cases. This episode features the chair and vice-chair of the ATS Environmental Health Policy Committee, Alison Lee, MD, (Icahn School of Medicine, Mount Sinai) and Gillian Goobie, MD, PhD (University of British Columbia). Patti Tripathi hosts.
Resources:
The Southern California Children’s Health Study
The Ella Roberta Foundation
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
We're taking a breather this August as we work on bringing you more great episodes of the ATS Breathe Easy podcast. But we're not going off the air - instead, we're bringing back some of our best episodes of the last season. See you in September for season two!
Erika Moseson, MD, of the Air Health Our Heath podcast hosts this week's episode with guest Daniel Croft, MPH, ATSF. Dr. Croft is associate professor in the Department of Environmental Medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center. On this episode we share insights from the Climate Change and Respiratory Health: Opportunities to Contribute to Environmental Justice: An Official American Thoracic Society Workshop Report.
For additional discussion on environmental health, please also view our recent Breathe Easy episode 12 “EPA Rollbacks Spell Grave Impacts on Public Health” for an up-to-date discussion of current national changes related to health care, environmental health and environmental justice.
We're taking a breather this August as we work on bringing you more great episodes of the ATS Breathe Easy podcast. But we're not going off the air - instead, we're bringing back some of our best episodes of the last season. See you in September for season two!
On this episode of ATS Breathe Easy, host Patti Tripathi welcomes two leading experts to discuss the critical role of vaccines in protecting children and high-risk populations. Paul Offit, MD, renowned scientist and vaccine advocate, and Tina Hartert, MD, MPH, professor of medicine and director of the Center for Asthma Research, provide an in-depth look at vaccine policies, hesitancy, and the consequences of declining immunization rates.
The second part of our ATS Breathe Easy series on the SOAR Act, in collaboration with the Pulmonary Hypertension Association (PHA). This episode was first posted on PHA's PH Insights podcast.
Host Jaeger Spratt, MSW, highlights the voices of long-time pulmonary hypertension patient advocates Amy Burant and Colleen Connor, who share their experiences with oxygen access and how those challenges have shaped their journeys with this illness and using supplemental oxygen. They also discuss their advocacy work and call on all members of lung disease communities, especially health care professionals, to advocate for the SOAR Act and help lung disease patients breathe easier.
The Supplemental Oxygen Access Reform Act (SOAR Act) is a piece of pending legislation establishes certain requirements with respect to the payment and provision of supplemental oxygen and related services under Medicare. But how would this legislation affect patients, and how is the ATS Nursing Assembly leading the charge in advocating for their needs? Host Patti Tripathi explores this question, and more, with Susan Jacobs, RN, MS, research nurse manager at Stanford University; and Jaeger Spratt, MSW, advocacy and treatment access program manager at the Pulmonary Hypertension Association. This episode is the first in a two-part series collaboration with the Pulmonary Hypertension Association podcast, PH Insights.
The Pulmonary Hypertension Association Advocacy Action Center: https://phassociation.org/advocate/
Did you miss the ATS 2025 International Conference? Or were you unable to attend some key sessions? Go to conference.thoracic.org/program/conference-highlights/ to purchase your ATS Conference Highlights Package.
Be sure to check out the Out of the Blue podcast from the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, which takes you out of the pages of the Blue Journal and into the minds of the most brilliant researchers in the fields of respiratory, critical care, and sleep medicine. Tune in wherever you listen to podcasts!
At the 2025 ATS International Conference, Joshua Fessel, MD, PhD, ATSF, formerly of the NIH, and Shade Afolabi, MD, a pediatric pulmonologist practicing in Texas, sat down to discuss the extensive ramifications the cuts to the NIH caused researchers, clinicians, and patients. With host Erika Moseson, MD, MA, they explore the effects of losing funding on critical research projects, how patient families have been dealing with pauses on disease research, and how the field can help retain and support early career professionals affected by these policy decisions.
Did you miss the ATS 2025 International Conference? Or were you unable to attend some key sessions? Go to conference.thoracic.org/program/conference-highlights/ to purchase your ATS Conference Highlight Package.
Be sure to check out the Out of the Blue podcast from the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, which takes you out of the pages of the Blue Journal and into the minds of the most brilliant researchers in the fields of respiratory, critical care, and sleep medicine. Tune in wherever you listen to podcasts!
On this episode of the ATS Breathe Easy podcast, meet the newly-elected ATS President, Raed Dweik, MD, MBA, ATSF. Host Amy Attaway, MD, MS, talks with Dr. Dweik on his vision for the ATS, and what he is most excited for in the fields of respiratory health, critical care, and how the ATS is braced to help members face ongoing challenges.
Did you miss the ATS 2025 International Conference? Or were you unable to attend some key sessions? Go to conference.thoracic.org/program/conference-highlights/ to purchase your ATS Conference Highlight Package.
