Speaker 1: Philip Conspiracy Realists. We are returning with tonight's classic episode.
Speaker 1: This is something that remains incredibly sensitive and incredibly important
Speaker 1: in the modern day. As we all know, statistically, you
Speaker 1: or a loved one has battled with a group of
Speaker 1: diseases that we collectively call cancer.
Speaker 2: Yes, and likely lost people in your life, right, hor horrifying.
Speaker 2: I know, I have I know you probably have to.
Speaker 2: There are a lot of human beings who have come
Speaker 2: along gosh, what do you want to say, guys centuries no,
Speaker 2: a century maybe where people have come along and said, hey,
Speaker 2: we've got the cure for you.
Speaker 1: Here.
Speaker 2: This is going to get rid of all of that
Speaker 2: horrifying cancer. We just need lots of money.
Speaker 1: Right, yes, because each year millions of people across the
Speaker 1: planet still grapple with these with these medical conditions, and
Speaker 1: one type of treatment for one type of cancer may
Speaker 1: not apply to other kinds of cancer. It's very much
Speaker 1: a real killer, and it's something that some of the
Speaker 1: smartest people in the world are still attempting to solve. However,
Speaker 1: as you alluded to there, Matt, it's sadly no surprise
Speaker 1: that there are a lot of people who claim that
Speaker 1: they have cured some or all forms of cancer. And
Speaker 1: there's a lot to wrestle with here, and.
Speaker 3: There's a lot in the news right now about some
Speaker 3: truly potentially amazing advancements in that direction. And this isn't
Speaker 3: something that we want to think about negatively in terms
Speaker 3: of the conspiracy of it all. But there are certainly
Speaker 3: those that would take that promise of a cure for
Speaker 3: cancer and use it to cash in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, we're going to talk about it in
Speaker 2: this episode, So let's get into it.
Speaker 1: Those to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled
Speaker 1: with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn
Speaker 1: this stuff they don't want you to know. A production
Speaker 1: of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name.
Speaker 4: Is no One.
Speaker 1: They call me Ben. We were joined as always with
Speaker 1: our super producer Paul Mission Control Deck. At most importantly,
Speaker 1: you are you. You are here, and that makes this
Speaker 1: stuff they don't want you to know. Another peak behind
Speaker 1: the curtain. This is the first time in quite a
Speaker 1: while that the whole crew has been together in the
Speaker 1: same studio.
Speaker 4: And another peek behind the curtain. Matt said, his name
Speaker 4: originally kind of in an odd cadence, and I made
Speaker 4: him start over and correct it, and then I copied
Speaker 4: said odd cadence in my sign on. So I'm a jerk.
Speaker 2: That's so brown town of you, so brownish.
Speaker 4: So one note and brown note.
Speaker 1: So how have you guys been doing? Hey?
Speaker 2: Great, Ben, I hope you're doing well too. You were
Speaker 2: on the Biggest Adventures. We've recorded one episode since you've returned.
Speaker 2: And you know, the one thing we haven't actually addressed
Speaker 2: yet together as a team.
Speaker 1: What's that, Matt is our.
Speaker 2: Time out in La We what we got to do
Speaker 2: with mister Dan Harmon.
Speaker 1: That's true. We did mention this in previous episodes. We
Speaker 1: wanted to be transparent, of course, given the kind of
Speaker 1: show that we do here, and you know, I can't
Speaker 1: believe it. We actually did it. We went on Harmontown
Speaker 1: and then we also had Dan over on an episode
Speaker 1: of Stuff they Don't want you to know, which, by
Speaker 1: the time this recording comes out should be available now, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I just have to say it was incredible,
Speaker 2: basically starting a conversation on Harmontown on stage, then continuing
Speaker 2: onto our show where we just kind of kept talking
Speaker 2: in more depth about the same things.
Speaker 4: There was even the chapter of the conversation that you
Speaker 4: were not privy to that was sort of in the
Speaker 4: dressing room in between the show or before the show,
Speaker 4: and then after the show, and then we did our show,
Speaker 4: and then we continue the conversation even still at a
Speaker 4: little dive bar in Hollywood called the Frolic Room, which
Speaker 4: is Hollywood institution. Yeah, and it was just the whole
Speaker 4: thing was kind of surreal and delightful in many many ways.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we just we hope you enjoyed the episode
Speaker 2: as you were listening to it. It was a delight
Speaker 2: for us.
Speaker 1: So it's a weird one, Yeah, it is. It is
Speaker 1: definitely a weird one. And to your point, Nol, I'm
Speaker 1: also wondering how coherent the conversation will be given that
Speaker 1: several hours of what was essentially a two day episode
Speaker 1: will not see the light of day.
Speaker 4: Not to mention, we just now got the preview of
Speaker 4: that in real time, you know, got the preview of
Speaker 4: that episode to listen to. We always listen to them
Speaker 4: before published, and I think we're all a little bit
Speaker 4: on the edge of our seats wondering what it's actually
Speaker 4: gonna sound like. You are out there in podcast land
Speaker 4: already know.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, you're gonna get the refined product.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're in a situation that some English teachers would
Speaker 1: refer to as dramatic irony, because you, the audience, know
Speaker 1: something that we do not.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 1: So let's hope. Let's hope it's uh, let's hope it's good.
Speaker 1: One way or the other. It's done. And I don't
Speaker 1: think that we've heard the last of Dan Harmon, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean obviously not, because he's gonna make tons of
Speaker 1: new shows, but he might be on this show again
Speaker 1: in the future.
Speaker 4: So we hope you like it.
Speaker 1: Today we are talking about something much less, much less enjoyable.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, actually this could be quite enjoyable because it's
Speaker 2: possible ways to cure ourselves of things our body is
Speaker 2: fighting against.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's true. We do have to say at
Speaker 1: the top of today's show that nothing we say in
Speaker 1: this show, and none of the sources we quote, should
Speaker 1: be taken as medical advice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, speak to your doctor or your GP, whoever you've
Speaker 2: got if you want to learn more about any of
Speaker 2: this stuff.
Speaker 1: And if you get scared, don't hop on WebMD. Make
Speaker 1: an appointment go to a doctor.
Speaker 4: Never hop on WebMD, you guys.
Speaker 1: Never WebMD. It's cancer. That's that's their name, that's their tagline.
Speaker 4: Literally, it's like it's like one of those float charts
Speaker 4: that always ends in cancer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and today we're exploring one of the most sensitive
Speaker 1: subjects in human experience, health and of course it's ever
Speaker 1: present shadowy end result death.
Speaker 2: I thought you were going to say, wellness, Oh no, wells.
Speaker 1: Well, that's that's good. Yeah. But they all and so far,
Speaker 1: the every single study that has ever been conducted on
Speaker 1: this subject has found that life is a terminal condition
Speaker 1: with a one rate of death fatality rate. And for
Speaker 1: the past few thousands of years, our species has made
Speaker 1: honestly extraordinary strides in the field of medicine. I'm not
Speaker 1: the most optimistic person, but even I can admit that
Speaker 1: it was not an easy process. However, there is here's
Speaker 1: one anecdote that can show us how difficult medical progress is.
Speaker 1: Have have you all heard of ignos Semelwis?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we've mentioned him before on this show,
Speaker 2: just in passing though.
Speaker 1: He's one of my favorite illustrations of someone who was
Speaker 1: called crazy and was right all along. However, you know,
Speaker 1: we've been in this situation, but no one has died
Speaker 1: of a result of as a result of people not
Speaker 1: believing us. Hopefully, ignos Semlviis was roundly ridiculed for the
Speaker 1: kakammy notion that hey, maybe before doctors assist assist in childbirth,
Speaker 1: they should wash their hands. Yeah, wash just hands.
Speaker 2: Well, and it wasn't taken well because a lot of
Speaker 2: the people that he's speaking to were essentially just offended
Speaker 2: at the thought of you believe my hands to be
Speaker 2: dirty too, where I will infect others just by not
Speaker 2: cleansing them prior to delivering a baby.
Speaker 1: I am a gentleman, sir, and you have violated my dignity.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean then that kind of thinking, we have
Speaker 2: to remember, still exists within the realms of things that
Speaker 2: are just outside of what is accepted.
Speaker 4: Well, it was a product of elitism too, right, It's like,
Speaker 4: you know, how dare you accuse me of being unclean?
Speaker 4: For I am at a higher station than you, sir, You.
