.jpg)
Causes or Cures
For the Nerds and the Nerd Nots
Causes or Cures is an independent health podcast hosted by "Dr. Eeks" (ErinKate Stair, MD, MPH). It is an offbeat, grassroots show driven by curiosity and a genuine love of making complicated health topics easier to understand.
Dr. Eeks is a public health professional specializing in applied epidemiology & health communication. By day, she works on challenging public health issues. By choice, she spends some of her free time asking scientists, physicians, researchers, authors, clinicians, and other fascinating people questions she hopes everyone else is wondering too.
Along the way, the podcast has wandered into everything from memory and longevity to self medicating animals, migraines, gene drive mosquitoes, strange public health history, the spiritual realm, and the occasional existential detour. If it has something to teach us about health or what it means to be human, it is probably fair game.
Recurring segments include Public Health is Weird, which uncovers strange but true stories from public health history, WTF Health News, where Dr. Eeks breaks down bizarre or buzzworthy health headlines, and Eeks Speakeasy, a more personal corner of the podcast where curiosity occasionally spills over into life, philosophy, and whatever else deserves a drink and a discussion.
A few housekeeping notes...
This podcast is for information, curiosity, and conversation. It is not medical advice.
Although Dr. Eeks has an MD, she does not practice medicine. She is a full time public health nerd and will never tell you what to do with your own health. If you have a medical question, your healthcare provider knows you far better than a podcast ever could.
Guests are invited because they have something interesting to contribute, not because Dr. Eeks agrees with every opinion they hold. Likewise, she does not endorse miracle supplements, mysterious oils, magic socks, potions, or anything that promises to solve all of life's problems.
If an episode is sponsored or underwritten by a company she genuinely enjoys working with, she will always tell you.
Causes or Cures is also not a news site. It is a place for thoughtful conversations. Dr. Eeks believes people can disagree respectfully, ask difficult questions, change their minds, and occasionally laugh at themselves along the way. Some of the best conversations she has ever had happened in hole in the walls, on sidewalks, and in places where nobody was trying to win an argument.
Sometimes Barnaby, her dog and unofficial executive producer, contributes his thoughts as well. Fortunately, he is a pretty smart dog.
Above all, Dr. Eeks hopes this podcast encourages people to stay curious, compassionate, honest, open minded, and engaged. Freedom of discussion is a beautiful, delightfully messy thing, and one worth protecting.
The views expressed on this podcast are Dr. Eeks' own and do not reflect the views of any organization she contracts with or consults for.
Want to help keep Causes or Cures independent and ad free? Click the Support button at the top of the page.
Want to sponsor or underwrite an episode?
Causes or Cures works with a limited number of sponsors and episode underwriters in health, science, and public health. Partnerships are kept separate from editorial content and guest selection. If your organization might be a fit, reach out at: erin@bloomingwellness.com
Want more weird health news & public health oddities? Sign up for the Eeks Weekly newsletter (10,000 + subscribers)
Causes or Cures
The Truth About Your Medications, with Harvard's Dr. Jerry Avorn
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Jerry Avorn, a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, drug safety watchdog, and author of Rethinking Medications: Truth, Power, and the Drugs You Take. If you’ve ever felt uneasy about the rising cost of prescription drugs, the process or speed by which new meds are approved, or why the side effects list is longer than your grocery receipt, this episode is for you.
Dr. Avorn pulls no punches. We talk about:
- How our current system rewards speed over evidence, and why “accelerated approval” may sound good but can lead to disaster.
- The rise of drugs approved with weak or surrogate endpoints, yet priced like gold (yep, you still pay full price for half-baked science).
- Shocking case studies, like the Vioxx heart attack debacle and the controversial Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm.
- The FDA’s evolution from watchdog to lapdog (in some cases).
- Conflicts of interest.
- Public funding, private profits: how taxpayer money fuels breakthroughs that we can’t afford. (WTF!)
- And, yes, we talk about the “Do Your Own Research” crowd.
Dr. Avorn’s mission? Help patients and doctors actually understand what they’re taking or prescribing, and what forces are shaping those decisions.
Why listen?
Because behind every pill is a story, and it’s not always the one you’re told in the ad with the beach scene and happy jazz flute.
Links:
Grab the book: Rethinking Medications: Truth, Power, and the Drugs You Take (Simon & Schuster, 2025)
Jerry Avorn, MD, is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a senior internist in the Mass General Brigham health-care system. He built a leading research center at Harvard to study medication use, outcomes, costs, and policies and developed the educational approach of “academic detailing” to provide evidence-based information about medications to prescribers. One of the nation’s most highly cited researchers, Dr. Avorn is the author of Powerful Medicines: The Benefits, Risks, and Costs of Prescription Drugs, and he has written or cowritten over six hundred papers in the medical literature as well as commentaries in the New York Times, The Washington Post, JAMA, and The New England Journal of Medicine.
Work with Me? Perhaps we are a match!
You can contact Dr. Eeks at bloomingwellness.com.
Follow Eeks on Instagram here.
Or Facebook here.
Or X.
On Youtube.
Or TikTok.
SUBSCRIBE to her weekly newsletter here! (Now featuring interviews with top experts on health you care about!)