Radically Genuine Podcast with Dr. Roger McFillin

Welcome to the radically genuine podcast. I'm Dr. Roger McFillin. Good morning, Sean. Good morning, Kelly. This is early weekend morning. We're back in the studio. I want to thank all of our listeners. We've seen tremendous growth over the previous couple months and interesting things along the way. We're going to make sure that this becomes a legitimate movement of advocacy for science around mental health. as well as creation and spreading of ideas that really do serve people in developing the quality of life and a life worth living through not only available science that kind of communicates to us what we need to be able to deal with the challenges of modern living, but also looking back into just history and historical texts and philosophy. And what I think is important is really examine those who are thriving. those who are thriving in life, even those who've overcome adversity challenges, because they really speak to a process that how do the exposure to adverse events and the consequence of that emotionally, how does that impact an individual and what are the steps that it takes to be able to continue to love in life and continue to take care of yourself and create and develop a career that provides you purpose and meaning of family, all the things that we know that are so important to a quality of life. But fellas, I did have a little bit of a challenging week emotionally myself, because I spent some time really investigating the guidelines for adolescent depression in primary care. And it started with a conversation that I had with a pediatrician locally. And I think I've mentioned this on a previous podcast, but he was pretty confident that prescribing antidepressants were safe and effective based on what has been printed from the American Academy of Pediatrics. So basically it is a guideline. It is a review of literature and a step-by-step process that really guides primary care physicians, pediatricians, on how to respond to adolescent depression. So obviously my next step was to really investigate the literature that they're using to support some of their recommendations. But I also challenge that pediatrician because the pediatrician is not educated and does not have the background. As an expert in the assessment. of mental health problems. So when we talk about depression, understanding exactly what that means, and the nuances and the course and the history, and the science and how someone recovers, that's not their specialty area. And one of the things that is so critical for any mental health professional is that when you work with somebody, You take the time to investigate. There is no way you can make a diagnosis in my field quickly. Not in five minutes, not in eight minutes, not in 40 minutes. It's a process over time. From understanding context, understanding history and just basic common sense on human nature. People are not gonna disclose their inner world to relative strangers. People are going to only be open and vulnerable and disclose their inner world over time with the development of a trusting relationship. So the fact that we're putting primary care physicians in this position to have to diagnose and treat any emotional disorders is problematic from the start. Now, I challenged this physician on all of that, and he agreed. I also challenged him on the actual science, which obviously he doesn't know, nor should he. He doesn't have the time. That's not his specialty area. He is relying on the Academy of Pediatrics. that there is an ethical and comprehensive review of the science with clear recommendations best on that is that is on best available data at this time. So there's a good faith trust with that organization. And he admitted that, listen, this is not my area, but if I have a suicidal teen in front of me and I do not follow the guidelines, I'm at risk. Something happens to that teen, he would be liable. And so I empathized with his position. We have placed primary care physicians in an impossible position. And so. I went through the data because as you both know and many of our listeners know, I am more concerned with the protection of youth. Youth can't really consent for themselves. They rely on adults. And when I looked into the guidelines for adolescent depression from the American Academy of Pediatrics, there's a couple things that are very, very clear. They cherry picked some data. and really relied on two studies to come to this conclusion. Overall, both individual clinical trial evidence and evidence from the systematic reviews still support the use of antidepressants in adolescents. What is that based on? Now this is 2018 was when this was published. That's the TADS? No, this is the American Academy of Pediatrics. Mm-hmm. They've come to a conclusion overall, both individual clinical trial evidence and evidence from the systematic reviews support the use of antidepressants in adolescents. Now, how did they come to that conclusion? They cherry picked two studies. One is from 2005. which came out immediately after the FDA issued its warning. And it was a meta-analysis. Now, since 2005, academics have been all over this issue. There's many more meta-analyses that exist. On adolescent depression. And so when you're doing a review of literature, you have an ethical responsibility to discuss the totality of the science. And they didn't do that. They used a meta-analysis. So I went back to the meta-analysis and the authors clearly state that they use 29 studies and in those 29 clinical trials they utilized, which I'm assuming were from the pharmaceutical companies, the most severe depressed kids were removed from the trials. Why? So let me open it up. Why do you think a drug company who is testing out antidepressants on youth would remove from the trials the most severe depressed kids, the ones that we actually wanna help, the ones that the primary care physicians are saying, if I don't prescribe them an antidepressant and they end their life, I'm liable, why would the drug companies remove the most severe? of of of kids from their trials. They may not get the results that they like. The data was unfavorable to their product. Exactly. I think two things. One, it probably wouldn't allow for statistical difference. You know, you're trying to create some statistical difference between the drug group and the placebo group, which we know they could not find with a number of trials. with adolescents so they didn't publish it. So that's a publication bias. But most importantly, I think is the risk that they know that the drugs induce agitation, suicide, self harm and even homicide in a portion of the population. And you could imagine the more disturbed and distressed a kid is, the more likely there's going to be an adverse event. So that meta-analysis is based on a limited amount of trials but doesn't tell the entire story. And although the meta-analysis does state that there is a double risk of suicide, they minimize it. And this is exactly what the physicians are doing. They're minimizing it. And that meta-analysis stated that it's going to help more kids than it's going to harm, based on some voodoo math. OK? Fine, you want to include that study in there, I'm fine with including that study in there. Because that's what scientists do. They have to then debate and evaluate the science or literature. But you don't use that as your primary reason to