Speaker 1: Know exactly, like the diseases clearly come from the peasant class. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when all doctors are considered more patrician. It's so strange
Speaker 1: because some device was correct a ton of people didn't
Speaker 1: believe him, even though he had studies that proved he
Speaker 1: was correct. And his bedside manner was also terrible if
Speaker 1: you were a D and D character charisma was his
Speaker 1: dumpstat like he was not good at talking with people
Speaker 1: in a civil manner because he knew he was right
Speaker 1: and he was angry about it, and this just exacerbated
Speaker 1: the situation. The academy turned on him. Eventually, Semmelweis ends
Speaker 1: up in an asylum at the age of forty seven,
Speaker 1: and eventually, ironically, he dies of sepsis MM infection in
Speaker 1: the blood. And this depressing anecdote gives us a window
Speaker 1: into human nature. Oh also, thank you so much, Samuelweiss
Speaker 1: for playing such a huge part in us being alive
Speaker 1: to make the show today. We see some damning things
Speaker 1: about human psychology in this tale, and we also see
Speaker 1: some illuminating things about our collective approach to medicine. And
Speaker 1: we fast forward to twenty nineteen. We've made a lot
Speaker 1: of hard won medical progress, but some disease remain functionally
Speaker 1: incurable here in the US. Two of the biggest killers
Speaker 1: are heart disease, which is treatable, you know, in number
Speaker 1: of ways. And of course the big C word. Cancer. Doctors,
Speaker 1: as you listen to this, are literally working day in
Speaker 1: and day out around the clock to discover new treatments,
Speaker 1: early detection methods, and more. But here's the thing, fellow
Speaker 1: conspiracy realists. Some people will tell you that there is
Speaker 1: a cure for some or all cancers, and that it
Speaker 1: has been around for much longer than you think. But
Speaker 1: to figure out the answer to that question, we have
Speaker 1: to start at the beginning. So here are the facts.
Speaker 4: What is cancer, you might be asking yourself. First, let's
Speaker 4: bust a few myths about the term cancer, which actually
Speaker 4: describes more than one hundred separate diseases, not all of
Speaker 4: which are created equally, but they are all characterized by
Speaker 4: an abnormal and unregulated growth of cells. This growth actually
Speaker 4: destroys surrounding tissue and can spread to other parts of
Speaker 4: the body through a process called metastasis.
Speaker 1: And kudos for correctly pronounced that the first try that metastasis.
Speaker 1: That one's tough for me. I can see metastasize, but
Speaker 1: having to how do you pronounce it again?
Speaker 4: Metastasis? Metastas But I also like metastasis. Yeah, that's another
Speaker 4: thing entirely though. Yeah, it's like meta not moving. I
Speaker 4: don't know, I know.
Speaker 1: Right, it's not moving on several levels right in a
Speaker 1: deep way.
Speaker 4: Ben, you have a really great analogy, I think, for
Speaker 4: a way to wrap your head around this idea, don't you?
Speaker 1: Oh man, I hope it's at least serviceable. It's it
Speaker 1: felt like a good idea, like three in the morning.
Speaker 1: So when we hear cancer, just like you said, Nol,
Speaker 1: we're often we're often taught to think that cancer is
Speaker 1: itself a specific disease, but that's not the case. As
Speaker 1: you said, there are more than one hundred different diseases
Speaker 1: that fit the classification of cancer. So when we hear
Speaker 1: the word cancer, we should think of it should be
Speaker 1: like hearing the word clothing, because clothing describes a group
Speaker 1: of things that all have a couple broad definitions in common,
Speaker 1: but they also specialize, right, So you have hats for
Speaker 1: your head, you have gloves just for your hands, and
Speaker 1: on and on and on and like articles of clothing,
Speaker 1: cancers specialize in different parts of your body. You wouldn't
Speaker 1: wear a hat on your foot, and you wouldn't have
Speaker 1: breast cancer in your prostate, right, these are very different things.
Speaker 1: So when we look at the most common forms of cancer,
Speaker 1: at least here in the US. We run into our
Speaker 1: first Terrible Laundry list, which there are a few in
Speaker 1: today's episode. There's skin cancer, lung cancer, brain cancer, breast cancer,
Speaker 1: prostate cancer, colon cancer, ovarian cancer, leukemia, and lymphoma.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm really what we're getting out of here is
Speaker 2: cancer can develop in any part of the human body.
Speaker 2: And it's not one of those things that you have
Speaker 2: to be a certain age where you know maybe cancer
Speaker 2: will develop. It becomes more likely sometimes depending on your
Speaker 2: life choices, but it really you can develop cancer at
Speaker 2: any age, and unlike something like AIDS or the flu,
Speaker 2: something infectious, let's say tuberculosis, you can't catch cancer from
Speaker 2: somebody else from being around them. It's not contagious in
Speaker 2: any way. And generally cancers are caused by damage that
Speaker 2: occurs at the genetic level inside a cell. Right, That's
Speaker 2: how you get the single cell that becomes rogue and
Speaker 2: then begins multiplying and then infecting the other cells through metastasis.
Speaker 2: It's I mean, it really is as a scary thing
Speaker 2: because it's like one tiny, less than microscopic part of
Speaker 2: view that rebels against the programming and then can kill you.
Speaker 1: And this is interesting. As a side note, there is
Speaker 1: a provable contagious cancer. It does not occur in humans.
Speaker 1: It occurs in Tasmanian devils. It's the devil facial tumor disease.
Speaker 2: Jeez, I've heard of that actually, strangely, I don't know why.
Speaker 2: Must have seen some kind of mini doc about it
Speaker 2: or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's relatively recent in the literature. It was first
Speaker 1: described in nineteen ninety six. But it just ran through
Speaker 1: the population of Tasmanian devils. Luckily, there's nothing like that
Speaker 1: that we know of were humans so far. And why
Speaker 1: is that a very lucky thing? That's because cancer is
Speaker 1: one of the leading causes of death worldwide already. Back
Speaker 1: in twenty twelve, there were fourteen point one million new
Speaker 1: cases and eight point two million cancer related deaths across
Speaker 1: the world. Literally millions of people are dying every year,
Speaker 1: and we have we have some sobering stats for the
Speaker 1: US specifically.
Speaker 4: It's true, and that is according to cancer dot Gov,
Speaker 4: which estimates that seven hundred and thirty five thousand, three
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty new cases of cancer were diagnosed in
Speaker 4: the US in twenty eighteen and six hundred and nine thousand,
Speaker 4: six hundred and forty people died from the disease. The
Speaker 4: most common cancers, which are listed here in descending order,
Speaker 4: according to estimated new cases in twenty eighteen, are breast cancer,
Speaker 4: lung and bronchus cancer, prostate cancer, colon and rectum cancer,
Speaker 4: melanoma of the skin, bladder cancer, non Hodgkins lymphoma, kidney
Speaker 4: and renal pelvis cancer. Then we have endometrial cancer, leukemia,
Speaker 4: pancreatic cancer, thyroid cancer, and last but not least, liver cancer.
Speaker 1: But there's good news, thankfully. We're we're also going out
Speaker 1: of our way to point out moments of good news
Speaker 1: in this story.
Speaker 2: There must be silver lining here.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 2: The good news is that the cancer rates have actually
Speaker 2: dropped about twenty seven percent over the last twenty five years.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's fantastic, and I think, you know, without
Speaker 2: getting too deep into it right now, it has to
Speaker 2: do with just the amount of money and effort that's
Speaker 2: being spent on trying to find a cure. The problem
Speaker 2: is again that we've kind of discussed before. It's not
Speaker 2: one thing you can't just throw money at a team
Speaker 2: of researchers to look at cancer, big C cancer, you
Speaker 2: have to study each individual part of the body and
Speaker 2: each individual cancer. But again, death rates dropped twenty seven percent.
Speaker 2: It translates to about one and a half percent per
Speaker 2: year and more than two point six million deaths avoided
Speaker 2: between nineteen ninety one and twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: And honestly, go team, Yeah, that's a tremendous improvement right
Speaker 1: now here. At the end of twenty nineteen, experts expect
Speaker 1: a total of one million, seven hundred and sixty two thousand,
Speaker 1: four and fifty new cancer cases and six hundred and
Speaker 1: six thousand, eight hundred and eighty deaths from cancer cancer
Speaker 1: related causes. This this means that although rates are dropping,
Speaker 1: people are still dying and everyone is aware of this.
Speaker 1: Everyone is aware of this. We know that people are
Speaker 1: searching continually for a cure. According to researchers like kl Black,
Speaker 1: the cure for cancer is more a matter of when
Speaker 1: rather than a matter of if. Because, according to Black
Speaker 1: and their colleagues, there's been this explosive progress in our
Speaker 1: understanding of cancer. You know, reducing smoking rates that has
Speaker 1: a huge impact on cancer rates. You know, early to
Speaker 1: detection methods are a God send for people who believe
Speaker 1: in God. And Black says that since we're since we're
Speaker 1: in an inevitable situation where we will find a cure
Speaker 1: for some cancers, it really becomes a question of how
Speaker 1: much we want to prime the pump. Black calls for
Speaker 1: increased research funding into all aspects of cancer research and
Speaker 1: says it needs to be at least twice the current
Speaker 1: levels of funding. But the tragic problem here, simply put,
Speaker 1: is this for many people curing cancer in twenty thirty
Speaker 1: or even twenty twenty five, isn't that's not coming soon enough.
Speaker 1: The clock is already ticking on their lives.
Speaker 2: And there's a deeper conspiracy there that we will get
Speaker 2: into about who benefits from cancer not being cured.
