August 24, 2024 • 30 mins
Ryan Gorman hosts an iHeartRadio nationwide special featuring Thomas Tighe, President & CEO of Direct Relief, who discusses his humanitarian aid organization’s work nationwide and worldwide, focusing on improving the health and lives of those affected by poverty or emergencies.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to iHeartRadio Communities, a public affairs special focusing on
the biggest issues impacting you. This week, here's Ryan Gorman.
Thanks so much for joining us here on iHeartRadio Communities.
I'm Ryan Gorman, and we have an important conversation lined
up for you for this episode of the show. We're
going to talk to a humanitarian aid organization active not
just across the country, but all around the world. They're
(00:22):
on a mission to improve the health and lives of
people affected by poverty or emergencies. So for more on this,
I'm joined now by Thomas Tide, the president and CEO
of Direct Relief, which you can learn more about at
direct relief dot org. Thomas, thanks so much for coming
on the show, and let's start with how your organization
first came about.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Well, first, thanks for having me Ryan, I appreciate it.
And yeah, Direct Relief has been around since nineteen forty eight,
originally founded by war immigrant refugees from who fled the
kind of the Nazis in World War Two and ended
up in California with some of their wealth intact, so
it's now.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Direct Relief was originally just.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
A private philanthropic effort of a guy named William Zimden,
and he was a business person and he thought it
was really important to engage businesses and people like himself
to keep this humanitarian type of work outside of politics
and government.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
So it's still retained that basic thrust like what.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Is needed and how can we engage people in businesses
in these events in the world and mobilized resources that
people need to can afford and directly now focuses largely,
almost exclusively on health related needs, whether it's access to
medications or supplies or essentials, and a lot a lot
(01:43):
of times the visibility arises for our organization when there's
a car crash type wreck, or an international incident, a
typhoon or a hurricane, or an earthquake or a fire.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Out here in the West.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
But we really every day respond to this chrome of
gaps that exist in society for people who need things
they can't afford, and trying to mobilize in a private
a political way resources to help them. And we do
that in all fifty states providing free medications. We do
it in about one hundred countries a year. And in
(02:18):
those places that are that we work with typically at
direct relief that are chronically resourced to prive. They tend
to be the places that get slammed the hardest by
an emergency, whether it's of any type. I mean, poor
people tend to suffer the brunt of these things with
more severely because they have less cushion, it's harder to
bounce back, and often in a weathery late emergency, live
(02:42):
in kind of the most challenging places substandard housing, low floodplain.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
So we've learned a lot along the way of what to.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Expect, how to anticipate, in how to respond in a
way that complements the official actions of governments who play
a huge role about mobilizing private resources efficiently, effectively and respectfully.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
How did your time serving as a chief of Staff
and chief operating Officer of the Peace Corps help you
with the role that you're serving in today and direct relief?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Well, contrary to what the Peace Corps is, that's sort
of the resource that the Peace Corps.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Provides is the human resource.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
I mean when I was there was seven thousand people
serving in ninety countries, and that is the means through
which the objectives of the Peace Corps to do good
work that's needed and requested by a country but also
have an opportunity for Americans to work alongside people they
probably otherwise wouldn't meet in places they likely otherwise wouldn't
(03:41):
go on vacation. So I think just the logistics of
getting thousands of people, recruiting them placely and making sure
there was they had their modest eighty dollars a year
or a month's salary in their bank account and their medications.
There was a big legition six element to the Peace
(04:01):
Corps and navigating the unanticipated circumstances an outbreak of war
or these emergencies is you make your plans and then
you adjust to reality. So that was good grounding for
direct relief, which is primarily working with already trained people
in a lot of these places and making sure that
(04:23):
we're mobilizing stuff and money, not people as much as
which the Peace Corps did. But it was very helpful
contextually just to understand the dynamics of how these situations
unfolded emergency and also have an appreciation for how difficult
circumstances are for many people in the world, in developing
countries or poorer parts of the United States, that day
(04:47):
to day isn't always smooth, and so there's these chronic challenges.
The more you see you just have a deep appreciation
for how many severe challenges people face, and it's kind
of compelling to want to do something to help them out.
So the same spirit, much different approach in many ways,
(05:07):
but I think the same underlying spirit of trying to
help folks who have needs that are usually severe, trying
to do it in a respectful way that's you know,
works for them in their country. And that's been a
good reminder of Direct Relief as we end up working
in a lot of places around the world where there's
sensitivities and you know, mistrust or from whatever reasons, political
(05:32):
or otherwise. So it's been a good grounding reminder for
me personally as we travel around at Direct Relief and
try to make sure that it's understood we have no
other agenda other than helping. There's not a political or
governmental objective. It's purely humanitarian and that's worked well for us.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
I'm Ryan Gorman, joined by Thomas Tie President and CEO
of Direct Relief. You can learn more about the work
they do and support that work at direct relief dot org.
Since we're in the middle of hurricane season, I want
to go back to the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in
twenty seventeen, tell us about your response to that disaster
in Puerto Rico.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Yeah, and with Hurricane Maria, it was interesting, kind of
not unusual for Directoria because for the ten years prior
to Maria occurring, directlif had been assisting in Puerto Rico,
working with the local community health centers and basically providing
essential medications and supplies that their patients needed but couldn't afford.
(06:34):
So we had a structure, we have a protocol, and
because we deal with prescription medications, I mean were licensed
in all fifty states to provide prescription medications, we had
a protocol. So we received in a ten years prior
a total of zero contributions for Puerto Rico.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
I mean, it was just one of the things we did.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
It wasn't a focused effort, it wasn't a fundraising effort.
