Speaker 1: What lighten my dumpster? First, I'm Robert Evans hosted Behind
Speaker 1: the Bastards. That little introduction was in honor of my hometown, Portland,
Speaker 1: which just had a police officer murder a man who
Speaker 1: is having a mental health crisis. And we'll probably be
Speaker 1: lighting some dumpsters on fire tonight, although you won't hear
Speaker 1: it the day that this happens. But anyway, that's all
Speaker 1: beside the point right now, because the point right now
Speaker 1: is that I'm introducing our guest today, the inimitable.
Speaker 2: Matt leeb Baybe. What's going on, Matt? How are you doing?
Speaker 2: I'm doing well. I'm excited to be here. A big
Speaker 2: fan of the pod. Love me some bastards? And you are?
Speaker 1: You do a Sopranos podcast and the name is it
Speaker 1: really pod yourself a gun?
Speaker 2: That's right podcast? All right? Gun? Yeah, that's my world's
Speaker 2: only Sopranos podcast. Don't go looking for any other ones,
Speaker 2: because they do not exist.
Speaker 1: Little known TV show, the Sopranos. You might have heard
Speaker 1: of it, very obscure.
Speaker 2: A niche, a niche TV show that only people who
Speaker 2: really like art understand. And that's that's why we talk
Speaker 2: about it. We talk about the art.
Speaker 1: It's fun thinking about that because I believe the song
Speaker 1: that introduced that show was something about waking up in
Speaker 1: the morning and getting yourself a gun, which is what
Speaker 1: I did this morning.
Speaker 2: You bought a gun.
Speaker 1: I did, I did. I did buy a gun this morning.
Speaker 1: Not for sopranos like uses, although I am Italian, so
Speaker 1: you can't really know for sure. You can't really know
Speaker 1: for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you woke up with a blue moon in your
Speaker 2: eye and you decided, I'm gonna go get.
Speaker 1: Myself a gun and then I'm gonna commit crimes. And
Speaker 1: the Pine Barons of New Jersey. Yeah, they do that
Speaker 1: a lot in the show, right, a lot of Pine
Speaker 1: Barren crimes.
Speaker 2: They do it at least once.
Speaker 1: And it's great, yeah that they're chasing that guy through
Speaker 1: the yeah, yeah, the Russian Yeah.
Speaker 3: And they leave their DNA everywhere, well they.
Speaker 2: Pee everywhere, and you know they look.
Speaker 1: We Italians are not a subtle people.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 2: They spend that whole episode literally like dying of like
Speaker 2: cold and they're lost in the woods, but they spend
Speaker 2: all the time talking about how they're starving because they
Speaker 2: haven't eaten in twelve hours. It's the most Italian in
Speaker 2: the world.
Speaker 1: But I want to hear about this gun. Oh, it's
Speaker 1: just a gun. But today we have something much more
Speaker 1: exciting than a gun. We have a bastard and our bastard.
Speaker 1: Are you ready for this?
Speaker 2: Oh? I'm so excited.
Speaker 1: Are you settling in? Yes, doctor z I never introduced
Speaker 1: them like that. We're talking about doctor fucking Oz today. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's right.
Speaker 2: Who the thought he'd be a bastard? A TV doctor?
Speaker 1: Who the fuck a TV doctor could be a bad man?
Speaker 2: No, they take an oath TV doctors, they say, do
Speaker 2: no harm and get good ratings. That's the hippocratic oath
Speaker 2: they do.
Speaker 4: They also oath to be bad guest hosts on Jeopardy
Speaker 4: because he sucked and I didn't enjoy it.
Speaker 1: Honestly, if you are going up against LeVar Burton for
Speaker 1: any job, your first action should be like, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm bowing out ye immediately, I'm not going to compete
Speaker 1: with LeVar Burton off fighting Jeordi fighting, Kunta Kinte, fighting whatever.
Speaker 1: The reading Rainbow guy's name was. No, I think LeVar.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, No. I did not watch him on Jeopardy,
Speaker 2: but I have seen the show and had no idea
Speaker 2: he was a bastard.
Speaker 1: Yes, he's a piece of shit. He's he's a different
Speaker 1: piece of shit. We're also going to be talking in
Speaker 1: the very near future about doctor Phil, who's a much
Speaker 1: worse person. Doctor Oz is bad for some reasons that
Speaker 1: you'll suspect, you know, the pseudo science stuff, but also
Speaker 1: for some I think more complicated reasons, which will we'll
Speaker 1: have us a nice talk about at the end of
Speaker 1: this episode. So I've always said that one of the
Speaker 1: great tragedies of American public life is that our very
Speaker 1: best doctors are usually like kind of schlubby dudes and
Speaker 1: ladies who maybe aren't the best at at social graces
Speaker 1: and certainly don't have enough time because they're wildly overworked
Speaker 1: to do TV appearances.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree. They're not hot. I've always
Speaker 2: said is the bottom of they're not hot. I look
Speaker 2: at them and I'm like, ill, Like.
Speaker 1: We need to put a couple of billion dollars into
Speaker 1: a national program for more fuckable doctors.
Speaker 2: Come on, yes, yes, doctors who fuck that's the next
Speaker 2: level of healthcare in America. It won't be universal healthcare,
Speaker 2: but at least doctors will look fuckable.
Speaker 1: Now, I mean, I think the problem is not their fuckibility,
Speaker 1: because it's inherently hot to be a doctor. It's more
Speaker 1: the fact that they're not necessarily if. Even the ones
Speaker 1: who are have a good bedside manner are good at
Speaker 1: explaining things, just don't have the time to spend a
Speaker 1: lot of it on television because they're busy saving lives.
Speaker 1: This has led to a thriving industry, well documented in
Speaker 1: this show of grifter health influencers and scam artists selling
Speaker 1: people poison with honeyed words and practice smiles. Today, though,
Speaker 1: we're talking about a different kind of medical grifter, kind
Speaker 1: of a grifter who helps to launder those more shady grifters,
Speaker 1: the guy people who aren't doctors, people who have no
Speaker 1: medical training, who are just trying to sell you nonsense cures.
Speaker 1: The guy we're talking about today exists to give them
Speaker 1: credibility and launder them into the public consciousness. And his
Speaker 1: name is Mehmet Oz. Mehmet Oz is maybe the most
Speaker 1: influential public physician in the country, possibly the world. He is,
Speaker 1: in every professional sense of the word, an excellent doctor,
Speaker 1: exceptional even within the bounds of what it is he
Speaker 1: is trained to do. He may be one of the
Speaker 1: best in the world at what he does, and he
Speaker 1: uses his you know, the thing that makes him a
Speaker 1: bastard is that he uses these exceptional qualifications along with
Speaker 1: his charisma his handsome face, to sell millions of people
Speaker 1: on nonsense cures every single year. And that's that's a
Speaker 1: bad thing to do. He's kind of made worse. We'll
Speaker 1: talk about this a lot by the fact that he
Speaker 1: is he's a he's a heart surgeon, and he's an
Speaker 1: exceptional heart surgeon.
Speaker 2: That's so sad. It's always sad when like an amazing
Speaker 2: doctor is a piece of shit. This is like how
Speaker 2: I felt when Ben Carson turned out to be a
Speaker 2: Trump guy. He was like, but you're so good.
Speaker 1: The surgeons which you talk to doctors, they'll be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course, it's always surgeons, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: And they're the ones who think they're gods, right, yes,
Speaker 2: they essentially have a god complex, and they'll be really
Speaker 2: good at one thing, and then they'll also think that
Speaker 2: they're good at like yes, politics and shit like that.
Speaker 1: I think good surgeons are so prone to being also
Speaker 1: like nonsense, like so many of our nonsense public doctors
Speaker 1: or surgeons, for the same reason that so many of
Speaker 1: our terrorists are engineers. There are people who get really
Speaker 1: good at a specific thing, and it lets them convince
Speaker 1: themselves that they know what they're talking about in a
Speaker 1: wider variety of things than they really do.
Speaker 2: That's great. It just makes me glad that I never,
Speaker 2: you know, got really proficient in anyone's skill.