Speaker 1: Gley Bono right. And that, of course assumes that the
Speaker 1: mainstream narrative is true, that there is sincere ardent research
Speaker 1: in treating and curing this type of disease and it
Speaker 1: may just not come soon enough. Unless that is, the
Speaker 1: cure for cancer already exists.
Speaker 2: And we'll learn about that right after a word from
Speaker 2: our sponsor.
Speaker 1: Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 4: According to a two thousand and eight survey, as much
Speaker 4: as twenty seven percent of the United States population believes
Speaker 4: large pharmaceutical interests possess a cure for some or all
Speaker 4: cancers and actively suppress this treatment in order to boost
Speaker 4: their profits. We've heard this any number of times when
Speaker 4: it comes to the farm. I mean, just in terms
Speaker 4: of cures for all kinds of diseases or alternative medicaid.
Speaker 4: Why the pharmaceutical lobby fights marijuana legalizations so much. I mean,
Speaker 4: you know, it's no proof, but the proof is in
Speaker 4: the putting. It seems pretty clear that's the case.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and these conspiratorial claims. I love that you point
Speaker 1: that out, because these claims typically follow the same rough pattern,
Speaker 1: not just for cancer, but for things like HIV or AIDS.
Speaker 1: The idea is that someone somewhere has invented or discovered
Speaker 1: a cure for cancer or a treatment that has a
Speaker 1: very high efficacy rate, right, And this cure, whether it
Speaker 1: be a simple one and done pill or a series
Speaker 1: of treatments you know, herbal remedies and so on, this
Speaker 1: cure is known to big pharma capital B capital P.
Speaker 1: But releasing it to the public, in this cabal's eyes,
Speaker 1: is less profitable than letting people slowly die or charging
Speaker 1: them for a subscription service. There are a couple of
Speaker 1: things we could unpack. Let's pause for a second. A note.
Speaker 1: Twenty seven percent. You said twenty seven percent of people pulled.
Speaker 1: That's almost one out of three US residents believe that
Speaker 1: there is a cure that has been repressed. That puts
Speaker 1: this on the level of some of the great widely
Speaker 1: believed conspiracies in the lore, right, the moon landing, the
Speaker 1: JFK assassination.
Speaker 2: Can we just talk about that survey was from two
Speaker 2: thousand and six, which is almost I don't know what
Speaker 2: we would call that from an Internet standpoint, but two
Speaker 2: thousand and six was like that era where I don't
Speaker 2: know information was really being put out there. I think
Speaker 2: back to the House Stuff Works website where there are
Speaker 2: so many people trying to put out so much information
Speaker 2: and just fill the Internet and fill in all the
Speaker 2: spaces that could possibly be searched for. And it makes
Speaker 2: me wonder if that has anything to do with that
Speaker 2: twenty seven percent number.
Speaker 1: I see, Yeah, maybe we were still as a country
Speaker 1: sharpening or critical thinking skills, right.
Speaker 2: That's what I see, But perhaps I'm incorrect.
Speaker 1: Well, there's also there's also the compelling argument that from
Speaker 1: a capitalistic stance, you're putting yourself out of business if
Speaker 1: you ever actually cure a disease, right, that's one of
Speaker 1: the commonly cited things.
Speaker 2: Unless you control the one cure.
Speaker 4: But then you only have to take it once. Right,
Speaker 4: Whereas you know, being prescribed medication is like a life
Speaker 4: sentence of cash flow, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And this this jibes with stuff that we know
Speaker 1: about the economy in general, which is that for more
Speaker 1: than a decade, US businesses have been moving away from
Speaker 1: ownership models towards subscription models, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And this is reflected ass the board, whether you're talking
Speaker 1: about automobiles, whether you're talking about medicine, whether you're talking
Speaker 1: about even clothing. Right, the ink in your printer, the
Speaker 1: ink in your printer.
Speaker 4: Oh, that's insidious when it's all masquerading behind this facade
Speaker 4: of convenience, when it's really just a matter of getting
Speaker 4: you on the hook, and you think, oh, it's not
Speaker 4: that much per month, but then you add it up
Speaker 4: and then you maybe compare that to how much actual
Speaker 4: benefits you get from it, and you're really just funneling
Speaker 4: money into these corporations pockets or these startups or.
Speaker 2: Whatever until your card gets canceled.
Speaker 1: Exactly like when Adobe went entirely to a subscription model.
Speaker 4: We're very lucky we get access to those products through work.
Speaker 4: But you know, if someone just wants photoshop, you can't.
Speaker 4: Maybe you can't. I'm not sure how it works. You
Speaker 4: can't just buy photoshop anymore to my knowledge. You got
Speaker 4: to pay that ten twelve bucks a month. Then you
Speaker 4: add that with your Hulu, add that with your Netflix,
Speaker 4: add that with your prescription drugs. Before you know it,
Speaker 4: you're out of pocket a whole lot every month.
Speaker 1: And you don't own a damn thing. That's the strangest part.
Speaker 1: I know I'm using strong language there, But this suppressed cure,
Speaker 1: this palliative thing, this panacea could be described as any
Speaker 1: number of substances or treatments, and not all of the
Speaker 1: conspiratorial claims agree on what the cure might actually be.
Speaker 1: There are a couple of categories. They're natural or alternative treatments.
Speaker 1: That could be stuff like aromatherapy, right, or herbalistic regimens,
Speaker 1: and then there's homeopathy or even unto shamanistic healing rights,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. The idea that disease is
Speaker 1: as much a product of the mind as it is
Speaker 1: of the body. And there are some interesting studies that
Speaker 1: show one's cognitive state can have an effect on recuperation
Speaker 1: from physical trauma.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely well, And that leads into every one of
Speaker 2: these types of treatments when you get to aromatherapy or something,
Speaker 2: or one of the largest categories that exists in here,
Speaker 2: which is what you put into your body. Diet based solutions.
Speaker 2: There are things like the Browse Diet, the Hallelujah Diet,
Speaker 2: several others. Were going to get into one at the
Speaker 2: end of this episode. That's out there right now that
Speaker 2: I'm sure there are a lot of people following that
Speaker 2: believe it's going to cure them.
Speaker 1: And I love the name the Hallelujah Diet. I had
Speaker 1: not heard of it before we begin researching for this.
Speaker 1: Just for an example, this is a pretty restrictive diet
Speaker 1: that purports to be biblical. It's based on raw food,
Speaker 1: and the inventor of the Hallelujah Diet is doing that.
Speaker 1: Not only am I the president, I'm also a member
Speaker 1: sure kind of thing because the inventor claim secured his
Speaker 1: own cancer.
Speaker 2: A lot of those are vegan based or like a
Speaker 2: specific thing that you have to eat or refrain from
Speaker 2: eating to get your body back into some position of
Speaker 2: I was gonna say stasis, but that's not correct. Just
Speaker 2: there's harmony. To get harmony back within your body and
Speaker 2: all the cells.
Speaker 1: Metastasis.
Speaker 2: Yeah, metastasis.
Speaker 4: There we go, the best kind of stasis. I don't know,
Speaker 4: I walk that one back. Yeahah, what I like it.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: So we see that, We see that diet can be
Speaker 1: a compelling treatment of some sort because we know that
Speaker 1: a vegan diet will tend to be better for you
Speaker 1: than a very heavy red meat diet. Right, as long
Speaker 1: as you're an adult, you're not still developing et cetera.
Speaker 2: When it comes Yeah, exactly when it comes to certain
Speaker 2: things and at certain points in your life.
Speaker 1: And there are also electromagnetic or energy based cures. Shout
Speaker 1: out to orgone energy, which is still fascinating to me.
Speaker 4: Boy Wilhelm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, mister Reike himself, doctor Reich. He's a doctor of sorts.
Speaker 1: It was easier to be a doctor in those days.
Speaker 1: This cloud doctor. There's a cloud doctor. I love it.
Speaker 4: We talked about him last episode when you were here.
Speaker 4: We talked about cloudbusting Daddy dude.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm having a weird deja vu moment right here.
Speaker 4: Okay, because of the Kate Bush song that was about
Speaker 4: Wilhelm Reich and his rain machine No Cloudbuster.
Speaker 1: The Cloudbuster or going energy, which is fascinating. Please if
Speaker 1: you haven't If you haven't heard of this before, do
Speaker 1: check out our audio and video episodes on Oregone and
Speaker 1: the strange interaction that Villa Reich had.
Speaker 4: With the FDA.
Speaker 1: I think at some point so there are also hybrid
Speaker 1: regimens that combined two or more treatments from the categories
Speaker 1: that we just mentioned. This belief the big pharma is
Speaker 1: suppressing a cure to one or more cancers is very common,
Speaker 1: and it finds fertile soil in the current zeitgeist, in
Speaker 1: the current social climate, because distrust the pharmaceutical companies runs
Speaker 1: pretty high nowadays. And I would argue rightly so, especially
Speaker 1: given the Opie in the US, which swept through various
Speaker 1: regions of the country like a natural disaster.