But after Maria, when all attention was riveted on Puerto Rica,
go Basically what direct Relief did at the time was
what it had already been doing.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
We just did more of it faster.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
We knew there was a crisis, there was a loss
of all the medications on the island that required cold
storage when the power went out, So we mobilized and
flew in a lot of material through the same protocol,
and then we were fortunate enough to receive financial support
from the public who saw what Direct Relief was doing
and put money towards us. But we basically put that
(07:31):
money in trust and told the Puerto Ricans like, look,
this money came to Direct Leaf, but we recognized it's
for you, how should we spend it. It's we're focused
on the health needs. And what they told us was
that what really crushed them and amplified the problems was
the loss of power because they couldn't function, that the
(07:52):
health facilities, the electronic records for patients weren't available, that
drugs were lost. So kind of surprisingly to us at
the time, we ended up providing a lot of the
funding support to do is to build solar and battery
storage microgrids at these facilities so that they wouldn't go
down and they could continue to operate in this environment
where power does go out when they're storms and it's
(08:15):
very expensive. So that ultimately led to a whole initiative
of Power for Health that we're doing in the Gulf States.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
In California and other places for.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
The same reasons that if the power goes down these days,
we are all so much more dependent on that for everything,
but including in healthcare, where you know, everything from your
patient records to getting an X ray or having a
vaccine that requires cold storage. Power is just kind of
a prerequisite for the delivery of health services, and direct
(08:45):
Leaf has tried to lean into that and has done
a lot in Puerto Rico, now Texas, Louisiana, California, North
Carolina because it's a recurring pattern. So that was one
takeaway that you can't separate the power availability from the
livay of health services anymore than you can.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Divorce it from anything else.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
And we're highly dependent on power for functioning in day
to day lives, and that's equally true in healthcare and
in emergencies as it is on a day.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
To day basis.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
So that's that was a big takeaway that was, of
course followed by COVID. We're kind of reinforced the need
for having a proper cold storage facility for vaccines, you know,
which was the way to prevent COVID and treating COVID
actually at the time required medical oxygen.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Because it was a respiratory disease.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
So again, some of these infrastructure investments, so for power
to generate medical oxygen which is in the kind of
essential medicine actually that you can't substitute anything for. And
maintaining cold storage what they call a cold chain supply
chain is something that we've been leading into ever since
Puerto Rico, and thankfully, with Winternesta recently blew through and
(09:54):
knocked out half the power in Puerto Rico, each one
of the facilities that Directli had provided a small microgrid
to did not go down, did not lose power. We're
able to stay open and serving their patients, which was
sort of the whole point of it. But yeah, we've
learned a lot the hard way, I think, just responding
to these emergencies that are statistically becoming more frequent, more
(10:17):
severe and lasting longer. And out there in the East
Coast and the Caribbean it's hurricanes.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Out here in the West, it's wildfires.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
That have similar crippling effects on society, and so we're
trying to from a health perspective, how can we make
the resiliency better upfront so the consequences aren'ter severe and
have a much better, more informed rapid response based on
the information we've learned, and unfortunately that's really much of
(10:46):
it started with Puerto Rico, and we've learned a lot
and try to apply it wherever we can.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
That regional disaster response hub that you set up in
Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, how vital has that been
because you know, when we track these storms that come
through that region, obviously there's always a huge focus on
whether or not it's going to make landfall with the
continentally United States, but you have a lot of countries,
a lot of islands along the way that don't necessarily
(11:15):
have the infrastructure that we have here in the United
States and can get hit really hard by these storms.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Right now, I think that having a hub there so
we can stage material that's likely to be needed, I
mean taterintitively. We think that of an emergency is you know,
my gosh, there's a lot of traumatic injury, which does
happen occasionally, but really a lot of the displacement.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Or loss of power.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Who actually statistically gets into a health crisis are people
who are managing a chronic condition on a day to
day basis, say asthma, or diabetes or hypertension. But when
things you know, go awry, that they become unmanaged conditions.
You can't get your insulin. If you're a personal diabetes,
(12:00):
you can go into crisis. If you don't have access
to your medications. If you have hypertension, you have chest pains,
that's going to put you in the hospital. And if
you have asthma, don't have access because you had to
flee your home and you don't have it Inhaler. Simple
though it may seem that is who ends up in
the hospitals, I mean because they're in these emergent crises.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
So those are the types of things that we've been
trying to.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Stockpile locally in secure facilities with reliable power and make
them available as well as also responding to neighboring islands.
Quet Becau's a bit of a hub for the Caribbean,
as is Miami, but I think we've worked with a
lot of the smaller Caribbean nations that you know, Hurricane
Beryl just pummeled, you know, went through Jamaica, went through Grenada,
(12:49):
picture Mexico when they came up to Texas and two
million people without power and that was you know, an
early storm this year. We can't stop them, but we
can anticipate what is likely to happen and move as
rapidly as possible and ask more focused questions for the
things that we're in a particularly good situation to help with.
(13:10):
It was just really access to the medications and medical
essentials increasingly power. It just comes up all the time,
which is why we've tried to lean into that in
places likely to be hit and provide funding so that
they can have their health facilities or distribution facilities powered up.
And that's I think there's going to be more of
(13:31):
that in the features as we project out and see
the patterns are pretty clear.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Is there a difference in your response at direct relief
to a hurricane as opposed to a wildfire situation out west?