support their efficacy. And then you ignore the next 10 years of data that clearly questions their overall validity. The second was the TAD study. And they use that, the TAD study, to support their both safe and effective. Now, here's the problems with the TAD study. And now I more understand what Dr. Beach was talking about. I remember the TAD study coming up in conversations in here when we, um, what was the book, uh, the Pratt anti-depressed Beverly Thompson. And that provided some information showing that the drugs don't work. So now I'm confused. Yeah, so I was confused as well because it's like Dr. Beach was on our podcast and it's like we were reading two different papers. And guess what we were? The original paper that came out in, I think it was 2006, made a statement of suicidal events, right? That there's this many suicidal events. This is the use of language to kind of confuse. We'll get into this. This is where you and Dr. Beech went back and forth for a while. Yeah. And so I was like, wow, suicide events. He's like, we don't know if that's a suicide attempt. And he started, he created the metaphor of nausea doesn't mean vomiting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the original paper did not break it down into suicide attempts. The original paper also appears to have drawn conclusions that are not represented by the data. And so how do we know this? A subsequent paper came out in 2009, which is what I've always read. Now I'm not sure which one that I've been linking to. Yeah, I have to go back and go back and do both. Yeah, the 2009 paper is Vitiello and colleagues. And we'll link it. Yeah. Yeah. So they seem to draw different conclusions. And then they provided data that wasn't out in the original study, which is my point of this podcast, is if we can trust the actual published papers that exist because there's no doubt corruption and bias. So here was the important thing from the paper in 2009. And remember, the Academy of Pediatrics is only citing the 2006 paper. Now this is 2018. So the 2009 paper was readily available. Why keep that out? And so here was what the data says. There were 18 suicide attempts in the trial, not just ideation. So there were 18 kids who attempted suicide. 17 of them were on Prozac. In the original paper, they did not break down suicidal events into categories. Let's just say the reason why. But can you guess the reason why? Yes, the reason why I'm just I'm curious if there's another reason why I'm trying to be dialectical. I don't know. They kept it they kept that information because it was unfavorable to their agenda. So there's a table in the DL the deals paper for suicide events. There are 18 suicide attempts listed for all four groups of the 1817 occurred with youth on fluoxetine, which is Prozac. The one non-drug suicide attempt came during week 36 in the CBT alone group. At that time, and there's more research, several academic critics, including John Giardini from Australia, noted that the two cognitive therapy groups in the TAD study were also unblinded, and that the only blinded comparison from the study between the drug was between the drug and placebo. And here's the results. Fluoxetine did not provide a statistically significant advantage over placebo on the primary endpoint, which was the children's rating scale. So again, that's very similar to the totality of the evidence. We don't really see that the drug creates any advantage to placebo. And we're talking about one of the safer drugs, apparently. which is fluoxetine, Dr. Beach spoke about because of the half-life. No advantage. But what we do know, and this is what I get from the TAD study, is that it significantly increases the likelihood of a suicide event. This criticism is largely ignored in the medical literature and is being used by psychiatry and now the Academy of Pediatrics to support its efficacy for SSRIs in youth. Additionally, I went in and looked at the CBT group only because they use that as comparison. And the Academy of Pediatrics uses this to minimize the value of cognitive behavioral therapy. So you see the agenda in these guidelines. It's basically building up the value of a drug and then kind of poking holes in the value of the therapy. So I had to look into this. I'm like, what kind of therapy was being provided? And there's papers published about the supervisors who were providing... the cognitive behavioral side of the arm. wrote all these concerns about it. The kids that were placed in that group and were just receiving the CBT treatment, many of them, they don't even think were depressed. They had all these comorbidities, learning disabilities, diagnosis of ADHD, other conditions, self-harm. And so they didn't have treatments like they would in the real world, which would create hierarchies and... treat the most serious of condition, they had these comorbidities with some blanket treatment. And that is part of what happens in the science is they create the comparison group, they create problems in the comparison group in order to elevate their treatment. What are some problems they've created in the past? Well, they've withdrawn people or kids from the drugs they're on abruptly. So they're going to suffer. They're going to withdraw. in the placebo group and then they give them a placebo. But that's going to elevate suicides because of withdrawal. It's also going to elevate depression scores because of withdrawal. And they are using this to support. giving developing brains a SSRI. So here is where the Academy of Pediatrics is unethical. Because if you do a research review, you do not. purposely keep out data that is not aligned with your agenda. And since these primary care physicians are not experts in this area, they are trusting this, that it is the best available evidence. And this is where I get angry with the pediatricians and the primary care physicians is they just repeat it. They repeat it publicly, they'll repeat it when they're talking to you, and you know nothing about it. You haven't put the work in. So we cannot blindly trust our medical authorities because this is a corrupt system, an absolutely corrupt system where people are harmed. And that's why I got sick. I think I threw up in my mouth. My God. Roger getting angry again. Yeah. Didn't I just say I wasn't gonna do that? I know. Well, wait. All right. I got one more criticism. Go ahead, you're on a roll. And this is insanity to me. Well, as I've been a psychologist now for, I don't know, 12 years, I've been in the field and with a master's degree and doing other things for 20 plus years. What the hell is mild depression? It's like when you're just a little bit itchy. What the hell is mild depression? I don't know. Sad. Well, I guess when you're comparing discontent, if you were to compare it to severe depression, it's not as bad. What does that mean? I'm like, I'm for an arbitrary period of time, I'm not at my best. I'm Mopi, but I'm not Sylvia Plath. Well, what do they say mild depression is that they even don't they don't know that they just use the term. Listen, this entire thing is a scam. Right. mild depression, moderate depression, severe depression, no one knows how you distinguish that. It's based on somebody's opinion. You're gonna make a pediatrician determine what's mild, moderate, or severe. All right, so that's just junk, right? They can't assess that, they can't determine that. They're gonna give the PCL-5 