Speaker 2: And continues to do so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then add to that, the US is cartoonishly high,
Speaker 1: like ridiculously high, drug costs when compared to literally every
Speaker 1: other developed nation, every single other one, and I know
Speaker 1: literally is a word that gets overused so often these days,
Speaker 1: just like awesome, right, But in this case, yes, literally
Speaker 1: every other developed nation is going to have better drug prices.
Speaker 1: So even without hard proof of a conspiracy in this case,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people who understandably will hear
Speaker 1: about the concept of any sort of suppressed medicine or treatment,
Speaker 1: and at the very least, even if they're not one
Speaker 1: hundred percent on board with the idea, they'll think, well,
Speaker 1: I uh, I wouldn't put it past them, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. You know, it sound like the kind
Speaker 1: of screlly thing they'd be into.
Speaker 2: But here's the deal. A lot of times the villain
Speaker 2: in these stories is Big Pharma with the B and
Speaker 2: a P. Another villain BP, No, not really a villain
Speaker 2: VP or whatever, just depends on your perspective. But ultimately,
Speaker 2: what I'm saying here is the pharmaceutical companies Big Pharma
Speaker 2: could not get away with this alone. They would need
Speaker 2: to have some cronies there with them, some people who
Speaker 2: could get some other things done. They need help from,
Speaker 2: you know, the nonprofits that are out there that take
Speaker 2: in hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of
Speaker 2: dollars government agencies and other independent researchers who are going
Speaker 2: through and either suppressing the research that's out there or
Speaker 2: you know, covering up various aspects of certain diets or cures.
Speaker 2: Like is it do you guys think it is in
Speaker 2: any way possible that all of these different groups could
Speaker 2: be cooperating so that let's say US eight million people
Speaker 2: worldwide die each every year.
Speaker 4: Wait a minute, I means some sort of massive cover up,
Speaker 4: conspiracy Hedgemond situation.
Speaker 1: Well, ultimately, yeah, if if so, and we're walking through
Speaker 1: this hypothetically right, yes, yes, these different institutions would have
Speaker 1: to work together pretty well, right, and they would have
Speaker 1: to have some sort of omerta, some sort of brilliantly
Speaker 1: watertight agreement. And you know that number is true. If
Speaker 1: they are actively scheming to in some sort of plan
Speaker 1: that results in eight million people dying every year, this
Speaker 1: comes very close to being a case of medical genocide.
Speaker 4: Let's be real for a second. What do you think
Speaker 4: the chances are this is actually the case?
Speaker 1: I you know, I'm gonna save it for the end. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna save I'm gonna save it for the end,
Speaker 1: because just with that piece just hypothetically, that's a lot
Speaker 1: of cooperation, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: We've been talking about this a lot more lately since
Speaker 4: the Harmon thing. When when like, when can you smell
Speaker 4: a conspiracy? That's probably there's some has some sand. It's
Speaker 4: usually when that level of cooperation benefits all parties. Only
Speaker 4: then are people most likely to keep their mouths shut
Speaker 4: when the cover up is active and you know, necessary
Speaker 4: to continue to enrich said parties or you know, keep
Speaker 4: them from getting caught in some kind of collective lie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and well, you know, pre Epstein I would have
Speaker 1: been much more skeptical about some of these things. In
Speaker 1: this case, however, there is a big elephant in the room,
Speaker 1: which is, let's say it's true. Let's just hypothetically say
Speaker 1: it's true. What happens when one of the conspirators is
Speaker 1: diagnosed with cancer? Right? I mean do they say, well,
Speaker 1: for the good or the cause? You've got to continue
Speaker 1: on to stage four, buddy, we can't let people know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's weird.
Speaker 1: I mean, okay, so we did that survey right from
Speaker 1: two thousand and six, right, Well, in two thousand and two,
Speaker 1: there was a guy named Ted Gansler. This comes to
Speaker 1: us from one of our colleagues, author Dave Russ, writing
Speaker 1: over for Houstuff Works. Ted Gansler, at the time was
Speaker 1: a strategic director for pathology research with the American Cancer Society.
Speaker 1: He edits the Cancer Journal for clinicians. This guy's his
Speaker 1: bona fides, right. He heard this hidden cure, the suppressed
Speaker 1: cure for cancer story so often that in two thousand
Speaker 1: and two he conducted a survey about the most common
Speaker 1: misconceptions of cancer, and in this he asked about one
Speaker 1: thousand Americans if they believed there was a conspiracy to
Speaker 1: hide a cure for cancer. According to Gansler, the result
Speaker 1: was even more shocking than he had expected. He found
Speaker 1: and again this two thousand and two, that not only
Speaker 1: did twenty seven ven point three percent of the people
Speaker 1: polled believe that there was a cure for cancer being repressed,
Speaker 1: but another fourteen percent said, I don't know. It seems
Speaker 1: like something they would do, though maybe happen.
Speaker 2: That's that's crazy, And again that's just kind of what
Speaker 2: we've been talking about here. It's another version of this
Speaker 2: conspiracy theory, or another aspect to it, is that that
Speaker 2: thought that somebody somewhere has a cancer cure and it's
Speaker 2: being kept secret for one reason or another.
Speaker 4: Well, but to your question, Ben, I mean, if we're
Speaker 4: staying in the realm of hypotheticals and thought experiments, if
Speaker 4: one of the members of this conspiracy were diagnosed, wouldn't
Speaker 4: by virtue of being in the inner circle. They'd get
Speaker 4: the cure and they would just keep it quiet and
Speaker 4: they'd never come out with the fact that this person
Speaker 4: was diagnosed. It would just be business as usual. Isn't
Speaker 4: that sort of the argument we make with the super
Speaker 4: elite that potentially possessed technology that's beyond the reach of
Speaker 4: us smear mortals, like life extension technology and things like that,
Speaker 4: is and that how it would work hypothetically hypothetically.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But then we also have to wonder how to
Speaker 1: explain the deaths of people who are billionaires who expired
Speaker 1: due to cancer cancer related causes. Is that part of
Speaker 1: the cover up too? Do they really die of something
Speaker 1: else and they said, okay, call it cancer so that
Speaker 1: the peasants don't know we have the cure.
Speaker 4: Well, and they're presumably living on a billionaire island somewhere.
Speaker 1: Yes, Yeah, is Warren Buffett like the only billionaire who
Speaker 1: has a modest ranch style home he seems like he likes.
Speaker 4: To keep it relatively unostentatious. For the most part. He
Speaker 4: spends his money in smart ways and not in showy ways.
Speaker 4: That's a good question, though, Ben.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Let us know if you know a
Speaker 1: modest billionaire who can help illuminate our investigation into the
Speaker 1: idea of a suppressed cancer cure.
Speaker 2: And maybe pump millions, if not billions into cancer research.
Speaker 1: Right, Like, well, you know what, great example, David Coch
Speaker 1: died of cancer. Yeah. Right, So here's another twist to
Speaker 1: this story. Not only do about one one in three
Speaker 1: Americans believe that there's something fishy here, but there are
Speaker 1: multiple numerous groups, individuals, and institutions who claim not only
Speaker 1: is there a suppressed secure but that they have discovered
Speaker 1: this cure or a cure. We could do an entire
Speaker 1: series on the various claims involved, but let's take a
Speaker 1: break for a word from our sponsor, and then we'll
Speaker 1: come back and we'll look at a couple of let's
Speaker 1: call them notable highlights. Guys. I've got to admit I've
Speaker 1: put this first one in here just because I think
Speaker 1: the guy's name is awesome. All of his claims aside,
Speaker 1: the name Royal Rife is an amazing name.
Speaker 4: Classically good name, so good, somewhere between a news anchor
Speaker 4: and a porn.
Speaker 1: Star perhaps perhaps. Yeah, And you know it's it's one
Speaker 1: of those names that I would use as a different persona,
Speaker 1: you know, in like an airport or a strange city.
Speaker 4: Royal Raymond Rife, Hey, you go call me roy Royal.
Speaker 4: I mean, the only Royal I know is from the
Speaker 4: fictional Royal Tananbombs. His name was Royal, the main character
Speaker 4: made by Gene Hackman. I've never met I've never known
Speaker 4: a person named Royal before.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, the future looms vast and welcoming before us,
Speaker 1: and the horizon of time rushes towards us.
Speaker 4: Even now you think it's welcoming. I find it quite foreboding.
Speaker 1: I'm you know, I am. I'm trying to manifest the secret,
Speaker 1: even if I don't believe in it.
Speaker 4: The secret secret, the one from the book.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: Subsequent film adaptation is gonna think positive.
Speaker 2: Well, Royal Rife certainly was thinking positive when he developed
Speaker 2: a beam ray that's in quotations.
Speaker 4: There's a beam, yes, what is it a beam or
Speaker 4: a ray?
Speaker 1: It's a beam ray.
