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Bold, unfiltered, and uncompromisingly honest, Why Should I Trust You? is a weekly podcast that looks at the breakdown in trust for science and public health. It drops every Thursday, with occasional additional special episodes sprinkled in.
Hosted by Brinda Adhikari, the former executive producer of “The Problem with Jon Stewart” and a former TV news journalist; Tom Johnson, the former executive producer of “The Circus,” and also a former TV news journalist; Dr. Maggie Bartlett, a virologist and assistant research professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; and Dr. Mark Abdelmalek a skin cancer surgeon, a medical journalist and a dermatologist practicing in Philadelphia - each week we try to figure out what is behind this staggering collapse in trust and see if we can rebuild towards trust again.
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Today, we’re exploring the new world of health and science communication now that the old playbook is dead. The days of publishing a study and expecting to reach the public with it through legacy media or pointing people to health institutions and medical associations for guidance are over. Millions no longer trust the science, the guidance, or the messenger. Meanwhile, the Make America Healthy Again movement is finding new ways to communicate and harness the enthusiasm of its followers. So w...
Coleman Hughes is a thinker, writer, podcaster, and author. You may know him from his Conversations with Coleman podcast with The Free Press, from appearances on CNN, Joe Rogan, and The View, or from his recent book, in which he argues that America should strive toward colorblindness, treating people and designing public policy without regard to race. In addition to that, what interests us is that he’s an independent, unorthodox voice—someone who doesn’t follow the political script his critic...
In our latest big conversation bringing together individuals who don’t always see eye to eye, we sit down with Gen Zers who care deeply about the nation’s health. Some are launching careers in public health, others are inspired by the MAHA movement. Together, we talk politics, race, philosophy, and shared values. What do they make of the profound changes reshaping American health today? The group of twenty-somethings explore the rise of individualism in public health, what expertise means and...
On today's episode, a remarkable moment in the Make America Healthy Again era. From the White House, the president urged pregnant women not to take Tylenol, saying it was linked to autism, before launching into a discourse on his personal fears and advice on autism rates, vaccine safety, and when parents should vaccinate their children. For many MAHA supporters, it was cathartic to see a president speak from instinct rather than the strict limits of a body of scientific work they do not trust...
It’s the very first shot a newborn gets—just hours after birth. Today, Secretary Kennedy’s new Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) Committee is reviewing whether it should remain so. We’re talking about the Hepatitis B “birth dose,” the starting point of America’s childhood vaccine schedule since 1991. But for some parents today, it’s the starting point of their vaccine hesitancy. They ask: “Why give a vaccine against a virus mostly spread through sex or IV drug use to a brand...
On today's episode, we are heading to the farm, which is where one of America's biggest debates is taking place over food, health, and who and what we trust. Modern agriculture feeds the nation and the world, but its tools raise tough questions about long-term impacts on our health, not to mention our land. You'll hear from farmers, journalists and advocates -- some aligned with MAHA and others not -- as we dig into how we grow and harvest our food, the pressures on the population and on the ...
1It's been 24 hours since we learned about the shooting and murder of famed conservative activist and leader Charlie Kirk. We wanted to bring together some friends of the show, people we engage with frequently on the pod, to discuss what happened to Charlie, and to get into how we as a society can disagree better, whether getting to yes or even trying to bring ourselves into the same room together these days is worth it. The answer is: yes. We must. Now more than ever. Hosts: Brinda Ad...
**We recorded this episode on Wednesday early morning. ** The big MAHA report is out, a roadmap for how Kennedy and the Trump administration plan to tackle the chronic disease crisis impacting America's children. It’s a bold attempt to turn the federal government toward confronting the dire state of our health. In this episode, we break down what’s in the plan, what’s missing, and how both the MAHA movement and the public health community are responding. Joining us is Dr. Michael Forde, a pu...
Americans today are engaging in a great Rorschach Test over public health–and its results may determine our future. Are radical changes at the CDC and beyond moving us in the right direction for a healthier nation, or dangerously backwards? Are we undoing the very system that has protected us for decades (from infectious disease)? Or upending a system that has made us sicker (chronic disease epidemic)? Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) has succeeded in putting that question front and center. ...
Our guest today, researcher Anna Gilmore, recently went viral with a provocative revelation: just four products cause at least a third of all deaths worldwide. But behind the attention-grabbing headline is her deeper mission--exposing a complex, corporate-driven system that fuels poor diets, worsening health, and our chronic disease crisis. To avoid regulation and keep government subsidies flowing, Anna says industry bankrolls and skews scientific research, while working to convince us that o...