adapted version to adolescents and they're gonna determine that. But here was the thing that I think actually made me throw up in my mouth. is after they support the prescription to a teen, they say that they should stay on it for a year. Once that's the specific guideline that a a year after symptoms dissipate a year. And so you know what that's based on? Nothing. Zero zip arbitrary number. So they they they took some bullshit recommendation for adults and then they applied it to children. Are you kidding me? A year? And so as a teenager, you can't get sad for an entire year because then you'd reset. Exactly. So basically one day after if you just even one day you, you show any kind of, you're not, we got, we got to keep you for another year now. It's a relapse into your illness. Right? God forbid you, you know, you feel sad for a few days. Oh my God. It's a It's an absolute joke. If this wasn't so harmful, it would be comical. And so how educated people support this nonsense is beyond me, but now I know because it states it right here. It states it right here in an entire paper for the treatment and ongoing management of depression. Now you already know my problem is with identifying depression as a medical illness. So that's arbitrary. The entire DSM is arbitrary, not science-based. It's not valid. So now you're starting to determine what is mild, what is moderate, absolutely criminal. You know, I threw up in my mouth because what pop- Can you please stop saying that? I know, it's too early in the morning. Every time he says that I swallow. Yeah. Because you know people lost their life from these decisions. Yeah. Statistically, we know this. When there's a double the risk of a suicide, at least double the risk. God, that's conservative. That's coming from drug trials when they already remove the most serious of participants. You know that someone was placed on this drug, and they became suicidal. They ended their life. They self harmed, or potentially became violent based on the drug. That's scientific fact. That's not, nobody can dispute that. I hope this gets shared to primary care physicians. That can't be disputed. The drug company's listed. Go to their website and the drug. They're going to list it to protect themselves from liability, okay? So it's not being made up. We have the data and the drug companies have taken the steps to warn. That should be all over these guidelines. All over these guidelines, but no, pushing the drug. So we're talking about the American Academy of Pediatrics. Who funds the American Academy of Pediatrics? I'm gonna have to say the pharmaceutical industry. Yeah, individual companies within there, definitely. Pharma, biotech, and food. Yeah. It's one big self perpetuating system. The food, the processed food makes us sick. which drives the pharmaceutical industry and the allopathic medicine, which is Western medicine's approach to our health, which is drugs as healthcare. They fund the Academy of pediatrics and other major medical organizations. They influence the textbooks. They have a hold of the major journals. They determine what gets published. They set the narrative for how we view our own health and in turn our own mental health. And they're all getting rich off of it. The sicker we all are, the richer they are. They have no skin in the game for health. Because if you can get off their drugs, If you can address metabolic illness, if you can live a healthier life, their sales go down. Don't forget, it feels like a big fraternity because here it says that the AP has received funding from the National Institute of Health through grants, Center for Disease Control, Robert Wood Foundation, and the list goes on and on. I did a little, this is for investigative journalists and I don't want to be an investigative journalist. I do not, but I have this horrible obsessive mind. Yesterday was a bad day. I called Sean on the ride home. I was going down a rabbit hole. Yeah, I like to, you know, poke the bear. I poke the bear when he's in that. You make them on? A little bit. Is that why he throws up in his mouth quite frequently? He did swallow one time when he was on the phone, so it's possible. He was driving though, so. Yeah, it was a bad day because then I realized the solar panels I also put up. The permits were never, never passed permit and it was put up anyway. And I'm in this mess with the solar company. You have too much trust in authority. The person who was installing these, you believed he was going through the steps. Roger, that's fine. Trust Roger. That is a authority bias. I knew it was I was in a bad situation. When the vice president of the company said he was going to fly out and come to my home. Oh, boy. And I said, You better give it to me straight. Give it to me straight. Do not fly out and when his like voice starts cracking. Oh, then I know I'm in trouble. But I digress. Right. So I went down into this rabbit hole. So I started looking who is authoring the guidelines. for adolescent depression and primary care in the American Academy of Pediatrics. And I just stopped after I saw these little pet projects they have all these nonprofits around mental health, decreasing stigma, increasing mental health awareness, right. And my goodness. They're trying to push more drugs. Their idea of mental health care is more drugs. So if you can screen and recognize more people, regardless of the validity of the assessment measure, regardless of the validity of this idea of their major depressive disorder, your idea of that, the more that they can fit under that umbrella, the more drugs they can sell. That's what I wanted to bring up prior to when you just went off on on that. About two years ago with my son when we went in for a yearly checkup, we get this sheet of paper, it's about maybe five to seven questions. And one of the first questions was, has you know, your son or has your child experienced any days where they're sad? You know, and then I'm like, what is this? So I'm sitting there, I'm like, I would have to answer that question. Yeah, every child experienced sadness and I'm looking at the other questions. So the AP recommends now yearly, obviously during the yearly checkup, adolescents between 12 and 21 are supposed to take these screenings. And they're just questions where you are forced to basically answer yes, until you recognize that wait a minute, this is a screening where the primary care physician is going to have advice. Don't do it. I just said, no, no, no, no, no. But most people aren't going to do that. They're going to try to be honest. And all of a sudden they go into that appointment, primary care physician looks at it, probably looks at the numbers and gets a number and says, we need to talk. The PHQ-9, I think I probably, did I state the wrong assessment measure earlier? I might've said PCL. The PHQ-9 for adolescents is what we're referring to. But it's just like, that's shocking to me. Imagine how many people out there don't really know that this is all going on behind the scenes and they're just trying to be honest like, oh, maybe my child might have a problem. And if the primary care physician just sits there and says, yeah, you know, you scored high on this, so we do need to have a conversation. That's the starting point for treatment. Do you know how they determine if an adolescent is depressed in primary care? They just ask them. Do you know how we determine if a teen