WEBVTT - Is RFK Jr. right about anything? 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:04.440 I'm manny, and this is no such thing. The show 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:08.119 where we settle our dumb arguments and yours by actually 0:00:08.160 --> 0:00:13.080 doing the research. On today's episode, does RFK Junior have 0:00:13.240 --> 0:00:13.720 a point? 0:00:16.800 --> 0:00:19.880 There's no no such thing, no such thing. 0:00:21.880 --> 0:00:28.880 Such than such than such. Thank you? 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:35.840 All right, how's it going, guys? Good as you can see. 0:00:35.920 --> 0:00:38.640 I'm set up it with all these boxes around me. 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:39.720 How is the move? 0:00:40.159 --> 0:00:43.519 It was fine. I think I went through like all 0:00:43.600 --> 0:00:47.960 of the classic moving processes where you think you don't 0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:51.440 have that much until it's the day before, and then 0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:53.880 you're like, how the hell do I haven't touched any 0:00:53.920 --> 0:00:56.680 of this in a year? The move was fine, but 0:00:56.720 --> 0:01:00.000 I still do have like a deep layer of resentment 0:01:00.280 --> 0:01:05.360 towards the previous landlords for selling the building and course, yeah, 0:01:05.400 --> 0:01:08.880 and making me move. I really liked that place. Speaking 0:01:08.959 --> 0:01:15.440 of someone who also inspires deep layers of resentment, that's good. Yeah, 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:22.240 thank you. This episode is about RFK Junior. Obviously. RFK 0:01:22.400 --> 0:01:25.520 Junior is the head of the HHS, the Health and 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:29.640 Human Services Department, which has a stated goal of enhancing 0:01:29.680 --> 0:01:32.640 the well being of all Americans. I think we're in 0:01:32.680 --> 0:01:35.919 a bit of a cliffhanger in regards to that mission, 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:39.840 because RFK Junior has pushed and promoted a lot of 0:01:40.040 --> 0:01:44.720 problematic theories and ideologies as it pertains to our health. 0:01:44.920 --> 0:01:48.200 But at the same time, he's captured the adoration of 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:51.760 millions of people in the so called Make America Healthy 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:54.240 Again movement, And so I thought this episode would be 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:57.800 a good opportunity to ask two questions. One, how has 0:01:57.840 --> 0:02:00.720 he taken these ideas and resonated with so many people? 0:02:00.880 --> 0:02:05.000 And too, what should we as trusters of science do 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:10.720 about his influence and reach? And so, similar to the 0:02:10.760 --> 0:02:13.640 episode we did about the rise of political violence and 0:02:13.760 --> 0:02:17.280 assassination attempts a couple months ago, I think we're going 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:20.400 to keep our intro here pretty short because we just 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:23.480 want to get straight to the expert. But first I 0:02:23.560 --> 0:02:25.960 just wanted to ask you, guys, where do you think 0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:29.000 his explosion and popularity comes from? 0:02:29.240 --> 0:02:32.160 If we're being honest, the reason RFK came unto my 0:02:32.280 --> 0:02:39.959 radar is because of Curb your Enthusiasm, Shara Hines, right, 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:43.560 And that was you know, he wasn't really on my 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:46.200 radar until people are like, oh my god, Cheryl's dating 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:46.760 at Kennedy. 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:51.240 I remember working on a show and they were covering 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:54.200 the anti VAXX movement, and RFK was obviously figured into that. 0:02:54.639 --> 0:02:57.040 And then just in his background, I knew he was 0:02:57.080 --> 0:02:59.200 an environmental lawyer, and that gave him some sort of 0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:03.160 legitimate See. Obviously, also being a Kennedy, people assume you're 0:03:03.520 --> 0:03:07.480 probably not going to be totally crazy, even though yeah, 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:09.880 it's kind of a cursed family. He was always kind 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:13.040 of careful, careful enough in his phrasing for things to 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:15.079 kind of have one foot in and foot out. I 0:03:15.080 --> 0:03:16.200 think we still see that today. 