Speaker 3 (13:45):
You know some significant differences.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
I think the risks from wildfires and they both cause
can cause mass evacuations, But wildfire, as we've seen, provide
a particular risk for people.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Who have compromised breathing.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
If you have the asthma, for example, all that fine
particulate matter in the wildfire smoke.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Can again put people in a crisis.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
So we have a lot of ppe and even before COVID,
we were manufacturing our own N ninety five masks really
for wildfire relief for people who were found themselves in
a zone affected by wildfires. But I think you know
mass movements, if there's a mass evacuation, that in itself
has a similar health risk, whether it's from a hurricane
(14:30):
or from a fire, because people often flee without access
to their basics and find themselves in crisis because of
that in managing their condition, so some of the circumstances
are obviously different. The risks of crossing flooded waterways are high,
similar to trying to get out of a place like
in Paradise, California, where the access is limited from the
(14:52):
fire itself, But we're less involved in that direct management
of the crisis. I mean, thankfully, the emergency response capability
the United States is getting better and better and more
tech enabled, and we work closely with them, but they're
trying to save.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
The people and get them to safety.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
I think director release role is really beyond the emergence
of immediacy of the search and rescue or evacuation and
then trying to stabilize and make sure resources that are
appropriate are available for the people wherever they happen to be,
and then staying with them because as you know, I
think you're in Florida, I believe and.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
I think these things.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
The coverage often is as a weather event that then ends,
but these can be five or ten years of social reconstruction.
I mean the infrastructure, the loss of jobs, and so
all the pressures that result from these major natural disasters
are not over when the headlines fade, and sometimes they're
(15:53):
just beginning. So we're trying to be sensitive to that
and he continue to have a private philanthropic channel for
medical help and health related support available for people. And
we're still very active in Puerto Rico because many people
still haven't bounced back fully from seven.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
Years ago when Maria happened.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
You can start an extraordinary social event that these events
have and with a significant effect on people's health and
well being.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
I'm Ryan Gorman, joined by Thomas Tide, President and CEO
of Direct Relief. You can learn more about the work
they do and support that work at direct relief dot org.
We've been talking about your work in response to natural disasters,
but tell us about the work you've done in Ukraine
following the Russian invasion that led to so many Ukrainians
(16:45):
being displaced.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Right, I mean to your last point, I mean that's
a much different cause, right, the Russians attacking in this invasion,
but many the same effects.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
I mean, mass displacement of people.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Everything I just said about people having to flee and
not being able to manage their health or manything's hugely
traumatic in many ways. So we have tried to essentially
build a private channel to bring in and subsidize the
Ukrainian healthcare system for people who still need the basics
as well as the traumatic care, and have a channel
(17:21):
that is efficient and transparent, and it's also heavily regulated
because we're managing with drugs but bringing in medications. So
that's been the largest thing directlyif has ever done. It's
exceeded at one point three billion dollars of material flow.
But basically setting up a structure is a philanthropic effort
(17:43):
that is trying to model on what a commercial company
would do if they were selling it, because all the
same functional activities are the same. It's warehousing, distribution, inventory management, tracking,
inventory controls, and so we've been doing that at scale
with the both the Ukrainian government and many of the
Ukrainian NGOs that are trying to pick up the slack
(18:05):
as the government has focused its efforts on defending the country.
You know, it's in a survival mode. So a lot
of the local ngeos, non governmental organizations have tried to
provide the social services for people, whether it's proma counseling
and we've been able to provide funding for that or
(18:26):
even mobile medical units because of the need for you know,
moving populations.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
The fixed sites for hospitals.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Don't always correspond to where people run to for safety.
So I think building in that flexibility and providing the
financial resources with the funds that have come in for Ukraine,
as well as an ongoing effort to fill the gaps
that exist in there just their medical supplies, which are
significant because of the priority that just needs to go
(18:56):
defending the nation and its people. So it continues to
be a high pace, high volume activity and still very fluid.
The just tragic state of the ongoing war. It's just
caused so much trauma. One of the other things we've
done with the primarily with the funding that's coming in
(19:17):
to directly is funding some of their prosthetics and general
occupational rehabilitation that comes along in people who suffer serious
injury or loss of a lamb, which is a long,
hard slog and deeply dedicated people, and they just did
not have a whole lot of capacity to deal with that.
(19:37):
There are more people with amputations, it is said, in
Ukraine than have existed in Europe since World War One,
so this is not something they were set up to
manage or deal with. So that is a good case
we believe for use of the philanthropic money that directlyief
is received, and we're working carefully with some of the leaders,
(19:58):
both private and in the public sector in Ukraine to
get some of these areas, these of specialty care stabilized
and funded, and then the supplies and even the tools
and the prosthetics manufacturing industry set up as best we can.
But that's not something that we're had a lot of
experience with, but it was relevant to the circumstances and
(20:21):
just an unfolding tragedy that I've had the opportunity to
see a dozen times so far.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
One note that you have on your page on the
website at Directrelief dot org about Ukraine, but I'm assuming
this holds for the other situations that you respond to.
You know, we think of medical aid and sometimes it's
prescription drugs, trauma kits, things like that, but you list
things like cancer drugs, insulin. There are people in the
(20:51):
aftermath of what Ukraine has been facing, or what Puerto
Rico face in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. These storms,
when they hit the wildfires, their cancer battle doesn't just
stop because there has been this life changing event that
has happened around them. And so that's where it seems like,
(21:12):
you know, in addition to everything else you're providing, that
is just so crucial and potentially life saving.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Right, Yeah, we've seen that, and I think the interruption
of cancer care can really diminish a patient's prospect. So
I think we see this often where it's naturally think
trauma and you know, all the crush wounds and trauma care,
but there's also people who the day before were undergoing
managing a health crisis or trying to tackle cancer in
(21:44):
treatment and all that gets interrupted. I mean, the whole
status que gets blown up when these things happen. So again,
trying to mobilize the resources that are some of these
are very specific specialized medications, so working with the Center
of Cancer Care, the referral centers to make sure that
(22:04):
they have access to medications that we can mobilize because
again I think the whole country is the old classic
economic choice between guns or butter. You know, you can
spend on limited amount of money goes to one or
the other. Well, they're definitely a gun's first, trying to
defend themselves, and so the resources available for just general
(22:28):
care of the citizens is obviously compromised, and that's where
we're trying to provide the support with recognition that it
doesn't matter if it's a hurricane that interrupts your care
or the Russians invading and bombing the facility. The effect
on the person is the same.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
They don't have access to what's needed to maintain their health.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
So in any ways, it's similar to what direct lief experiences,
but the cause of the human cause buying with tension
to inflict suffering for whatever the Russians warrims are define me.