Speaker 2: It's a beam ray. It's not a weapon. It's a
Speaker 2: you know, a tool to be used to cure certain
Speaker 2: diseases if aimed, you know, in the right place and
Speaker 2: used correctly. And one of those things that he thought
Speaker 2: he could cure was cancer. And the way it's done
Speaker 2: is through vibrating the cancerous cells. Vibration essentially is the
Speaker 2: means by which Royal Rife believed his beam ray could
Speaker 2: cure cancer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he built on the work of a fellow named
Speaker 1: doctor Albert Abrams. Abrams thought that every single disease had
Speaker 1: a unique electromagnetic frequency, and these men believe that because
Speaker 1: of that, doctors could kill or treat diseased or cancer
Speaker 1: cells by sending an electrical impulse identical to that cells
Speaker 1: electromagnetic frequency. This you've heard of this before, if you're
Speaker 1: a longtime listener to this show. This is sometimes called
Speaker 1: radioics r ad ion ICs.
Speaker 2: It's a fascinating concept, right, if you could isolate just
Speaker 2: the bad cells and then take those out.
Speaker 4: There's a very similar and I think if we're head
Speaker 4: in the direction, I believe we are similarly debunked technology
Speaker 4: that was using forensics called I can't remember the name,
Speaker 4: but it used radioactive isotopes to identify materials in lead
Speaker 4: and bullets, and the concept was that they all had
Speaker 4: these distinctly unique signatures per specific bullet. But it turns
Speaker 4: out that wasn't the case at all. It'd be like
Speaker 4: the equivalent of picking up a conk shell and saying
Speaker 4: this is you know, this is a unique conk shell,
Speaker 4: but it would actually have a similar signature to like
Speaker 4: every other conk shell that ever existed. So there were
Speaker 4: folks that were put into prison for a very long
Speaker 4: time using this technology, and then it was debunked and
Speaker 4: those people were subsequently released Wow.
Speaker 1: But couldn't get their lives back. Also, so we know
Speaker 1: that Rife, similar to Samulwis, was certain that the Academy
Speaker 1: had turned on him, right, and he thought, I am
Speaker 1: bringing this pioneering cure to the world. I don't want
Speaker 1: to make a ton of money. It's not about the money, right,
Speaker 1: It's about saving lives. There was a San Diego Evening
Speaker 1: Tribune article that came out about Rife in nineteen thirty eight,
Speaker 1: and in this he's it's interesting he stopped short of
Speaker 1: saying I can cure cancer, but he says I can
Speaker 1: devitalize disease organisms and living tissue with certain exceptions.
Speaker 2: So it sounds like pr to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's like, I'm not saying this is a panacea
Speaker 1: for everything. But the problem with his beam ray, similar
Speaker 1: to the problem with a lot of radionics experiments and
Speaker 1: a lot of oregone experiments, was that people said it
Speaker 1: could not be independently replicated and independent researchers. Then throughout
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties I edited Rife. You can see his
Speaker 1: obituary in the Daily Californian when he passed away at
Speaker 1: the age of eighty three on August fifth, nineteen seventy one,
Speaker 1: and according to the Daily Californian, Rife died penniless and
Speaker 1: convinced that there was there was something rotten afoot in
Speaker 1: the Academy.
Speaker 4: Hey, they published it in the much maligned Disgraced column
Speaker 4: in the obituaries that day.
Speaker 1: Wow, whatever happened to the disgraced column?
Speaker 4: And now people just it's not PC anymore. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm joking obviously, But it does seem like they don't
Speaker 4: say things like that in people's obituaries anymore. No, they
Speaker 4: don't even say like suicide. They don't say anything about
Speaker 4: cause of death. It's all just the broad strokes of
Speaker 4: who they're you know, who left they left behind and
Speaker 4: all that stuff, which is fine. Sure, it means you
Speaker 4: got to do your homework a little more. Back in
Speaker 4: the day, he used to be able to find everything
Speaker 4: about about it by the dish from their obituary.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a certain amount of schaden freud and
Speaker 1: some of those earlier ones.
Speaker 4: I think so too better or worse today?
Speaker 2: What do you think, oh, bits in general, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: say better, Okay, Nope, nope, I'm gonna say worse. Nope,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna say neutral. I would say, well, here's the deal.
Speaker 2: Almost all obituaries are now written ahead of time unless
Speaker 2: it's you know, if it's a person of note, there's
Speaker 2: probably an a bit in one at least one major newspaper.
Speaker 2: If you are a person of note, that's like trigger
Speaker 2: yeah exactly, and then some stuff will be added to it.
Speaker 2: So I would say it's probably more accurate. Obituaries are
Speaker 2: probably more accurate for at least people of whatever standing,
Speaker 2: whatever metric we want to get polished.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the final pr statement, how many times do you
Speaker 4: think they've updated Jimmy Carter's oh bit on file multiple.
Speaker 1: Yeah, every time that poor guy takes a fall. There
Speaker 1: is an editor in chief somewhere who like looks at
Speaker 1: the USB drive or their dropbox or in my you know,
Speaker 1: in in my head. What this editor does is they
Speaker 1: have an alert whenever former President Carter is injured or something.
Speaker 1: And then they look down at their at the like
Speaker 1: the bottom third drawer in there, of course, in their
Speaker 1: wooden news desk, and they open that bottom drawer just
Speaker 1: a little bit and then they pull out the they
Speaker 1: pull out the one sheet for the obituary, and they
Speaker 1: read through it to see if they need to make
Speaker 1: any changes. It's probably like a mad libby blank space
Speaker 1: right where they put what actually happened, and then they
Speaker 1: just put it on their desk and they wait to
Speaker 1: see what happens. And then you know, the next thing,
Speaker 1: you know, next thing, you know, Jimmy is back building
Speaker 1: houses with habitat for humanity. So, with a sigh of relief,
Speaker 1: the editor in chief takes that one sheet, they put
Speaker 1: it back in that third drawer.
Speaker 2: And then they pull out Dick Cheney's and put it
Speaker 2: on there and they just hope do.
Speaker 4: A voodoo incantation.
Speaker 1: Right, It's I mean, it's true that it's true that
Speaker 1: this obituary does not seem partly forgiving. In Rife's case,
Speaker 1: he did blame the lack of recognition on an actual conspiracy.
Speaker 1: He said, the AMA, the American Medical Association, the Department
Speaker 1: of Public Health, and other elements of what he called
Speaker 1: organized medicine like that nice dovetail with organized crime. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he said they had brainwashed and intimidated his colleagues, and
Speaker 1: so he died seeing himself as a new Semmelweis who
Speaker 1: is destined to be posthumously acknowledged for his work.
Speaker 2: Wow. I you know, I love that we brought it
Speaker 2: back to civilvice already, because that is that is a feeling.
Speaker 2: I think, no matter what where the truth lies, with
Speaker 2: a lot of these people we're going to be talking about,
Speaker 2: in these cures, like we've said before, nobody believes they're
Speaker 2: a villain, right. I think a lot of these people
Speaker 2: probably believed so deeply in their own version of a
Speaker 2: cure that there was almost maybe again no matter if
Speaker 2: it's true or not, there was magical thinking happening, I
Speaker 2: want to say, in the in their own belief for
Speaker 2: their cure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you know, and that's that's a fair point,
Speaker 1: and that a lot of people might not want to hear, right,
Speaker 1: especially when you have the sunk costs of spending your
Speaker 1: entire life, your entire professional life, trying to pursue this
Speaker 1: in what is a noble way. We can say Royal Rife,
Speaker 1: at the very least was not some kind of flim
Speaker 1: flam man. He genuinely believed what he was doing. There
Speaker 1: there's another example. Well, let's go away from a person
Speaker 1: for a second and let's look at an actual substance.
Speaker 1: There's a thing called latrill, which was widely sold as
Speaker 1: a cure for cancer until was banned by the FDA.
Speaker 1: And when something is banned by the FDA, that gives
Speaker 1: a lot of fuel to the fire for people who
Speaker 1: believe in suppressed medicine, because then you can say the
Speaker 1: FDA banned it, not because it didn't work.
Speaker 2: Because it was working.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And the reason for this ban was that there
Speaker 4: had been extensive clinical trials in the seventies and throughout
Speaker 4: the eighties that proved it had zero effect on cancer
Speaker 4: whatsoever except the delightful side effect of giving cyanide poisoning
Speaker 4: to folks who attempted this remedy that often proved to
Speaker 4: be fatal. So good on UFDA for taking poison off
Speaker 4: the market, for.
Speaker 1: Doing your job and way to go. But you can
Speaker 1: still find it today. That's the thing about the substance.
Speaker 1: It's not sold under that name. It's sometimes called amygdalen
Speaker 1: or vitamin B seventeen.
Speaker 4: That sounds like a really intense vitamin.
Speaker 1: It's a high class, sophisticated vitamin.
Speaker 4: Amygdalen is fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, like the amygdala. I don't know why
Speaker 2: I know a migdala is different from the medulla oblngata, but
Speaker 2: I always think about that, and I always imagine the
Speaker 2: professor from water Boy.