Speaker 1: Never gain skills. I never ever learn how to do things.
Speaker 2: You'll become too smart for yourself and think that you
Speaker 2: are God. If no one.
Speaker 1: Learned to do anything, we would still be living in
Speaker 1: the mud and eating grubs. And you know what, we
Speaker 1: wouldn't have salesman, or that we would have very little
Speaker 1: at all. Mimet Senga's Oz was born on June eleventh,
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty to parents Sunna and Mustafa Oz, who must
Speaker 1: have fucked at some point in October of nineteen fifty nine.
Speaker 1: In order to conceive him. We have to assume his
Speaker 1: parents fucked in in October.
Speaker 3: I don't know that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he could be immaculate conception.
Speaker 1: Wow, yeah, you know possible, I would say right now.
Speaker 1: The most likely theory is that they fucked sometime in October.
Speaker 2: Ah, all right.
Speaker 1: His father, Mustafa had been born in Boskir, a village
Speaker 1: in southern Turkey. He had grown up poor in the
Speaker 1: countryside during the Great Depression, and obviously, you know, Great Depression,
Speaker 1: bad time everywhere, real bad time. If you're like in
Speaker 1: rural Turkey, you know, you're dealing with a different kind
Speaker 1: of poverty than even like our grandparents dealt with here.
Speaker 1: So he had to work himself to the bone in
Speaker 1: order to make something of himself, in order to get
Speaker 1: into medical school and distinguish himself enough that he was
Speaker 1: able to earn scholarships which allowed him to immigrate to
Speaker 1: the United States as a medical resident in nineteen fifty five.
Speaker 1: So this is a This is a hard working man
Speaker 1: and a man who has to struggle, I'm going to
Speaker 1: guess in ways that are kind of difficult to imagine
Speaker 1: for most of it's even as difficult as our present
Speaker 1: times are.
Speaker 2: He is like a true lift yourself up by your bootstrap,
Speaker 2: yes kind of guy.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Came from the middle of nowhere, rural Turkey and worked
Speaker 1: himself into becoming a good enough doctor that he got
Speaker 1: you know, he was able to get over the racism
Speaker 1: of the fucking nineteen fifties immigration system. That's that's an achievement.
Speaker 2: Good for him started from the bottom and now he's
Speaker 2: on TV selling cures.
Speaker 1: That's his dad, that's that's not men. Yeah, yeah, that's Mustafa.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about his dad and his mom right now.
Speaker 1: His mom, Suna, came from a much wealthier background. I
Speaker 1: don't know if this is what helped his dad get
Speaker 1: into the country or not. It may have been. Her
Speaker 1: father was a successful pharmacist and both sides of her
Speaker 1: family came from Istanbul. She grew up with a lot
Speaker 1: of money. As befits his more modest upbringing, Mustapha was
Speaker 1: an observant traditional Muslim. Soon his family was more moderate
Speaker 1: and secular. Mehmet and his two sisters grew up split
Speaker 1: between both approaches to religion. The Oz kids spent their
Speaker 1: childhood speaking Turkish and English fluently at home, so they
Speaker 1: grew up in a bilingual house. Mehmet was from a
Speaker 1: young from a young age, ambitious, starving for success and
Speaker 1: his father's approval. He was wont to note that he
Speaker 1: was born in the year of the Rat according to
Speaker 1: the Chinese zodiac. In one interview, he noted of this quote,
Speaker 1: you run the maze if you put cheese in that maze.
Speaker 1: I swear to God, I'll get to it, and I'll
Speaker 1: get to it really fast. But should I be running
Speaker 1: after that cheese? Am I in the right maze? All
Speaker 1: of these questions, which people much greater than I am
Speaker 1: think through, I put on the back burner as I'm
Speaker 1: running after that cheese.
Speaker 2: What the fuck? So that's way too much stock into
Speaker 2: the year of what animal?
Speaker 1: The rat?
Speaker 2: At least he wasn't born into the Year of the Pig.
Speaker 2: And he's like, well, what you gotta do is you
Speaker 2: gotta take your snout and put it into the trough
Speaker 2: of life.
Speaker 1: And just you shut your face into food as hard
Speaker 1: as you can.
Speaker 2: You roll around in the shit, and then you hope
Speaker 2: that someday you find another piggy to fuck, and then
Speaker 2: you have little piglets. It's like, look, I was.
Speaker 1: Born in the Year of the Pig, and that's why
Speaker 1: it disposed of bodies for the mob.
Speaker 2: It's just what you do. Well, that's it's a nice
Speaker 2: take on Year of the Rat.
Speaker 1: For him, it is it is telling because what he's
Speaker 1: saying there is like, I don't think about why I'm
Speaker 1: doing what I'm doing. I just I just strive to
Speaker 1: achieve things, and I don't think about whether or not
Speaker 1: they're good or bad. I just I have to achieve.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he just wants that cheese.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he wants that cheese. It's ambition without an analysis,
Speaker 1: I think, is what you'd call it. And he's he's
Speaker 1: pretty open about that.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Mustapha his dad, repeatedly told the growing doctor Oz who's
Speaker 1: not yet a doctor obviously, that when he grown up,
Speaker 1: when Mustapa had grown up, he hadn't been able to
Speaker 1: relax for even a second on his road to escaping
Speaker 1: poverty and establishing himself as a cardiothoracic surgeon. So he's
Speaker 1: like telling his kid as he grows up, like, you know,
Speaker 1: like if you want to succeed, you can't relax for
Speaker 1: even a second. You can't can't take a moment off.
Speaker 1: You always got to be hustling. And that's how Memet
Speaker 1: grows up. He's an excellent student, but no amount of
Speaker 1: success is ever enough for his dad. He later recalled,
Speaker 1: I'd say I got a ninety three on a test,
Speaker 1: He'd say, did anyone get better? That was always the question,
Speaker 1: he asked, cool death, It sounds like.
Speaker 5: A fun guy would hang, Yeah, I mean this the
Speaker 5: school I grew up in because of just where we
Speaker 5: were in North Texas, Like about half of the kids
Speaker 5: in my school were either from India or from China
Speaker 5: or Japan, And so you had a lot of kids
Speaker 5: who would talk that way about their parents, right, and
Speaker 5: some of them had, especially around our senior year, there
Speaker 5: were a couple of kids who had to get like
Speaker 5: taken in by an ambulance because they would just like
Speaker 5: one in one case easing as a result of stress.
Speaker 1: Like Jesus good to put this kind of pressure on
Speaker 1: a kid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like straight having like nervous breakdowns just from like
Speaker 2: trying to get good grades. Right, once again, don't get
Speaker 2: good at anything, it's not worth it.
Speaker 1: Develop skills.
Speaker 2: Don't develop skills, You'll get seizures. You're at risk of seizures.
Speaker 2: You're at risk of your of your dad not loving you.
Speaker 2: You know, you just gotta love.
Speaker 1: You no matter what.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, Stop caring about your dad, you know, just
Speaker 2: coast coast.
Speaker 1: Some dirt, eat some grubs. You'll be fine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, start a Sopranos podcast. That's all you got to.
Speaker 3: Do, dude, really bringing it back there.
Speaker 1: So Memet decided to become a doctor when he was
Speaker 1: just seven years old. He recalls standing in line at
Speaker 1: an ice cream parlor. Quote, I remember it like yesterday.
Speaker 1: There was a kid in front of me who was ten.
Speaker 1: My dad, just to pass the time, said what do
Speaker 1: you want to be when you grow up? The kid said,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm ten. My father waited until he
Speaker 1: was out of earshot and said, I never want you
Speaker 1: to tell me that if I ask you that question,
Speaker 1: I never want you to tell me you don't know.
Speaker 1: It's okay if you change your mind, but I never
Speaker 1: want you to not have a vision of what you
Speaker 1: want to be.
Speaker 2: Momet go kill that kid.
Speaker 1: Kill that kid, fucking cut it.
Speaker 2: Murder that loser kid, and tell me what you want
Speaker 2: to do with your life. God damn, that is way
Speaker 2: too much pressure. Way waits so.
Speaker 1: Much pressure to put on a kid.