You know, our activities are very similar. We work with
(23:11):
the people who are well placed and experts. It gets
very specific, very quick, and we have to have very
strong controls and manage the transport and provision of prescription
or specialized medications very very carefully. So that's been a
higher degree of difficulty than is the norm, just because
(23:32):
of the circumstances. But the basic underlying activity is the
same mobilized private resources. As best we can stay out
of politics and make sure that the help gets the
people the most efficient way we can possibly function.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
I'm Ryan Gorman, joined by Thomas Tig, President and CEO
of Direct Relief, which you can learn more about and
support at direct relief dot org. I want to get
to two other aspects of your work, maternal health and
your response to outbreaks. Can you dive into that for us?
Speaker 2 (24:05):
I think maternal health is just one of those organizing
principles that maybe doesn't get the attention that an earthquake would,
but it's you know, the fact is that most of
the deaths that occurred during childbirth, for example, are preventable.
I think all the research has shown that the most
(24:26):
important intervention is just making sure that women who are
pregnant and delivering have someone who's trained companying them when
they're giving birth. So that's why Directorli worked for a
few years with the International Confederation of Midwives to develop
a standard kit that trained midwives would need to perform,
(24:48):
you know, their skills that they're trained to perform.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
A lot of the work goes into training a midwife.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
It's a four year program, and so we recognize that, well,
that's great that you know how to fish, but you
need to f wishing poll to catch one, right, I
mean sort of in the same analogy. And so we
worked with them to develop a standard that we can
provide to midwives who are trained around the world so
that they're equipped to perform the jobs they're trained to do.
(25:14):
And that is something we look at. In emergencies in particularly,
the midwives have been terrifically motivated, including last summer and
Maui when.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
They're the horrible fire hit Lahaina.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
I think some of the first responders were the Midwifery
Association that called Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies in Hawaii that
we've worked with previously, But they're so focused on taking
care of the women who are pregnant and who is
more vulnerable in one of these emergencies than a pregnant
woman or a little baby. So I think that's their
orientation and we have seen repeatedly in crisis after crisis
(25:51):
some of the most effective responders are midwives because they're
so focused on caring for people who are inherently vulnerable
because because of their status. So that's something that we
do on an emergency basis, on an ongoing basis, and
really have been deeply inspired by just the commitment of
the midwives, people who focus on care for pregnant women
(26:15):
and little kids and children. It's not the type of
issue that often you get the statistics and they're horrible
and you sort of check out. But I think to
see the number of people and these these groups that
organize and are deeply committed to making sure women can
you know, be healthy, be safe and have children safely.
(26:36):
It's something that we love to do and it's deeply
rewarding to be part of that. The outbreak question, I think,
you know, we're seeing that right now a little bit
in the news with MPOs.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
But I think basically.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Emergencies tend to cause a spike in need and it
doesn't really work well with supply chains, and it's just
in time thinking.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
You know, that.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Exists in commerce, so we typically like to stockpile knowing
that something's going to happen and the need will be
somewhere based on history, whereas businesses don't want to carry
inventory that may or may not be used right. So
I think that's the difference between directly physic philanthropic organization
and just a business that it doesn't it really doesn't
(27:23):
make sense to buy inventory and hold it so because
someone might want it at some future date.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
So I think for outbreaks, we do have a stockpile,
a private stockpile for the essentials. It came to COVID,
no one had the vaccine.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
But we were a channel for making it available, like
from the US to Mexico that was having shortages, So
our distribution capability.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
Comes in very handy.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Where we had some calls, just initial calls with regard
to the MPs formerly known as monkey pocks that's been
declared an emergency this week by the World Health Organization.
Of them are backbone basically for any private assistance that
you can be helpful to get these vaccines where they are,
(28:11):
from where they are to where they need to be,
and we typically receive them via donation, but will also
help any government or other enterprise that's doing public service
or humanitarian work.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
Will make available any capacity we have to help the people,
and that's what we can do, but we've seen them
increasingly and it's like an emergency of a different type
of declared emergency.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
There's a surge and demand for something with limited supply,
and often the supply chain itself is either broken or inadequate,
so you need to bolster kind of.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
The distribution mechanism.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
You need to identify the supply, and then you need
to make sure there's integrity, particularly when you're handling a
scarce thing like a vaccine that requires cold storage and
special were handing throughout. There's a high degree of difficulty involved,
but it's one that I guessed, like anything, you get
better at, more familiar with what's involved the more you
do it, which we have done a lot in the
(29:12):
past decade with vaccines and particularly cold storage medications and
including insulin.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Thomas Tig, President and CEO of Direct Relief Again. You
can learn more about this organization and support their work
at direct relief dot org. Thomas, A real pleasure to
talk to you. Thank you so much for coming on
the show and for all the great work your organization
is doing well.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
Thank you, Ryan, I really appreciate what you do too,
and to all your listeners. Uch appreciate it, all.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
Right, And that's going to do it for this edition
of iHeartRadio Communities. As we wrap things up, one offer
big thanks to our guests and of course to all
of you for listening. If you want to hear previous
episodes of the show, run your iHeartRadio app. Just search
for iHeartRadio Communities. I'm your host, Ryan Gorman. We'll talk
to you again real soon.