is transgender? We just ask them. They say so. That's called the affirmative care model. So it's really interesting because when you look at the, the PHQ-9, which is modified for adolescents, how many questions on there have nothing to do with depression? So, um. Have you had a blemish in the last six weeks? Number two, right away. Is there little interest or pleasure in doing things? Yes, that's it. How about number three, trouble falling asleep, staying asleep or sleeping too much? I have that. What's too much? And how many teens experience this, especially with teenagers with delayed circadian rhythms, they want to stay up later and they want to sleep longer. And so it has nothing to do with depression. Poor appetite, weight loss or overeating, you're going to let a teen to determine what is overeating. or what is poor appetite? And then you're gonna- Teenager, I was always hungry. You're gonna tie that to depression. Look at number five, feeling tired or having little energy. That's every teenager, you know why? Because they're sleep deprived. And why are they sleep deprived? We start school early and there's a number of them. You're gonna tie that to depression too? How about this, feeling bad about yourself? Tell me what team doesn't at least feel bad about themselves at some point. Or how about number seven, trouble concentrating on things like schoolwork, reading or watching TV. Wait, what was seven? trouble concentrating on things like schoolwork, reading, or watching TV. That you're going to tie that to depression. So what you do, it's a scam folks. What you do is you just create questions that are widely applied to this developmental stage. This one's so dumb. Number eight, moving or speaking so slowly that other people could have noticed. What has a symptom of depression? Unbelievable. So this is where I spent some time yesterday, just digging into what I thought was an interesting viewpoint for this discussion, because I knew you were gonna come in and as much as you say you're not gonna get angry, you're still gonna get emotional because of how much it triggers you. I'm using the word trigger, because that triggers you also. When I started going back into the research, I kept going back further. And I don't wanna go into a history lesson, but what I came upon was the Flexner Report of 1910. Abraham Flexner was hired by Carnegie and Rockefeller. So like early in the early 1900s, after the civil war, all these medical groups started being established. It was chiropractic, homeopathy, osteopathy. So there was all this, these medical fields started to evolve and medical schools started getting established across the country. And basically, care was very poor. People were under trained. There was no clear medical science to anything. So he was hired as an educator to evaluate the situation, and then basically drastically reduce the number of medical schools, and the surplus of poorly trained physicians. So just in summary, he after doing that two year study, increased the prerequisites to receive medical training. requiring a college degree in basic science, encouraged evidence-based practice, aligned colleges with medical schools, and mandated clinician education in hospitals, strengthened regulations of medical licensing, free medical professors from most patient care to permit time for research and instruction, and then increased the years of instruction required before graduation. And basically, 25 years after that was publicized, It went down to 66 medical schools from what it was about 160. Now there's a lot of criticisms about that, especially now when it comes to his sexist viewpoints and also some racism and bias that was in there because it eliminated a lot of colleges in the South, which were, he deemed poor in terms of their training. But if you look at what the end result of that was, it was basically that patients in the service of science rather than science in the service of patients. And what that means is that the doctors are conditioned to diagnose and treat instead of actually evaluating a situation from a critical point of view, having conversations and almost like Socratic dialogue about things to try and draw what the real facts are. Now, knowing that that exists, if science it's in the service of science, rather than patience, then you have science as this halo above kind of driving all decisions. And I started looking into the corporate sector. So like after World War Two, that was the establishment of public relations. And PR was basically, do you know who? who started that Freud's nephew, Bernays. Yeah, Bernays. Yeah, I was trying to remember his name because I know it was a sauce. Yeah. So Bernays is the nephew of Freud. So there's a fun fact connection there, which makes you think of like, okay, so we're talking about how to influence and persuade. Do you know, one of the first ways to do that they actually took women with cigarettes? Oh, really? That was his first like, sort of propaganda technique and and laid the groundwork for what we're now seeing today with advertisements with pharmaceutical companies and everything else. So basically, when public relations was established, then this playbook started to unfold over the last, I guess you can say 50, 60 years, but it's been in play for a long time. So you'd look at all the corporate sectors that exist in the United States and they all follow the same playbook. You've got food and beverage, you've got alcohol, you've got chemicals and manufacturing, you have the pharmaceutical industry, you have medical technology. You have tobacco, we're all well aware of what tobacco has done. They're the one who has been really called out for this bullshit. Um, and then there's like mining, there's gambling and fossil fuels. So the business in these industries is basically to shape and public policy to defend and grow their sales. That is what capitalism is. So capitalism, I think is. still the best form of things because it does progress in terms of investments in technology and innovation. But what's been lost over these 50 or 60 years is what I would call business ethics. Like they're the line should be drawn in certain areas, but they migrate over. They try to remove themselves a little bit. Is that human nature? To one who progress? No. Is it human nature? in a capitalistic system for there to be criminal behavior and poor ethics in order to just serve your business, your shareholders, your bottom line. See we're assuming that we should all take care of each other, right? And that there's these unspoken and spoken rules around ethical practice and there should be laws that, you know, support safety. But our But it's such a corrupt system that they influence the politicians, the politicians who make, right? So it's almost like human nature. I think there's enough degrees of separation for a lot of people that work in these business that they feel like they're removed from it. It's not what they're doing, but they're still part of the cog in the wheel. And because it's often using outside resources, hiring third parties, things of that nature. There's almost this plausible deniability. Well, I didn't know what that person was doing. You know, we hired him to, to advance our, our message, to advance our corporate goals. So diffusion of responsibility. It is, but it's also to protect yourself in litigation. So as long as plausible deniability exists, you