Why Should I Trust You?

A blue wave, a political earthquake—and a crossroads for MAHA and American public health. Did health play a role in the midterm elections? Did the results expose the limits of MAHA's alliance with MAGA? And could the movement find an unlikely new political home with Democrats? With Democrats taking control of Congress, we ask whether the next two years will be defined by reform or retribution...

Could America handle another pandemic? And what would we do differently this time? For our first-ever live taping of Why Should I Trust You?, recorded at Washington University's Bursky School of Public Health in St. Louis, we tried something different. We invented a hypothetical pandemic set in 2030 and invited four people with very different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives to help...

Americans are mad as hell about healthcare costs. Premiums, deductibles, copays, prescription drugs, medical debt—the bills keep piling up, and voters are demanding relief. Politicians are offering big promises, from Medicare for All to restoring Medicaid and ACA subsidies to cracking down on fraud and waste. But how much of that would actually lower what Americans pay for healthcare—and how soon?...

As the midterms approach, a distinctive issue is animating races up and down the ballot in Iowa: rising cancer rates and growing concerns about the safety of the state’s drinking water. Iowa has one of the highest cancer rates in the nation, and voters are asking hard questions about the state’s water, soil, and agricultural practices. With Election Day almost here, water has emerged as one of the...

With the midterms just three weeks away, communities across the country are pushing back against the construction of new AI data centers. In a deeply divided America, opposition to these massive facilities is emerging across party lines: seven in ten Americans say they oppose an AI data center being built near them. Today, we bring together Midwestern residents on the front lines of this fight, al...

Our guest is Abdul El-Sayed, a Democratic candidate for the Senate in Michigan, one of the key races in the battle for control of the Senate. A physician and former public health director, El-Sayed is making health a centerpiece of his campaign. Along with advocating for Medicare for All, he’s unveiled a new agenda targeting pesticides, polluters, and microplastics, while expanding access to healt...

Researcher and author Renée DiResta has spent years studying how influence works online, including the power dynamics that determine which voices get heard and which ones have influence. In a new report she co-authored, DiResta not only digs into the transformation from old media to new, but also examines how institutions need to rethink their approach to communication. Which brings us to a bigger...

Today we ask: When it comes to spending taxpayer dollars on scientific research, how much should elected politicians decide what gets funded,  and how much should be decided by scientists and those who lead our health agencies?  Where should the line be between supporting the best scientific questions and the ones that our elected leaders think are best ? Hosts: Brinda Adhikari Tom Johnson Maggie...

This year is shaping up to be the worst in three decades for measles cases. The biggest case count is in Pennsylvania, home to the country’s largest outbreak right now. At its center is Lancaster County and its large Amish community. As you're likely aware, the outbreak has also become a political fight, with Governor Josh Shapiro and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. publicly clashing,...

AI’s story feels like it's gotten a lot scarier. Some people in the tech world building AI now say it poses a meaningful risk of catastrophic harm, or even human extinction. Others insist this kind of “doomerism” is wildly exaggerated—that the warnings amount to crying wolf, and that the real danger is slowing down and ceding our advantage to China. What we do know is that the claims are enor...

Charles Eisenstein was a senior adviser and speechwriter to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during his 2024 presidential campaign and an early architect of the ideas that would help shape MAHA. In a wide-ranging interview, Eisenstein talks about his heartbreak over how that campaign evolved and, in the wake of Kennedy’s speech at last week’s Republican midterm convention, how he views the possibility of a K...

A debate has broken out in medicine and tech over what the role of AI should be. Is it a useful tool for doctors to consult when making a diagnosis, or, given studies now showing how powerful AI can be in diagnostics and other areas, should the field actually begin preparing for a not-too-distant future when what’s best for a patient is AI taking the lead in care? To explore that question, we&apos...

It’s been two years since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. endorsed Donald Trump and forged an unlikely alliance between the Make America Healthy Again movement and MAGA. Now, as we head toward the midterms, with Kennedy campaigning for Republican candidates, we’re asking: What is MAHA now? Is it working? Is it a political force, a social force, or has it lost its way?  To hear from supporters about where th...