Welcome to iHeartRadio Communities, a public affairs special focusing on
the biggest issues impacting you. This week, here's Ryan Gorman.
Thanks so much for joining us here on iHeartRadio Communities.
I'm Ryan Gorman, and we have an important conversation lined
up for you for this episode of the show. We're
going to talk to a humanitarian aid organization active not
just across the country, but all around the world. They're
(00:22):
on a mission to improve the health and lives of
people affected by poverty or emergencies. So for more on this,
I'm joined now by Thomas Tide, the president and CEO
of Direct Relief, which you can learn more about at
direct relief dot org. Thomas, thanks so much for coming
on the show, and let's start with how your organization
first came about.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Well, first, thanks for having me Ryan, I appreciate it.
And yeah, Direct Relief has been around since nineteen forty eight,
originally founded by war immigrant refugees from who fled the
kind of the Nazis in World War Two and ended
up in California with some of their wealth intact, so
it's now.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Direct Relief was originally just.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
A private philanthropic effort of a guy named William Zimden,
and he was a business person and he thought it
was really important to engage businesses and people like himself
to keep this humanitarian type of work outside of politics
and government.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
So it's still retained that basic thrust like what.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Is needed and how can we engage people in businesses
in these events in the world and mobilized resources that
people need to can afford and directly now focuses largely,
almost exclusively on health related needs, whether it's access to
medications or supplies or essentials, and a lot a lot
(01:43):
of times the visibility arises for our organization when there's
a car crash type wreck, or an international incident, a
typhoon or a hurricane, or an earthquake or a fire.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Out here in the West.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
But we really every day respond to this chrome of
gaps that exist in society for people who need things
they can't afford, and trying to mobilize in a private
a political way resources to help them. And we do
that in all fifty states providing free medications. We do
it in about one hundred countries a year. And in
(02:18):
those places that are that we work with typically at
direct relief that are chronically resourced to prive. They tend
to be the places that get slammed the hardest by
an emergency, whether it's of any type. I mean, poor
people tend to suffer the brunt of these things with
more severely because they have less cushion, it's harder to
bounce back, and often in a weathery late emergency, live
(02:42):
in kind of the most challenging places substandard housing, low floodplain.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
So we've learned a lot along the way of what to.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Expect, how to anticipate, in how to respond in a
way that complements the official actions of governments who play
a huge role about mobilizing private resources efficiently, effectively and respectfully.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
How did your time serving as a chief of Staff
and chief operating Officer of the Peace Corps help you
with the role that you're serving in today and direct relief?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Well, contrary to what the Peace Corps is, that's sort
of the resource that the Peace Corps.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Provides is the human resource.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
I mean when I was there was seven thousand people
serving in ninety countries, and that is the means through
which the objectives of the Peace Corps to do good
work that's needed and requested by a country but also
have an opportunity for Americans to work alongside people they
probably otherwise wouldn't meet in places they likely otherwise wouldn't
(03:41):
go on vacation. So I think just the logistics of
getting thousands of people, recruiting them placely and making sure
there was they had their modest eighty dollars a year
or a month's salary in their bank account and their medications.
There was a big legition six element to the Peace
(04:01):
Corps and navigating the unanticipated circumstances an outbreak of war
or these emergencies is you make your plans and then
you adjust to reality. So that was good grounding for
direct relief, which is primarily working with already trained people
in a lot of these places and making sure that
(04:23):
we're mobilizing stuff and money, not people as much as
which the Peace Corps did. But it was very helpful
contextually just to understand the dynamics of how these situations
unfolded emergency and also have an appreciation for how difficult
circumstances are for many people in the world, in developing
countries or poorer parts of the United States, that day
(04:47):
to day isn't always smooth, and so there's these chronic challenges.
The more you see you just have a deep appreciation
for how many severe challenges people face, and it's kind
of compelling to want to do something to help them out.
So the same spirit, much different approach in many ways,
(05:07):
but I think the same underlying spirit of trying to
help folks who have needs that are usually severe, trying
to do it in a respectful way that's you know,
works for them in their country. And that's been a
good reminder of Direct Relief as we end up working
in a lot of places around the world where there's
sensitivities and you know, mistrust or from whatever reasons, political
(05:32):
or otherwise. So it's been a good grounding reminder for
me personally as we travel around at Direct Relief and
try to make sure that it's understood we have no
other agenda other than helping. There's not a political or
governmental objective. It's purely humanitarian and that's worked well for us.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
I'm Ryan Gorman, joined by Thomas Tie President and CEO
of Direct Relief. You can learn more about the work
they do and support that work at direct relief dot org.
Since we're in the middle of hurricane season, I want
to go back to the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in
twenty seventeen, tell us about your response to that disaster
in Puerto Rico.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Yeah, and with Hurricane Maria, it was interesting, kind of
not unusual for Directoria because for the ten years prior
to Maria occurring, directlif had been assisting in Puerto Rico,
working with the local community health centers and basically providing
essential medications and supplies that their patients needed but couldn't afford.
(06:34):
So we had a structure, we have a protocol, and
because we deal with prescription medications, I mean were licensed
in all fifty states to provide prescription medications, we had
a protocol. So we received in a ten years prior
a total of zero contributions for Puerto Rico.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
I mean, it was just one of the things we did.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
It wasn't a focused effort, it wasn't a fundraising effort.