Speaker 2: And it seems like the kids like that always end
Speaker 2: up becoming the like going into the career that their
Speaker 2: father wanted them to do, and then eventually their dad
Speaker 2: dies and then they're like, oh fuck, I didn't get
Speaker 2: to do what I wanted to do with my life
Speaker 2: and now I'm miserable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's a real bummer. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: not just don't put pressure on people. There's plenty of grubs.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: By the time Memmett was ready to start school, his
Speaker 1: father was wealthy enough to pay to send his son
Speaker 1: to Tower Hill School, a K through twelfth grade private
Speaker 1: college preparatory school in Wilmington, Delaware.
Speaker 3: Jesus, that sounds horrible.
Speaker 1: I know, it sounds like a fucking nightmare.
Speaker 3: Fancy boy, yeah, sounds uniforms ties.
Speaker 1: Yeah, probably like your choice during the summer.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The fancy boy prep school worked well enough that Mehmet
Speaker 1: was accepted to Harvard, where he played football and water polo.
Speaker 1: His grades were, as always exceptional. One of his roommates
Speaker 1: later recalled he was very competitive. There was never any
Speaker 1: question that he wasn't going to be a doctor. He
Speaker 1: wanted to be a fantastic surgeon. So people around him, like,
Speaker 1: everyone kind of recognizes this kid is brilliant. Everyone recognizes
Speaker 1: he's got the drive he's going to achieve, you know,
Speaker 1: so good for him.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just like, I just look back now
Speaker 2: at my own childhood and I'm like, God, damn it.
Speaker 2: If I can think of one friend where I knew
Speaker 2: what they wanted to do for a career, I don't
Speaker 2: think we ever talked about like, what's your career gonna be.
Speaker 2: No one was like I'm a doctor, you know. It
Speaker 2: was it was mostly just like, you know, how's your
Speaker 2: hip hop album working out? And they're like good and
Speaker 2: they're like cool, and that was the whole thing.
Speaker 1: That's interesting. I think it was different for me because
Speaker 1: there was definitely a lot of pressure to have something.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I went to a public school. Yeah, I didn't go
Speaker 1: to a private school, but I went to a public
Speaker 1: school in my early schooling years. Was in a dirt,
Speaker 1: poor farming town called Isabella, Oklahoma. And the school was
Speaker 1: as good as it could be in a place like that.
Speaker 1: Like they paddled us and stuff like. It was not
Speaker 1: damn not a high end educational.
Speaker 2: But once I'll do in a public school. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 2: oh damn.
Speaker 1: They still did that in Oklahoma back in them days. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you got to sign the paddle afterwards too.
Speaker 2: It's nice.
Speaker 1: But when I was in i don't know, third grade
Speaker 1: or so, I moved to Plano, which is a fairly
Speaker 1: wealthy suburb of Dallas, and the schools, the public schools
Speaker 1: are very good and there is a lot of drive
Speaker 1: to achieve, like I said, a lot of like kids
Speaker 1: who were really motivated by their parents achieve And so
Speaker 1: you either were kind of planning to be a doctor
Speaker 1: or you know, something on that level, or you were
Speaker 1: planning to join the military. Because it was Texas and
Speaker 1: I was in ROTC, so me and all my friends,
Speaker 1: I think we all kind of assumed we're all going
Speaker 1: to join the army, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I went to yeah, public school, you know,
Speaker 2: in my entire life, and I think most of my
Speaker 2: friends either wanted to they were either going to go
Speaker 2: into the army or they were or they wanted to
Speaker 2: be famous musicians and or athletes.
Speaker 4: So see, my brother is a doctor and knew he
Speaker 4: was going to be a doctor from that. He's my
Speaker 4: older brother too, from the time that he was like seven,
Speaker 4: so like, and I'm like, la la la, no idea
Speaker 4: that I'm.
Speaker 2: Just saying, Like a level of ambition at a very
Speaker 2: very young age has always been a turn off for
Speaker 2: me when it comes to like friends, because it's just
Speaker 2: they always have that like sense where they're trying to
Speaker 2: get there. You're you're some sort of stepping stone into
Speaker 2: there what ever their career path is. And I don't
Speaker 2: like it.
Speaker 1: So Oz took only one break during his relentless progress
Speaker 1: through medical school, and that break was to do a
Speaker 1: compulsory I think it was a one year term of
Speaker 1: service in the Turkish Army in order to maintain his
Speaker 1: dual citizenship. Other than that straight onto like becoming a doctor,
Speaker 1: that's the only kind of break. So I guess that's
Speaker 1: his gap year is being in the Turkish arty.
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna take a break, have a gap year
Speaker 2: and join the military of a foreign country.
Speaker 1: Yeah, helps suppress you know, Kurdish liberatory movements and stuff. Whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they got to stop trying to have their own thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He got a four year degree in biology and then
Speaker 1: transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where he doubled up
Speaker 1: working on both an MD and an MBA. He succeeded
Speaker 1: in earning both, So that's interesting to me. He gets both.
Speaker 1: He gets at the same time as he's getting his MD,
Speaker 1: he also gets a business degree.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is very there's a lot of foreshadowing going
Speaker 2: on a shadow.
Speaker 1: He earned both obviously with flying colors. He's an incredibly
Speaker 1: intelligent man, right, This isn't just a guy like We'll
Speaker 1: talk about doctor Phil later. Doctor Phil I don't think
Speaker 1: is very smart. He's incredibly good at reading and manipulating people,
Speaker 1: He's not particularly a genius. Meme At Oz is a
Speaker 1: genius like I think almost certainly is an actual genius.
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty five, at age twenty five, he married
Speaker 1: Lisa Lemole, who was the daughter of a cardiothoracic surgeon
Speaker 1: who worked with his father. They met it like a
Speaker 1: party or something. This relationship gradually opened him up to
Speaker 1: alternative medicine and Eastern mysticism because Lisa's mom was hardcore
Speaker 1: into homeopathy, meditation, and other New Age stuff. We'll talk
Speaker 1: about that more in a little bit. For the next decade,
Speaker 1: in change, doctor Oz's career zoomed forward. He became triple
Speaker 1: board certified, which I don't know what that means, but
Speaker 1: it sounds impressive. It's at least three boards. It's at
Speaker 1: least three boards. That's three more than I've been certain.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got zero boards under my not a one
Speaker 2: fun not.
Speaker 1: A single board between the three of us.
Speaker 2: So we really should find a board just to get
Speaker 2: us some certifications, guys.
Speaker 1: Just to get certified. If you're a board, if you're
Speaker 1: a medical board is a board out there. Well, actually,
Speaker 1: you know what, the State of New Jersey has certified
Speaker 1: me as a reverend doctor, so I'm one board certificate.
Speaker 2: I assume that we're out there. Is there a board
Speaker 2: in the Universal Life Church? Because I am a minister
Speaker 2: slash Jedi night, I'm gonna say that counts all right,
Speaker 2: I'm board certified. Can you get me painkillers? You know?
Speaker 2: I know a guy.
Speaker 1: Sounds legal enough. So he starts working as a heart surgeon.
Speaker 1: And he's very good at being a heart surgeon. And
Speaker 1: he's not just good at the heart surgery apart, he's
Speaker 1: good at the science part. Over time, he authors hundreds
Speaker 1: of peer reviewed articles and he's awarded eleven patents. One
Speaker 1: of them is for a solution to preserve transplanted organs.
Speaker 1: Another is for an aortic valve that can be implanted
Speaker 1: without open heart surgery. Like, he's not just really good
Speaker 1: at the mechanics of surgery, he's an ex scientist. Yeah,
Speaker 1: eleven patents is pretty good.
Speaker 2: Seriously, one might say he's the Wizard of Oz there.
Speaker 1: I think I read like six articles with variations of
Speaker 1: that title on the.
Speaker 2: Guard right, Well, I gotta go.
Speaker 1: Then it's just a thing. Journalists can't fucking help themselves.
Speaker 2: Anybody you see Oz and you're like, I got a
Speaker 2: calm a wizard.
