In our work with older adults, our very wise team leader says "Connection before solution". It's the time you take to build relationships that matters. In medicine, we talk about "the circle of care", but one of my Norwegian colleagues uses the term "circle of trust". Lessons for us all.
Thank you so much for this. In public health, it can sometimes feel like it’s all bad news, so hearing real stories of collaboration, connection, and progress is a breath of fresh air. Please keep sharing more like this—these perspectives matter - and it can be so energizing!
Wow. We need so much more of this. It must have started with the willingness to listen. Everyone is always willing to talk. It takes LISTENING to find common ground, and these two important health care outcomes are more; they are a template for future collaboration among good people with different political perspectives.
This post was one of the most hopeful that I’ve read in a very long time. Gutting scientific expertise and access to evidence based medical treatments was and still is incredibly hard to fathom. Yet, the incredible efforts and partnerships that you are all hitting the ground with your are sure to result in opening eyes and minds. Your caring will spread and bring some sanity to this disinformation era that no politician would be able to do. Thank you, health care angels.
Thank you for highlighting this extremely important collaborative work. It seems to me that there is real benefit to including interested lay people from the very start of such a project, even at the stage of hypothesis formation. That way, it becomes apparent to all the many challenges that go into creating a good research question and the many ways that question could be answered resulting in a better understanding and tolerance as to why an answer may be different than first expected.
So uplifting to read about this collaboration and the relationships driving it forward. We often conflate MAHA with MAGA. As you noted in the piece, they are not always the same and in this case (and I hope many others) that is "a distinction that matters."
It's great you connected with one white woman helping one 99% white community understand the chemical disaster that occurred. Meanwhile MAGA is pushing deregulation - more train crashes, pollution and less knowledge of what toxic chemicals spilled. MAGA is destroying the EPA research arm - less regulation and understanding of toxic chemicals. MAGA is destroying NIH, CDC, expert advising committees, etc etc etc. MAGA is destroying anything to do with DEI - which is why focusing on connecting with a 99% white community is not the win you think it is. Where is MAHA on Flint Michigan?
MAHA is one of the support legs for MAGA.
MAGA is destroying the medical and food support systems (despite your nice story about trying to lobby to support food aid - that's gone in the "big beautiful bill", and MAHA people supported it.) MAGA is kidnapping people off the street and sending them to concentration camps. MAGA is destroying our democracy. Supporting MAHA is supporting everything else that comes with it. If you don't think that, why are they in MAHA and not some other organization?
What draws people to "MAHA" is often a "grain of truth", which is also what fuels many conspiracy theories.
If we continue on a defeatist path - saying we can't work together with each other at a grassroots level to achieve small victories one by one, I suppose we should just roll over and not bother? Sorry - the folks I know are working together to build strength from the bottom up - a foundation the MAGA arm of MAHA doesn't have.
Of course MAGA sucks. But if we don't work on those foundations, like Katelyn is doing, they will outflank us.
MAGA has already outflanked you. MAGA won in part because of MAHA support. If you are not pulling people away from MAGA you are simply supporting MAGA. It's nice they got one lady to react to one issue that directly affects her and her community. Do you think this is a coincidence that this is the very same 99% white community that JD Vance went on TV to highlight the government will protect? While at the same time destroying all federal agencies and expertise that would investigate these problems or provide regulation and oversight to prevent this in the future?
This is called being a "useful idiot". You are not pulling these people away from conspiracy thinking or MAGA divisiveness, you are helping their divisive model show some success.
Take off your blinders, Katelyn, EVERYTHING that is going on with Kennedy is setting back the quality of healthcare 100 years of progress. What you and I were taught about scientific method is being tossed out the window !!
I can't speak for Katelyn, obviously, but I bet she knows exactly what RFK the Lesser is all about. In this essay, she and her team bypassed him. They bypassed him completely and went to talk to people about their health concerns. That isn't the same as giving aid and comfort to the execrable Kennedy.
You're right that he's throwing the scientific method out the window. He's incredibly dangerous. Katelyn Jetelina knows that.
Great examples of the importance of listening, being open, and being willing to collaborate who we might not think of as allies. These are lessons learned. In another context (anti-racism conversations), I have been taught to move from "furious" to "curious". To ask questions, not lecture back. Thank you for sharing some concrete examples of the value of this, and most importantly for doing this hard work.
Wonderful examples of bridging the divide by truly listening to different perspectives and trying to find ways to build something better together. Not easy, for sure, but necessary to create positive and lasting changes. A bonus is that these diverse perspectives brought together yields a creative tension that potentially results in true innovation. Thank you!
In our work with older adults, our very wise team leader says "Connection before solution". It's the time you take to build relationships that matters. In medicine, we talk about "the circle of care", but one of my Norwegian colleagues uses the term "circle of trust". Lessons for us all.
