medical devices

A Times investigation has found that dentists and lactation consultants around the country are pushing “tongue-tie releases” on new mothers struggling to breastfeed, generating huge profits while often harming patients.

Katie Thomas, an investigative health care reporter at The Times, discusses the forces driving this emerging trend in American health care and the story of one family in the middle of it.

Guest: Katie Thomas, an investigative health care reporter at The New York Times.

Background reading: 

• Inside the booming business of cutting babies’ tongues.
• What parents should know about tongue-tie releases.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

In the final part of our series, Zachary Crockett talks to a man with a storied — and controversial — career in the body parts business.

RESOURCES

• "Inside the Largely Unregulated Market for Bodies Donated to Science: 'It's Harder to Sell Hot Dogs on a Cart,'" by Justin Sherman (CBS News, 2023).
• "Bilirakis, Fletcher, Murphy and Tillis Introduce Bipartisan, Bicameral Bill to Stop Brokering of Body Parts, Preserve Integrity of Organ Donation Process," press release by the office of Congressman Gus Bilirakis (2023).
• "Sunset Mesa Funeral Home Operators Sentenced to Federal Prison For Illegal Body Part Scheme," press release by the U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Colorado (2023).
• "Cashing in on the Donated Dead: The Body Trade," series by Reuters (2017).
• Heads, Shoulders, Knees, and Bone$: A Personal Account of a 'Body Broker's' Thirteen Year Journey Through the Legal and Lucrative Body Parts Business, by Philip Guyett (2011).

EXTRAS

• "Cadavers – Part 1," by The Economics of Everyday Things (2023).

SOURCES:

• Philip Guyett, land surveyor and former body broker.

This Week in Startups is brought to you by…

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Today’s show:

Vital Biosciences CEO Vasu Nadella joins Jason to discuss exactly how Vital’s “VitalOne” conducts 50+ blood tests with a small sample of blood (9:16), building investor trust in the wake of past industry failures (18:45), creating accessible care (40:35), and much more!

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Time stamps:

(0:00) Vital Biosciences CEO and Co-Founder Vasu Nadella joins Jason

(1:18) Theranos’ background and what prompted Vasu to pursuit

(7:56) Lemon.io - Get 15% off your first 4 weeks of developer time at https://Lemon.io/twist

(9:16) Vasu demos how the VitalOne works, lessons learned on Vital’s journey

(18:45) Scaling the company, raising a war chest, building trust in the product, benchmarking and governance for labs

(27:36) OpenPhone - Get 20% off your first six months at https://openphone.com/twist

(29:07) State of lab robotics, paths for incorporating AI into Vital’s technology, benefits of converging technologies

(39:16) LinkedIn Jobs - Post your first job for free at https://linkedin.com/twist

(40:35) Creating accessible modern lab testing

(45:38) Consumer behavior and the outcome of consumers controlling spend

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Check out Vital Bio: https://vitalbio.com

FOLLOW Vasu: https://twitter.com/vasunadella

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Today’s show:

Proprio CEO Gabriel Jones joins Jason to discuss the struggles surgeons face in the operating room today (23:05), the solutions Proprio’s Paradigm system provides (27:14), the future of surgery (37:03), and much more!

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Time stamps:

(0:00) Proprio CEO Gabriel Jones joins Jason

(2:09) Proprio’s Light Field-Enabled Surgical technology

(7:03) Gabriel demos the Proprio Paradigm robotic computer vision system

(10:26) Superside - Go to https://superside.com/twist to get $2000 off with Superside's Startup Accelerator package

(11:58) Generational shifts in medicine

(18:03) The ultimate impact of this technology

(21:58) Vanta - Get $1000 off your SOC 2 at https://vanta.com/twist

(23:05) The data Proprio operates on and the struggles surgeons face today

(27:14) Bench-top simulation

(32:05) Use of AI and robotics in surgery today

(35:36) LinkedIn Marketing - Get a $100 LinkedIn ad credit at https://linkedin.com/nextunicorn

(37:03) The choice to utilize Proprio’s technology for spine surgery first

(39:03) Reducing the time needed to perform surgeries

(44:17) Academia vs. Venture, and the importance of “proof points” for investors

(46:44) The FDA approval process

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Check out Proprio: https://www.propriovision.com/

Follow Gabriel: https://twitter.com/aGabrielJones

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Read LAUNCH Fund 4 Deal Memo: https://www.launch.co/four

Apply for Funding: https://www.launch.co/apply

Buy ANGEL: https://www.angelthebook.com

Great recent interviews: Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland, PrayingForExits, Jenny Lefcourt

Check out Jason’s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis

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Follow Jason:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/jason

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis

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All of this week's episodes of It Could Happen Here put together in one large file.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's a sexual health episode! This week, Mike and Aubrey dive into the hotly debated medical history of vibrators and ask: who fact-checks the fact-checkers? 

Note: A previous version of this episode included language that referred to “the female downstairs,” implying both that gender is linked to genitals (it isn’t) and that vibrators were used primarily by cis women (they weren’t). We love our trans listeners and we don’t want to do anything that makes them feel excluded, so we’ve removed the sections where that language appeared. We'll be discussing this and our approach to handling feedback in more detail soon. Thanks to everyone who wrote in to let us know! — Mike


Support us:

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Links!

• The Technology of Orgasm by Rachel Maines
• Buzz by Hallie Lieberman
• Signior Dildo
• Hysteria! trailer
• Vibrators had a long history as medical quackery before feminists rebranded them as sex toys
• A Failure of Academic Quality Control: The Technology of Orgasm
• How Gosnell Duncan Changed the Sex Toy Game Forever
• Victorian Doctors Didn't Treat Women With Orgasms, Say Historians 
• (Almost) Everything You Know About the Invention of the Vibrator Is Wrong

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