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:20.000 I think years ago, I remember, like years like before 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:22.240 I got to New York, like in college. Maybe I 0:03:22.320 --> 0:03:27.520 remember hearing about some of the things he was doing 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:30.560 for the environment, for the cause of the environment. I 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:34.280 remember he got arrested, I think, and I remember thinking, wow, like, 0:03:34.560 --> 0:03:36.880 this is a Kennedy who's part of this like very 0:03:37.040 --> 0:03:40.800 established apparatus of politics. But here's one of the family 0:03:40.800 --> 0:03:43.800 members who's kind of going out getting arrested because he 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:45.280 cares about the environment so much. 0:03:45.440 --> 0:03:48.760 Tell us why you got arrested yesterday, Bob. We were 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:52.560 protesting the Xcel pipeline or demonstrating. 0:03:52.840 --> 0:03:57.160 Yeah, he's arrested for a keystone Excel oil pipeline protest 0:03:57.280 --> 0:03:58.920 at the White House seeing. 0:03:58.680 --> 0:04:01.160 Wow, that's incredible considering the people he works for. Now, 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:04.200 fast forward, fast forward years and years and years, he's 0:04:04.240 --> 0:04:07.760 running for president. He's got all these scandals. The one 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:10.240 thing I remember sticking out the most in terms of 0:04:10.280 --> 0:04:15.320 like controversy was this measles vaccine moment that happened in Samoa. 0:04:15.400 --> 0:04:16.200 Have you guys heard of this. 0:04:16.360 --> 0:04:19.640 There's an update from the Samoan government latest. Over three 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:22.919 thousand measles cases reported, one hundred and ninety eight recorded 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:26.159 in the last twenty four hours, fifty three measles related death. 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:30.680 Basically before this outbreak, two kids died after getting the 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:34.000 measles vaccine, not because the vaccine was dangerous, but because 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:38.080 the nurses accidentally mixed the vaccine with a muscle relaxant 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:42.080 instead of water, which is how you're usually supposed to 0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:44.160 do it. RFK Junior kind of saw that as an 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:46.920 opportunity to be like, hey, look, the measles vaccine is 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:52.560 killing kids, and he visited the island and drummed up 0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:56.600 all of this anti vaccine rhetoric. The vaccination rates dropped 0:04:56.800 --> 0:04:59.400 on the island, and then when there was an outbreak, 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:03.800 so many people died, and he denies any involvement of 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:07.880 getting fewer people vaccinated. But if you talk to people there, 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:10.200 if you've talked to experts about it, they see a 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:14.320 pretty clear correlation between his rhetoric in Samoa and the 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:18.520 drop in vaccination rates during an outbreak that killed people. 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:24.599 Here's Senator Elizabeth Warren confronting RFK Junior about this at 0:05:24.600 --> 0:05:25.920 his confirmation hearing. 0:05:26.360 --> 0:05:29.919 Do you accept even a sentill, just even a sliver 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:36.920 of responsibility for the drop in vaccinations and the subsequent 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:40.800 deaths of more than seventy people, anything you do differently? 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:42.839 No, absolutely not. 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:46.719 The Samoa incident was years ago, But today RFK Junior 0:05:46.960 --> 0:05:49.760 is still going on about measles, talking about how vitamin 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:53.400 a is a good enough treatment for the measles outbreak 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:56.800 happening in Texas, and now kids there are overdosing on 0:05:56.920 --> 0:05:59.280 vitamin a, which I didn't even know was a thing, 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:03.039 learning so much about this, about how dumb all of 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:14.920 this is. All right, we have established the kind of 0:06:15.360 --> 0:06:19.919 healthcare risks that AREFK junior poses. But sometimes I struggle 0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:23.720 with how to process him, because, you know, like ten 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:26.760 percent of the shit he says, you do kind of 0:06:26.760 --> 0:06:29.040 go like, oh, okay, man, that kind of makes sense. 