Alister Martin

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[on-hold music] My guest on this episode of The Dose is Dr. Alister Martin, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

Dr. Martin is an emergency physician and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, and his career is defined by his work at the intersection of clinical care and public health.

As a White House fellow, Dr. Martin was a senior advisor to Vice President Kamala Harris, and as the CEO of a Healthier Democracy, he directed efforts helping patients register to vote and assisted eligible families access cash assistance benefits.

As our listeners know that although we generally feature the authors of recent Health Affairs articles on this podcast, about once a month, we break out of that mold and sit down with a health policy leader, uh, to talk about the field and their work more generally.

This is another one of those episodes, and, uh, today our very special guest is Dr. Alister Martin, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

He is an emergency physician, assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, and a native New Yorker.

We feel, uh, very lucky to have him on our humble podcast here today.

Dr. Alister Martin, Commissioner, welcome to A Health Policy.

Thank you so much, Rob.

It's great to be here.

All right.

New York City Mayor Mamdani and his former Republican opponent, Kurnit Sliwa, rolled up their sleeves today, they actually held hands for a few minutes, uh, to get vaccinated at a clinic in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.

Both received the shot from the city's health commissioner, Dr. Alister Martin.

Uh, Sliwa received a button, as you can see.

Oh, they're holding hands right there.

Three are still in the hospital.

Health Commissioner Dr. Alister Martin.

There are times where, you know, folks might have a sniffle, might have the sort of itch in the back of their throat, or maybe a little bit of muscle aches, and they sort of say, "Oh, well, maybe it's, uh, my allergies, or maybe it's the cold that I got from someone at daycare

daycareUm, in this case, you know, we really want New Yorkers, uh, to, um, not blow these symptoms off.

New info from city officials at another town hall meeting in the Bronx that topic the most recent outbreak of a deadly disease.

The city's Department of Health Commissioner, Dr. Alistair Martin, says all 10 cooling towers in the Bronx that tested positive for Legionnaires...

They have been cleaned, drained, and disinfected.

But it's still leaving a community of residents on edge, like Angela.

New York City experienced another cluster of Legionnaires' disease, this time in the Bronx, just weeks after a cluster exposure in Manhattan was declared over.

Here's the health commissioner, Dr. Alister Martin.

The data that we have in terms of the patients that have gotten sick have led us to believe that there's probably a cooling tower in one of these two zip codes that is causing this cluster.

The New York City Health Department has reported at least one death.