Thank you so much for this. In public health, it can sometimes feel like it’s all bad news, so hearing real stories of collaboration, connection, and progress is a breath of fresh air. Please keep sharing more like this—these perspectives matter - and it can be so energizing!
Wow. We need so much more of this. It must have started with the willingness to listen. Everyone is always willing to talk. It takes LISTENING to find common ground, and these two important health care outcomes are more; they are a template for future collaboration among good people with different political perspectives.
This post was one of the most hopeful that I’ve read in a very long time. Gutting scientific expertise and access to evidence based medical treatments was and still is incredibly hard to fathom. Yet, the incredible efforts and partnerships that you are all hitting the ground with your are sure to result in opening eyes and minds. Your caring will spread and bring some sanity to this disinformation era that no politician would be able to do. Thank you, health care angels.
I've felt like this since I started reading your writings during the pandemic, but you are doing amazing work. Thank you!!
Thank you for highlighting this extremely important collaborative work. It seems to me that there is real benefit to including interested lay people from the very start of such a project, even at the stage of hypothesis formation. That way, it becomes apparent to all the many challenges that go into creating a good research question and the many ways that question could be answered resulting in a better understanding and tolerance as to why an answer may be different than first expected.
So uplifting to read about this collaboration and the relationships driving it forward. We often conflate MAHA with MAGA. As you noted in the piece, they are not always the same and in this case (and I hope many others) that is "a distinction that matters."
Thank you for doing this difficult and neccesary work! It's the only way, if we're to make any progress.
MAHA is MAGA. https://www.whitehouse.gov/maha/ They are directly linked!
It's great you connected with one white woman helping one 99% white community understand the chemical disaster that occurred. Meanwhile MAGA is pushing deregulation - more train crashes, pollution and less knowledge of what toxic chemicals spilled. MAGA is destroying the EPA research arm - less regulation and understanding of toxic chemicals. MAGA is destroying NIH, CDC, expert advising committees, etc etc etc. MAGA is destroying anything to do with DEI - which is why focusing on connecting with a 99% white community is not the win you think it is. Where is MAHA on Flint Michigan?
MAHA is one of the support legs for MAGA.
MAGA is destroying the medical and food support systems (despite your nice story about trying to lobby to support food aid - that's gone in the "big beautiful bill", and MAHA people supported it.) MAGA is kidnapping people off the street and sending them to concentration camps. MAGA is destroying our democracy. Supporting MAHA is supporting everything else that comes with it. If you don't think that, why are they in MAHA and not some other organization?
What draws people to "MAHA" is often a "grain of truth", which is also what fuels many conspiracy theories.
If we continue on a defeatist path - saying we can't work together with each other at a grassroots level to achieve small victories one by one, I suppose we should just roll over and not bother? Sorry - the folks I know are working together to build strength from the bottom up - a foundation the MAGA arm of MAHA doesn't have.
Of course MAGA sucks. But if we don't work on those foundations, like Katelyn is doing, they will outflank us.
MAGA has already outflanked you. MAGA won in part because of MAHA support. If you are not pulling people away from MAGA you are simply supporting MAGA. It's nice they got one lady to react to one issue that directly affects her and her community. Do you think this is a coincidence that this is the very same 99% white community that JD Vance went on TV to highlight the government will protect? While at the same time destroying all federal agencies and expertise that would investigate these problems or provide regulation and oversight to prevent this in the future?
This is called being a "useful idiot". You are not pulling these people away from conspiracy thinking or MAGA divisiveness, you are helping their divisive model show some success.
I agree--when these people start caring about the health issues in places like Flint, Michigan and on Indian reservations, I'll be more optimistic.
Take off your blinders, Katelyn, EVERYTHING that is going on with Kennedy is setting back the quality of healthcare 100 years of progress. What you and I were taught about scientific method is being tossed out the window !!
I can't speak for Katelyn, obviously, but I bet she knows exactly what RFK the Lesser is all about. In this essay, she and her team bypassed him. They bypassed him completely and went to talk to people about their health concerns. That isn't the same as giving aid and comfort to the execrable Kennedy.
You're right that he's throwing the scientific method out the window. He's incredibly dangerous. Katelyn Jetelina knows that.
Wonderful approach of curiosity and Heart 💗
Great examples of the importance of listening, being open, and being willing to collaborate who we might not think of as allies. These are lessons learned. In another context (anti-racism conversations), I have been taught to move from "furious" to "curious". To ask questions, not lecture back. Thank you for sharing some concrete examples of the value of this, and most importantly for doing this hard work.
Wonderful examples of bridging the divide by truly listening to different perspectives and trying to find ways to build something better together. Not easy, for sure, but necessary to create positive and lasting changes. A bonus is that these diverse perspectives brought together yields a creative tension that potentially results in true innovation. Thank you!
This is great, so inspiring to hear this and approach I'd love to see more of in the future!
What a tremendous piece. Thank you.
Thank you for this hopeful, hard, but necessary work.