In this episode of Vax On, Matthew Zachary and Elura Nanos discuss pandemic-driven sleep deprivation, new booster shots, and a new Texas mandate that stops vaccine mandates in their tracks.

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Facing a diagnosis of cancer at any age is horrible. But for young adults, it’s just plain different. Not better. Not worse. Different. Those diagnosed between the ages of 15 and 39 are on a planet all their own, often left to fend for themselves as lost voices sandwiched between pediatrics and adult cancer. The consequences of living with, through, and, ideally, beyond cancer carries with it a whole host of unique long-term issues, issues that had fallen under the radar and gone ignored by the system for far too long.

In this episode, we talk to a new generation of cancer mavericks like Tamika Felder, Heidi Adams, Doug Ulman, and Lindsay Nohr-Beck, who revived a dying national conversation on cancer survivorship in the earliest days of the Internet. They created edgy websites, forced doctors to listen by creating fertility preservation guidelines, and fought to bring the invisible and underserved voice of the young adult cancer community into the national public spotlight.

For more information about this series, visit https://CancerMavericks.com.

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In this episode of Vax On, Matthew Zachary and Elura Nanos discuss Merck’s new COVID-19 antiviral pill, the beginning of the booster shot, and one national product shortage you didn’t see coming.

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Today I talk to LGBT cancer advocate Liz Margolies. For over 30 years, Liz has worked as a psychotherapist with a specialty in cancer, trauma, and sexuality. She’s an OG LGBT rights activist, and when four of her lesbian friends died of ovarian cancer within months of each other, Liz launched the National LGBT Cancer Network. Because the LGBT community not only has a harder time getting treatment but sexual and gender minorities are also at a much higher risk of getting cancer than the general population. Liz explains why. 

Find out more about cancer within the LGBT community at www.cancer-network.org. For more information on us, visit https://OffScrip.com and follow @MatthewZachary, @VaxOnPod, and @OffScripHealth on Twitter. 

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In this very special episode of VAX ON, Matthew and Elura proudly welcome vaccine myth-buster Ms. Information and Krishna Stone (from Gay Men's Health Crisis) live in studio. These four powerhouse personalities get raw and honest about the crisis of our time, vaccine misinformation, COVID-19's impact on the LGBTQ community, and how the world's problems can be solved with Drag Queens.

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The presenting sponsor for today's episode is Elevation Oncology, elevating precision medicine to the forefront of every cancer treatment journey. On the show today, I welcome the esteemed Dr. Stephen Liu, Associate Professor of Medicine, Director of Thoracic Oncology, and Director of Developmental Therapeutics at Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center of Georgetown University. At a time when cancer treatment is more about your DNA and your RNA than where in your body cancer is — it's more important than ever to continue elevating the conversation about making biomarker testing a mandatory part of care. Why napalm everything if your genes make you eligible for a specific kind of therapy that's wayyyy better than proverbial napalm? NRG1 Fusion is an RNA test done on solid tumors — for the purposes of this episode Lung Cancer tumors — but this is a test that everyone with lung cancer needs to get out of the gate. You enter the "I have lung cancer store" and — BOOM — you get this test, which can make or break the trajectory of your care. From the seriousness of Phase II enrollment challenges to inane musings about Dartmouth, Boston Market, and the children's book The Three Billy Goats Gruff, strap in for a serious discussion about precision oncology and biomarker testing, especially if you or someone you know has lung cancer. For more information visit https://nrg1fusion.com/pod.

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In this episode of Vax On, Matthew Zachary and Elura Nanos discuss some effects of the pandemic on kids, ranging from the sad to the hopeful to the downright hilarious. Plus, our latest Sermoment!

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On the show today, my guest is Scott Slater, a longtime friend, a former colleague at Stupid Cancer, and one of the earliest activists who helped build the original young adult cancer movement back in the mid-2000s. Yes, Scott is a cancer survivor, but that’s just one of his MANY titles. He’s a software engineer and app developer…. He’s the founder and punk-in-chief at Codepunk, which is an epic web development company. He’s an accomplished musician, and NOW he can add “composer of musicals” to his long list of creds. As the aging GenX’ers that we are, Scott and I wax poetic as about cancer in the age of “Woke Culture,” his new musical, “Fable,” and how the hell we’re somehow still here after a combined 35 years of survivorship. Plus, Scott correctly identifies the idiot’s bias as the “Dunn Krueger Effect.” Alex Trebek is surely beaming from on high. 