Speaker 1: Got a columb A wizard. Doctor Oz was hired by
Speaker 1: Columbia Medical School as a teacher, and as you know,
Speaker 1: he's also working. They've been a hospital. He's working there,
Speaker 1: but he's also teaching, and he very quickly rises to
Speaker 1: the level of full professor and becomes the vice chair
Speaker 1: of the cardio of the heart surgery department. Basically at
Speaker 1: this point he's in his thirties.
Speaker 2: Oh man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like everything I've read right now on its own
Speaker 1: would be a career trajectory. Any doctor in medicine would envy.
Speaker 1: Like you could die happy with that being your fucking resume.
Speaker 1: Like that's a hell of an achievement.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety five, a New York Times profile referred
Speaker 1: to doctor Oz as quote, probably the most accomplished thirty
Speaker 1: five year old cardiothoracic surgeon in the country. He might
Speaker 1: be the best at what he does in the entire
Speaker 1: United States at this point. I mean, I don't know
Speaker 1: how to measure that, but he's very good.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know any other heart surgeons by name,
Speaker 2: so fuck yeah, I mean he's the guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, the article that I found that quote in, however,
Speaker 1: gives some hints about what was to come, because that
Speaker 1: article was about doctor Oz's increasing experimentation with alternative medicine.
Speaker 1: It opens with the story of one of his patients,
Speaker 1: a forty nine year old diabetic smoker who suffered a
Speaker 1: critical heart attack. She went under Memet's knife for a
Speaker 1: dangerous surgery quote at the invitation of Oz and his patient.
Speaker 1: There were two other people on hand in surgical gowns
Speaker 1: and masks, a second year medical student named Sally Smith
Speaker 1: stationed at the patient's feet, and a fifty two year
Speaker 1: old healer named Julie Mox who was standing at the
Speaker 1: patient's head. As volunteers in Oz's cardiac Complimentary Care Center,
Speaker 1: they worked for free through the operation, seldom moving except
Speaker 1: to reposition their hands as Oz requested sutures and clamps
Speaker 1: and units of lydacane. Motts called softly to Smith to
Speaker 1: move her hands from the small toe of the patient's
Speaker 1: right foot to a point on the soul known as
Speaker 1: the bubbling spring. What they were doing, no one else
Speaker 1: in the operating room knew how to do, or had
Speaker 1: ever seen done during a coronary bypass, or had ever
Speaker 1: thought worth doing, even as an experiment in this ultimate
Speaker 1: theater of scientific medicine. The women were using their hands,
Speaker 1: as kings once did to treat subjects with scropula, and
Speaker 1: as Jesus is said to have done, and as shamans
Speaker 1: and mothers and Chinese quigong practitioners still do. They were
Speaker 1: using their hands to run a kind of energy which
Speaker 1: science cannot prove exists into the patient's kidney meridian, which
Speaker 1: also may or may not exist. Of the kidney meridian, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you gotta get that meridian. That's the best part of
Speaker 1: the Kidney's the meridian.
Speaker 2: That's the most delicious part of the kidney is the maridian.
Speaker 1: Man with fucking on a ritz cracker slice, then I
Speaker 1: love me a little little bit. They just want to
Speaker 1: get You want to get like some duck fat or
Speaker 1: some butter, and you want to get it sizzling in
Speaker 1: the pan, and you just slap that meridian on for
Speaker 1: like a half a second and it's good to go.
Speaker 1: That's all you fucking which is a little bit of
Speaker 1: a little bit of char you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, this all feels like he's going to start
Speaker 2: turning his patients into fois gras, and I'm very excited
Speaker 2: for what's to come, this heel turn that he's gonna take.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, that's that's that's silly. I think that's silly.
Speaker 1: But at the other hand, like it's in a hospital.
Speaker 1: These people are clearly following sanitation guidelines. They're not getting paid,
Speaker 1: the patient's not getting charged extra, So I don't have
Speaker 1: a problem with that.
Speaker 2: And now's the smartest doctor in the world. It's like
Speaker 2: one of those things where you're like, I feel like
Speaker 2: this is wrong, but I don't know enough to dispute it.
Speaker 2: So with my kidney meridian.
Speaker 1: I'm not willing to morally condemn him for that, even
Speaker 1: though I think it's silly, just because like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: what's the fucking harmon seeing you know, And in that case,
Speaker 1: if you're actually doing it in the medical context, you're
Speaker 1: guaranteeing everybody's taking proper sanitation procedures. Fucking whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems like from what I can tell, that
Speaker 2: sounded non invasive. It's not only yeah, they were just
Speaker 2: doing energy work or whenever they were throwing you know,
Speaker 2: crystals and doing fucking pendulums over him.
Speaker 1: It falls through the category of it couldn't possibly hurt,
Speaker 1: so why not give it a shot, right, which is
Speaker 1: we'll talk about this more later, but that's kind of
Speaker 1: what they were going for. You know what else can't hurt?
Speaker 1: I don't The products and services that support this podcast
Speaker 1: guaranteed to not harm you. In fact, every one of
Speaker 1: the products of ours that you buy extends your life
Speaker 1: by exactly forty five minutes, so you know, spend all
Speaker 1: your money and gain immortality. We're back. Uh, we're talking
Speaker 1: about doctor Oz, who in the mid nineties has started
Speaker 1: some weird alternative medicine stuff. Now he's not the person
Speaker 1: who starts the alternative medicine program at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital,
Speaker 1: which is also like a teaching hospital whatever. It's one
Speaker 1: of those hospitals that they have a medical school with.
Speaker 1: You know how. You know the thing if television has
Speaker 1: taught me accurately, all of the doctors are fucking constantly
Speaker 1: m hm.
Speaker 2: Doctors fucking teach, that's what they doctors, fucking they teach,
Speaker 2: that's all they do. You know, when you're not teaching,
Speaker 2: you're fucking. And Columbia Presbyterian was among the most reputable
Speaker 2: medical establishments on Planetar It still is as far as
Speaker 2: I'm aware. So this alternate medicine program there is kind
Speaker 2: of an odd thing. It was not started at the
Speaker 2: behest of anyone at the top of the school. The
Speaker 2: whole thing came about because in nineteen ninety three, a
Speaker 2: retired utility executive named Richard Rosenthal gave them three quarters
Speaker 2: of a million dollars as a private grant in order
Speaker 2: to establish a center to study alternative medicine. Just gifted
Speaker 2: money and just said, do this start a magic doctoring school. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: Now, Richard had been motivated by having several close friends
Speaker 1: of his get terribly sick in such a way that
Speaker 1: doctors told them there was nothing that could be.
Speaker 2: Done to help them.
Speaker 1: And his response was to basically throw a bunch of
Speaker 1: money into a hole to see if alternative medicine could
Speaker 1: come up with solutions. And it's one of those things
Speaker 1: I could make fun of, Like this is almost exactly
Speaker 1: a week after my mom just died of a type
Speaker 1: of cancer that when you get diagnosed with it, pancreatic,
Speaker 1: there's basically nothing they can do, you know. It's even
Speaker 1: like like she went through chemo and it did nothing.
Speaker 1: You know, I get it. You go through something like that. Okay,
Speaker 1: well let's try other shit, you know. Yeah, So I
Speaker 1: can't I can't even blame Richard for like it seems
Speaker 1: like he was motivated out of grief to do this.
Speaker 2: You know, you can't blame people for trying to try
Speaker 2: any other alternative to I mean, you know, something in
Speaker 2: which there is no cure in modern medicine.
Speaker 1: I might blame the snake oil salesman. I'm never going
Speaker 1: to blame someone who's like, well, doctors said they can't
Speaker 1: cure me, So I'm going to eat this root. You know,
Speaker 1: fuck it, why not go for it? Who gives a
Speaker 1: shit like it can't hurt if you're definitely gonna die? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it is, to be honest, like it is kind
Speaker 1: of within even you could argue within kind of medical
Speaker 1: best practices because one of the things, if like I
Speaker 1: took EMT training years ago, one of the things they
Speaker 1: tell you is that you're not supposed to use an
Speaker 1: aed you know, like paddles to restart a heart. You're
Speaker 1: supposed to use them on an infant. But if an
Speaker 1: infant is in you know, the state where like you
Speaker 1: use them on them because.
