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Chris Van Tulleken and Layal Liverpool on the Hidden Threats to Our Health

Politics &
Economics

How structural problems and inequalities – from racism in medicine to processing in food – are making us increasingly and needlessly ill

We’re living longer than ever before but we are also spending more years in poor health. UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has promised to crack down on Britain’s ‘sick note culture’, but what’s making us sick in the first place? And what’s making some communities more sick than others?

In June 2024 medical doctor Chris van Tulleken and medical journalist Layal Liverpool came to Intelligence Squared to reveal the underlying causes of our growing health crises. Drawing on the themes of their respective books Ultra-Processed People and Systemic: How Racism is Making Us Ill they will uncover how structural problems and inequalities – from racism in medicine to processing in food – are making us increasingly and needlessly ill.

Speakers for the motion

  • Layal Liverpool

    Science journalist and author

Against the motion

  • Chris Van Tulleken

    BBC Science presenter

Speakers

Speaker

Layal Liverpool

Science journalist and author

Science journalist and author of Systemic: How Racism is Making Us Ill published by Bloomsbury in June 2024. Her writing has previously appeared in Nature, New Scientist, WIRED, the Guardian, and elsewhere, and she has worked on staff as a reporter for both Nature and New Scientist. Before moving into journalism, she worked as a biomedical researcher at University College London and the University of Oxford in the UK.
Speaker

Chris Van Tulleken

BBC Science presenter

Infectious diseases doctor at UCLH, one of the BBC’s leading science presenters and multi-award winning author of  Ultra-Processed People: Why Do We All Eat Stuff That Isn’t Food and Why Can’t We Stop?