0:06:29.120 --> 0:06:32.200 He's talking about like ultra processed foods and how bad 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:35.720 they are for you, and it's like, yeah, okay, these 0:06:35.800 --> 0:06:39.480 like forever chemicals that are in the water. In the 0:06:39.520 --> 0:06:44.640 water doesn't sound good to me. He wants to do 0:06:45.600 --> 0:06:49.040 he wants to do universal HSA's, which is great but 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:51.880 weird because he's like gutting all of hhs. You know, 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:55.360 he talks about childhood obesity, being anti big pharma. If 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:58.400 I didn't know exactly who RFK Junior was and I 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:03.320 only listened to what he said in speeches, I could 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:06.960 pretty easily see someone getting caught up in that. 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:11.240 It's funny because we were stunning around the clip and 0:07:11.520 --> 0:07:13.280 I saw it for a few days before I actually 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:15.800 listened to what he said in the clip. But like 0:07:15.840 --> 0:07:18.080 the headline of the clip was like r K. Junior 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:20.160 is like, we need to take the phones out of 0:07:20.200 --> 0:07:22.280 the schools because they're not good for kids. 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:31.160 I was like, oh, yeah, I agree, agree, And then 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:33.840 you played a clip and then he's talking about, you know, 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:37.240 like how it fucks with their brains because of some 0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:38.760 way I don't even know. 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:44.400 The cell phones also produce electric magnetic radiation. It has 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:48.280 been shown to damage to neurological damage to kids when 0:07:48.320 --> 0:07:49.480 it's around them all day. 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:53.520 Yeah, the five gives actually what arget was, which is 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:55.200 like a new spin on it. 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:57.600 And I was like, all right, you know, not the 0:07:57.760 --> 0:08:00.680 reason why I would say take the phone out of 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:04.320 the schools. But I've heard people talk about Michelle Obama 0:08:04.360 --> 0:08:06.360 try to get people to eat healthier and people are 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:08.320 picking out so it's like some of this stuff, Like 0:08:08.400 --> 0:08:11.560 I don't think everything he's saying is out right, like 0:08:11.760 --> 0:08:15.240 this is dumb and bad, which I think, from my 0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:17.960 point of view makes it harder, right, Like it would 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:20.520 be a lot easier for me to know how to 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:22.800 approach this guy if everything he was saying was just 0:08:22.840 --> 0:08:26.960 sort of crazy and like I could just basically ignore it. 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:30.240 But the fact that like, yeah, we should be eating 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:32.719 less ultra processed foods, but like the way that he 0:08:32.760 --> 0:08:36.400 wants to tackle it is like not allowing for snap 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:39.520 benefits to cover ultra processed foods, and it's like, Okay, 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:42.000 what are these people going to eat? And a lot 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:44.199 of these ways they don't have fresh fruits and vegetables, 0:08:44.200 --> 0:08:46.080 and as we all know, fresh fruits and vegetables are 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:50.880 a lot more expensive than ultra processed foods, So are 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:52.640 you gonna make you know, are you gonna get people 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:55.679 more snap benefits? And they're talking about cutting snap benefits right, 0:08:55.720 --> 0:08:58.640 So it's like there's always I feel like, oh yeah, 0:08:58.679 --> 0:09:01.080 that kind of makes sense. And then and either the 0:09:01.120 --> 0:09:05.520 way it's going to be executed or the reason for 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:07.560 some of this stuff kind of throws you off, So 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:10.520 it makes it makes it harder to sort of navigate. 0:09:10.679 --> 0:09:16.720 Yeah, I think he gets into a universally human problem, 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:19.120 which is like, we're so good at being able to 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:22.320 point out something that's bad, but it's when it comes 0:09:22.400 --> 0:09:24.400 time to like figuring out how to fix it or 0:09:25.400 --> 0:09:28.760 having any kind of like meaningful discourse about solutions, that's 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:29.560 just garbage. 0:09:29.760 --> 0:09:32.880 Listen, if he can solve autism by September, like you said. 0:09:33.360 --> 0:09:34.000 That's great. 