Speaker 2: They're dead them. Yeah, they're dead.
Speaker 1: You can't make dead worse, So like, why not? So
Speaker 1: I guess like, yeah, you can't. I don't know, can't
Speaker 1: make it worse? Why not see if if something happens.
Speaker 1: I'm not against the basic idea of testing some of
Speaker 1: this shit is what.
Speaker 2: The worst thing you're going to get out of that
Speaker 2: is a really cool TikTok video of electrocuting a dead body.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and then you get a fuckload of followers, and
Speaker 1: then you start selling brain pills.
Speaker 2: It's a perfect plan.
Speaker 1: Uh So. Yeah, So I can't blame the college for this.
Speaker 1: I can't blame the guy for funding it. It's a
Speaker 1: reasonable thing. Why not?
Speaker 2: You know what?
Speaker 1: That's kind of my attitude is why the fuck not?
Speaker 1: And that's more or less what the dean of Faculty
Speaker 1: of Medicine at the college said, like, all right, well,
Speaker 1: we're not paying for it, why not give it a shot?
Speaker 1: That said a lot of medical professionals were really angry
Speaker 1: about the idea. Doctor Victor Herbert, a Columbia Medical School
Speaker 1: graduate and a professor of medicine at Mount Sinai and
Speaker 1: a board member of the National Council Against Health Fraud
Speaker 1: publicly lambasted the lecturers brought in by the program as
Speaker 1: con artists and sociopathic liars and knowing the kind of
Speaker 1: people who get into the selling this shit business, I
Speaker 1: don't know if he's wrong about that. A lot of
Speaker 1: these people are fucking sociopaths, you know, he says, quote,
Speaker 1: I am nasty. I call practitioners of fraud, practitioners of fraud.
Speaker 1: It's my feeling that the Rosenthal has been promoting fraudulent
Speaker 1: alternatives is genuine, and I get his critiques, you know,
Speaker 1: that is one of the like I can say, on
Speaker 1: one hand, what's the harm, but also maybe the harm
Speaker 1: is that people hear this stuff is being done in
Speaker 1: a hospital, so it must help when it doesn't, And
Speaker 1: maybe some of those people do that not the way
Speaker 1: doctor Oz is doing it, where we're going to do
Speaker 1: the normal medical procedure, we'll have this done. Maybe some
Speaker 1: people decide I just want to have the energy work done,
Speaker 1: and then they dropped out of a heart attack because
Speaker 1: it doesn't replace a valve.
Speaker 2: You know. I'd like to think that even at a
Speaker 2: hospital or research facility with Western medicine, that they still
Speaker 2: peer review and try out different you know, like alternative medicines, right,
Speaker 2: you know, like.
Speaker 1: Some of them, some of them work, some of them work.
Speaker 2: Like there was a time when you know, acupuncture was
Speaker 2: seen as kind of like a croc and now it's
Speaker 2: like kind of just a standard part of Western medicine.
Speaker 2: It's just you know, so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's a lot to be said about even acupuncture.
Speaker 1: You know, I went through a lot of it as
Speaker 1: a kid and it did nothing for me. But my
Speaker 1: grandpa swore by it for his Parkinson's and even if
Speaker 1: it was I don't know, you could say it's like
Speaker 1: fucking whatever placebo, but he experienced relief. So I don't care, like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm not going to get into like
Speaker 1: it because I don't know. I don't know all of that.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 1: It's one of those things where there's a number of
Speaker 1: divergent opinions on actuature. But a number of things that
Speaker 1: were initially considered alternative medicines have been found to have
Speaker 1: medical benefits. Not that that's the norm, but it has
Speaker 1: happened in a history you know, different kind of traditional
Speaker 1: or whatever treatments. So this is very controversial, though, is
Speaker 1: the point I'm making, and a number of people even
Speaker 1: picketed the college when the Rosenthal Center opened. None of
Speaker 1: this dissuaded doctor Oz from participating in it. His explanation
Speaker 1: as to why he embraced alternative medicine was to be
Speaker 1: quite honest, kind of brilliant. He said that his by
Speaker 1: this point vast experience as a real doctor had really
Speaker 1: informed him of the limits of medical science. Specifically, he
Speaker 1: said that while he could sew bypass grafts and even
Speaker 1: implant a new heart into someone's chest, he couldn't change
Speaker 1: the habits that had made them sick in the first place,
Speaker 1: nor could he cure the emotional issues that they were
Speaker 1: dealing with. Depression, he pointed out, was a major risk
Speaker 1: factor in heart patient recovery post surgery, and things like meditation. Right,
Speaker 1: that's kind of considered wu new age that can help
Speaker 1: with depression and that can help with healing. And he's
Speaker 1: right about that. That's bad point to make, So he
Speaker 1: seemed to insinuate when he was talking to The New
Speaker 1: York Times, why wouldn't a caring physician want to try
Speaker 1: everything possible to improve his patient's odds. He could point
Speaker 1: out that meditation had shown some benefit for heart disease patients.
Speaker 1: Who was to say that other stuff wouldn't work. Doctor
Speaker 1: Oz told The New York Times that he felt ethically
Speaker 1: obliged to experiment in new directions in medicine. The article
Speaker 1: makes it clear that doctor Oz had not let up
Speaker 1: one bit in the workaholic tendencies that he inherited from
Speaker 1: his father as well. And I'm going to quote from
Speaker 1: the Times again here, Memet Oz is one of those
Speaker 1: rare beings who seem incapable of sloth. He's doing a
Speaker 1: heart transplant right now, his secretary says on the phone.
Speaker 1: And he's got a double lung transplant waiting, and those
Speaker 1: are in addition to his two regularly scheduled open hearts.
Speaker 1: And then at three he's supposed to fly to Boston
Speaker 1: to deliver a lecture. So exceptional is Oz's energy that
Speaker 1: some of his colleagues use him as a benchmark correlating
Speaker 1: their own vitality is a fraction of a full memic unit.
Speaker 1: He runs down lobs, sizes, tennis partner, mentor and department
Speaker 1: chairman doctor Eric A. Rose, who at forty four, is
Speaker 1: one of the top transplant surgeons in the world.
Speaker 2: So I can't tell you how nervous I would be
Speaker 2: going into a lung transplant procedure and then hearing like
Speaker 2: this doctor's got to do a heart after you and
Speaker 2: then got to fly to Boston. I'd be like, do
Speaker 2: you think you could maybe take your time with this bro? Like,
Speaker 2: could I get that? I do?
Speaker 1: It is a matter we'll talk about the ZN two.
Speaker 1: We don't have enough of these guys. It's actually a
Speaker 1: major health problem. How few people there are that can
Speaker 1: do this. Yeah, but it is exhausting everything you read
Speaker 1: about this guy's daily Like, you're just one of those
Speaker 1: people who I think, I kind of get the feeling.
Speaker 1: I don't want to psychoanalyze someone, but you get the feeling.
Speaker 1: He can't be alone, and we still like he has
Speaker 1: to always be moving towards something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's got his dad in the back of his
Speaker 2: head exactly telling him to murder that kid in the
Speaker 2: ice Cream show.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to kill that fucker kill.
Speaker 2: He doesn't know what he wants to be, just like, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean I imagine that would create a bit of a
Speaker 2: problem later in life with stillness.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel for him a little bit of that.
Speaker 2: Sure. Now.
Speaker 1: The article also goes into more detail about how doctor
Speaker 1: Oz's wives fam. Doctor Oz's wife's family piqued his interest
Speaker 1: in alternative medicine. His father in law was one of
Speaker 1: the surgeons on the first heart transplant team in Texas.
Speaker 1: He'd also been nicknamed the rock Doc by Rolling Stone
Speaker 1: for playing music in the oar to relax patients. His
Speaker 1: mother in law had developed a special low fat diet
Speaker 1: for her husband's cardiac patients, and this was really before
Speaker 1: it was accepted that low fat diets would be good
Speaker 1: for heart patients. She once refused surgery for her own
Speaker 1: inflamed gallbladder and handled it instead by altering her diet.
