Episodes

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.See Priv…

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!

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

In his new book, "Relentless: Unleashing a Life of Purpose, Grit, and Faith," Tesh describes how obstacles shaped him—including being suspended from college, living homeless for months, and facing a deadly disease.

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, visi…

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.

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.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

“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.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Noti…

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 c...

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.

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 …

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.

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.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On the show today, Matt and Andrew give you their professional advice: DON'T START A PODCAST! Just don’t. Yeah, we might make it look easy. But trust us it takes a lot more than the gift of gab to build a successful audio brand. And Lord knows, the world doesn’t need another person blathering into a microphone. But if resistance is futile and you’ve got something really important to say, let OffScrip Media show you how it’s done. Because we know the biz. Just like Jeff Goldblum’s character in Jurassic Park, we’ll crunch the numbers for you, steer you away from monumental blunders, and shower you with witty repartee along the way. Just like we do in this episode.For more information, visit https://OffScripMedia.com and follow @MZOutofPatients, @MatthewZachary, @VaxOnPod, and @OffScripMedia on Twitter.cQGtseZN6Ueurr2UWMvQSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On the show today: Dr. Rafael Fonseca, a professor of medicine at Mayo Clinic who focuses on Multiple Myeloma, with a sidebar hobby dabbling in Ethics Health Economics. Fun fact: He's a Google Scholar, has his own Wikipedia page, courtesy of a birthday gift from his son, and — as a self-proclaimed pathological optimist — hopes to spread empathy throughout the medical community while protecting the rights of patients, so they can make the best decisions for themselves and no one else. Bonus points for him being a hysterically refreshing voice on Twitter.

On the show today, I'm so thrilled to welcome here live in-studio Alison Silberman, CEO at Stupid Cancer (my old job, as you may know), and Shannon Wyant, a fellow AYA cancer survivor and sitting member of the Stupid Cancer Board of Directors (also my old job as you may know.) The best conversations are those without an agenda that manifest from their own chemistry and organic magic. And what you're about to hear is no exception. So prepare your Wayback machine and your magic eight ball for a "wikipedic" throwback to how the sausage was — and continues to be made — for the largest young adult support community in the world. This one's for Annie Goodman, Jason Mlot, Chad Whitman, Ali Powers, Emily Morrison, Erica Paul, and Lauren Scott.For more information, visit https://OffScripMedia.com and follow @MZOutofPatients, @MatthewZachary, @VaxOnPod, and @OffScripMedia on Twitter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy…

On the show today: Liz Cormier-May, CEO of Mammogen, and Marty Keiser, CEO at IV Bioholdings, who share their thoughts and commercial insights on the diagnostics market including the challenges in getting more affordable and accessible diagnostics reaching patients.

In this episode of VAX ON, Matthew Zachary and Andrew MacDowell discuss the first federal criminal fraud prosecution related to COVID-19 immunization. They also check-in on Canada’s growing vaccine rates and the latest developments with the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.

Today, LIVE here at OffScrip Media studios, I welcome my incomparably talented friend Rebecca Cherry. She and I met almost 20 years ago. We hit it off as members of a niche-within-a-niche club, that being young adult cancer survivor professional musician/composers. And when I say incomparably talented, I mean incomparably talented: Rebecca is a singer, songwriter, model, entrepreneur, and internationally-acclaimed violinist who has performed and recorded with the likes of Adele, Beyonce, Common, Jay Z, and the Jonas Brothers with appearances on Letterman, Conan, Fallon, the MTV Music Awards, and The Grammys. How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Be Rebecca Cherry, because she's performed there, too. And if that's not enough, she's a single mom raising a beautiful daughter named Ara. What's she's chosen to do with the life she has been given is not only inspirational but the very embodiment of what it means to get busy living. Enjoy the show.For more information, visit https://OffScripMed…

In this episode of VAX ON, Matthew and Elura go global and discuss Cuba's fallout in the wake of the pandemic as well as the latest updates on the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.

On the show today, it's a spotlight on NAMAPA (National Association of Medication Access & Patient Advocacy) with Co-Founders Elizabeth Johnson LPN and Melissa Paige, CPhT. Liz started her career in immunology and moved into the world of "medication access," which is healthcare between the patient and the doctor, where issues of access, pricing, prescriptions, and navigating the complexities of the system are all managed on behalf of the patient. As a certified Pharmacy Tech, Melissa lives in a ...

OffScrip Media is proud to announce a new addition to our growing network of groundbreaking and influential original podcasts. The Heart of Healthcare podcast expands upon the traditional lens of what we think of as “healthcare” by exploring the social determinants of health, including our food system, housing, climate change, and more. Join host Halle Tecco, healthcare investor, entrepreneur, and philanthropist, for authentic and compelling conversations with the people behind the movements that deconstruct underlying problems and identify how we can work together to solve them. Episode by episode, Heart of Healthcare will move the needle and figure out how to improve healthcare for all. For more information visit http://heartofhealthcarepod.com.For more information, visit https://OffScripMedia.com and follow @MZOutofPatients, @MatthewZachary, and @OffScripMedia on Twitter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.c…

In this episode of VAX ON, Matthew Zachary and Elura Nanos debrief about international travel and the return of common illness! They also talk about a COVID-19 vaccine scam in Mumbai, summer camp gone wrong, and the FDA's unknown timeline for full approval of the COVID-19 vaccine.For more information, visit https://OffScripMedia.com and follow @MZOutofPatients, @MatthewZachary, @VaxOnPod, and @OffScripMedia on Twitter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

By the 1980s, cancer was no longer a death sentence. But the question of what surviving actually meant was unanswered. Cancer survivors had to navigate issues around employment, relationships, and the emotional and physical side effects of treatment in a world that largely didn’t know what to do with them. (and they were still called “victims.”) In 1985, a young doctor named Fitzhugh Mullan wrote an essay called “Seasons of Survival” about his own experience with cancer. His piece helped popularize the term “cancer survivor” and resonated with a growing number of survivors, who were starting to form support groups around the country. Among them was Catherine Logan Carrillo, the founder of People Living Through Cancer in New Mexico, who asked Fitzhugh to help her convene an “alumni association” for cancer survivors. And they did, during one monumental weekend in Albuquerque. For more information about this series, visit https://canvermavericks.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.c…