0:09:34.640 --> 0:09:38.320 We recognize obviously autism is famously a spectrum, you know, 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:41.160 certainly livable, but it's like, you know, okay, this is 0:09:41.200 --> 0:09:43.400 concerning if it is rising this much, or is it 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:44.440 diagnosing whatever. 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:46.640 What drives me crazy about this shit is like there 0:09:46.640 --> 0:09:50.280 have been doctors who've been studying this stuff for decades. 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:53.320 And in just so we don't get demonetized. The CDC 0:09:53.679 --> 0:09:57.600 data shows that there is no correlation between vaccinations and 0:09:57.640 --> 0:10:02.320 an increase in autism. But RFK Junior is here to stay, 0:10:02.640 --> 0:10:04.600 and like I said at the top of this episode, 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:06.960 I want to figure out how he's been able to 0:10:06.960 --> 0:10:10.640 resonate with so many people and what we should be 0:10:10.720 --> 0:10:15.000 doing to deal with this kind of a figure that 0:10:15.200 --> 0:10:18.560 high up in office. So after the break, we're going 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:22.240 to talk to Derek Brez. He's a writer, an author, 0:10:22.840 --> 0:10:26.560 he's the co host of the Conspirituality podcast, and he 0:10:26.679 --> 0:10:31.319 has been covering RFK Junior extensively for the past few years. 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:39.280 All Right, we're here with Derek Berez, co author of 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:44.000 the Conspiratuality book and co founder of the Conspiratuality Podcast. 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:46.400 We want to talk to you, Derek, not just because 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:50.720 you've reported extensively on RFK Junior, but also because you've 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:56.000 reported on the wellness environment that surrounds basically everything that 0:10:56.080 --> 0:10:59.600 he does. But first, on the day of this recording, 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:03.800 actual RFK Junior announced at a cabinet meeting that he's 0:11:03.840 --> 0:11:07.280 going to figure out what's behind the quote autism epidemic 0:11:08.000 --> 0:11:10.600 by September of this year, by. 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:14.000 September, we will know what has caused autism an epidemic 0:11:14.040 --> 0:11:17.480 and will be able to elimit those exposures. 0:11:17.080 --> 0:11:19.800 So, Derek, I just want to get your reaction to this. 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:23.119 Can RFK Junior figure this out by September? 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:26.160 He figured it out years ago when he decided that 0:11:26.240 --> 0:11:28.560 he was going to start suing a lot of pharmaceutical 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:32.319 companies around vaccines. So he's doing science in the exact 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:35.000 way that science is not done, meaning he's already come 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:38.880 to a conclusion, and now he's been systematically putting the 0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:42.920 pieces into place to come to that conclusion in some 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:47.360 sort of official manner, even though the science is likely 0:11:47.400 --> 0:11:48.160 not to hold up. 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:52.480 So that's interesting because I consider RFK Junior to be 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:56.680 a peddler of misinformation. But do you think there's enough 0:11:56.679 --> 0:11:59.640 of an argument to be able to call this disinformation 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:02.920 where where he is being intentionally misleading? 0:12:03.280 --> 0:12:05.960 It's always hard for a lot of reasons, especially in 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:09.320 a litigious society like America, and RFK Junior being a 0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:11.679 lawyer who knows how to navigate that. But I would 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:16.080 say that if you were intentionally saying things in order 0:12:16.120 --> 0:12:20.680 to monetize them or to sway people to your side, 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:23.600 and to your opinion, I would call that disinformation. 0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:27.920 So, Derek, you and two other people, Julian Walker and 0:12:27.960 --> 0:12:33.920 Matthew Remsky wrote this incredible book called Conspiratuality. It talks 0:12:33.960 --> 0:12:39.240 about influencers in the wellness space who kind of pedal 0:12:39.480 --> 0:12:44.400 misinformation and conspiracy theories. And so I thought you would 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:47.920 be a great person to ask about how RFK Junior 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:51.720 and his ideas have resonated with so many people. So 0:12:51.920 --> 0:12:53.839 I'll just put the question to you, how the hell 0:12:53.880 --> 0:12:54.480 did this happen? 