First Opinion Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Would you contract dysentery for $7,300? Oct 22, 2025

Show notes

One night, an ad on Reddit caught Jake Eberts’ eye. Using graphics from the classic video game “The Oregon Trail,” it said something like, “You have died of dysentery. Help us prevent dysentery by joining this vaccine study.”

Eberts was intrigued. For $7,300 (and out of a sense of altruism), he joined a study on a shigellosis vaccine that required him to be exposed to the bacteria that causes the disease.

On this episode of the “First Opinion Podcast,” we speak with Eberts, who is now on the board of the nonprofit 1Day Sooner, and Jill Fisher, a professor of social medicine at the University of North Carolina. We discussed how pay for healthy volunteers works, why institutional review boards are reluctant to raise rates, and the ethical conundrums that come with paying people to get sick.

Former acting CDC director on public health changes: ‘absolutely heartbreaking’ Oct 15, 2025

Show notes

When podcast host Torie Bosch asked Richard Besser — the president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and former acting CDC director — how he feels about the CDC under the Trump administration, he was frank. “It’s absolutely heartbreaking,” he said.

On this episode of the “First Opinion Podcast,” Besser joined to discuss vaccine policy, reaching out to conservative media, finding common ground with MAHA, the connection between democracy and health, and more.

“I used to think that I couldn't be surprised,” he said, “but it seems like just about every day something comes out of the Department of Health and Human Services that to me is absolutely against the best interests of people's health, makes no sense, and yet it keeps on coming.”

When patients refuse cancer treatment Oct 08, 2025

Show notes

When Joy Lisi Rankin’s mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, she made a decision many people, especially her doctors, did not understand: She decided to forgo treatment.

On this episode of the “First Opinion Podcast,” Rankin, oncologist Samyukta Mullangi, and host Torie Bosch discuss difficult choices around cancer care, how oncologists should respond to patients who don’t want recommended treatment, and the emotional weight this all puts on patients, families, and doctors alike.

Social media star Dr. Noc on the value of edutainment Oct 01, 2025

Show notes

When Morgan McSweeney first started doing science communication on social media during Covid, he sometimes felt a little embarrassed by it. Now, as he wrote recently for STAT, he has found that “a casual one-minute video about immunology racks up orders of magnitude more views in an hour than my published research papers could accumulate in ten lifetimes.”

McSweeney, aka Doctor Noc, is a social media influencer with 4 million followers across platforms and a Ph.D. in pharmaceutical sciences and immunology. This week he joins First Opinion Podcast host Torie Bosch to talk about his approach to cutting through the noise of social media with real, honest science.

New season coming soon Sep 11, 2025

Show notes

First Opinion Podcast is coming back on Wednesday Oct. 1

This fall, the podcast will continue to bring you thoughtful, challenging, personal, and provocative ideas from the smartest thinkers in medicine. Among others, you’ll hear from someone who willingly contracted dysentery, two people who spearheaded a successful pro-vaccine campaign in a red state, and a PhD with almost 2 million followers on Instagram.

From Say More: “The C-Word: Stories of Cancer” May 29, 2025

Show notes

Today, we’re sharing a special episode from the new miniseries “The C-Word: Stories of Cancer” from Say More, a podcast from The Boston Globe Opinion. In the first part of this series, host and award-winning columnist Shirley Leung talks for the first time about her breast cancer diagnosis. She opens up about the personal and professional impact of her illness, and why now felt like the right time to tell her story.

Follow Say More wherever you get your podcasts: https://link.chtbl.com/SayMore?sid=stat

130: The biggest questions facing regenerative medicine May 28, 2025

Show notes

Paul Knoepfler of the UC Davis School of Medicine has a bit of a hobby: keeping track of stem cell clinics operating in the U.S. He estimates that there are 1,000-2,000 in the U.S. alone, offering unproven treatments using adult stem cells. On the season finale of the podcast, he and Torie discuss how to balance safety and efficacy, why Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is such a fan of stem cells, how the FDA can support the biotech industry, the forceful marketing of cord blood banking companies, and much more — including how to build a dragon using CRISPR.

129: How photography helped heal a couple in the aftermath of cancer May 21, 2025

Show notes

Anna and Jordan Rathkopf met in Prague at an ’80s nightclub. While music brought them together, another creative outlet soon became central to their relationship: Anna began teaching Jordan about photography, which later became his career.

Years later, they were living in Brooklyn with their young son when Anna was diagnosed with breast cancer. The morning after the phone call that changed their lives, “We saw cameras on the table, looked at each other, and I think we both just understood instantly that this was something we both were going to need to lean on to help get through it,” Jordan told me on this episode of the “First Opinion Podcast.”

This conversation was inspired by their dual First Opinion essays, in which each discusses how the photographs said what they could not put into words.

From KFF Health News: 'What the Health?' May 16, 2025

Show notes

From our friends at KFF Health News, Chief Washington Correspondent Julie Rovner gathers top reporters to discuss the latest health and health policy news. Check out this episode and if you like it, be sure to give them a follow.

128: A libertarian vision for U.S. health care May 14, 2025

Show notes

Pretty much everyone in the U.S. agrees that the American health care system is not working for patients. The disagreement comes over what to do about it. On this episode, law professor Charles M. Silver proposes that the U.S. should have a market-based system, just as we do for many other sectors of the economy. Insurance would still play a role, but a far more limited one. He discusses with editor Torie Bosch what this system would look like for health care consumers, how Social Security offers a model, and how realistic the proposal actually is.

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