Has the Lindsay Clancy trial quickly become a proxy for something larger? — arguments about psychiatry and medication, motherhood and mental illness, personal responsibility, and whether our medical system is fundamentally failing the people who depend on it?  And in choosing sides, are we at risk of turning one horrific case into evidence for conclusions that go far beyond what this particular tr...

That’s the challenge facing Dr. Sandro Galea, dean of the brand-new Bursky School of Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis. It is the first major school of public health to open in the United States after the pandemic. In the wake of COVID, with trust in public health fractured and many Americans viewing the field as partisan, Galea is advocating that his field engage rather than dra...

Dr. Debra Houry, the former CDC chief medical officer; emergency physician Dr. Craig Spencer; pediatrician and author Dr. Joel “Gator” Warsh; and MAHA supporter Nancy Fuller join us as we dig into President Trump’s brand-new executive order revamping the recommended schedule for vaccinating America’s children. The order reduces the number of vaccines recommended universally for children from 17 to...

What if one of the biggest public health debates of the next decade isn't about vaccines, Ozempic, or chronic disease? What if it's about air conditioning? The world’s temperatures are getting dangerously warmer. Europe is the world's fastest-warming continent with estimates that this summer the heat contributed to 10,000–14,000 deaths over just a few weeks. The United States suffer...

Few figures in America are as polarizing as Dr. Anthony Fauci. To some, he is the veteran scientist who helped steer the nation through the COVID-19 pandemic. To others, he is the face of government overreach who suppressed the lab leak theory to avoid accountability for research funding decisions they believe contributed to the pandemic. This week, those worlds collided in a Senate hearing room a...

If a new pandemic struck tomorrow and scientists developed a vaccine in record time, would you take it? In this episode, we hear from a group of friends of the show and newcomers who describe themselves as vaccine-hesitant. Once broadly supportive of vaccines, they explain how their experiences during the pandemic changed their views. From concerns about mRNA technology and the speed of developmen...

Dr. Robert Malone and Dr. Craig Spencer are two influential voices on health in America today, reaching very different audiences. And it's no secret that on many critical issues, they fundamentally disagree. Yet as a deadly Ebola outbreak unfolds in Central Africa, they find themselves agreeing on more than you (or they) might expect.  In this episode, the two physicians discuss what allowed...

One year ago, the Trump administration dismantled USAID, America's largest foreign aid agency. The administration argued the agency had become wasteful, ideological, and ineffective. Critics warned the consequences would be measured in lives lost. A year later, what actually happened? We speak with two individuals who know the agency and aid landscape, inside and out: Andrew Natsios, who serv...

On the very day the Supreme Court handed a major legal victory to Bayer Monsanto, a ruling backed by the Trump administration but viewed by many in the MAHA movement as a betrayal, two regenerative farmers were invited to the Oval Office. They expected to witness President Trump sign an executive order promoting the kind of farming they've spent decades championing: bringing the natural ecosy...

It’s almost Independence Day, and we’re exploring one of the most influential political philosophies in America: libertarianism. In the age of medical freedom and MAHA, libertarian ideas are helping shape debates over vaccines, public health, food regulation, and the role of government. But what exactly is libertarianism? Why has it become so persuasive to so many Americans? And where does today&a...

Democratic Senator Cory Booker, Representative Chellie Pingree of Maine, MAHA leaders Zen Honeycutt and Kelly Ryerson, and former Congressman Tim Ryan join us to react to one of the Supreme Court's big decisions of the year as the High Court sides with Monsanto regarding glyphosate liability.  Our panel today represents a powerful, impassioned, and yes, unusual alliance, given MAHA's uni...

Fighting misinformation is seen as one of the defining challenges of our time. The term itself can be polarizing. And what if we're thinking about it all wrong? In this episode, we speak with researchers Michael Simeone and Kristy Roschke, who recently published a peer-reviewed article in a journal in the Nature portfolio, proposing a new framework for understanding why misinformation spreads...