0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:02.000 We live in a for profit healthcare system that does 0:13:02.040 --> 0:13:07.960 not look out for people, and the idea that pharmaceutical companies, 0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:12.120 in alignment with insurance companies and medical systems would not 0:13:12.160 --> 0:13:15.680 be looking out for our best interest has affected tens 0:13:15.679 --> 0:13:18.520 of millions, hundreds of millions of Americans for a very 0:13:18.559 --> 0:13:22.240 long time. People don't go to preventive screenings or get 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:25.440 tests done because they can't afford them. So that that 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:30.240 is the root cause of so many people's frustration with medicine. Now, 0:13:30.320 --> 0:13:34.840 on top of that, we have a longstanding wellness quote 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:38.320 unquote community in America that has always looked to alternative medicine. 0:13:38.320 --> 0:13:41.120 In our book, we go back two hundred years finding 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:44.480 examples of this and probably goes back even further. And 0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:47.640 I was a yoga instructor for decades of my life. 0:13:47.679 --> 0:13:51.080 I was very heavily involved in the wellness community, working 0:13:51.080 --> 0:13:57.319 with food companies, and I know that community very well, 0:13:57.360 --> 0:14:01.000 having spent time there, and they are mostly well intention people. 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:04.120 But the problem is a lot of them are scientifically illiterate. 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:08.160 And that really is what happens is that RFK Junior 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:12.679 takes a feeling that people have about their being distrust 0:14:12.840 --> 0:14:17.959 in the government and with healthcare specifically, but then they 0:14:18.240 --> 0:14:21.200 do not really understand how the scientific process works, and 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:25.120 he exploits that gap in people's knowledge, and he appeals 0:14:25.160 --> 0:14:29.040 to this idea that nature at some point was healing 0:14:29.160 --> 0:14:31.600 and that everyone was just in great shape all of 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:34.720 the time, which is a complete fallacy, but he exploits 0:14:34.760 --> 0:14:35.800 those sorts of gaps and. 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:40.520 Knowledge you mentioned earlier. Being a part of the wellness 0:14:40.520 --> 0:14:44.960 community as a yoga instructor for my whole life, that 0:14:45.080 --> 0:14:49.760 kind of community has always been adjacent to, like a 0:14:49.880 --> 0:14:55.160 lefty liberalism. These days, I feel like that kind of 0:14:55.200 --> 0:14:59.640 community has been pretty successfully branded as closer to the right. 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:04.160 Could you explain that shift from the left to the right. 0:15:04.640 --> 0:15:08.320 So conspirituality is this sort of blending between new age 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:11.960 liberalism and right wing conservatism. But where the connective tissue 0:15:12.240 --> 0:15:16.680 in my feeling is that it's an individualism. These sorts 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:20.720 of spirituality that we practice in America is very self 0:15:20.920 --> 0:15:25.840 focused and self centered. It's always about healing the individual. 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:29.240 It's very rarely about talking about community, and usually when 0:15:29.280 --> 0:15:35.040 community is invoked, it usually only is my community, the 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:37.600 people who already believe the way that I do. So 0:15:37.800 --> 0:15:40.800 while on its face it seems like how did these 0:15:40.840 --> 0:15:44.880 communities come together, it's really a form of protectionism, of 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:48.080 self protectionism that has united them because a lot of 0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:52.360 so called Latte liberals, you know, they are also people 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:57.360 who are involved in nimbi movements. They want to solve homelessness, 0:15:57.400 --> 0:15:59.600 but they don't want it built on their block. So 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:03.200 that's kind of a feature of liberalism in America. 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:07.680 So I was recently watching one of those twenty versus 0:16:07.760 --> 0:16:12.360 one YouTube videos from Jubilee, and the topic for that 0:16:12.440 --> 0:16:17.200 episode was anti vaxxers versus a doctor. One of the 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:20.160 sentiments that kept coming up from the anti vaxxers was 0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:24.680 this idea that we are actually glowing away from nature, 0:16:24.680 --> 0:16:26.360 and the further we get away from nature, the more 0:16:26.480 --> 0:16:29.840 diseases we will see. I was wondering if you could 0:16:29.920 --> 0:16:34.520 respond to that sentiment, because I feel like nature could 0:16:34.600 --> 0:16:37.600 kind of kill you in a heartbeat. So what is 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:39.480 the science behind that. 0:16:39.600 --> 0:16:43.440 It's called the naturalistic fallacy, and it actually is another 0:16:43.520 --> 0:16:46.920 parallel with the right wing, because the right wing glorifies 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:50.200 the nineteen fifties post World World War two. America is 0:16:50.240 --> 0:16:53.120 this ideal time because it is when we became a 0:16:53.160 --> 0:16:55.920 global superpower, but there was a lot going on that 0:16:56.040 --> 0:16:58.480 was not good in the nineteen fifties. The same things 0:16:58.520 --> 0:17:01.200 happens in the wellness perspective, whereas this idea that we 0:17:01.200 --> 0:17:05.280 were once in harmony with nature, which is just total bullshit. 