Speaker 1: We also learn about those pieces of the brain, and
Speaker 1: usually in the same day in school.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's it.
Speaker 1: So funny story about vitamin B seventeen. There's no such thing. Oh,
Speaker 1: there's not a there's not a vitamin B seventeen.
Speaker 4: How many b's are there? Sixteen?
Speaker 2: No, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 4: Twelve. I know there's twelve B twelve Is that the maximum?
Speaker 2: What about maximum B complex?
Speaker 4: Reach peak B?
Speaker 1: We've reached peak B. Finally, let's say there's B one,
Speaker 1: B two, B three. It's definitely B six, B twelve.
Speaker 1: I feel like, now we've got the bueller bueler.
Speaker 4: Oh, No, funny thing is it's not completely sequential. Well,
Speaker 4: there's there's eight, right, you've got B one, B two,
Speaker 4: B three. Then there's no B four.
Speaker 1: No, it's too funny. There's only they can't there's.
Speaker 4: B six, which is bias N B seven fold eight,
Speaker 4: and then we got no. B eight. Was as that's
Speaker 4: too funny too, I think. So I think B four
Speaker 4: and B eight are just too rife. B nine and
Speaker 4: then we go all the way to twelve, shoot up
Speaker 4: to twelve. BE nine is funny. That would be good.
Speaker 4: Maybe that should have been the one that cured cancer. Right,
Speaker 4: man renders cancer B nine.
Speaker 1: We got here too late, you know what I mean?
Speaker 4: At least for the naming conventions. We really could have
Speaker 4: done some good with that. We could have whiteboarded the
Speaker 4: heck out of this man. Man.
Speaker 1: But the problem with this Brian Dunning writes a fairly
Speaker 1: good summation of this over at Skeptoid is that this
Speaker 1: B seventeen case is one of the only cases we
Speaker 1: can find of a product being banned or suppressed, however
Speaker 1: you want to describe it. By FDA, by Big Pharma.
Speaker 1: And that's because the product did have toxic effects on people.
Speaker 1: So that's a real case of a cancer treatment being
Speaker 1: pulled from the market. It was not pulled from the market,
Speaker 1: the story goes, because it was in any way effectively
Speaker 1: treating case. Answer, it was just it was more effective
Speaker 1: at giving people cyanide poisoning.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 4: I mean, what was the cyanide content of this of
Speaker 4: this drug? Twelve percent?
Speaker 1: Nice?
Speaker 2: Oh oh man. They should have known.
Speaker 4: They're always trying to find new uses for cyanide if
Speaker 4: it's gonna gets a bad rap, you know. Yeah, I
Speaker 4: think that's the thing.
Speaker 1: Cyanide was the original corn. Right, everything has corn in
Speaker 1: it now and it used to be sid Let's let's
Speaker 1: go back to ko ko or sorry, yes, yeah, yeah, yes,
Speaker 1: yep ah. What is that guy's name? Jonathan Davis?
Speaker 4: He plays the bagpipes and has his white boy dreads.
Speaker 2: I'm actually like working with him a little bit, like,
Speaker 2: you know, in a weird tertiary way.
Speaker 4: Oh cool, are you guys, homies?
Speaker 2: No, but he's writing some music for a thing.
Speaker 1: Oh nice, man, congratsund like this.
Speaker 2: It's weird.
Speaker 1: It sounds just like that who does the baselines? Is
Speaker 1: it still the other I feel like, yeah, love those bases.
Speaker 4: He always played his bass like pointing directly. It was
Speaker 4: almost like a cello, very slippity slappity. So there's another
Speaker 4: guy who is not a member of Korn. His name
Speaker 4: is Stanislav Brazenski. That would have been cool if there
Speaker 4: was a guy in corn named Stanislav and he got
Speaker 4: Fieldy head Monkey, Jonathan Davis and stanislavs. Brazinski.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this guy, this guy has a story. I think
Speaker 2: I've mentioned this before, but I had a cousin out
Speaker 2: in Texas who was working with Stanislav Brazinski, like directly
Speaker 2: with the Foundation in some kind of respect. But she
Speaker 2: wanted us actually to do an episode on this, but
Speaker 2: I kind of turned it down because she was very
Speaker 2: adamant and I don't know her position today, but very
Speaker 2: adamant that Stanislav did have the cure for cancer.
Speaker 1: Yeah. There's a documentary about Brazinski called The Cancer Cover Up,
Speaker 1: which is available for free on YouTube. This is not
Speaker 1: an endorsement, but if you want to learn more about
Speaker 1: the story, I would check that out. With the knowledge
Speaker 1: that if you couldn't tell from the title, the documentary
Speaker 1: is very much of the opinion that Brazinski is actually
Speaker 1: treating cancer with success. His surfaces in the late nineteen
Speaker 1: sixties when he proposes that there is a naturally occurring,
Speaker 1: continuously functioning biochemical system in the body that is different
Speaker 1: and distinct from the immune system, and that this other
Speaker 1: system can correct cancer cells by means of special chemicals
Speaker 1: that reprogram these cells. And this leads him to create
Speaker 1: what is known as the Brazinski Clinic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, cells that in particular, as we have discussed already,
Speaker 2: the cancer cells, that something has gone haywire within their
Speaker 2: genetics and they're just reproducing and in the inert in
Speaker 2: weird ways and yet reproducing. Basically the stuff would stop
Speaker 2: that turn them back into regular cells. So the clinic
Speaker 2: itself that it's called the Brazenci Clinic. It was founded
Speaker 2: in seventy six and it is in Texas. It just
Speaker 2: kind of goes along with my cousin's story and perhaps
Speaker 2: why she got interested in the first place. And it's
Speaker 2: best known for this controversial therapy known as anti neoplastin
Speaker 2: that sounds a little weird, anti neo plastin, and it
Speaker 2: was developed by Brazinski in the nineteen seventies. Now this
Speaker 2: is his term anti neoplastin for this group of Now
Speaker 2: get this urine derived peptides, okay, peptide derivatives as well
Speaker 2: as mixtures that Brazinski named to use in his cancer treatment,
Speaker 2: so that those are the substances, the chemicals that would
Speaker 2: get pumped into you if you were undergoing treatment.
Speaker 1: And the clinic has been the focus of some ongoing criticism,
Speaker 1: mainly because of the way this anti neoplastin therapy is promoted,
Speaker 1: also because of the cost for people with cancer participating
Speaker 1: in trials, and then of course there are some other
Speaker 1: medical professionals who object to the way in which these
Speaker 1: trials are run. There have also been legal cases brought
Speaker 1: as a result of the sale of this therapy because
Speaker 1: it doesn't have or it didn't have approval from the
Speaker 1: Texas State Board.
Speaker 2: There are also a lot of allegations that the numbers
Speaker 2: are being manipulated about successful cases, survivors, how long, what
Speaker 2: side effects there could be. There's a lot of I mean,
Speaker 2: it's what, there's a lot of controversy out there about this,
Speaker 2: and it's certainly worth your time to look into if
Speaker 2: you're interested in this kind of thing. Again, we're not
Speaker 2: trying to make anyone believe in or not believe in
Speaker 2: any of these things. It's just kind of giving you
Speaker 2: what we found.
Speaker 1: And it's important to note examples like this. This is
Speaker 1: just one of many examples, but it's important to note
Speaker 1: this one in particular because it is an ongoing case,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. It's not something from the
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds or the nineteen thirties.
Speaker 2: If you go to the website quackwatch dot org, you
Speaker 2: can read a whole bunch about Stanislav Brazinski and the
Speaker 2: treatments and what's supposed to be happening the claims. There
Speaker 2: have been several published clinical studies that you can actually
Speaker 2: read parts of in there. We would highly recommend it absolutely.
Speaker 1: There is one other example then we have to hit
Speaker 1: today because many of our fellow listeners wrote into us
Speaker 1: recently about this case. And this case comes to us
Speaker 1: through strange avenue. It's the story of a man born
Speaker 1: Alfredo Darrington Bowman, but perhaps better known today as doctor Seby.
Speaker 1: I don't know, guys, I don't know why, but my
Speaker 1: cadence keeps falling into this odd ser Lean thing.
Speaker 4: Dude.
Speaker 1: I just was about to say, yeah, yet.
Speaker 2: What says doctor sebt sippy?
Speaker 1: It's always been my dream to be that guy you
Speaker 1: already are you are?
Speaker 4: Uh tell us about We actually had a very interesting
Speaker 4: uh and it's funny. It was deja vu for me
Speaker 4: at this point. Matt and I and a ride from
Speaker 4: Lax to our hotel on this last trip we all
Speaker 4: took to la we got into the conversation. But while
Speaker 4: we were there, and so we had this you know,
Speaker 4: conspiracy open minded critical thing approach to conspiracy theories podcasts,
Speaker 4: just how we tend to phrase it. And he asked
Speaker 4: if we had heard of doctor Sebbi, and he seemed
Speaker 4: to really stand behind him very much. And I actually, funny,
Speaker 4: had a similar conversation with another lift driver years ago
Speaker 4: and he was like preaching the gospel of Sebi to me. Well,
Speaker 4: I had not heard of the guy at all, but
Speaker 4: now now I know a little bit about him.
