Prognosis

At Bloomberg, we're always talking about the biggest business stories, and no one is bigger than Elon Musk. In this new chat weekly show, host David Papadopoulos and a panel of guests including Businessweek's Max Chafkin, Tesla reporter Dana Hull, Big Tech editor Sarah Frier, and more, will break down the most important stories on Musk and his empire. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Smokescreen: Deadly Cure, a new show from Bloomberg, Neon Hum Media and Sony Entertainment, traces the rise and fall of a church that peddled poison to people around the world. In the first episode, Mark Grenon, a missionary in the Dominican Republic, contracts MRSA. He discovers the Miracle Mineral Solution, and claims its miracle status. This leads him to the founder of MMS, Jim Humble, a man who claims to be a billion-year-old god from the Andromeda galaxy. Together, the two start the Genesis II Church of Health and Healing. Listen to the rest of the series in the Smokescreen feed.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hosted by Bloomberg Opinion senior executive editor Tim O'Brien, Crash Course will bring listeners directly into the arenas where epic business and social upheavals occur. Every week, Crash Course will explore the lessons to be learned when creativity and ambition collide with competition and power -- on Wall Street and Main Street, and in Hollywood and Washington.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The battle against humanity's most challenging diseases is happening at the intersection of business and medicine. A new six-episode podcast called Targeting the Toughest Diseases explores how Vertex Pharmaceuticals, a Boston-based biotech company, is using innovative tools, methods, and a unique philosophy to search for treatments and cures. Produced by Bloomberg Media Studios and Vertex, the podcast's latest episode features NBA great Alonzo Mourning recounting his fight against kidney disease, and how future generations of patients may have an easier time of it. You can subscribe today on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you're like many people, there's a good chance that your weight and calorie considerations play a big role in food decisions. Intuitive eating, an Internet-famous movement all about healing people's relationships with food, says it shouldn't be that way. The final episode of “Losing It” explores what it means to eat intuitively, and asks the question: Does it work? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What if the dangers of being heavy have been overstated, or misrepresented? This new episode of the podcast series “Losing It” explores the relationship between health and weight, and the argument that we focus on the scale too much and not enough on healthy behaviors.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Companies like WW, formerly Weight Watchers, and Noom, which makes a popular weight-loss app, have a new pitch for would-be members: that they can lose weight with a holistic lifestyle approach instead of dieting. This new episode of podcast series “Losing It” explores why the backlash against dieting is happening, how companies are getting in on the action, and whether we're actually over dieting and losing weight. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We all think we know the basics of weight loss. It is all about consuming fewer calories than you burn. Eat less, move more. Calories in, calories out. But there's much more to it than these simple equations, as a trip to the enormous Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana - a hub of such research - shows. In this episode, we break down the science of why it's so hard to lose weight, and look at what the kinds of stories heralded as a weight-loss success really look like in practice.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The South Beach Diet became an incredible success in the early 2000s, blowing past booksellers' expectations, dominating the cultural moment and becoming a huge business. In the third episode of Losing It, we fly down to glamorous Miami to tell the story of the South Beach Diet and break down the formula for a hit diet.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When it comes to dieting, what's old is new again. In the second episode of Losing we take a trip back in time through diet history — and explore why we keep falling for these absurd-sounding regimens decade after decade.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Calorie counts are everywhere from food packages to weight-loss apps. But calories aren't all that they appear to be. In the series premiere of Losing it, we dive into how we got the calorie so wrong – and pretty much everything else about weight. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For much of human history, we've turned to diets to lose weight and improve our health. But it's mostly been in vain. Because no matter how much the number on the scale drops, chances are the weight will come back. That's just what the science says.  But when it comes to our weight, the facts don't seem to make much difference. Dieting still has a grip on all of us.  Losing It, a new series from Bloomberg's Prognosis, investigates how we got weight loss so wrong — and whether there's a better way forward. Losing It launches on July 12. Subscribe to Prognosis today on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

That's right! We're honored to be nominated for a Webby, in the Science & Education category. Please take a minute to vote for us here:  https://vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting#/2022/podcasts/general-series/science-education See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Virus hunters around the globe are already bracing for the next contagion which they fear could prove even more destructive than Covid. These scientists and doctors, drawing from hard-learned lessons from the past, are determined to stop future pandemics even as the current one continues to rage. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Covid-19 is just the beginning for messenger RNA vaccines. Researchers are testing shots across a range of diseases, from cancer to malaria, HIV or even multiple sclerosis. There's no guarantee the technology will work beyond infectious diseases, but if it does, it could transform medicine. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Two biotech companies, Germany's BioNTech and the U.S.'s Moderna, decided in January 2020 to wager their futures on developing a messenger RNA shot to fight Covid-19. What ensued was a head-spinning race to bring a vaccine to market quicker than ever before. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

The messenger RNA vaccines against Covid-19 seem to have emerged out of nowhere. But they're based on decades of painstaking work, done in relative obscurity, by researchers who believed in the promise of the technology even if few others did. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