And for information on us, visit https://OffScrip.com and follow @MatthewZachary, @VaxOnPod, and @OffScripHealth on Twitter.

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In this episode of Vax On, Matthew Zachary and Elura Nanos discuss how teens are challenging misinformation and parental consent for the COVID-19 vaccine. They also discuss New York state’s latest vaccine mandate and this week’s Sermoment!

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Today on the show, we talk to powerhouse couple David and Robin Dubin, who founded Alive and Kickn to advocate for those with the Lynch gene. At age 29, Dave was diagnosed with colon cancer and Lynch Syndrome. Few have heard of it, but Dave and Robin are trying to change that. Because Lynch is a genetic pre-condition to cancer that affects 1 out of every 279 people, and most people don’t even know they have it. Dave and Robin talk survivorship, pre-vivorship, and the importance of genetic testing.

And for information on us, visit https://OffScrip.com and follow @MatthewZachary, @VaxOnPod, and @OffScripHealth on Twitter.

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Six music Emmys, two Grammy nominations, four gold records, seven Public Television specials and 8 million records sold. After more than three decades as an international entertainer, John Tesh is a living legend. In his new book, "Relentless: Unleashing a Life of Purpose, Grit, and Faith," Tesh describes how the obstacles that shaped him—including being suspended from college, living homeless for months, and facing a deadly disease—shaped his remarkable life.

For more information, visit https://OffScripMedia.com and follow @MZOutofPatients,@MatthewZachary, @VaxOnPod, and @OffScripMedia on Twitter.

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On the show today, Susan Bratton is a legacy BFF of mine dating back to the LIVESTRONG days at the dawn of the young adult cancer movement. It was a time when "cancer survivorship" was evolving into a real boy and quality of life became tantamount to quality of care. Susan was an MBA who worked in finance when one of her best friends, who was in perfect shape at the time and in peak physical condition, got cancer for no reason and tragically passed away. She soon founded Meals To Heal, a nonprofit food-delivery service that delivered handcrafted meals to cancer patients who couldn't cook for themselves and lacked access to decent and nutritious meals. She's now the CEO of Savor Health, a B2B digital health platform providing personalized, clinically, and contextually appropriate nutrition interventions to cancer patients and those with other chronic medical conditions, via SMS text with Ina, an "Intelligent Nutrition Assistant" chatbot. Enjoy the show.

And for information on us, visit https://OffScrip.com and follow @MatthewZachary, @VaxOnPod, and @OffScripHealth on Twitter.

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In this episode of Vax On, Elura Nanos and Andrew MacDowell discuss how people are lining up for prescriptions of the latest myth in COVID prevention. They also discuss Pfizer Director Dr. Scott Gottlieb's timeline for kids vaccines and this week's Sermoment!

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On the show today, I am joined live in-studio by Alex Fair and Aaron Michael Buch, two innovators in the patient advocacy and digital health and innovation sector, each from different endpoints in time. Starting as early as 2008, Alex has had the good fortune to have worked on some genuinely pioneering initiatives in the early days of Health 2.0, including creating MedStartr and its many branches into crowdfunding, incubation, and acceleration of hundreds of startups. Aaron founded Patients.com in 2014 when digital health was emerging from its post-embryonic stages and has seen his all-in-one practice growth platform make healthcare suck less for thousands.

And for information on us, visit https://OffScrip.com and follow @MatthewZachary, @VaxOnPod, and @OffScripHealth on Twitter.