But after Maria, when all attention was riveted on Puerto Rica,
go Basically what direct Relief did at the time was
what it had already been doing.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
We just did more of it faster.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
We knew there was a crisis, there was a loss
of all the medications on the island that required cold
storage when the power went out, So we mobilized and
flew in a lot of material through the same protocol,
and then we were fortunate enough to receive financial support
from the public who saw what Direct Relief was doing
and put money towards us. But we basically put that
(07:31):
money in trust and told the Puerto Ricans like, look,
this money came to Direct Leaf, but we recognized it's
for you, how should we spend it. It's we're focused
on the health needs. And what they told us was
that what really crushed them and amplified the problems was
the loss of power because they couldn't function, that the
(07:52):
health facilities, the electronic records for patients weren't available, that
drugs were lost. So kind of surprisingly to us at
the time, we ended up providing a lot of the
funding support to do is to build solar and battery
storage microgrids at these facilities so that they wouldn't go
down and they could continue to operate in this environment
where power does go out when they're storms and it's
(08:15):
very expensive. So that ultimately led to a whole initiative
of Power for Health that we're doing in the Gulf States.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
In California and other places for.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
The same reasons that if the power goes down these days,
we are all so much more dependent on that for everything,
but including in healthcare, where you know, everything from your
patient records to getting an X ray or having a
vaccine that requires cold storage. Power is just kind of
a prerequisite for the delivery of health services, and direct
(08:45):
Leaf has tried to lean into that and has done
a lot in Puerto Rico, now Texas, Louisiana, California, North
Carolina because it's a recurring pattern. So that was one
takeaway that you can't separate the power availability from the
livay of health services anymore than you can.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Divorce it from anything else.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
And we're highly dependent on power for functioning in day
to day lives, and that's equally true in healthcare and
in emergencies as it is on a day.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
To day basis.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
So that's that was a big takeaway that was, of
course followed by COVID. We're kind of reinforced the need
for having a proper cold storage facility for vaccines, you know,
which was the way to prevent COVID and treating COVID
actually at the time required medical oxygen.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Because it was a respiratory disease.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
So again, some of these infrastructure investments, so for power
to generate medical oxygen which is in the kind of
essential medicine actually that you can't substitute anything for. And
maintaining cold storage what they call a cold chain supply
chain is something that we've been leading into ever since
Puerto Rico, and thankfully, with Winternesta recently blew through and
(09:54):
knocked out half the power in Puerto Rico, each one
of the facilities that Directli had provided a small microgrid
to did not go down, did not lose power. We're
able to stay open and serving their patients, which was
sort of the whole point of it. But yeah, we've
learned a lot the hard way, I think, just responding
to these emergencies that are statistically becoming more frequent, more
(10:17):
severe and lasting longer. And out there in the East
Coast and the Caribbean it's hurricanes.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Out here in the West, it's wildfires.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
That have similar crippling effects on society, and so we're
trying to from a health perspective, how can we make
the resiliency better upfront so the consequences aren'ter severe and
have a much better, more informed rapid response based on
the information we've learned, and unfortunately that's really much of
(10:46):
it started with Puerto Rico, and we've learned a lot
and try to apply it wherever we can.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
That regional disaster response hub that you set up in
Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, how vital has that been
because you know, when we track these storms that come
through that region, obviously there's always a huge focus on
whether or not it's going to make landfall with the
continentally United States, but you have a lot of countries,
a lot of islands along the way that don't necessarily
(11:15):
have the infrastructure that we have here in the United
States and can get hit really hard by these storms.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Right now, I think that having a hub there so
we can stage material that's likely to be needed, I
mean taterintitively. We think that of an emergency is you know,
my gosh, there's a lot of traumatic injury, which does
happen occasionally, but really a lot of the displacement.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Or loss of power.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Who actually statistically gets into a health crisis are people
who are managing a chronic condition on a day to
day basis, say asthma, or diabetes or hypertension. But when
things you know, go awry, that they become unmanaged conditions.
You can't get your insulin. If you're a personal diabetes,
(12:00):
you can go into crisis. If you don't have access
to your medications. If you have hypertension, you have chest pains,
that's going to put you in the hospital. And if
you have asthma, don't have access because you had to
flee your home and you don't have it Inhaler. Simple
though it may seem that is who ends up in
the hospitals, I mean because they're in these emergent crises.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
So those are the types of things that we've been
trying to.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Stockpile locally in secure facilities with reliable power and make
them available as well as also responding to neighboring islands.
Quet Becau's a bit of a hub for the Caribbean,
as is Miami, but I think we've worked with a
lot of the smaller Caribbean nations that you know, Hurricane
Beryl just pummeled, you know, went through Jamaica, went through Grenada,
(12:49):
picture Mexico when they came up to Texas and two
million people without power and that was you know, an
early storm this year. We can't stop them, but we
can anticipate what is likely to happen and move as
rapidly as possible and ask more focused questions for the
things that we're in a particularly good situation to help with.
(13:10):
It was just really access to the medications and medical
essentials increasingly power. It just comes up all the time,
which is why we've tried to lean into that in
places likely to be hit and provide funding so that
they can have their health facilities or distribution facilities powered up.
And that's I think there's going to be more of
(13:31):
that in the features as we project out and see
the patterns are pretty clear.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Is there a difference in your response at direct relief
to a hurricane as opposed to a wildfire situation out west?