can always get out of anything that is unethical. So let me ask you something around capitalism. Yeah. So it requires a free market, right? And if a company is unethical or harm occurs, then that should that should harm the product. And so the market then should adapt to create products that are safe, or to support companies that are ethical. You're giving too much credit to the market. Because I think if you go back to what Bernays identified after World War II is that when it comes to public relations, the human ability to consume information is extremely limited. So the world of summaries started to evolve. People look at headlines, they read bullet points, they don't read the clinical studies, Roger, Roger reads the clinical studies, and he identifies what's different between those two. But the reality is someone's going to click on a link, they're going to read the summary and the conclusion. and they're going to move on with their day, they're not going to look at all the information. So understanding how human look, take the path of least resistance, so to speak. Right. And, but it's also during that whole time period of the public relations and all these things that they did, it was nothing but raw emotion. That's all they were doing is trying to get to people's raw emotion. That's how they could persuade people that cigarettes were not good for, you know what I mean? Like that they were awesome. Yeah. I mean, that goes back. That goes back to understanding, and maybe this is where Freud's influence was how the brain develops. You have your emotional part of your brain, and then there's the rational part of your brain, which is that prefrontal cortex. The human brain has evolved over thousands of years. The first part of your brain that developed was millions of years. Millions of years. Sorry. That's not the way that the Bible told me. But the first part of your brain that was developed was that fight or flight. Right? So that's your, that's why sex sells. Right. And that's why people use babies and puppies and ads because it taps into that emotional part and why, why they can control us through fear. Yes, that's exactly right. Yeah. And that is, you know, one of those tactics that's used. So in terms of like, from a business perspective, how they shape health and public policy, that playbook is promoting false information. for the most part. So it's controlling scientific information. So that's the illusion of evidence based medicine. That's right. For what we're So if you believe that evidence based medicine exists, and every corporation knows that that's what you believe, how can we then manipulate the evidence based information to promote our ideas? And they do it by sponsoring studies to confirm their position. And I'm not just I'm not using pharmaceutical, I'm using all sectors, all sectors across the board. So they also sponsor studies. And when the studies don't have the outcome that they want, they just table that study and they do another one until they get the results that they want. Correct. That is withholding data unfavorable to their products. So failing to disclose those sponsorships. So it's usually done by another party and you assume they're removed from it. manufacturing doubt about evidence based science to create uncertainty. Attacking the credibility of independent researchers. and challenging the competence of public agencies and independent research organizations. Now, you know, take those bullet points and apply it to things that have happened in the last five years, and you can you can see that there's a lot of correlation there. Then you go into another bullet of like distorting public health policy deliberations and, you know, paying third party groups to advance their interests. So that could be a lobbyist or it can be paying citizens groups. to advance those policy proposals. So you could have a whole separate group off to the side of advocates that you think are independent citizens promoting an idea or an agenda, but they're really just a paid outside group funded by either a lobbyist or an organization representing many companies. It's kind of scary when you break down all these ideas. Here's another, promote an idea as good for society. And I think this is what's happening a lot right now. It's, you know, this is gonna benefit everybody. This is what's good for society. But in reality, it benefits the business in the long run. So they'll support think tanks and scholars that promote low taxes, self-regulation, deregulation, privatization, sponsor academic events. And this is what's happening in the medical. schools is they sponsor events, they hand out free gifts, promote ideas around nutrition and health sciences. And in your formative years of being a college student or university level, when you're going to med school, you know, those things have the most influence because that that company was there. And you your school is aligned with them. So that trust is established. And that's that tribal aspect. And that's what you see within the group of physicians, especially allopathic medicine physicians, they trust their tribe. So when there's information that is outside what has been told to them and what they have learned, it's very threatening information on some level, but they dismiss it easily because it's not coming from their tribe. And that's why it's so important that, uh, that thought leaders and independent researchers and medical professionals who were trained by that model, are able to be provided a voice and can speak out against this poor science and the harm that's created. What we've seen, certainly post pandemic is exactly what Sean was mentioned, any of these independent thinkers are discredited. And even alternative science is censored. And that's what's really scary, because now you very clearly see it as a machine. And the machine is working at a level, and at a sophistication. that is so powerful. What's happening to me on Twitter now is medical professionals have resorted to just calling me names. Like, it has transitioned to the point. We know if they're real medical professionals. They are. I sometimes I do these research because they're MDs. Okay. And I'm like, who would who would be calling me names and, and, and wouldn't be attempting to like discuss the ideas. So they make up like names, Mick, whatever, you know, our last name, like vomit breath. Oh, but our last name now it's getting personal. It's it becomes like, well, I laugh at it actually, because there's not, they don't realize it, but there's no better publicity that I can receive than medical professionals calling me names and not discussing the arguments because it just discredits them very quickly, right? And many of them are psychiatrists. Very, very threatening for this patient advocacy and the prescribed harm movement and then professionals in the system like myself who are talking about this with research. And even though my tweets are rather provocative, this podcast and additional tweets and conversations we have are fairly sophisticated and science-based. So, um, this kind of idea is going to be really, really threatening. Eventually, you know, there are only recourses to discredit me or other voices professionally and personally. in order to for this message to not hold any weight. And that's what we saw spreading of disinformation, right? That's a marketing term, right? They're spreading