Welcome. I'm Dr. Vinay Prasad. I'm a hematologist, oncologist, and I'm associate professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. In my professional life, I see patients, I teach trainees, and I do research in health care policy. This is plenary session.

Plenary session is a podcast at the intersection of medicine, oncology, and health policy,

and you're listening to Season 3. On this week's episode. This week on Plenary Session, I'm joined

by Jacob Hale Russell. He's a professor of law at Rutgers Law School,

and he is the author of a forthcoming book

that's going to be about skepticism, elites, and expertise.

Here, we take a deep dive into COVID-19,

and we talk about how science ought to be debated

in the era of tradeoffs.

You won't want to miss this discussion.

If you like this podcast and want more content,

follow me on Twitter at V-Prasad MDM-PH. Check out the YouTube channel, Vinay Prasad, MDMPH.

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So I'm back in Plenary Session.

Join via Zoom by Jacob Hale Russell.

Jacob Hale Russell is an associate professor of law at Rutgers University.

And he, with a colleague, Dennis Patterson, are the authors of a very interesting first opinion

that came out just on the eve of Christmas Eve.

It's entitled, Let's Put the Straw Man of Pandemic Denial Out of Its Misery.

And I guess we're going to explore the themes of this and probably beyond in this discussion.

Professor Russell, it's a pleasure to speak with you.

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