Speaker 3 (13:45):
You know some significant differences.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
I think the risks from wildfires and they both cause
can cause mass evacuations, But wildfire, as we've seen, provide
a particular risk for people.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Who have compromised breathing.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
If you have the asthma, for example, all that fine
particulate matter in the wildfire smoke.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Can again put people in a crisis.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
So we have a lot of ppe and even before COVID,
we were manufacturing our own N ninety five masks really
for wildfire relief for people who were found themselves in
a zone affected by wildfires. But I think you know
mass movements, if there's a mass evacuation, that in itself
has a similar health risk, whether it's from a hurricane
(14:30):
or from a fire, because people often flee without access
to their basics and find themselves in crisis because of
that in managing their condition, so some of the circumstances
are obviously different. The risks of crossing flooded waterways are high,
similar to trying to get out of a place like
in Paradise, California, where the access is limited from the
(14:52):
fire itself, But we're less involved in that direct management
of the crisis. I mean, thankfully, the emergency response capability
the United States is getting better and better and more
tech enabled, and we work closely with them, but they're
trying to save.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
The people and get them to safety.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
I think director release role is really beyond the emergence
of immediacy of the search and rescue or evacuation and
then trying to stabilize and make sure resources that are
appropriate are available for the people wherever they happen to be,
and then staying with them because as you know, I
think you're in Florida, I believe and.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
I think these things.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
The coverage often is as a weather event that then ends,
but these can be five or ten years of social reconstruction.
I mean the infrastructure, the loss of jobs, and so
all the pressures that result from these major natural disasters
are not over when the headlines fade, and sometimes they're
(15:53):
just beginning. So we're trying to be sensitive to that
and he continue to have a private philanthropic channel for
medical help and health related support available for people. And
we're still very active in Puerto Rico because many people
still haven't bounced back fully from seven.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
Years ago when Maria happened.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
You can start an extraordinary social event that these events
have and with a significant effect on people's health and
well being.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
I'm Ryan Gorman, joined by Thomas Tide, President and CEO
of Direct Relief. You can learn more about the work
they do and support that work at direct relief dot org.
We've been talking about your work in response to natural disasters,
but tell us about the work you've done in Ukraine
following the Russian invasion that led to so many Ukrainians
(16:45):
being displaced.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Right, I mean to your last point, I mean that's
a much different cause, right, the Russians attacking in this invasion,
but many the same effects.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
I mean, mass displacement of people.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Everything I just said about people having to flee and
not being able to manage their health or manything's hugely
traumatic in many ways. So we have tried to essentially
build a private channel to bring in and subsidize the
Ukrainian healthcare system for people who still need the basics
as well as the traumatic care, and have a channel
(17:21):
that is efficient and transparent, and it's also heavily regulated
because we're managing with drugs but bringing in medications. So
that's been the largest thing directlyif has ever done. It's
exceeded at one point three billion dollars of material flow.
But basically setting up a structure is a philanthropic effort
(17:43):
that is trying to model on what a commercial company
would do if they were selling it, because all the
same functional activities are the same. It's warehousing, distribution, inventory management, tracking,
inventory controls, and so we've been doing that at scale
with the both the Ukrainian government and many of the
Ukrainian NGOs that are trying to pick up the slack
(18:05):
as the government has focused its efforts on defending the country.
You know, it's in a survival mode. So a lot
of the local ngeos, non governmental organizations have tried to
provide the social services for people, whether it's proma counseling
and we've been able to provide funding for that or
(18:26):
even mobile medical units because of the need for you know,
moving populations.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
The fixed sites for hospitals.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Don't always correspond to where people run to for safety.
So I think building in that flexibility and providing the
financial resources with the funds that have come in for Ukraine,
as well as an ongoing effort to fill the gaps
that exist in there just their medical supplies, which are
significant because of the priority that just needs to go
(18:56):
defending the nation and its people. So it continues to
be a high pace, high volume activity and still very fluid.
The just tragic state of the ongoing war. It's just
caused so much trauma. One of the other things we've
done with the primarily with the funding that's coming in
(19:17):
to directly is funding some of their prosthetics and general
occupational rehabilitation that comes along in people who suffer serious
injury or loss of a lamb, which is a long,
hard slog and deeply dedicated people, and they just did
not have a whole lot of capacity to deal with that.
(19:37):
There are more people with amputations, it is said, in
Ukraine than have existed in Europe since World War One,
so this is not something they were set up to
manage or deal with. So that is a good case
we believe for use of the philanthropic money that directlyief
is received, and we're working carefully with some of the leaders,
(19:58):
both private and in the public sector in Ukraine to
get some of these areas, these of specialty care stabilized
and funded, and then the supplies and even the tools
and the prosthetics manufacturing industry set up as best we can.
But that's not something that we're had a lot of
experience with, but it was relevant to the circumstances and
(20:21):
just an unfolding tragedy that I've had the opportunity to
see a dozen times so far.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
One note that you have on your page on the
website at Directrelief dot org about Ukraine, but I'm assuming
this holds for the other situations that you respond to.
You know, we think of medical aid and sometimes it's
prescription drugs, trauma kits, things like that, but you list
things like cancer drugs, insulin. There are people in the
(20:51):
aftermath of what Ukraine has been facing, or what Puerto
Rico face in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. These storms,
when they hit the wildfires, their cancer battle doesn't just
stop because there has been this life changing event that
has happened around them. And so that's where it seems like,
(21:12):
you know, in addition to everything else you're providing, that
is just so crucial and potentially life saving.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Right, Yeah, we've seen that, and I think the interruption
of cancer care can really diminish a patient's prospect. So
I think we see this often where it's naturally think
trauma and you know, all the crush wounds and trauma care,
but there's also people who the day before were undergoing
managing a health crisis or trying to tackle cancer in
(21:44):
treatment and all that gets interrupted. I mean, the whole
status que gets blown up when these things happen. So again,
trying to mobilize the resources that are some of these
are very specific specialized medications, so working with the Center
of Cancer Care, the referral centers to make sure that
(22:04):
they have access to medications that we can mobilize because
again I think the whole country is the old classic
economic choice between guns or butter. You know, you can
spend on limited amount of money goes to one or
the other. Well, they're definitely a gun's first, trying to
defend themselves, and so the resources available for just general
(22:28):
care of the citizens is obviously compromised, and that's where
we're trying to provide the support with recognition that it
doesn't matter if it's a hurricane that interrupts your care
or the Russians invading and bombing the facility. The effect
on the person is the same.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
They don't have access to what's needed to maintain their health.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
So in any ways, it's similar to what direct lief experiences,
but the cause of the human cause buying with tension
to inflict suffering for whatever the Russians warrims are define me.
