Reality TV stars are freezing their eggs on camera. Lawmakers in DC are debating federal protection for IVF. Hundreds of millions of dollars are being invested in slick startups that market fertility treatments for all. But this rapid growth has revealed cracks in the system. Misconception, a new series from Bloomberg’s Prognosis, follows reporter Kristen V. Brown on her own intimate journey as she uncovers the business of fertility. Along the way, she finds a fractured industry — a profit-driven field of medicine that thrives on dueling messages of hope and fear as people gamble everything for a chance at a baby.
On our latest episode of Prognosis, reporter Kristen V. Brown sells her DNA data to the highest bidder. Health data has turned into big business, but Brown quickly realized she wasn’t about to get rich. In exchange for an Amazon gift card or a few shares of marginal value, companies promise to use your data in the quest for better healthcare. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
On this episode of Prognosis, reporter Michelle Fay Cortez probes one of the more disturbing unintended consequences of the genetic testing revolution. DNA tests have become so prevalent that more and more people are discovering they have rare and potentially dangerous or even lethal genetic mutations. But how accurate are those findings? And what should people and their doctors do about them? Michelle tells the story of one family faced with the decision whether to proceed with life-altering su...
A century-old quest for family records to unite relatives in heaven has transformed the church into a global leader in genealogy technology. That's paved the way for the success of companies like 23andMe who sell the promise of helping us figure out who are and where we come from. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
On this new show from Bloomberg, hosts Mike Regan and Sarah Ponczek speak with expert guests each week about the main themes influencing global markets. They explore everything from stocks to bonds to currencies and commodities, and how each asset class affects trading in the others. Whether you’re a financial professional or just a curious retirement saver, What Goes Up keeps you apprised of the latest buzz on Wall Street and what the wildest movements in markets will mean for your investments....
On this episode of Prognosis, we'll meet the Bloody Health collective – a group of feminist coders in Berlin who are looking for a safer way to track their periods. Targeted advertising, third-party data sharing and tracking make most menstruation apps just as problematic as they are popular, privacy activists argue. For the women of Bloody Health, the sure way to keep control is to build their own open-source app. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
The Pay Check is back for a second season! For the next six weeks, we’re going to dig into the number one reason women still make less money than men: Motherhood. Women start their careers earning just about the same as men do, but once they have their first kid, that pay gap grows to a chasm. This season, we’ll show you how this “motherhood penalty” plays out for real women, in real life and how it affects the global economy. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
On the latest edition of Prognosis, we'll tell you how a simple DNA genealogy test upended the life of a Washington state sheep farmer. Instead of finding out more about the Swedish and Jewish roots she'd heard about, she found that she had an entire family she didn't know about, and a connection to a man with a mysterious and controversial past. These types of genetic surprises are getting more common, and redefining who we call family. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Prognosis is back for a second season. Over the next few weeks, we're acknowledging how science and technology are making it easier for us to know pretty much everything there is to know about ourselves: Where we come from. The best time to conceive. What might kill us. And what happens when we start getting all that information, and handing it over to others. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The Pay Check is collecting stories for our upcoming season, and we want to hear from you! Did having a kid change your career trajectory or the way you work? If you have anything you want to share, call and leave us a voicemail at (212) 617-0166. Stay tuned for more very soon! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Some patients can't wait for pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs. They're pushing the drug industry to make the cures they and their loved ones need. But what's good for patients is also good for pharma's profits, creating a web of murky incentives that makes the issue of high drug costs all the more difficult to parse. In episode 8, Bloomberg's Rebecca Spalding talks to these professional patients about their relationships to the big companies whose therapies they need. See omnystudio.com...
Should a patient dying of a disease with no proven cure have the right to try whatever experimental drug they want? A controversial new law signed by President Trump this year says that they should, bypassing the FDA. In episode seven, Bloomberg's Michelle Fay Cortez explores what the new Right To Try law means for desperate patients who want access to experimental treatments. It isn't as simple as it sounds. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
When you pick up your prescription at the pharmacy, do you ever wonder how that pill made it your way? Who discovered it? Who believed in it when no one else did? Who invested the money to bring it to market? This week on Prognosis, Bloomberg's Rebecca Spalding tells the surprising journey of one life-saving drug, from discovery to market. It's a story about a Nobel Prize winner, cutting edge genetic research, billions of pharmaceutical dollars, and of all things, a worm. What does it tell us ab...
Researchers and pharmaceutical companies have poured time and money into developing an effective drug to combat obesity. But time and again, the drugs have failed to deliver. In episode five of Prognosis, Bloomberg's James Paton talks to scientists on the cutting edge of weight-loss research, and the companies that may finally be close to finding a medical solution to the obesity crisis. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Eighteen years ago, scientists decoded the human genome. But what was supposed to create an era of new cures didn't work out that way, at least not at first. In episode four of Prognosis, some of the most famous names in genetics explain why it took so long to go from mapping life's code to actually helping people, laying the foundations for technologies on the scientific and ethical cutting edge, like modifying people's genes. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
In episode three of Prognosis, Kristen V. Brown and Sarah McBride take a trip to Burning Man. They're there to follow Rick Doblin, who has become something of a folk hero for those who believe MDMA—Ecstasy—could be a viable clinical treatment for things like PTSD. But to help push an illegal drug into the mainstream, it takes lots of cash. And to find money for an unconventional treatment, what better place than Burning Man? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
If you had told people from the 1970s that few decades later the globe would be connected with powerful computers held in the palm of your hand, they could be forgiven for thinking you were seriously deluded. Now, a growing number of scientists are convinced we're on a similar threshold with genetic engineering. Today we'll take you on a tour of a biohacker's DNA experiment to change how frogs—and possibly people—grow muscles. It's an experiment which he insists anyone can try at home. He'll eve...
More than a million Americans suffer from Type 1 diabetes. The disease occurs when the pancreas mysteriously stops producing insulin, the hormone that converts food into energy. Modern medicine has been able to recreate insulin, but not the finely calibrated delivery mechanism of the pancreas. Now a group of like-minded do-it-yourselfers have gotten together on the internet and—working outside the purview of organized medicine—have figured out how to link a pump, glucose monitor and smartphone t...
Where does a medical cure come from? 100 years ago, it wasn't uncommon for scientists to test medicines by taking a dose themselves. As medical technologies get cheaper and more accessible, patients and DIY tinkerers are trying something similar—and mainstream medicine is racing to catch up. Prognosis explores the leading edge of medical advances, and asks who gets—or should get—access to them. We look at how innovation happens, when it fails, and what it means to the people with a disease tryin...