Speaker 2: Why do you think we're talking about him right now?
Speaker 2: Because of that? Because of that ride, buddy, So uh, well,
Speaker 2: we'll tell us a little bit.
Speaker 4: About doctor Selby. Absolutely. This comes from a healthline dot
Speaker 4: com article that describes doctor Sebbi as a gentleman who
Speaker 4: claimed that his diet could cure everything from AIDS to
Speaker 4: sickle cell anemia, to leukemia and lupus. But he was
Speaker 4: sued in nineteen ninety three and was ordered to stop
Speaker 4: making these claims.
Speaker 2: But that is it's not the first time that he
Speaker 2: had to go to court with these kinds of things,
Speaker 2: But that nineteen ninety three to one is important again
Speaker 2: because he had to stop saying those things.
Speaker 4: He absolutely had to stop. He was he was required
Speaker 4: by law to cease promotion of his diet because it's
Speaker 4: literally what we would call maybe a fad diet for
Speaker 4: all intents and purposes, involving things like vegetables, fruits, grains, nuts, seeds, oils,
Speaker 4: and herbs, things that he would particularly curate animal products
Speaker 4: big no no, and SEBBI basically promote well, he was
Speaker 4: essentially promoting a vegan, yes.
Speaker 2: But along with herb like some supplemental or some herbal
Speaker 2: supplements and some other supplements. I would say that they
Speaker 2: it's not that they weren't allowed to continue promoting it,
Speaker 2: you know, or using this diet or selling this kind
Speaker 2: of thing.
Speaker 4: It was just that can't make those claims set in
Speaker 4: order to promote it. Right, Yes, yes, it's the same
Speaker 4: kind of stuff that Alex Joneses got in trouble for.
Speaker 4: I believe with the bone, yeah, the bone broths and
Speaker 4: all that stuff. I don't think he's allowed to say
Speaker 4: some of the things that he once said in terms
Speaker 4: of how those things can you know, prevent you from
Speaker 4: getting irradiated or whatever you know in the apocalypse.
Speaker 2: Here's, in my opinion, one of the reasons why doctor
Speaker 2: Sibby was so successful. It's because the the methodology about
Speaker 2: why these supplements and why this diet worked. It feels
Speaker 2: really simple, and if you're anybody, you can hear someone
Speaker 2: describe this and say, oh, okay, yeah, I could get that.
Speaker 2: I could get behind that. And the whole concept here
Speaker 2: is that all illness within the human body comes from
Speaker 2: high levels of acidity, which then results in mucus production
Speaker 2: and the mucus depending on what part of the body
Speaker 2: is ill. Let's say you've got a bum elbow or something,
Speaker 2: you've got some arthritis in there. Doctor SEBI's belief is
Speaker 2: that there's mucus build up in there from high acidity,
Speaker 2: and his diet is going to be alkaline and reduce
Speaker 2: the acidity and basically get your body back in harmony
Speaker 2: and then your mucus will go away and your illness.
Speaker 4: Does this sound eerily familiar to the medieval quackery of humors, right,
Speaker 4: and and phlam and mucous spile? It was, It was.
Speaker 4: It was all related to the balance of these bodily fluids, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Is that it certainly comes from an older belief system.
Speaker 1: It does come from an older belief system, but so
Speaker 1: does the medieval belief in us, the idea that one
Speaker 1: could be melancholic.
Speaker 4: Right, I have a great book.
Speaker 1: On that if you guys. Ever, never mind, never mind,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna go back and read it. The
Speaker 1: illustrations great. This also, yeah, okay, I'll bring it in.
Speaker 1: This is also back when one of the forefronts of
Speaker 1: European medicine was to have people pee in glass or
Speaker 1: transparent beakers and then to hold the urine up to
Speaker 1: the light and guess what was wrong with the person
Speaker 1: Based on the interpretations of the europe.
Speaker 4: Do it like a wine tasting or you switch it around.
Speaker 1: There was some sniffing, for sure. Yeah, okay, there was
Speaker 1: some sniffing.
Speaker 4: Disgusting sound because I'm really sorry.
Speaker 1: And I don't know how wide spread asparagus was.
Speaker 4: You know, just not to de real. But not everyone.
Speaker 4: Not everyone's pee will smell funny when they eat asparagus.
Speaker 1: It's true. It's kind of like the cilantro things.
Speaker 2: Or is it that you can't smell it? That's what
Speaker 2: I'm saying. Not every can smell it. I don't know.
Speaker 2: Look man science out on that one.
Speaker 1: Let us know, folks, Let us know. I know there
Speaker 1: are several people who listened to this show for years
Speaker 1: wondering when we were going to finally address the elephant
Speaker 1: in the room of asparagus and urine. So there you are, folks,
Speaker 1: that's we finally got around to it.
Speaker 4: There's a brain stuff about that. I know. I'm josh
Speaker 4: there should be Josh. I think it's a Joshua.
Speaker 2: I know. There you go. So let's uh, let's just
Speaker 2: get back to Sebbi really fast, because a lot of
Speaker 2: the criticism ends up, well, not a lot of the criticism,
Speaker 2: but there is criticism to be uh to be levied
Speaker 2: at doctor Sebbe because the claim basically here is that
Speaker 2: you can you can heal yourself from literally anything from
Speaker 2: AIDS to cancer to whatever it is if you follow
Speaker 2: this diet. Consistently for the rest of your life and
Speaker 2: it will never come back and you'll be.
Speaker 4: Good to go.
Speaker 1: Let your food be your medicine.
Speaker 2: Yes, And it's again it's one of those things where
Speaker 2: it was links to profit because there was a company.
Speaker 2: There is a company right now that you can go
Speaker 2: to the website for. It's a doctor Sebbi's Sell Food.
Speaker 2: Doctor SEBI's Sell Food. It offers supplements meant to quote
Speaker 2: expedite the healing process if you're following along with the diet.
Speaker 4: And you can check this out for yourself at doctor
Speaker 4: sebissellfood dot com where he has Nutritional Guy a blog.
Speaker 4: You know, his whole methodology is his bio and all
Speaker 4: this stuff. And of course you can purchase these things.
Speaker 4: And I believe the the basic pack in question here
Speaker 4: is what like seven hundred and fifty bucks. The advanced package, Oh,
Speaker 4: the advanced pack, so you can get in for a
Speaker 4: little you can get in, you know, for maybe a
Speaker 4: couple hundred.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think there's a couple on there that are like
Speaker 2: in the two hundred and three hundred dollars range.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure if you did research you could find
Speaker 1: independent suppliers of the different substances offered in the pack
Speaker 1: and maybe save money. I'm I haven't done the math
Speaker 1: on it.
Speaker 4: No, Well, actually, the Advance pack is sort of the basic.
Speaker 4: Then there's an all inclusive pack that's fifteen hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: So there's Advance is the lowest tier.
Speaker 4: That's the lowest tier of like a whole collection of stuff.
Speaker 4: Then you can buy individual you know, remedies or whatever.
Speaker 4: There's something called the Booster Package, which is five hundred
Speaker 4: and seventy five dollars, and you can buy you know,
Speaker 4: individual things from everything from bromide plus capsules for thirty
Speaker 4: bucks to doctor SEBI's blood pressure balance herbal tea sixteen bucks.
Speaker 1: Ye.
Speaker 2: The point here is that it's not cheap to write
Speaker 2: to get in on this kind of diet if you're
Speaker 2: going to follow it and take the supplements provided by
Speaker 2: the company.
Speaker 1: However, many people will swear that the program has healed
Speaker 1: them one ailment or another. At the time of reporting,
Speaker 1: as far as we could find, no universally acknowledged scientific
Speaker 1: studies supported these claims. They still live squarely in the
Speaker 1: realm of the anecdote, which doesn't make them false. Means
Speaker 1: that at this point they have not held up to
Speaker 1: scientific rigor. That doesn't mean that there's no sense to it,
Speaker 1: because clearly some people believe that it has worked.
Speaker 4: No, And you're absolutely right, Ben, But I will say
Speaker 4: I think it's a little unusual and not unusual at all,
Speaker 4: maybe on the nose that the labels on all these
Speaker 4: products literally look like the kind of labels you would
Speaker 4: have seen on the snake oil stuff sold out of
Speaker 4: carts back in the olden days. You know, it's like
Speaker 4: an old font and says doctor Sebbi is sell food,
Speaker 4: and like it's got a picture of him in the middle,
Speaker 4: and it's like tooth powder, you know. I mean, it's
Speaker 4: like even the names of them. There's like there's something
Speaker 4: called eye wash and green food.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm just in my opinion, it's as close as
Speaker 2: you can get to making it look like medicine or
Speaker 2: having the mind go to medicine without claiming that it's
Speaker 2: actually medicine.