Speaker 1: She taught her son in law, doctor Oz, about using
Speaker 1: arnika for sore muscles and herbal tea for stomach aches.
Speaker 1: So he gets brought in in part to alternative medicine
Speaker 1: by these people who have a real medical background and
Speaker 1: are doing things that aren't widely accepted but also may help.
Speaker 1: You know, music, I think there's there's some data now
Speaker 1: and how music can help with the curtain aspicts of
Speaker 1: the healing process. Right fat fat mother in law seem
Speaker 1: to be on the cutting edge of that.
Speaker 2: When you send the rock Doc, I got concerned. I
Speaker 2: thought he was going to like replace people's hearts with
Speaker 2: crystals and shit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh no, oh no, they all die, but my god,
Speaker 1: their hearts are pretty So this is how memeic gets
Speaker 1: introduced to the wide world of quack cures, and it
Speaker 1: makes sense he enters it through largely reasonable ways, alternative
Speaker 1: treatments that have some positive impact on people. That's in it.
Speaker 1: There's extremely reasonable stuff in the article in general, Like
Speaker 1: doctor Oz points out that in nineteen ninety five, American
Speaker 1: hospitals had only recently allowed family to stay in the
Speaker 1: hospital with a patient, while in Turkey it was common
Speaker 1: for families to do this, and of course having loved
Speaker 1: ones nearby can help a patient's morale, which can influence
Speaker 1: how well they heal. No one I think today would
Speaker 1: even think to disagree with that. It didn't used to
Speaker 1: be common. It changed. So he's in medicine during a
Speaker 1: time when a lot of stuff that like just wasn't
Speaker 1: that is kind of now common sense medicine wasn't, And
Speaker 1: I think that kind of opens his eye to like, well,
Speaker 1: maybe all this other shit works.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe everything in my head is correct. Yeah, only
Speaker 2: getting to him turning into a complete narcissist.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the article kind of veers right from yeah.
Speaker 1: Having loved ones in the room can influence how well
Speaker 1: you heal to doctor Oz's love of energy work, particularly
Speaker 1: his work with a lady named Mottz who believed she
Speaker 1: could sense the energy of heart transplant patients. The Times
Speaker 1: article certainly does not portray this woman in a particularly
Speaker 1: positive light. She now has her surgical sea legs under her,
Speaker 1: but the first time Motts observed open heart surgery she
Speaker 1: had a shaky debut. She had been standing at the
Speaker 1: patient's head outside the sterile field, periodically telling Oz what
Speaker 1: changes she was able to sense ind the patient's energy.
Speaker 1: The patient was obviously not awake, but probably had some awareness,
Speaker 1: most likely smell and perhaps hearing. Open heart patients are
Speaker 1: often fitted with headphones and provided with tapes to listen to,
Speaker 1: including if they want, Oz's own specially recorded soupie trance
Speaker 1: music for the bypass team. It was quite a novelty
Speaker 1: to hear Mott's report that she was registering the patient's
Speaker 1: moods in her body, various states of fear, anger, or
Speaker 1: satisfaction perceived as roughness in her chest or turbulence in
Speaker 1: her stomach. At one point, seeing that Motts was not
Speaker 1: looking so good herself, Oz asked a burly assistant to
Speaker 1: take her outside for some air. When he returned, he said,
Speaker 1: I'd sense a change in my stomach. It's a tenseness. No,
Speaker 1: it's a growling. No, wait a minute, I'm just hungry.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. I swear she's like she seemed like
Speaker 2: she is just describe having her own feelings and then
Speaker 2: just ascribing them to an open heart.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think, But yeah, it's it's one of those things.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure exactly what type of energy work this
Speaker 1: person is doing, because there's a few different kind of
Speaker 1: categories of it.
Speaker 2: Checking the vibes, dude, she's checking the vibes, just making sure,
Speaker 2: you know, the vibe dipstick is filled with oil.
Speaker 1: I should not, if I'm going to be totally fair,
Speaker 1: that riki, which has its origins in Japan, has been
Speaker 1: shown in some early scientific studies to help diminish the
Speaker 1: symptoms of chemotherapy and to significantly alter people's experience of
Speaker 1: physical and emotional pain. And I have some friends who
Speaker 1: swear by it for kind of physical and emotional pain
Speaker 1: in particular.
Speaker 2: I don't know what riki is I've heard of it?
Speaker 2: Is it like when mister Miagi rubs his hands together
Speaker 2: and then he.
Speaker 1: Kind it's like energy work. I guess, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's not a kind of thing that I particularly believe in,
Speaker 1: and I kind of think in a lot of cases
Speaker 1: it's that you have a good relationship with the practitioner
Speaker 1: and you trust them, and it can be, you know,
Speaker 1: an emotionally soothing thing, which I don't know. There were
Speaker 1: early studies, scientific studies that showed that it could diminish
Speaker 1: the symptoms of chemotherapy and reduce people's experience of pain. Now,
Speaker 1: further studies were commissioned after these early studies, which starting
Speaker 1: in the early two thousands, were more negative. A number
Speaker 1: of hospitals did, however, add wreki practitioners to their stable
Speaker 1: of available providers, in part as a result of the
Speaker 1: work that doctor Oz in the Center at Columbia was doing.
Speaker 1: You can find these people in hospitals now. And it's
Speaker 1: worth noting that a number of the positive studies about
Speaker 1: riki and other similar things were conducted by the National
Speaker 1: Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Their work is problematic,
Speaker 1: to say the least, and I'm going to quote now
Speaker 1: from an analysis of several studies conducted by this organization
Speaker 1: by professor doctor edzard Ernst.
Speaker 2: Quote.
Speaker 1: Three studies suggested that energy medicine had an effect, but
Speaker 1: their authors either applied statistics inappropriately, confounded the effects of
Speaker 1: energy healing by adding unrelated interventions to the experimental condition,
Speaker 1: or failed to design or blind equivalent placebo controls. Their
Speaker 1: results are therefore untrustworthy. The two studies that were well
Speaker 1: designed failed to demonstrate effects from energy and healing. The
Speaker 1: odds of generating a useful result of a clinical trial
Speaker 1: of energy medicine are small. Moreover, what impact would negative
Speaker 1: studies have? Scientists will simply say we could have told
Speaker 1: you so, and proponents are unlikely to change their mind.
Speaker 1: Proponents may then claim that the negative study must have
Speaker 1: been flawed, or that energy medicine cannot be investigated by
Speaker 1: the tools of science, or they might rely on the NCCAM.
Speaker 1: That organization I talked about funded studies that generated biased
Speaker 1: but apparently positive results. The NCCAM's approach encourages a self
Speaker 1: perpetuating cycle of misinterpreting research and conducting flawed research, which
Speaker 1: inevitably generates some studies that erroneously claim positive effects and
Speaker 1: give the false impression that the efficacy of energy medicine
Speaker 1: is still scientifically un resolved.
Speaker 2: Man, we are just veering into anti vaxx territory and
Speaker 2: like anti mass territory. People who just they google stuff
Speaker 2: and then they go this article right here says that
Speaker 2: mass actually can.
Speaker 1: They can't, they can't analyze. And it's from a government
Speaker 1: science organization. You know, these guys like and here's a
Speaker 1: study that's and it's like, well, okay, but you actually
Speaker 1: look at scientists, you don't have a vested and often
Speaker 1: financial interest in this, and they point out all these
Speaker 1: very obvious flaws in the study. It's worth noting that
Speaker 1: the NCCAM was founded in nineteen ninety eight, three years
Speaker 1: after the New York Times article about doctor Oz and
Speaker 1: the Alternative Medicine Center at Columbia was published. Now, doctor
Speaker 1: Oss at this point was not yet on Oprah's show,
Speaker 1: but he had been featured on TV several times for
Speaker 1: his pioneering work with mechanical hearts, as well as his
Speaker 1: embrace of alternative medicine. You can draw a direct line.
Speaker 1: I don't know if we would have an NCCAM without
Speaker 1: doctor Oz. I don't know, you can't say that for certain,
Speaker 1: but he is someone who, before his embrace of alternative medicine,
Speaker 1: starts to be well known as an exceptional doctor and scientists.