misinformation, anti science, or anti vax. You're seeing this with Robert Kennedy now, who is running for president and the media is just labeling him as anti vax. When you know, his position is not that his position is around medical freedom. And the any he was harmed by Vax, right? Yeah, and he's he supported the not not mandating vaccinations that haven't been proven to be safe or effective. And obviously, men like him, and others who came out early on in this and said, Hey, listen, let's put the brakes on this there's potential harm. Obviously, that science now is starting to support their positions, and kind of the positions of this podcast very early on. Do you want to talk about glyphosate? Is that how you pronounce it? I think so. I mean, I could correct me if I'm wrong. I have it as glyphosate. Glyphosate. Sorry. Glyphosate. Oh, that was another rabbit hole this week. Yeah. And I'm blaming you for that. Or maybe a listener. Did a listener send you something? They did. They did. And that's a future podcast. Okay. But it fits into this conversation, doesn't it? It does. Especially when you go back to that. that playbook for corporate sectors in terms of, you know, food and chemicals and manufacturing, like all that comes into play to understand how these things unfold. And it's, it's usually putting out a product because it benefits society, although it's harming society, but they position it as a way that it's solving the problem, but thus creating more problems. So you should probably, for our listeners who don't know, define Glyphosate what is glyphosate? You want me to define glyphosate? Or explain it. I couldn't even say it correctly No, I guess the glyphosate is It's a pesticide, right? It's used in Roundup. It was used in Roundup. It's a it's a patented antibiotic that kills Was killing fung fungi and pests used in crops but it was also affecting essential amino acids that have to come from our foods. So it's preventing that, that, that bacteria and that fungi that would normally be on our food to create the amino acids from fulfilling its purpose, which would then benefit us. So all of our food is depleted of these essential amino acids that and it's a carcinogen and it causes cancer, basically a poison for for the human body. Yeah. And it's now being leaked to like leaky gut and the breakdown of our own cells in the human body and banned in other countries, except the United States and I know Australia hasn't banned it either, I believe. But again, a future podcast. But our point here is this. I think if our if the US government actually really cared about our health, then glyphosate or glyphosate would be would be banned because it's a proven carcinogen. Our soil has been absolutely depleted. Yeah, right. And today's Earth Day, everybody. Happy Earth Day. Yes, is it? Yeah. Yeah. So it's just it's a system where we have our food sources toxic, poison. We have dramatic rises in disease. The obesity epidemic goes way beyond. just a sedentary lifestyle. It's crazy. Do you ever look at some of these videos, like back in the 30s, like just people walking around New York City and how, or our beach in like the 1960s or the 1950s, comparing to a beach in 2022, 2023. You know, you're looking at 60 to 70% obesity in the United States, and then you couldn't find obese person, like walking around New York City, or it was rare. So something else is happening with our food sources. There's toxicity that exists that's impacting metabolic illness, and glyphosate is implicated in all this. We also have a 27,000% increase in autism since the 1970s. We are being poisoned and then we're going to our doctors who are creating new diseases based on this poison and then they're writing out prescriptions, which also then harm our health in so many different ways. So if the future of medicine and health is around really gut health, the allopathic medical approach is one that just treats symptoms without identifying the underlying cause. in a lot of ways. And a lot of times the underlying cause is inflammation. Inflammation is the body's response to some underlying disease. So I, I wanted to have this discussion with you, with you fellas, I haven't been to a doctor since 2015. And we no longer send our kids to the allopathic medical doctor unless it's like a broken bone or something crisis. We've been pushing towards functional medicine. But I do have a family that has great trust in the allopathic medical system. Our mother was a nurse and she adheres to it, as if it's Bible. And I think my sister has really started to move away. She did adhere to it as Bible, but there's been an awakening for her. Sean- She's always been open to other viewpoints though. Yeah, Sean, you used to adhere to it closely as Bible, but I think- the past couple years, there's been an awakening on your part. Yeah, I know where the limits are in terms of what they're good at. And I wouldn't go to a doctor for for everything. But yeah, I'm more of like the the broken bone or I'm really sick right now. I just need something to give me something. Yeah. But I typically try and fight off what it when I'm sick. I don't even go to the doctor. I just kind of let it run its course. That's why my voice has been horrible for Probably 25% of the episodes in this room. Yeah, but you're not, so you're not identifying what the underlying cause is for you getting sick. Oh, I know what it is. I wasn't taking care of myself. Yeah, so it's like, our system is not about restoring health. Our system is actually benefits by you being sick. Yes, it does. And do you know what happened in 2018? The guidelines for the American Academy of Pediatrics for Depression came out. Know what else happened in 2018? Here in the United States. healthcare became the biggest national industry. Yeah. Scary. It's so big around here. It Oh my gosh, you know, my wife who grew up in California, has now been in Pennsylvania for two years. And that's her joke. The only business that exists in this area are health networks, hospitals, or hospital affiliate locations. Everybody's a occupational therapist, a nurse practitioner or a doctor. billboards all up and down the road. They promote doctors. Exactly. Like they're superheroes. Like rock stars. Any building in any town that goes on for sale, like a week later, you'll see the sign of either Lehigh Valley Health Network or St. Louis. Big, big business. Yeah. Right. And so now capital, United States capitalism in the workforce is, is actually supported by our illness. So I'm going to, I'm going to throw out my, my future prediction. Okay. This is as I was doing. research for this and I was listing out all these bullet points and I came upon this 2018 healthcare became the biggest national industry. Something came into my mind. What happened in 2008? 