Why Should I Trust You?

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...

Dr. Mehmet Oz, the head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, is our guest today. He oversees the government programs that provide health coverage to nearly half of all Americans and account for roughly a quarter of federal spending. At this moment of enormous change, what does Dr. Oz see as his mission? Alongside Vice President JD Vance, he has been tasked with rooting out fraud. H...

Senator Cory Booker joins us for a conversation about our dire chronic health crisis, the corrosive effects of corporate money in our politics, the power of making healthy food affordable, and our taxpayer-subsidized systems that fuel our chronic disease epidemic. These are issues he's been sounding the alarm on for years. Today, the New Jersey Democrat has a new message for his own party: ra...

Today, we're widening our lens to take on AI and trust because just like public health, science, and medicine, AI is becoming a trust minefield. As trust in institutions, experts, and Big Tech continues to erode, AI is arriving with enormous promises and profound uncertainties. (And don't worry—we're not taking our foot off the gas on trust and health. We're just doing more!) A...

Parkinson’s Disease is rising worldwide. It is the fastest-growing neurological disease in the world and is being called a “slow-motion epidemic.” And there is no cure.  So what’s driving the increase? There are several culprits, including a body of research associating exposure to the farm herbicide Paraquat. Paraquat is banned in 70 countries. At the same time, in America, the EPA and other majo...

We’ve got a major news-driven episode today, focused on two stories that hit home for two big parts of our audience: MAHA and public health. First, the political earthquake rocking MAHA: Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie's defeat in his primary after a full-force effort by President Trump and MAGA. Massie was beloved by many in MAHA as an independent-minded fighter willing to challenge both p...

We are joined today by Sheryl Gay Stolberg, one of the country’s leading health reporters and a correspondent for The New York Times, covering Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the MAHA movement. In her words, Stolberg covers “the intersection of health policy and politics,” a job to which she brings decades of experience covering federal health agencies, Congress, and two presidencies as a White House co...

The one thing Americans seem to agree on these days is that our systems need to change.  But what actually creates meaningful change? For some, it means tearing broken institutions down to the studs and rebuilding from scratch. For others, it means reforming those institutions while preserving expertise and what still works. Either way, the question remains: how do you turn shared values into sust...

Tim Ryan, the moderate, 10-term Democratic congressman from Ohio's Rust Belt, has pushed for a different conversation for years: one that reimagines America’s approach to food and health. Long before it had a name, Ryan was championing many of the ideas now fueling the “MAHA” movement: nutritious, “real” food (he wrote The Real Food Revolution back in 2014), regenerative agriculture, openness...

Hosts: Brinda Adhikari Tom Johnson Maggie Bartlett (producer) Dr. Mark Abdelmalek (seeing patients) Guests: Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) Alex Clark, TPUSA, MAHA Del Bigtree, High Wire, ICAN Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe!  Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@whyshoulditrusty...

Trust in higher education is slipping, with a growing number of Americans questioning whether universities are delivering value beyond their walls (and ivory towers). Today, we’re joined by Daniel Crowley, who goes by Max. He is a behavioral scientist and endowed chair at Penn State. His argument: universities produce groundbreaking research, but too often it sits on a shelf, never reaching the de...

Today, we are delving into the subject of healthcare fraud.  The Trump administration has elevated it into a major political issue. When it comes to Medicaid fraud specifically, do you see this administration's recent actions towards states such as Minnesota as a well-meaning push to take on the bad actors and lax state oversight that has allowed this taxpayer-supported safety net to be explo...

Today, we’re joined by Dr. Stephen Hoge, president of Moderna, the biotech company that helped make mRNA a household name during the pandemic, producing a vaccine taken by millions of Americans. Now, Moderna is using that same technology to push into new frontiers, developing treatments for cancers like melanoma and lung cancer. While at the same time, mistrust of mRNA and of the pharmaceutical in...

It's an episode full of news: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s move to counter the federal judge who ruled his handpicked vaccine advisory committee lacked the expertise to guide U.S. vaccine policy. At the same time, the Trump administration has rolled out its new budget, a clear statement of priorities, with major increases in defense spending alongside deep cuts to medical research. And the EP...

We are taking a few days off! We'll be back with a new episode on Thursday April 16. We love our theme song, so here it is in full. Enjoy! xo, WSITY team Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe!  Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@whyshoulditrustyou.net

Today, we’re diving into a new Netflix documentary, The Plastic Detox, which follows six couples trying to conceive and what happens when they attempt to reduce plastic exposure in their daily lives. We’re joined by two of the scientists featured in the film: Dr. Shanna Swan of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, a leading researcher on endocrine-disrupting chemicals and reproductive heal...

With the midterm elections approaching, health care is emerging as a central issue. So today, we’ve gathered a group of top-notch pollsters to help us understand where Americans’ heads are right now when it comes to health. Yes, this is about rising health care costs—a visceral concern and a growing factor in the upcoming elections—driven in part by expiring ACA subsidies and potential Medicaid cu...

Today, we explore an unlikely alliance. The Make America Healthy Again movement is nearly always associated with MAGA and the Republican Party. But on one issue, the political lines are being scrambled. It is Democrats in Congress, and not Republicans, who are standing with the movement in opposing liability protections for pesticide manufacturers.   At the center of the fight is a controversial p...

In today’s episode, Dr. Kirk Milhoan, the chair of the influential ACIP, returns to our show. In a wide-ranging conversation, we discuss his reaction to major news this week: the federal judge issuing a preliminary order pausing his committee’s work, leading to the cancellation of their scheduled meeting. Since ACIP was expected to take up the issue of vaccine injury, we explore the topic with Dr....

Measles has returned to the United States in a way we haven’t seen in more than a quarter-century. The outbreak in South Carolina follows one in West Texas last year, threatening the measles-free status the U.S. achieved in 2000. In today’s polarized climate, the virus has become a political flashpoint. Critics say the rise reflects eroding vaccine trust driven by the MAHA movement and Robert F. K...

GLP-1 drugs are being hailed as “miracle” treatments for obesity and diabetes, two of the biggest drivers of America’s chronic disease crisis. Nearly 30 million Americans say they’re taking one, and early signs suggest they may be changing not just individual lives, but even national health trends. Could Ozempic actually help reverse the obesity epidemic? But in the era of “Making America Healthy...