Speaker 1: He embraces this stuff. Colombia starts studying this stuff, and
Speaker 1: even though everything they find is pretty inconclusive, the fact
Speaker 1: that it's in an actual hospital lends it legitimacy. This
Speaker 1: organization is started in order to test this stuff. The
Speaker 1: organization is filled with people who already believe in it,
Speaker 1: carrying out tests that are flawed, and it helps prepare
Speaker 1: this culture believing too much in this stuff.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, it's just like it's a real life
Speaker 2: Facebook group, you know. It's just like everyone already believes
Speaker 2: in all the stuff and they just keept like just
Speaker 2: co signing each other's bullshit.
Speaker 1: And it's one of those things like I again, I
Speaker 1: know people who swear by Riki, who gain you know,
Speaker 1: emotional benefits from it, who think it helps with you know,
Speaker 1: a number of things, including like physical including emotional pain,
Speaker 1: and like if you find something that helps you alleviate
Speaker 1: your emotional pain in power to you know, never gonna
Speaker 1: hear me say damn against it.
Speaker 2: You know, go with God. That's that. That's all great,
Speaker 2: But uh, I mean you want to relieve pain, Yeah,
Speaker 2: try some morphine though, dog, because that ship oh mark morphine.
Speaker 1: There's no downsides to morphine.
Speaker 2: No, I can't think of one downside to morphine.
Speaker 1: It's a single one.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It just feels good the whole time, and you
Speaker 2: just need to take more.
Speaker 1: My issue is not so much with any particular treatment,
Speaker 1: not that not even an issue that people would like.
Speaker 1: It's number one. A lot of people will issue actual
Speaker 1: medical treatment in favor of some of this stuff, and
Speaker 1: it's not going to I'm trying to be as fair
Speaker 1: as I can. Really is not going to solve your
Speaker 1: blocked cardiac pathways. You know, it's not going to fix it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, energy is great, but plavix works wonders.
Speaker 1: You know, this is a lot better. And it's it's
Speaker 1: it's more to the point, even more than that, is it.
Speaker 1: It gets us on this this road of increasingly accepting
Speaker 1: and legitimizing things that there's no, there's not a scientific
Speaker 1: basis for, and that leads us to shit like let's
Speaker 1: drink bleach to cure the coronavirus. Like, you know, it's
Speaker 1: where the roads I have more of a problem with
Speaker 1: than doctor Oz experimenting with an energy worker during a surgery, Like,
Speaker 1: it's where that leads to. And he plays a major
Speaker 1: role in legitimizing that. He's he helps put it, he
Speaker 1: helps put our national foot on the gas pedal into
Speaker 1: the post science age.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it's a slippery slope to that, you know,
Speaker 2: downing that brain octane oil.
Speaker 1: In exactly exactly. So yeah, at this point, though we're
Speaker 1: talking still in the mid nineties, everything doctor Oz is
Speaker 1: saying is reasonable from a certain point of view. He's
Speaker 1: not claiming that Ricky's going to cure cancer. He's not
Speaker 1: even claiming it's going to cure your heart disease. He's
Speaker 1: saying it could help with recovery, and a lot of
Speaker 1: recovery is mental, and he's not you know, it's possible,
Speaker 1: He's right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he is not yet a bastard.
Speaker 1: It's certainly not impossible for this kind of stuff to
Speaker 1: have a mental impact which can positively affect recovery. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so yeah, he's not a bastard. At this point, Nearly
Speaker 1: all of his alternative medical claims were things that you
Speaker 1: could argue were at least to some extent reasonable based
Speaker 1: on the way he framed them. And he was, most importantly,
Speaker 1: regardless of whatever kind of woo woo stuff, he got
Speaker 1: into an exceptionally gifted medical Prefecture professional who was performing
Speaker 1: something like two hundred and fifty heart surgeries a year.
Speaker 1: You know, that's two hundred and fifty lives a year extended.
Speaker 1: That's great. He's not a bastard yet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's doing great work so far. Yes, despite the
Speaker 2: weird heart stuff. Fine, a little bit of energy, a
Speaker 2: little bit of heart surgery. It works out.
Speaker 1: And the thing though, that is I think is happening
Speaker 1: during this period, And I don't know how conscious a
Speaker 1: choice this is by doctor Oz. I think it is
Speaker 1: because of the fact that he gets an MBA as well,
Speaker 1: and the fact that he's very good at getting pressed,
Speaker 1: very good at getting on TV, at getting in the news.
Speaker 1: I think he he is at this point crafting his
Speaker 1: career to make himself into an ideal candidate for famous
Speaker 1: TV doctor. I think he is building a background that
Speaker 1: will allow him to establish his celebrity career later. It
Speaker 1: is not hard to see how a handsome doctor with
Speaker 1: TV experience a new York Times profile talking about alternative
Speaker 1: medicine and a seriously impressive resume was going to wind
Speaker 1: up eventually on Oprah Winfrey's radar. He almost built himself
Speaker 1: perfectly for that to happen, and he tried in the
Speaker 1: early two thousands, he tried with his wife to start
Speaker 1: a TV show. They like, filmed a pilot episode. It
Speaker 1: didn't really take off, but he succeeds. And I think
Speaker 1: he's pushing and his wife is pushing him to get in.
Speaker 1: She's very much his business partner to develop himself into
Speaker 1: a media personality, and he eventually succeeds in two thousand
Speaker 1: and four in getting invited to Oprah Winfrey's show, Now
Speaker 1: Memmet immediately endeared himself to Winfrey's audience with his willingness
Speaker 1: to discuss frank health details in a way that was
Speaker 1: demystifying and humorous. He most famously explained that healthy poops
Speaker 1: tended to be shaped like an S and should hit
Speaker 1: the water like an Olympic diver with very little splash.
Speaker 1: Oprah herself later recalled when he made it okay to
Speaker 1: talk about the shape of a good poop, I knew
Speaker 1: he could talk about anything. He always found ways to
Speaker 1: make the human body endlessly fascinating.
Speaker 2: Man. That is uh. I mean, I'm I'm low key
Speaker 2: impressed that he impressed Oprah with the doodoo shapes.
Speaker 1: It's mom's stuff.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Moms love poop.
Speaker 2: They love talking about doo's.
Speaker 1: And that's what like Oz does exactly the right things
Speaker 1: to endear himself to like millions of middle class moms,
Speaker 1: which is the best market in the It's.
Speaker 2: An incredible market.
Speaker 1: You can make all of the money if you can
Speaker 1: get a few million middle class moms to love you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I worked at this digital uh what do you
Speaker 2: call it, like a digital production company, and the most
Speaker 2: famous person that we dealt with was a famous Facebook
Speaker 2: mom who had millions of followers. And I would watch
Speaker 2: her stuff and I was like, this is you know,
Speaker 2: maybe the most awful shit I've ever seen is just
Speaker 2: a you know, lady in a car yelling at people
Speaker 2: about kids and uh. But the she was a famous mom.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you can become a famous mom, you
Speaker 2: will be one of the most famous people in the country.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's it's the power of particularly middle
Speaker 1: class moms can't be exaggerated. Like the cops in the
Speaker 1: Feds were able to fuck over as many people as
Speaker 1: they wanted until they started gaessing moms. The whole country's pissed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're like like, hey, listen, you can do that
Speaker 2: to people of color, but those are moms.
Speaker 1: Those are white moms.
Speaker 2: Those are white moms. That could be my mother.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what else?
Speaker 3: You know, what else did your mom? That's where I
Speaker 3: thought you were going with you?
Speaker 1: Now what else is your mother? The products and services
Speaker 1: that support this podcast. We're back.
Speaker 3: So we've all disagreed that Matt is very fine. That
Speaker 3: was the discussion over the break.
Speaker 1: You made this one into a two parter, Matt, So
Speaker 1: you audience can thank you for two episodes about doctor
Speaker 1: Oz this week.
Speaker 2: All right, or they can blame you.
Speaker 1: And if they blame or blame him, Matt's home address
Speaker 1: is we love to dox our guests.
Speaker 2: Baby.