His voice reaches millions of Americans who many in mainstream science and public health just don’t reach these days. He is Dr. Marc Siegel, the senior medical analyst for FOX News who recently argued that President Trump should be given the Nobel Peace Prize for leading Operation Warp Speed – the rapid development of mRNA vaccines that was given to millions during the covid pandemic. The Fox News medical correspondent is outspoken on mRNA technology as the Trump administration cancels promis...
Our guest today is David Kessler, the former FDA commissioner who once devised a strategy to take on Big Tobacco. Now, he’s back with a bold game plan for MAHA and President Trump to challenge the makers of ultra-processed foods. While making food healthier is central to MAHA’s mission, critics say its early wins, like persuading companies to remove certain food dyes, are a positive first step but won’t significantly improve public health. Kessler argues that RFK Jr.’s FDA already has both th...
In this special episode of Why Should I Trust You?, we're taking on the all-important topic of food with members of the Make America Healthy Again movement, along with a panel of seasoned experts in food and nutrition science, including Kevin Hall, the former NIH nutrition scientist. We set out to talk about nutrition, the food industry, and politics--but the conversation quickly took off in directions we never expected. What does the group make of the administration's early "wins" on food ...
Welcome to a special episode of Why Should I Trust You? We’re joined by Neil deGrasse Tyson and Oscar-nominated filmmaker Scott Hamilton Kennedy. There may be no more recognizable figure in science today than Tyson: astronomer, author, public thinker, and the guy who’s done more than just about anyone to make science accessible. Today, our focus is less on the cosmos and more on us humans—and why we’re losing trust in the very science Tyson represents. The pair have released...
Is the CDC finally being fixed—or intentionally dismantled? Wherever you fall on that divide—long-overdue reform or something more alarming—seismic changes are underway at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is implementing dramatic cuts and a reorganization that he says will help focus the CDC on its core mission: fighting communicable diseases. As part of the overhaul, he’s also reshaping the agency’s role in setting vaccine policy for all Ame...
We are joined by Zen Honeycutt, the founder of Moms Across America and a leading voice in the MAHA movement. She’s an outspoken force of nature on a range of issues that she sees as negatively impacting the health of children. There are many directions our conversation could take (and many things to debate), but we focused on a question we hear frequently from our listeners: How is MAHA responding to all the recent developments at the Environmental Protection Agency and the efforts to ...
With the Jeffrey Epstein saga dominating the conversation for weeks now, it feels like we’re roasting in a summer of conspiracy theories. And given how conspiracy and cover-up play a recurring role in the story we’re exploring about the breakdown of trust in public health and medicine, this week felt as good as any to take on the topic. So, what’s fueling today’s conspiracy theories? And -- hold that thought -- do we as a society even LIKE the phrase conspiracy theory any more? Where’s the li...
Kevin Hall is regarded as one of the world’s leading experts on the impact of food on our health. A former NIH scientist, he led some of the most eye-opening studies on the connections between ultra-processed foods and overeating, obesity, and chronic disease (Spoiler alert: It's not pretty.). So when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Make America Healthy Again movement took the reins at HHS, with gobs of energy and focus on tackling food, you’d think this would be Kevin Hall’s moment. Inst...
What happens when you bring a group of MAHA advocates together with journalists and public health communicators and ask: When it comes to the media, who do you trust for your information and why? What about doctors? What about Sec. Kennedy? This week, we found out. The result is an intense, surprising, sometimes funny, often confounding conversation about trust, Big Pharma, censorship, facts, “misinformation” (one voice says, stop using that word, another asks, well, then what do we call it?)...
On today’s episode, we’re joined by Dr. Francis Collins, the former head of the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Collins has spent his career pushing the frontiers of science — from discovering genes linked to deadly diseases to leading the historic Human Genome Project. And during COVID, he helped steer the government’s public health response, including the rapid development of the COVID vaccine — work that still puts him in the hot seat with communities who feel science betrayed their tru...
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Thank you for this episode. It was very intresting. I think there need to explore dimensions of trust. I mean, building trust is not possible over a night, a consistent reliable transparent work is needed. On the other hand, it is fragile, especially in case of public health, and could be destroyed by just one inaccurate statement. Another thing I beleive is communicating risk which scientists ignored. Openning a feild for non experts to raise their voices. Thank you once again and keep posting