Speaker 1: Because the FDA will pop you for that. There's also
Speaker 1: a conspiracy related to doctor sebb that extends beyond his
Speaker 1: claims to cure cancer, and that is the conspiracy surrounding
Speaker 1: his passing. Here's how a lot of people found out
Speaker 1: about doctor Sebbe. It was not through seeking cancer treatments.
Speaker 1: It was through the interest of the late emce and
Speaker 1: activist Nipsey Hustle, whom some of our fellow hip hop
Speaker 1: fans may be familiar with. Hustle, at the time of
Speaker 1: his own death, was reportedly working on a documentary about
Speaker 1: doctor Sebbe, and we found a quote from him where
Speaker 1: he seems to confirm this. He says, I'm working on
Speaker 1: doing a documentary on the trial in the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 1: and Hussell says, when doctor Sebbe went to trial in
Speaker 1: New York, it was because he published in a newspaper
Speaker 1: that he had cured aids. He beat that case, says Nipsey,
Speaker 1: but nobody talks about it. I think the story is
Speaker 1: important if you look into the case. The way that
Speaker 1: the events broke down was that he was charged in
Speaker 1: eighty seven with practicing medicine without a license, but he
Speaker 1: was acquitted because jurors claim the state had failed to
Speaker 1: show he made an actual medical diagnosis.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and a claim that he was selling the cure
Speaker 2: necessarily because it was more about diet right.
Speaker 1: And after winning that case in the nineteen eighties, he
Speaker 1: went on to work with various celebrities who believed in
Speaker 1: his cause. Now, just I'm sure many of us listening
Speaker 1: know this, but we have to emphasize it. Just because
Speaker 1: someone happens to be famous does not in any way
Speaker 1: make them smarter than you. It doesn't make them dumber
Speaker 1: than you, It doesn't make them special in particular. It
Speaker 1: just makes them a person, right.
Speaker 2: And they probably have a better credit card than you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they probably have a better credit rating.
Speaker 4: Yeah, shows really heavy slate ones.
Speaker 2: No, I didn't say credit rating, I say credit card.
Speaker 1: Okay, the blacks, Yeah, what the heft. So people like
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson's and Segal, Eddie Murphy, John Travolta, Lisa Leftie
Speaker 1: Lopez all swore by doctor Sebi. Lisa Lopez said, I
Speaker 1: know a man who's been curing aid since nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 1: In her vociferous public support of the guy. But shortly afterwards,
Speaker 1: she was run off the road and died after leaving
Speaker 1: Sebbi's Usha healing village in Honduras. And some people will
Speaker 1: tell you, people who believe there's more to the story,
Speaker 1: they'll tell you that she was also targeted because she
Speaker 1: had been spreading his healing message. He's also reputed to
Speaker 1: have worked with Michael Jackson to treat painkiller addiction, and
Speaker 1: Sebbi later sued Michael Jackson for almost four hundred grand
Speaker 1: in unpaid bills and then six hundred something in lost revenue.
Speaker 1: The case was dismissed in twenty fifteen, and a year later,
Speaker 1: doctor Sebi dies. He's eighty two years old. He's in
Speaker 1: a jail cell in Honduras. He was arrested for carrying
Speaker 1: stacks and stacks of cash.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was I think thirty something thousand and forty
Speaker 2: fifty something thousand in another case. And he couldn't he
Speaker 2: couldn't say where it came from. That was the big issue.
Speaker 2: He's like, I just have this money. And he ended
Speaker 2: up in jail and then got pneumonia and passed away.
Speaker 1: Or was it pneumonia? Yeah, it's officially pneumonia. But people
Speaker 1: who believe that the academy or big Pharma was suppressing
Speaker 1: his work will say that he was murdered by the
Speaker 1: medical industry to again silence his message.
Speaker 2: Here's the deal. If big Pharma was going to take
Speaker 2: out doctor Sebbi, their best chances were in the eighties,
Speaker 2: probably or prior to the eighties before it was a
Speaker 2: big deal, and then they had all the way up
Speaker 2: to twenty sixteen to get the job done. And if
Speaker 2: they did in fact murder him, just the amount of
Speaker 2: time and effort, it just doesn't make sense to me.
Speaker 4: I seriously, you're saying they would have known the efficacy
Speaker 4: of his claims at earlier and then would have acted accordingly,
Speaker 4: as opposed to waiting until he got famous.
Speaker 2: Well, or maybe they couldn't take him out because he
Speaker 2: was too hot at the time. Whatever. I just I'm
Speaker 2: trying to gain I'm trying to go down the It
Speaker 2: doesn't feel like he got killed to me. But that's
Speaker 2: just my opinion.
Speaker 1: So with this, what we see is this, these are
Speaker 1: enormously contentious issues, and there's another conspiracy or a theory
Speaker 1: that gets ignored, that gets lost in the wash here
Speaker 1: or in the churn of different narratives, and it's this.
Speaker 1: It's something that's well, there are two, I would argue
Speaker 1: both are a little more plausible, and one is disturbing
Speaker 1: and one is incredibly disturbing. The first is this that
Speaker 1: there's a huge imbalance between private and public funding of
Speaker 1: cancer research, and that leads critics to say you know,
Speaker 1: big pharma may actually be slowing down the search for
Speaker 1: a cure to cancer. The conspiracy here is not that
Speaker 1: it exists, but that searching for it is being stymied
Speaker 1: because these are profit driven entities, and they focus their
Speaker 1: money on developing patentable single drug treatments and getting someone
Speaker 1: hooked for life on a pill instead of testing combination
Speaker 1: therapies or exploring a way to repurpose cheaper generic drugs.
Speaker 1: And if that's the case, then we're looking at something
Speaker 1: pretty depressing. It's less of a clever conspiracy by some
Speaker 1: shadowy cabal, and it's more like a bunch of people
Speaker 1: bumbling for short term profits because the long term stuff
Speaker 1: just won't deliver what the stockholders want. The other one
Speaker 1: and this one we save to the end because I
Speaker 1: think it's by far the most frightening. What if there
Speaker 1: is no conspiracy, What if there just is no cure.
Speaker 1: What if all these things just don't work. That's a
Speaker 1: world that people don't want to live in.
Speaker 4: And if anything bad, I mean, the thing that points
Speaker 4: to that as being the most believable option is the
Speaker 4: fact that these billionaires die of cancer.
Speaker 1: And that's hard to walk away from. That's hard to
Speaker 1: square if any of this stuff is true.
Speaker 4: I mean, well, I suppose you could take the Epstein
Speaker 4: approach and you know, like, oh, he died, he's dead,
Speaker 4: and he died of suicide, and now he's maybe actually
Speaker 4: secretly living on an island. Perhaps some of these billionaires
Speaker 4: made it look like they died of cancer when in
Speaker 4: fact they did receive the care and are now living
Speaker 4: off the grid. Who knows, how will we prove it.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I'm just again thought experiment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And that's the thing. So now we wrap up,
Speaker 1: and of course we don't have an answer, but this
Speaker 1: is a huge conversation that it is going to be
Speaker 1: continuing in some form or another, very very likely for
Speaker 1: the rest of our lives, unless there is some sort
Speaker 1: of panas Head discovered. Let's ask ourselves the case for
Speaker 1: or against conspiracy. So people who argue there is a
Speaker 1: conspiracy are going to say that it's a profit motive.
Speaker 1: There may be some Malthusian argument and they are saying
Speaker 1: that cancer helps cull the population. But cancer takes a
Speaker 1: while to kill people when it is fatal. Then there's
Speaker 1: the argument against the conspiracy, which also hinges on profit.
Speaker 1: Why would a profit motivated entity not instantly jump on
Speaker 1: the ability to be the exclusive source of a cancer
Speaker 1: cure that is hand over fist money.
Speaker 2: And it also would allow those people that you cured
Speaker 2: to then take whatever other drugs that you're selling that
Speaker 2: they might need in their lives.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, exactly. And there's one thing for sure as
Speaker 1: we end today, several of the alternative cancer cures being
Speaker 1: sold to sick people across this planet are themselves the
Speaker 1: result of true conspiracies, their schemes to exploit the desperate
Speaker 1: hopes of people who are suffering from horrific disease and
Speaker 1: to take their money without actually helping them at all,
Speaker 1: and in some cases, harming them. If you or a
Speaker 1: loved one are currently battling cancer, please do not give
Speaker 1: up hope, and please please please be vigilant. If you
Speaker 1: choose a certain treatment plan, whether tried and true or
Speaker 1: relatively unorthodox, consult a medical professional, preferably several if you can,
Speaker 1: before beginning treatment, and make sure that if something may
Speaker 1: possibly help you, it doesn't also harm you. And that's
Speaker 1: our classic episode for this evening. We can't wait to
Speaker 1: hear your thoughts.
Speaker 4: It's right, let us know what you think you can reach.
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