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:11.719 Before antibiotics, vaccines, and then measures like hand washing, you 0:17:11.760 --> 0:17:15.679 could very easily die of a cut. Infectious diseases killed people. 0:17:16.080 --> 0:17:18.320 You know. One thing that RFK Junior does is he 0:17:18.400 --> 0:17:20.840 goes we have a chronic disease epidemic. Now, we do 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:24.880 have problems with chronic diseases. But the reasons that chronic 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:29.040 diseases are more prevalent than infectious diseases right now is 0:17:29.119 --> 0:17:33.400 because We've solved a lot of problems with infectious diseases 0:17:33.800 --> 0:17:38.639 through vaccines and antibiotics, So this is just a different 0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:42.760 example of how we've been grappling and fighting against nature 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:46.639 for a long time. Becoming an apex predator doesn't just 0:17:46.760 --> 0:17:51.119 happen without a long struggle, and that struggle continues. But 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:56.040 in some senses, we're victims of our own success. We 0:17:56.160 --> 0:17:59.240 can pretty much eat any food anytime of the year 0:17:59.280 --> 0:18:01.880 from wherever we want, if we have things that would 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:05.800 have killed us just a few generations ago. I'm a 0:18:05.880 --> 0:18:09.119 cancer survivor and I had a relatively and I'm putting 0:18:09.119 --> 0:18:12.680 this in quotes easy time with it because the technology 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:16.320 and the science has advanced so much. Whereas one hundred 0:18:16.320 --> 0:18:18.639 and fifty years ago, I would not be here right. 0:18:18.520 --> 0:18:30.800 Now, Derek, I feel like so much of how RFK 0:18:31.000 --> 0:18:33.919 Junior resonates with people has to do with the fact 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:39.680 that he is the person introducing people to a given issue. 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:42.280 I find myself being introduced to a lot of these 0:18:42.280 --> 0:18:44.919 topics by r of K Junior, and then I have 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:48.080 to go figure out, you know, what's right and what's wrong. 0:18:48.720 --> 0:18:50.720 So I'm hoping we can just throw some r of 0:18:50.840 --> 0:18:55.120 K junior claims at you and get your reaction. Where 0:18:55.119 --> 0:19:01.240 do they come from? Is it bullshit or not? So 0:19:01.280 --> 0:19:04.000 how about we start with this idea that vitamin A 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:08.560 is a sufficient enough treatment for measles. Where does that 0:19:08.640 --> 0:19:09.240 come from? 0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:13.520 It comes from studies that were done on malnourished children 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:18.720 in Africa, and it's very specific to malnourished children, and 0:19:19.240 --> 0:19:23.760 they had good efficacy with megadoses of vitamin A too, 0:19:23.880 --> 0:19:26.520 megadoses to be specific, given over the course of something 0:19:26.560 --> 0:19:29.959 like forty eight hours. They had good results from that. 0:19:30.400 --> 0:19:35.560 But what often happens with anti vaxers or wellness people 0:19:35.560 --> 0:19:40.040 in general is they'll cling to a study, extrapolate from it, 0:19:40.240 --> 0:19:43.240 and then pretend that it's good for everyone. Vitamin A 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:47.760 toxicity is a known problem, and we've seen some children 0:19:47.800 --> 0:19:49.760 now have to go to the hospital in West Texas 0:19:49.800 --> 0:19:53.800 because of that toxicity. But there is a little bit 0:19:53.880 --> 0:19:58.680 of truth to a very specific community that they pretend 0:19:59.000 --> 0:20:02.080 will we'll affect everyone in the same way, and that's 0:20:02.119 --> 0:20:03.679 just not how biology works. 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:07.520 Okay, what about the claim that seed oils are bad 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:10.399 for you. Seed oils, of course the oils that are 0:20:10.480 --> 0:20:15.240 extracted from vegetable crops, so we're talking canola oil, corn oil, 0:20:15.440 --> 0:20:18.240 flax seed oil. Are those things bad for you? 0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:22.200 That started with or at least was mainstreamed by someone 0:20:22.240 --> 0:20:26.040 named Paul Saladino, who was formerly known as the Carnivore 0:20:26.119 --> 0:20:30.720 Doctor because he was an early carnivore diet devotee, who 0:20:30.760 --> 0:20:33.640 now incorporates fruits and vegetables because he knows that sort 0:20:33.680 --> 0:20:36.080 of diet can't last, and he's moved on to another stick. 