Prognosis: Misconception
- Episodes
- 258
- Format
- Series – listen from the start
- Latest episode
- Mar 28, 2025
About the podcast
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.
Episodes 258
Introducing: Levittown
When dozens of young women discover manipulated photos of themselves have been posted on a porn site, they fight back – joining up with a global band of investigators and hackers to battle the AI-fueled rise of …
Show notes
When dozens of young women discover manipulated photos of themselves have been posted on a porn site, they fight back – joining up with a global band of investigators and hackers to battle the AI-fueled rise of deepfakes. Listen to episodes starting March 21.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen Now: Beak Capitalism from Odd Lots
In this limited series, Odd Lots explains some of the thorniest issues facing the US economy through the medium of … chicken. Chicken occupies a unique position in the US diet, but issues facing the poultry …
Show notes
In this limited series, Odd Lots explains some of the thorniest issues facing the US economy through the medium of … chicken. Chicken occupies a unique position in the US diet, but issues facing the poultry industry illustrate wider points about the development of the US economy and the decisions being made about how it's structured and who benefits from it. So why has the chicken industry evolved in the way that it has? What’s been driving the price increases in eggs and meat? And what does it all say about things like inflation, the labor market and the nature of American capitalism?
Check out Beak Capitalism on Odd Lots wherever you get your podcasts.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Misconception: Great Expectations
At long last, it's the day of Kristen’s retrieval. As she waits to find out her results, she investigates why so many people are freezing their eggs now — and whether there is any science on the horizon that …
Show notes
At long last, it's the day of Kristen’s retrieval. As she waits to find out her results, she investigates why so many people are freezing their eggs now — and whether there is any science on the horizon that could make things easier for future generations.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Misconception: Big Baby
Kristen is trying to figure out where to freeze. While trying to pick a clinic, she uncovers how an influx of private equity and other funding hasn’t actually made things better for fertility patients. She …
Show notes
Kristen is trying to figure out where to freeze. While trying to pick a clinic, she uncovers how an influx of private equity and other funding hasn’t actually made things better for fertility patients. She learns about fertility mishaps, mistakes and how labs and clinics are really run.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Misconception: Money Money Money
As Kristen stresses about how to pay for fertility treatment, she meets people who had to go extreme lengths to afford the services in a system where insurance coverage is spotty. And she travels to Oklahoma to …
Show notes
As Kristen stresses about how to pay for fertility treatment, she meets people who had to go extreme lengths to afford the services in a system where insurance coverage is spotty. And she travels to Oklahoma to check out one company that’s trying to make the treatment accessible for all.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Introducing: Misconception
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 …
Show notes
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.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Misconception: The Baby Boom
Reporter Kristen V. Brown visits a fertility clinic to find out whether she can still have kids. And she explores the moment the fertility industry really exploded: when doctors realized they could sell egg …
Show notes
Reporter Kristen V. Brown visits a fertility clinic to find out whether she can still have kids. And she explores the moment the fertility industry really exploded: when doctors realized they could sell egg freezing as a preventative service, not just as a medical treatment.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Introducing: Bloomberg News Now
Bloomberg News Now is a comprehensive audio report on today's top stories. Listen for the latest news, whenever you want it, covering global business stories around the world. on Apple: trib.al/Mx9TCh1 on …
Show notes
Bloomberg News Now is a comprehensive audio report on today's top stories. Listen for the latest news, whenever you want it, covering global business stories around the world.
on Apple: trib.al/Mx9TCh1
on Spotify: trib.al/T4BG8s4
Anywhere: trib.al/O4EX6BASee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Introducing: Elon, Inc.
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 …
Show notes
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.
Covid Cures and Conspiracies Introducing: The Deadly Cure
Smoke Screen: Deadly Cure is a podcast about a family on the fringe who convinced tens of thousands of people across the globe to buy a miracle liquid made of poison, the international conspiracy they ignited …
Show notes
Smoke Screen: Deadly Cure is a podcast about a family on the fringe who convinced tens of thousands of people across the globe to buy a miracle liquid made of poison, the international conspiracy they ignited, and the people who fought to take them down. Smoke Screen: Deadly Cure is a Neon Hum Media, Bloomberg & Sony Music Entertainment production.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Introducing: Crash Course
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 …
Show notes
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.
Targeting the Toughest Diseases (Sponsored Content)
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 …
Show notes
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.
Losing It: Gut Instinct
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 …
Show notes
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.
Losing It: The Truth About Health and Weight
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 …
Show notes
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.
Losing It: Just Don’t Call it A Diet
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 …
Show notes
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.
Losing It: A Weight-Loss Mecca’s Secrets
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 …
Show notes
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.
Losing It: How to Launch a Diet Empire
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 …
Show notes
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.
Losing It: Once Upon a Diet
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 …
Show notes
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.
Losing It: When a Calorie Isn’t A Calorie
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 …
Show notes
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.
Introducing: Losing It
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 …
Show notes
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.
We've Been Nominated for a Webby!
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/sci …
Show notes
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.
Breakthrough: The Next Pandemic
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 …
Show notes
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.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Breakthrough: The Future of mRNA
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 …
Show notes
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.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Breakthrough: The Vaccine Race
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 …
Show notes
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.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Breakthrough: Unlikely Heroes
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 …
Show notes
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.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Breakthrough: The Covid Fortress
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 …
Show notes
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.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Breakthrough: Covid’s Long, Scary Tail
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 McCutchan, smell and taste distortions persist for a …
Show notes
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 McCutchan, 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.
Story has been updated to correct Alex McCutchan's name.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Breakthrough: Rehab for Long Haulers
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 …
Show notes
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.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Breakthrough: How the Dead Are Helping the Living
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 …
Show notes
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.
On 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.”
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Breakthrough: Long Covid’s Early Origins
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 …
Show notes
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.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
These are the latest 60 of 258 episodes. You’ll find older episodes in the podcast’s feed.
Similar podcasts
More Health & Fitness podcasts
Is this your podcast?
Confirm it with an entry in your feed: you get a code here, add it as podcast:txt to the channel of your feed, and we check it. Your podcast is then shown as “verified” on SoundNode.