2007 2008. So that was the financial crisis. That's right. And what did we hear during the financial crisis? Banks were too big to fail. Right. And then we would bail out. the banks or we would merge them into larger banks, which isn't capitalism. It's not capitalism. If it was a free market, they would fail. But I do believe that steps needed to happen to prevent bigger things from happening because it would have hurt. Exactly. It would hurt too many people. So now that healthcare is so large, if you want to fix the healthcare system, know what's going to end up happening, rising unemployment because millions of people will lose their jobs. So I'm saying healthcare is now the new bubble of too big to fail. Yes. Yeah, makes sense. And I think they know that I think that has been the playbook for the last 10 years is shifting that that position of like, how can we prevent ourselves from becoming downsized? You make yourself so valuable to the economic future or the economic economic foundation of this country that you have even greater influence, because there's so many people that are employed by the system. So if you what happens when you go to the doctor now, everything's a checklist. And everything is recommended based on that checklist. Doctors don't really have any creative innovation or thinking involved in this because of, you know, fear of litigation. So they go through their checklist, if they don't do everything on the checklist, then they're open up to possible malpractice lawsuits. And I'm not saying that that's what's driving this. I think that's a small percentage of what happens in the healthcare industry and that fear is then put in doctors so that they don't really talk about things they don't Have conversations with their patients because things that they say could then possibly be used against them sometime in the future should anything go wrong and Going through that checklist can be manipulated because every Organization every AMA sponsored funded works their way into that process so that they're medical device or their drug becomes part of that checklist. And that's where AI comes in because most doctors that I least I've been to haven't been to a doctor in a while, they get all go for strep throat or something like that. But it's very impersonal. And the computer prints out everything now and you get a little report at the end that was generated by AI. It's not even like traditional doctors notes. And we're having this is an election year, we're going to be coming upon it. And I think what we're going to hear more is about medical bills. This has been the biggest shock to me, especially coming back to this area was how just going to see a doctor or a chiropractor, but because of their part of the hospital network, the amount of bills that are tied into one visit, it's it's not a health care problem. It's a medical billing problem right now in this country that So many people are going, it's the number one cause of bankruptcy in this country is healthcare related billing. And this is the problem that needs to be solved. And I don't know if any government officials going to take that on to try and influence this. But the big problem actually came from the Affordable Care Act, because there was language put in there about how much money insurance companies can make in profit. I think they limited it to 20%. If there's a metric that they use, it's called the medical loss ratio. An insurance company can only have a profit of 20%. Now how is revenue generated for an insurance company? By premiums. premiums. So if you want to increase your profit, but you can only have 20%. The only way to do that is to increase your premiums. Pass it back on to the customer. Exactly. Now how do you increase your premiums? Well, you're negotiating costs with the hospitals. As an insurance company, I'm going to have shoulder surgery. What are you going to charge me for that shoulder surgery? Now, if you looked at your bill, you would see that your insurance company is being charged a ridiculous amount for surgery. And you're like, why is that surgery costing that much? Because it's in their best interest. They're not fighting for you. And they're not advocates for you to get the lowest cost available for the service that's being provided. And there was, uh, I'm going to try and find it. There was an executive, maybe with a hospital or, um, maybe when the insurance companies had a shoulder surgery and he got the bill and that bill showed that that shoulder surgery costs like $70,000, but he knew that the blue book cost of that surgery was like $28,000 and he started investigating trends like what the hell's going on, you know, why am I, why is my company billing $70,000 for this procedure when I know it only costs 30,000 and then this whole system of negotiating costs, and then kickbacks and 10% discounts, stuff like that. The whole system is based off this fuzzy fuzzy math, that as an individual consumer, you have no idea. So my wife was supposed to have a shoulder MRI because she had an injury. And I told her call, ask for a statement of what the cost is going to be everything tied to it and make them send it to you in advance. because that's something they're required to do now. And I want to see how they're going to break down this cost. So it's just, it's a it's a mess. So it all cycles back to what you started with, create more customers, right? Put more people into the system, and then keep them into the system. And then there's where your profit margin is. Yep. So if there was a true free market, then it would swing back to where people realizing they're getting sicker. there would be a movement around trying to take care of our health, right? That goes outside what are the general recommendations. And I think we see that, that there is a lifestyle movement that is existing and social media pushes it. Um, patients who've been harmed in the system, push it. And what I'm observing and witnessing are those who are tied to the system, who are part of this medical establishment in various ways, they're pushing back on it. because this is their, this is their livelihood. This is what they know and they benefit from the system. So I kind of moved away from the idea that our doctors are invested in our health because I, because too many are not, they're invested in their families. They're invested in their financial health. They're invested in paying off their student loans. They're invested in not getting sued. And then they would be invested in, in health. Now that's not to say that there's not really good people out there. I do believe that there are really good people, but it's almost kind of like this brainwashed system that too many actually believe what they're doing is actually best available evidence. And I hope we made a case on today's podcast that there is an illusion of evidence and this, uh, an illusion of this evidence-based treatment model. That the best available evidence that's being communicated to our medical professionals and those who are in medical school is a distorted, biased and corrupt system to serve an industry. So the facts are right in front of us. We're getting sicker. We are getting sicker as a country and as a nation on every single level. Our physical health, our mental health, our energy, our relationships, everything is negatively influenced by our health. You're more irritable. You're more agitated. You're more sick, you have poor energy, poor sleep. It influences every aspect of our society. There has to be a movement towards health. And part of this movement towards health is being able to make sure these messages are clear. Because what would you say are the percentage who just buy into the information that's being provided to us? 95%. Yeah, and that's scary. And I think when you look at the early days of our podcast, because it was COVID, that's when there was really angry Roger. right? Sean really fought back against those ideas. I wasn't I wasn't in the system. You weren't in the system. You're outside of it. And