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“What do you do with the mad that you feel?” — One of the more definitive quotes from the definitive Mr. Rogers. For my guest today, David Richman, the choice he made after losing his sister to cancer was to turn pain into passion, lace-up, and in true Forrest Gump fashion, JUST START RUNNING. 85 miles between Cancun and Tulum in Mexico. 104 miles up the Pacific Coast Highway. 50 Iron Man Triathlons. And then an introspective search for similar and familiar voices to learn and heal from that turned into a 5,000-mile bicycle tour from California to Florida to New York City. I feel even more out of shape just saying those words into the microphone. David’s self-discovery journey brought him comfort, closure, and common threads, and his new book, “Cycle of Lives,” is proof that grief, loss, and bereavement can be opportunities you never expected to have. Prepare to be inspired and enjoy the show. Enjoy the show.

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On the show today —> Johnny Crowder is the Founder of Cope Notes, host of the Cope Notes Podcast, and a rising star in the mental health and mental illness advocacy space. This guy is a highly vocal suicide/abuse survivor with a riveting TED Talk you absolutely must watch. Johnny is paying it forward with CopeNote — a groundbreaking new text-based mental health platform that provides peer-to-peer support with daily support notes to users in nearly 100 countries worldwide. This platform is the consummate example of paying it forward and building the support community that you only wish you had. He's also a touring musician with the band Prison, which he founded, and is an ardent fan of System of a Down, which we pay a great deal of tribute to know the show. Enjoy.

And for information on us, visit https://OffScrip.com and follow @MatthewZachary, @VaxOnPod, and @OffScripHealth on Twitter.

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In this episode of Vax On, Matthew Zachary and Elura Nanos discuss Mayor Bill de Blasio’s strict new COVID-19 mandate, and the return of major music festivals in the U.S. They also discuss some common reasons why vaccine skeptics changed their mind and got vaccinated.

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On the show today: Lisa Simms Booth is Executive Director at The Smith Center for the Healing Arts and former Senior Director for Patient and Public Engagement at The Biden Cancer Initiative. She is such an extraordinary human being who've I've wanted her on my show for such a long time and, well, here she is. Lisa has this extraordinary way to define and extoll the virtues of cancer survivorship, how far we've come in the last half-century, lessons learned from the pandemic for Nonprofit Leadership, cancer screenings, prevention, and more.

FUN FACT: The Smith Center occupies a unique place in my life as they hosted one of the very first Stupid Cancer Happy Hour events in DC in 2007. It's a great place, so if you live in the DC area, be sure to check them out.

SIDENOTE: For the cheap seats in the back, many of you may recognize The Smith Center from Episode 81 with my guest, Dr. Julia Rowland, who serves as their Senior Strategic Advisor. (Julia is also the Founding Director of The National Cancer Institute's Office of Cancer Survivorship. You can hear her share her story as one of the contributors to The Cancer Mavericks, our eight-part docu-series about the history of cancer survivorship.

And for information on us, visit https://OffScrip.com and follow @MatthewZachary, @VaxOnPod, and @OffScripHealth on Twitter.

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In this episode of Vax On, Matthew Zachary, Elura Nanos, and Andrew MacDowell discuss the Biden administration’s latest vaccination mandate for the U.S. Military, and how cruise companies may be on their way to a new normal.

We also introduce a new segment to the show: Sermo-ments! We're partnering with Sermo, a global social platform just for physicians, to bring you data from more than 1.3 million healthcare personnel in over 150 countries. Each week, we’ll ask the Sermo physician community a series of questions and report back with their answers. And - we want to hear from you. Submit your questions to us on Twitter at @VaxOnPod or @OffScripMedia, we'll pass them along, and next week listen to the episode for the results.

For more physician insights, follow Sermo on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

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Advocacy can take many forms in the cancer community — from advocating for yourself or a loved one to receive the best possible treatment to calling your Congressperson or testifying on Capitol Hill to demand increased access to care. This episode explores different ways cancer mavericks have elevated survivors’ needs and improved their lives, including the pioneering patient navigation model created by Dr. Harold Freeman at Harlem Hospital, the story of Ellen Stovall’s fearless and collaborative approach to policy, shaped around a shared agenda to represent the needs of all cancer survivors, and the landmark 1998 March on Washington called Coming Together To Conquer Cancer. For more information about this series, visit https://CancerMavericks.com

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