You know, our activities are very similar. We work with
(23:11):
the people who are well placed and experts. It gets
very specific, very quick, and we have to have very
strong controls and manage the transport and provision of prescription
or specialized medications very very carefully. So that's been a
higher degree of difficulty than is the norm, just because
(23:32):
of the circumstances. But the basic underlying activity is the
same mobilized private resources. As best we can stay out
of politics and make sure that the help gets the
people the most efficient way we can possibly function.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
I'm Ryan Gorman, joined by Thomas Tig, President and CEO
of Direct Relief, which you can learn more about and
support at direct relief dot org. I want to get
to two other aspects of your work, maternal health and
your response to outbreaks. Can you dive into that for us?
Speaker 2 (24:05):
I think maternal health is just one of those organizing
principles that maybe doesn't get the attention that an earthquake would,
but it's you know, the fact is that most of
the deaths that occurred during childbirth, for example, are preventable.
I think all the research has shown that the most
(24:26):
important intervention is just making sure that women who are
pregnant and delivering have someone who's trained companying them when
they're giving birth. So that's why Directorli worked for a
few years with the International Confederation of Midwives to develop
a standard kit that trained midwives would need to perform,
(24:48):
you know, their skills that they're trained to perform.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
A lot of the work goes into training a midwife.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
It's a four year program, and so we recognize that, well,
that's great that you know how to fish, but you
need to f wishing poll to catch one, right, I
mean sort of in the same analogy. And so we
worked with them to develop a standard that we can
provide to midwives who are trained around the world so
that they're equipped to perform the jobs they're trained to do.
(25:14):
And that is something we look at. In emergencies in particularly,
the midwives have been terrifically motivated, including last summer and
Maui when.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
They're the horrible fire hit Lahaina.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
I think some of the first responders were the Midwifery
Association that called Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies in Hawaii that
we've worked with previously, But they're so focused on taking
care of the women who are pregnant and who is
more vulnerable in one of these emergencies than a pregnant
woman or a little baby. So I think that's their
orientation and we have seen repeatedly in crisis after crisis
(25:51):
some of the most effective responders are midwives because they're
so focused on caring for people who are inherently vulnerable
because because of their status. So that's something that we
do on an emergency basis, on an ongoing basis, and
really have been deeply inspired by just the commitment of
the midwives, people who focus on care for pregnant women
(26:15):
and little kids and children. It's not the type of
issue that often you get the statistics and they're horrible
and you sort of check out. But I think to
see the number of people and these these groups that
organize and are deeply committed to making sure women can
you know, be healthy, be safe and have children safely.
(26:36):
It's something that we love to do and it's deeply
rewarding to be part of that. The outbreak question, I think,
you know, we're seeing that right now a little bit
in the news with MPOs.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
But I think basically.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Emergencies tend to cause a spike in need and it
doesn't really work well with supply chains, and it's just
in time thinking.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
You know, that.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Exists in commerce, so we typically like to stockpile knowing
that something's going to happen and the need will be
somewhere based on history, whereas businesses don't want to carry
inventory that may or may not be used right. So
I think that's the difference between directly physic philanthropic organization
and just a business that it doesn't it really doesn't
(27:23):
make sense to buy inventory and hold it so because
someone might want it at some future date.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
So I think for outbreaks, we do have a stockpile,
a private stockpile for the essentials. It came to COVID,
no one had the vaccine.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
But we were a channel for making it available, like
from the US to Mexico that was having shortages, So
our distribution capability.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
Comes in very handy.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Where we had some calls, just initial calls with regard
to the MPs formerly known as monkey pocks that's been
declared an emergency this week by the World Health Organization.
Of them are backbone basically for any private assistance that
you can be helpful to get these vaccines where they are,
(28:11):
from where they are to where they need to be,
and we typically receive them via donation, but will also
help any government or other enterprise that's doing public service
or humanitarian work.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
Will make available any capacity we have to help the people,
and that's what we can do, but we've seen them
increasingly and it's like an emergency of a different type
of declared emergency.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
There's a surge and demand for something with limited supply,
and often the supply chain itself is either broken or inadequate,
so you need to bolster kind of.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
The distribution mechanism.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
You need to identify the supply, and then you need
to make sure there's integrity, particularly when you're handling a
scarce thing like a vaccine that requires cold storage and
special were handing throughout. There's a high degree of difficulty involved,
but it's one that I guessed, like anything, you get
better at, more familiar with what's involved the more you
do it, which we have done a lot in the
(29:12):
past decade with vaccines and particularly cold storage medications and
including insulin.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Thomas Tig, President and CEO of Direct Relief Again. You
can learn more about this organization and support their work
at direct relief dot org. Thomas, A real pleasure to
talk to you. Thank you so much for coming on
the show and for all the great work your organization
is doing well.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
Thank you, Ryan, I really appreciate what you do too,
and to all your listeners. Uch appreciate it, all.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
Right, And that's going to do it for this edition
of iHeartRadio Communities. As we wrap things up, one offer
big thanks to our guests and of course to all
of you for listening. If you want to hear previous
episodes of the show, run your iHeartRadio app. Just search
for iHeartRadio Communities. I'm your host, Ryan Gorman. We'll talk
to you again real soon.
Host
Manny Munoz
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.