On the outside, city hospitals look just as they always have: big glass and steel buildings, an ER entrance with ambulances coming and going. But on the inside, Covid has completely transformed the hospital experience for patients, their families -- and for doctors and hospital staff. Once held in high esteem as the place where doctors performed miracles, hospitals have become more sombre places under the staggering weight of illness and death even as communities increasingly view them through the lens of vaccine misinformation and mistrust. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

The loss of the sense of smell affects almost one in every two people who get Covid-19. Usually it resolves within a week or two. But for some, like Dr. Alex Beachamp, smell and taste distortions persist for a year, leaving an invisible illness that disrupts daily life. Scientists like Leah Beauchamp are learning that its significance doesn't end there. In this episode, Bloomberg's Jason Gale meets two best friends who are exploring long Covid's potentially scary, lifelong consequences.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Neuroscientist David Putrino doesn't profess to understand why some Covid-19 survivors suffer persistent symptoms or how to cure them, but he's finding ways to help “long haulers” take control of their symptoms. In this episode, Bloomberg's Jason Gale takes a virtual tour of Putrino's Manhattan long Covid rehab clinic to chronicle patients' journey to recovery. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

In a secure air-locked chamber in the world's largest research hospital, Dan Chertow and a half-dozen other scientists in astronaut-inspired protective gear are carrying out a microscopic search inside Covid-19 victims to try to unlock one of the pandemic's biggest and most disturbing mysteries. 380363514On this episode, Bloomberg's Jason Gale joins the critical-care physician on his exhaustive hunt for the coronavirus in the body and brain of fatal cases. By looking for clues in the deceased, Chertow aims to understand how to treat and prevent the disease in the living, including the lingering symptoms wracking millions of Covid “long haulers.”  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

With a loss of smell and a high fever, New Yorker Fiona Lowenstein had a classic case of Covid-19 before she knew what a classic Covid case was. But there was more she didn't know: she was also about to join a burgeoning group we now know as “long haulers.” On the first episode of “Breakthrough,” a new series from the Prognosis podcast, Bloomberg's Jason Gale traces the early origins of a patient-led movement that drew lessons from AIDS activism to demand that the medical establishment listen. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

On Breakthrough, a new series from the Prognosis podcast, we explore how the pandemic is changing our understanding of healthcare and medicine. We start with an examination of long Covid, a mysterious new illness that has stumped doctors attempting to treat symptoms that last for months and potentially years. It has changed the way hospitals work and forced healthcare officials to prepare for the next pandemic. Covid has also opened the door to revolutionary technology: messenger RNA vaccines. It's a technology that never could have been proven so quickly outside the crucible of that first pandemic year, 2020, and it holds big implications for the future of medicine. Breakthrough launches on Oct. 19. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Demographics alone would suggest Bradley County, Arkansas, should be struggling fiercely with local resistance against vaccines, just as many other counties are all across the southern U.S. Yet in July, Governor Asa Hutchinson announced that Bradley was the first county in Arkansas to inoculate at least half of its eligible population. At the time, that was more than twice the rate of several other Arkansas counties. In this bonus episode we head to Bradley County to find out what's going on. The answer provides a case study on how to combat pockets of vaccine skepticism. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

In our final episode of the season, we look at where vaccine hesitancy stands in America today. More Americans are getting vaccinated every day, but the numbers of skeptics are still high enough to seriously threaten efforts to achieve widespread immunity and end the pandemic. The answer to solving that problem, though, may be an attitude adjustment from public health.

We meet Dr. Timothy Sloan, a pastor of a black church in Texas, who is torn over how to talk to his congregants about the Covid-19 vaccines. He is skeptical about getting one, and knows the rest of his church is, too. But, the vaccines could also be a lifeline. Black Americans have died at about twice the rate of white Americans from the virus. So while there may be trust issues with the vaccines in communities of color, they’re also the communities that need vaccines the most. Dr. Sloan goes on a journey to find out who can help him learn more about the vaccines, and how the medical establishment can win back some of the trust it has lost over generations of mistreatment.

In October 2020, anti-vaccine elite gathered for a conference to discuss, among other things, how to use the pandemic to grow their movement. In this episode, we travel inside the world of anti-vaccine extremists to show how they weaponize uncertainty and mistrust to spread rumors about vaccines — rumors that threaten to prolong the global pandemic.

The 2015 Disneyland measles outbreak was a pivotal moment in explaining the vaccine hesitation we see today. The outbreak made clear that number of people opting out of vaccination was significant. But it also changed the people protesting vaccines. Before that, activists speaking out about vaccines had mainly been parents concerned about the safety of their kids. California's push to get rid of vaccine exemptions in the wake of the outbreak changed the conversation. It became political. It became about choice and freedom and democracy.

Meet the man behind all myths: Andrew Wakefield. Wakefield’s retracted 1998 study linking autism to vaccines helped kickstart the modern vaccine hesitancy movement. We’ll explore the forces that helped propel Wakefield into the spotlight and show how groundwork Wakefield laid decades ago helped seed the mistrust we’re seeing in the age of the coronavirus.

In the series premiere of "Doubt," we meet Jon, a New York City paramedic struggling to decide whether he should get vaccinated. Bloomberg health reporter Kristen V. Brown shows how the pandemic has led many people like him to question vaccines for the first time — and how this distrust threatens to prolong the pandemic.