0:20:36.560 --> 0:20:41.040 Seed oils, like canola oil, they're used in ultra processed 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:45.360 foods a lot because they are inexpensive. The problem is 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:48.760 the sugar and the carbs, and then different things, the 0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:52.720 excess carbohydrates that are in ultra processed foods and just 0:20:52.760 --> 0:20:57.520 the manufacturing process. They've isolated one of the components that 0:20:58.080 --> 0:21:02.720 is extremely well studied, is known to have cardiovascular benefits 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:06.240 and is known to have other health benefits, and they've 0:21:06.280 --> 0:21:10.280 taken that and pretended to that that is the actual problem. 0:21:10.359 --> 0:21:13.719 And the anti seed oil rhetoric has been pretty successful 0:21:13.760 --> 0:21:17.679 because you have franchised restaurants like Steak and Shake making 0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:20.639 a big deal out of switching from seed oils to 0:21:20.760 --> 0:21:23.080 beef tallo for when they make their French fries. 0:21:23.359 --> 0:21:26.360 Yeah, it's audience capture. I mean, any sort of company 0:21:26.400 --> 0:21:29.080 is going to look for what can give them a 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:31.119 leg up and to get into the news cycle. And 0:21:31.200 --> 0:21:34.480 I don't know much about Steak and Shake, so I've 0:21:34.520 --> 0:21:36.879 never lived in an area what that has one, So 0:21:36.960 --> 0:21:39.560 I don't know their policies. I don't know their politics, 0:21:40.080 --> 0:21:43.879 but it doesn't surprise me that if they perhaps have 0:21:43.960 --> 0:21:46.920 a conservative bent to their politics, then they want to 0:21:46.920 --> 0:21:49.359 appeal to that crowd. It does not surprise me that 0:21:49.400 --> 0:21:50.600 they jump on the bandwagon. 0:21:50.920 --> 0:21:53.520 I am actually from a state that has Steak and Shake, 0:21:53.560 --> 0:21:58.359 and I can confirm that it has a conservative leaning. Okay, okay, okay, 0:21:58.359 --> 0:22:00.920 what about fluoride in the wall? Good or bad? 0:22:01.080 --> 0:22:04.000 First off, I'll just say that this feeds into another 0:22:04.400 --> 0:22:07.160 aspect that RFK is really good at exploiting. I brought 0:22:07.200 --> 0:22:11.480 up the naturalistic fallacy. There's also chemophobia, and that's people's 0:22:11.520 --> 0:22:15.200 fear of chemicals. So the idea that something is synthetic 0:22:15.280 --> 0:22:18.320 and that it's put into something skivs people out. My 0:22:18.480 --> 0:22:23.159 understanding is that the benefits have largely been around the 0:22:23.320 --> 0:22:26.720 enamel of teeth and people have gotten less cavities. We've 0:22:26.760 --> 0:22:29.920 seen instances for example in Canada, where one province took 0:22:29.920 --> 0:22:33.440 the floride out and the childhood cavity rate shot up, 0:22:33.640 --> 0:22:35.879 so they put it back in and it went back down. 0:22:36.560 --> 0:22:39.040 I happen to live now in the largest city in 0:22:39.080 --> 0:22:42.119 America that does not fluoridate its water, which is Portland, Oregon. 0:22:42.480 --> 0:22:45.239 There's a strong hippie culture here that runs with some 0:22:45.280 --> 0:22:48.960 of its politics. But from my understanding and from the 0:22:49.040 --> 0:22:51.960 experts that I've talked to, it is a net positive 0:22:52.160 --> 0:22:54.760 to have fluoride in the water at the levels of 0:22:54.840 --> 0:22:58.000 point seven no leaders, it is not going to have 0:22:58.119 --> 0:23:06.400 any harmful effects. 0:23:08.280 --> 0:23:11.919 Earlier, Devin Noah and I were talking about some of 0:23:11.920 --> 0:23:15.600 the things that RFK Junior says that we actually agree with, 0:23:16.320 --> 0:23:20.920 and I'm curious, has he said anything that you actually support. 0:23:21.280 --> 0:23:26.399 Well, Unfortunately, the changes that he's proposed that I would 0:23:26.600 --> 0:23:29.560 love to see happen, I don't think he has the 0:23:29.600 --> 0:23:32.080 power to do. And that's things like ending the pharma 0:23:32.200 --> 0:23:37.840 lobby in DC and ending direct to consumer advertising of 0:23:37.880 --> 0:23:41.240 pharmaceuticals on television. We are one of two countries in 0:23:41.240 --> 0:23:45.159 the world that allow that. He campaigned on those things, 0:23:45.400 --> 0:23:48.280 and since he's been installed at the AHHS, he has 0:23:48.280 --> 0:23:50.800 not brought them up once, And that is what I figured, 0:23:50.840 --> 0:23:53.520 because the pharma lobby just has too much power with 0:23:53.720 --> 0:23:57.120 both Democrats and Republicans. It is the largest lobby in DC. 0:23:57.720 --> 0:24:00.679 The idea that he would get that through was always 0:24:00.680 --> 0:24:01.440 a misnomer. 0:24:01.640 --> 0:24:06.359 Right as anti establishment as RFK Junior seems, he doesn't 0:24:06.359 --> 0:24:09.760 seem to be immune from the classic politician behavior of 0:24:10.520 --> 0:24:14.760