March 5, 2026

Eczema, Exit, Repeat: The Business Model of Chronic Disease

Barbara Paldus built biotech for a living. Then a serious mental health scare involving her young son forced her to rethink everything. This moment pushed her from manufacturing cancer therapeutics into the $100,000,000,000 skin care industry after she realized most of it runs on marketing and almost no regulation.

We talk about steroid ladders that leave patients worse, why Europe regulates ingredients we still rub on open skin, and how chemo recreates the same barrier damage seen in eczema. She explains how parents end up doing their own clinical trials at home because nobody else will.

We also learned she vaporized her parents' kitchen curtains with a cooking torch and executed Barbies with a classroom guillotine, which tells you exactly who you are dealing with.

I wanted her on because she speaks fluent science and fluent parent at the same time. People in treatment need both.

Listen to this episode. Then do me a solid—leave a review. Tell Apple or Spotify what you really think. Five stars help us reach more people who need to hear these stories. One review makes a bigger difference than you know.

Out of Patients is proudly the #1 independent healthcare podcast worldwide. New episodes every Tuesday. We’ve been turning medical trauma into momentum for 17 years. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Matthew Zachary

Producer

Matthew Zachary invented healthcare podcasting before podcasting was a thing. In 2007, fresh off building Stupid Cancer, he grabbed a mic, launched The Stupid Cancer Show and started broadcasting patient stories on internet talk radio when everyone else was still writing blogs.

17 years and 400+ episodes later, Out of Patients is still the most unfiltered healthcare show anywhere.

Matthew doesn't do softball interviews. Brain cancer at 21 taught him that time is finite and bullshit is expensive. He gets guests to say things they'd never tell Congress. CEOs admit what's broken. Patients name what actually hurts. Scientists explain what industry doesn't want you to know. The conversations other shows won't touch because of sponsor concerns or political correctness.

What makes him different: He's been on both sides of the mic. Featured in documentaries, testified before Congress, keynoted hundreds of conferences.

But he's also been the guy puking from radiation, fighting insurance denials, and watching friends die from paperwork.

That dual perspective creates interviews you won't hear anywhere else. He knows which questions make power squirm because he's asked them from hospital beds and boardrooms both.

No pre-approved questions. No PR handlers. No seven-minute segments. Just real conversations with people brave enough to tell the truth about healthcare. After 17 years, Matthew's still the guy Mark Cuban reposts when he wants to understand what patients actually think. Read More

Out of Patients EP432: Callus on Your Soul: Jenny Opalinski

Jenny Opalinski earned her credibility the hard way. She worked ICU floors and neuro rehab units where grief screams, codes fail, and the debrief ends with moving equipment instead of naming trauma. She watched good clinicians stack 10 to 15 traumat…

🎄 The Most Famous Kids In Cancer Advocacy Are Back 🎄

Every December since they could speak, my twins hijack the Out of Patients podcast feed. Koby and Hannah are now 15½ and High School sophomores who own their moniker as the “Truman Show of Cancer Advocacy.”Rest assured, this isn…