This month marks the one-year anniversary in the U.S. of nationwide school closures. The public health measure was designed to help stem the spread of Covid-19. But in doing so, it’s had a profound effect on children. That’s in contrast to the disease itself, which rarely makes young people seriously ill. Jason Gale talked to experts about kids and Covid, and why keeping children out of the classroom may leave a lasting legacy.

Fast-moving variants of the coronavirus seen in England, South Africa and Brazil have sparked concern around the world. Researchers worry some may diminish the potency of existing vaccines and complicate efforts to escape the pandemic. As COVID-19 cases started to climb in early 2020, British scientists decided to track the evolution of the pathogen. James Paton reports that this project gives the country and others the chance to respond quickly if alarming changes arise.

A few decades ago, nobody really questioned vaccines. They were viewed as a standard part of staying healthy and safe. Today, the number of people questioning vaccines risks prolonging a pandemic that has already killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. How we got to this moment didn’t start with the rollout of vaccines or in March 2020, or even with the election of Donald Trump. Our confidence in vaccines, often isn't even about vaccines. It’s about trust. And that trust has been eroding for a long time. Doubt, a new series from Bloomberg’s Prognosis podcast, looks at the forces that have been breaking down that trust. We'll trace the rise of vaccine skepticism in America to show how we got here — and where we’re going. Doubt launches on March 23. Subscribe to Prognosis today on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

It’s been one year since Coronavirus was declared a global pandemic. And in that time, our lives have changed dramatically.  The virus has imposed disease, death and loss on the U.S. and the world. It forced sweeping changes to daily life almost overnight.  For this special episode of Prognosis, Bloomberg reporters Emma Court and Nic Querolo spoke with people across the U.S. about what this last year has been like for them, and how things could change moving forward. 

Israel has had one of the world’s most successful vaccination efforts yet. Now a new study from the country shows the Pfizer vaccine was overwhelmingly effective against the virus. Public-health experts say the Israeli study shows that immunizations could end the pandemic. Naomi Kresge reports on what makes the Israeli study so significant, and why it might point to an eventual way out of the pandemic.

More than 150 years after the end of slavery in the U.S., the net worth of a typical white family is nearly six times greater than that of the average Black family. Season 3 of The Pay Check digs into into how we got to where we are today and what can be done to narrow the yawning racial wealth gap in the U.S. Jackie Simmons and Rebecca Greenfield co-host the season, which kicks off with a personal story about land Jackie's family acquired some time after slavery that they're on the verge of losing. From there the series explores all the ways the wealth gaps manifests and the radical solutions, like affirmative action, quotas, and reparations, that can potentially lead to greater equality.

Vaccine distribution still has the feel of a zero-sum game. Five days after Israel received 700,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine, Pfizer told other non-U.S. customers that it would cut supplies while it briefly closed a facility in Belgium. The disparity in vaccine allocation is the product of a company struggling to apportion doses while demand far exceeds supply. Stephanie Baker and Cynthia Koons reported for Bloomberg Businessweek that the company has determined how many doses a country gets through an opaque process that appears to involve a mix of order size, position in the queue, production forecasts, calls from world leaders, and of course the desire to make a profit.

In recent months, GOP lawmakers have heaped criticism on Democratic governors for how they handled outbreaks at nursing homes early in the pandemic. Michigan Republicans, who have been hostile to Governor Gretchen Whitmer throughout the crisis, are now asking the state’s attorney general to investigate how she coped with that challenge. Republicans say that people died unnecessarily thanks to Whitmer’s order that nursing homes readmit residents with Covid-19 if they had capacity and quarantine capabilities. David Welch reports that Michigan’s fatality rate was lower than the national average, and many of those on the pandemic’s front line dispute the assertions.

Now that Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine has been cleared by regulators, the company needs to ramp up doses fast. J and J is looking for manufacturing partnerships to increase supply. Riley Griffin spoke to the company’s chief executive officer, Alex Gorsky about his plan to immunize 20 million Americans by the end of the month, and 100 million by the end of June.

New York City’s museums, sports arenas and entertainment venues are slowly coming back to life. But the sector has contracted dramatically under the pressure of the global pandemic. Jobs in arts, entertainment and recreation fell the most of all the city’s economic sectors, erasing a decade of gains in what was one of New York’s most vibrant industries. Spencer Norris explains what that means for cultural institutions, and the city that was one of the sector’s biggest boosters.

Almost a month after U.S. vaccination campaigns ramped up to give Covid-19 shots to more than a million people a day, their second doses are coming due. That’s putting a strain on state rollouts, and leaving some people without complete immunizations. John Tozzi reports that as President Joe Biden accelerates purchases and distribution, critical weaknesses in the system are starting to show.

Nine vaccines have proved effective at protecting people from developing symptoms of Covid-19. But we don’t know yet how good they are at preventing asymptomatic infections, and keeping vaccinated people from passing the virus on to others. The good news is that preliminary signs suggest they do at least some of both. Jason Gale discusses what we’re learning about how the shots work, as vaccination campaigns continue around the world.