Be sure to check out the Out of the Blue podcast from the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, which takes you out of the pages of the Blue Journal and into the minds of the most brilliant researchers in the fields of respiratory, critical care, and sleep medicine. Tune in wherever you listen to podcasts!
On this edition of the ATS Breathe Easy: The Latest, host Patti Tripathi and Foundation for Sarcoidosis Research President and CEO Mary McGowan discuss sarcoidosis research and the Champions for Change movement to encourage companies to allow employees to use paid time off to enroll in clinical trials. To learn more, go to ignorenomore.org.
Did you miss the ATS 2025 International Conference? Or were you unable to attend some key sessions? Go to conference.thoracic.org/program/conference-highlights/ to purchase your ATS Conference Highlight Package.
Be sure to check out the Out of the Blue podcast from the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, which takes you out of the pages of the Blue Journal and into the minds of the most brilliant researchers in the fields of respiratory, critical care, and sleep medicine. Tune in wherever you listen to podcasts!
In our continuing series on What You May Have Missed at ATS 2025, Sunil Kapoor, MD, Medical College of Georgia, and host Erika Moseson, MD, MA, of the Air Health Our Heath podcast, discuss their takeaways from the "Strategies to Reduce Pulmonary and Critical Care Practice Emissions" networking event at ATS 2025. This includes how practices can reduce their carbon footprint and how better climate change policies can help patient outcomes.
Did you miss the ATS 2025 International Conference? Or were you unable to attend some key sessions? Go to conference.thoracic.org/program/conference-highlights/ to purchase your ATS Conference Highlight Package.
Be sure to check out the Out of the Blue podcast from the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, which takes you out of the pages of the Blue Journal and into the minds of the most brilliant researchers in the fields of respiratory, critical care, and sleep medicine. Tune in wherever you listen to podcasts!
This week, in our series on What You May Have Missed at ATS 2025, host Eddie Qian, MD, of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, discusses post intensive care syndrome with Justin Banerdt, MD, MPH, Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Dr. Banerdt presented his research on the subject, “Characterizing Critical Illness Recovery Trajectories: Exploring Risk Factors for Post Intensive Care Syndrome”, at ATS 2025 this past May.
Did you miss the ATS 2025 International Conference? Or were you unable to attend some key sessions? Go to conference.thoracic.org/program/conference-highlights/ to purchase your ATS Conference Highlight Package.
Be sure to check out the Out of the Blue podcast from the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, which takes you out of the pages of the Blue Journal and into the minds of the most brilliant researchers in the fields of respiratory, critical care, and sleep medicine. Tune in wherever you listen to podcasts!
Continuing our series on What You May Have Missed at ATS 2025, host Amy Attaway, MD, MS, of Cleveland Clinic, dives into key topics from the Clinical Year in Review with Sara Auld, MD, MSc, Emory University.
Did you miss the ATS 2025 International Conference? Or were you unable to attend some key sessions? Go to conference.thoracic.org/program/conference-highlights/ to purchase your ATS Conference Highlight Package.
This latest episode in the series "What You May Have Missed at ATS 2025," features Donna Appell, RN, immediate-past-chair of the Public Advisory Roundtable (PAR), a unique feature of the American Thoracic Society. Helping to integrate the patient perspective in research and clinical care, PAR is comprised of nearly 15 respiratory-related patient organizations. Ms. Appell sat down with host Patti Tripathi to discuss PAR events at ATS 2025 as well as the work of the Hermansky-Pudlak Syndrome Network, Inc, of which Ms. Appell is founder and executive director.
6:40 How do groups like the Hermansky-Pudlak Syndrome Network work with the ATS on grand funding?
16:35 Why is it important that PAR have a presence at the International Conference?
This week's episode dives into COPD treatment. When considering inhaler devices, what is the best strategy for COPD patients? Host Amy Attaway, MD, MS, associate director of the COPD Center at Cleveland Clinic welcomes Anthony Anzueto, MD, professor of medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center and chief of the pulmonary section for the South Texas Veterans Healthcare System in San Antonio.
Support for this podcast is brought to you by Viatris and Theravance BioPharma.
This episode begins our series on "What you may have missed at ATS 2025."
We produce over 450 million tons of plastics each year, the vast majority of which has accumulated in the environment. Increasing evidence suggests that microplastics can accumulate in a number of different organs such as the brain, but what of the lungs?
In this episode, Adam Soloff, PhD (self-described "Lorax of the Thorax"), associate professor, UPMC Hillman Cancer Center, walks us through his research to find out what these ever-present microplastics do to the lungs and the pulmonary immune system in particular. Spoiler alert: once inhaled, microplastics pass through the lung seeding many tissues of the body including the heart, brain, gut, liver, and spleen. "We found it everywhere we looked," said Dr. Soloff whose team's work begins to shed light on how microplastics damage lung immunity and may predispose us to lung disease in the future.
4:16 What is a microplastic?
6:19 Where is the most established evidence of how microplastics affects our health?