Speaker 1: So Oprah had Doctor Oz on her show fifty five
Speaker 1: times over the course of five years. She gave him
Speaker 1: the nickname America's Doctor, which stuck, and although I'm not
Speaker 1: saying this in a positive sense, is unfortunately accurate. He's
Speaker 1: definitely America's Doctor.
Speaker 2: Just appealing to the lowest commons denominator the stupidest human being.
Speaker 1: Marry doctor and if you look at the health of
Speaker 1: the average American, you can tell the quality.
Speaker 2: Of job he's done.
Speaker 1: More breadboat bread. Well, actually that's the one thing he is.
Speaker 1: He's actually pretty good about like weight low. Well, I
Speaker 1: don't know, that's still debatable.
Speaker 2: Stop defend. I'm not going to defend.
Speaker 1: I just love to be fair.
Speaker 2: You know, I know you too, You're very fair.
Speaker 1: Look say what you will about Hitler, you will.
Speaker 2: He was a vegetarian, and that's good for the environment.
Speaker 1: The man cared about animal rights. By two thousand and nine,
Speaker 1: it was clear that doctor Oz had more than enough
Speaker 1: star power to justify a shot at his own show.
Speaker 1: Oprah's production company had little trouble finding a buyer for
Speaker 1: what was sure to be a blockbuster news series. Her
Speaker 1: show celebrated the launch of Doctor Oz's show with an
Speaker 1: entire episode dedicated to Doctor Oz, which acted as something
Speaker 1: of a coming out party for his brand. From a
Speaker 1: press release on oprah dot com, this is talking about
Speaker 1: the special Doctor Oz episode. Moving personal stories and extraordinary
Speaker 1: surprises are featured throughout the hour as Doctor Oz meets
Speaker 1: viewers who share how his advice saved their lives, from
Speaker 1: those who noticed life threatening diseases their doctors missed to
Speaker 1: those who lost weight thanks to his diet tips from
Speaker 1: doctor Oz. Real people step forward to offer their thanks
Speaker 1: to America's doctor. Plus, it's the reunion that Doctor Oz
Speaker 1: never imagined would happen, as Oprah Show producers tracked down
Speaker 1: a young boy he cared for in the aftermath of
Speaker 1: Hurricane Katrina and the two reunite for the first time.
Speaker 1: He's like the fucking perfect, perfect guy for this.
Speaker 2: I mean, I love that. It's literally sounds like an
Speaker 2: hour long special of people just thanking him, which might
Speaker 2: be the most narcissistic thing I think I've ever heard. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, like it's one thing for Oprah to do that,
Speaker 2: because I think America does legitimately owe her thanks for
Speaker 2: just years of content, you know.
Speaker 1: But years of mostly dangerous health based content.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, I mean it's awful content. But the
Speaker 2: fact is it's it's quantity over quality in America. And
Speaker 2: you know, but an hour of just thanking doctor Oz
Speaker 2: and having people come up to him like you save me, fucking.
Speaker 1: What it's worth noting in terms of his bastardrey that
Speaker 1: and kind of the acceleration from hey, maybe energy healing
Speaker 1: works to becoming a monster. The early two thousands of
Speaker 1: the period in which Oprah becomes aware of a Brazilian
Speaker 1: healer named John of God who believes he can do
Speaker 1: psychic surgery and like God, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh of the of the Brazilian of God's yohl.
Speaker 1: And on the episode in which she introduces John of
Speaker 1: God to America, doctor Oz comes on and gives his
Speaker 1: professional opinion that, like, he seems like he's really having
Speaker 1: an effect on people, and I can't explain it. I
Speaker 1: don't think medical ex science can explain what this man
Speaker 1: is doing, basically giving a real doctor's opinion that this
Speaker 1: guy's gotta be legit. John of God later turned out
Speaker 1: to be a mass rapist on these on a scale,
Speaker 1: hundreds of victims, on a scale almost incomprehensible. We did
Speaker 1: a two parter on John of God. You can listen
Speaker 1: to it. It's a fucking nightmare. This guy never gets
Speaker 1: half the following that he has if it's not for
Speaker 1: Oprah and doctor Oz.
Speaker 2: So wow, holy shit.
Speaker 1: Uh it's good shit, good shit. I found a fascinating
Speaker 1: New York Times article written a few months into doctor
Speaker 1: Oz's new show. It notes that in transitioning to his
Speaker 1: own series, Doctor Oz had to spice up his act
Speaker 1: for a daily for a daily daytime audience quote potentially
Speaker 1: distracted by the tantrums of a toddler or the yelping
Speaker 1: of a labradoodle. They go on to summarize his early episodes.
Speaker 1: His show tackles topics is diverse and diversely weighting a
Speaker 1: skin cancer, kitchen burns, sleep eating, and pubic hair loss.
Speaker 1: Returning constantly to the same television mother load, Winfrey profitably
Speaker 1: mined weepy, overweight guests who vow and often fail to
Speaker 1: get in shape, and it is taken in it star
Speaker 1: far away from any sort of traditional medical practice. He
Speaker 1: explains that transition as the product of frustration. Too often.
Speaker 1: He told me he would sit in an office and
Speaker 1: be telling you stuff too little, too late, that if
Speaker 1: you'd been able to lose a little weight, or if
Speaker 1: your diabetes had been managed more aggressively, then it would
Speaker 1: have dramatically altered your destiny, which is now to go
Speaker 1: downstairs and have open heart surgery. With his TV show,
Speaker 1: he can exhort Americans to end all aspects, to tend
Speaker 1: to all aspects of their health head to toe before
Speaker 1: they reach a point of no return, lose weight, go
Speaker 1: to Brazil and get sexually assaulted by a con man.
Speaker 2: Oh god, oh wow. You know there's always that point,
Speaker 2: you know, I've listened to your show, and there's always
Speaker 2: that point in the episode where the comedian or the
Speaker 2: guest has no other option but to just say fuck,
Speaker 2: that sucks, dude, there's no other comment, but what Oh
Speaker 2: that's crazy. But you know, hey, John of God, your
Speaker 2: os they also sound like great people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and it's it's going to get worse, you know,
Speaker 1: this is kind of the period. One of the things
Speaker 1: he's just to do in this period is he starts
Speaker 1: cutting back on his surgical practice and performing fewer surgeries.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because he's got to keep up all those TV dates.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in order to tell people about John of God,
Speaker 1: the mass rapist, and in order to tell people about
Speaker 1: I don't know, some stuff that's good, right. Telling people
Speaker 1: to eat healthier is a good. America's diet sucks. His
Speaker 1: diet advice, I think is well, we'll talk about that later.
Speaker 1: It's also problematic anyway, he's trading objectively useful medical work
Speaker 1: for being a nonsense doctor. But he's making millions of dollars.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and in America, that is the ultimate marker of
Speaker 2: doing the right thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah. That's the only thing that tells you whether or
Speaker 1: not you're doing the right thing.
Speaker 2: Is you're making a lot of money, then whatever you're
Speaker 2: doing is the right thing to do. Yeah, it's morally
Speaker 2: correct to make a lot of money.
Speaker 1: Yeah, morally righteous, righteous wealth.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: You know what else is righteous, Matt?
Speaker 2: Is it the products and services?
Speaker 1: No, my man, it's you. Because the episode's over. Part
Speaker 1: one is over, and we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna
Speaker 1: sail out. But first you've got to plug your pluggables.
Speaker 1: And I just decided to compliment you before were.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's very nice here here, I thought you were
Speaker 2: just trying to get me to talk about products and services. Well,
Speaker 2: I thank you for having me on. I have a
Speaker 2: product end or service called pod Yourself a Gun. It's
Speaker 2: a Sopranos podcast and uh uh yeah, if you like
Speaker 2: the Sopranos, or even if you don't, check it out
Speaker 2: on the you know wherever the podcasts store is.
Speaker 1: Podcast All right, Well, this is the show that it is,
Speaker 1: and we're done doing the things that we do so
Speaker 1: go out into the world and I don't know, find
Speaker 1: doctor Oz and scream at him. Give'm a good screaming
Speaker 3: M