that's why we came up with the dangerously naive. And a number of these things, because we saw Sean's reaction to it, because it challenged everything he believed or he believed to be true. And one of those things that he believed to be true was that people are acting in my best interest, and I need to trust them. Yeah. And so once that gets violated, I'm going to rephrase that now. I think people think they are working in my best interest. There you go. I agree. And, but to recognize that it's not the truth. That's not true provokes fear and uncertainty and discomfort because then now it's all on you. You need to, you need to protect yourself. You mentioned self-reliance in a previous podcast. And I was like, that's an interesting topic. That's an, that's a podcast for the future. Because what does that mean, self-reliance? You have the ability, you're autonomous. You have the ability. I think, and Sean, honestly, like in the beginning stages when, you know, we would joke around about being dangerous and naive, but there were some heated discussions. And I could see the frustration because you kind of did trust the system a lot more. You just basically were like, okay, I believe that these people have our best interests at heart. But what you just said there, I think that's the way everybody needs to see things. They believe they have the best interest in our heart, but we need to be autonomous. We need to advocate for yourself. Right. Advocate for yourself. And I'm seeing that shift in you. I'm seeing that shift in me. Don't put it wrong. I mean, I might have had the similar belief system as Roger, but hey, I went and I trusted, I got vaccinated the first time. Right? I wanted to believe that everything had the best interest. And so there's a change in me too, but we all need... to be able to question, right? And I think that that's a big shift. That's what self-reliance is though, is getting to the point where you can trust your instinct and you have evidence to back up your instinct and you're not afraid to speak up for yourself. That's self-reliance. We lack that in this country. Yeah, and I'm not saying I was that person at one point too. So it's not like I'm saying that I knew it from the beginning. I think in my early days and kind of certainly the family that I grew up in, I trusted a lot. I did trust a lot even in my, in my training, like in evidence-based psychotherapy and evidence-based treatments, I did really believe that this is the best available evidence. And if I went to the doctor, I did trust that doctor that he or she did have my best interest in, in mind and they were following what our best available evidence that that crashed for me with psychiatric drugs and then with COVID. So that all broke down. And I think I was viewed in my family at that time as paranoid and just anti establishment anti authority. And they didn't realize what I was doing on the back end. They didn't realize how much time I put years into right prior to COVID. So then when I saw this very similar marketing messages, and the distortion of science right in front of us around vaccines and how we're going to get out of this pandemic, then it was way too familiar to me. And the fact that we could lose our own freedoms and rights because of it, or we would force this upon children, that was that was it. I'm done. Therefore, then, you know, the podcast was developed and everything that we're doing moving forward is we're going to be part of this movement. So I do want to thank all of our listeners. This is a movement. What you're going to be seeing in the next couple months is we're going to be revamping our website. We're going to develop YouTube channels. And we're going to try to disseminate more science, but we're going to do it with a critical lens. So I am going to write. I know people have asked me to write right now. We're just trying to articulate this and have some conversations that have some entertainment value and we're pushing out points out in social media, but we understand that this is serious. And so when we bring in future guests, we have to make sure that those guests are well vetted and they are contributing to providing information that is absolutely necessary for people to. be able to make informed decisions. And as I begin to write, we're gonna have to, with a critical lens, be able to look at both sides of an issue and then come to some conclusions. I think when we sum up what the message so far has been from the Radically Genuine podcast, it's around the over-medicalization of the human experience to drive limited categorizations of what it means to be human and to drive that to disorders, which drives people. to drugs and we're seeing a deterioration of our culture and a deterioration of our health. A lot of important health related information is kept outside of the mainstream so people aren't able to make informed decisions. The field of psychotherapy or mental health is corrupt and as is the field of psychiatry. And so we have to get back to some common sense approaches and we can talk about resilience. We can talk about self-reliance, coping, the strength that's going to require. in difficult times because difficult times are ahead. I do believe that American society and culture, as we know it is on a decline. It's on a decline on so many levels from if you sit and just talk to the experience of the average person in the little league game, or the coaches are going through or the teachers, or the frontline doctors or hospital workers, police officers, mental health professionals, we are a culture that is divided. There is a purposeful culture war that is going on. Our government is part of it. We're not getting better. We're not growing closer together. We are in an oligarch and we're controlled by major corporations. And in those major corporations, they're driving messages that are going to undermine your health and undermine your resilience and they're provoking a lot of fear. So we need to talk about how we can be able to overcome fear in order to live a life of courage and a life of purpose. And that's what is going to have to happen right now, courage is in short supply. If you're willing to speak out against this, that's courageousness, because you're going outside what is the message. It is very, very easy to be the sheep, to be part of the flock, to follow along, to just trust your tribe. But it takes in society, those who are willing to fight back against it. Patient movements in healthcare for those who've been harmed. those who speak out against the general recommendations that are going to undermine our own freedoms and to be able to really resist what we know is going to be down the line, which is a surveillance state that exists in the United States and the steps have already been taken to do so and we're voluntarily giving up our freedoms. So please continue, share these episodes. The Radically Genuine Podcast, there's an ethos about raw honesty. The raw honesty is going to come from a place of compassion, love, and directed purpose. The directed purpose is around respect for you and your individual rights and freedoms. But we know collectively, if we do not take care of our health, we're going to continue to deteriorate. And then people... in power. People who have sociopathic tendencies are going to assume control. History tells us that. So it's gonna take good people, courageous people. Thank you.