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Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the

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Speaker 1: Thing from iHeart Radio, a chocolate chip cookie, a bite

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Speaker 1: of Devil's Food cake, or a gigantic cup filled with

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Speaker 1: your favorite soda. Sugar is a simple chemical compound, yet

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Speaker 1: so powerful and so hard to refuse. The traditional advice

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Speaker 1: about avoiding sugar seems simple put down the doughnut, but

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Speaker 1: few people know how much the deck is being stacked

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Speaker 1: against them. Food and beverage corporations spend billions of dollars

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Speaker 1: to ensure their customers remain addicted to their products, which

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Speaker 1: has contributed to an epic surge in type two diabetes.

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Speaker 1: In order to reverse these rising rates, my guest today

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Speaker 1: believes we need to embrace deep legislative and societal change.

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Speaker 1: Physician and public health expert, doctor Dean Schillen is a

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Speaker 1: professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

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Speaker 1: He is the co founder of the UCSF Center for

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Speaker 1: Vulnerable Populations. I was featured in the PBS documentary on

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Speaker 1: Type two diabetes Blood Sugar Rising. As someone with type

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Speaker 1: two diabetes, this issue hits close to home for me.

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Speaker 1: I wanted to begin my conversation with doctor Schillinger, learning

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Speaker 1: how he went from simply treating individual patients to calling

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Speaker 1: for a public health war on diabetes.

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Speaker 2: I work at San Francisco General Hospital, which is the

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Speaker 2: city and County of San Francisco's public hospital, which is

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Speaker 2: for the New Yorkers on the call, sort of like

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Speaker 2: a small.

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Speaker 3: Version of Bellevue.

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Speaker 2: And if you had told me thirty years ago that

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Speaker 2: I was going to become a specialist and expert in

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Speaker 2: diabetes when I was coming out of medical school, I

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Speaker 2: would have laughed at you. It was not something that

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Speaker 2: I was interested in when I was training. And when

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Speaker 2: I started out as a primary care physician general internest

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Speaker 2: this Stan Africa General Hospital, I'd say about one out

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Speaker 2: of fifteen of my patients had type two diabetes. And

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Speaker 2: now I just think about the clinic that I had

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Speaker 2: on Monday, one out of two of my patients has

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Speaker 2: type two diabetes. So in one generation, we have seen

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Speaker 2: an absolute explosion in type two diabetes in America, and

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Speaker 2: that can't possibly be managed by endocrinologists. There just aren't

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Speaker 2: enough of them on the planet. And truth be told,

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Speaker 2: most of diabetes can be handled by family doctors.

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Speaker 3: In general interness but it.

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Speaker 2: Has become the proverbial bread and butter of my practice,

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Speaker 2: and it has also led me to try to combat

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Speaker 2: the illness not only in the clinic, but also outside

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Speaker 2: in society, this diobetogenic society, to move the fight sort

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Speaker 2: of beyond one patient at a time to sort of

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Speaker 2: the general population.

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Speaker 1: Where'd you grow up, where you from originally?

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Speaker 3: I'm originally from Buffalo, New York.

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Speaker 1: And where did you go unto grad?

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Speaker 3: I went to Brown University.

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Speaker 1: And where'd you go to medical school?

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Speaker 2: University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Which is interesting because the

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Speaker 2: University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia was home to the country's

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Speaker 2: largest public hospital, Philadelphia General. But you know, it lost

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Speaker 2: a lot of money, as you can imagine, and so

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Speaker 2: they shut it down just a few years before I

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Speaker 2: entered the medical school, And so I had never had

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Speaker 2: exposure to working in a public hospital as a medical student.

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Speaker 2: And you talk about the high level hospitals that New

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Speaker 2: York and San Francisco have, and that indeed is true.

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Speaker 2: But until you've worked in a public hospital, you don't

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Speaker 2: realize the fact that we really operate in a two

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Speaker 2: tier medical system, and that a lot of the consequences

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Speaker 2: of our social ills end up at the door of

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Speaker 2: public hospitals. So if you're only working in private hospitals

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Speaker 2: or nonprofit hospitals, you don't see what's really going on

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Speaker 2: in society until you set foot in a public hospital.

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Speaker 2: And it's really it's transformative as a clinician. And what

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Speaker 2: I try I have been trying to do in the

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Speaker 2: last few decades, has been to share the stories that

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Speaker 2: I've been witnessed to in the public hospitals to the

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Speaker 2: general public so we can begin to understand how public

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Speaker 2: health happens or doesn't happen in this country. And that's

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Speaker 2: sort of what you saw in Blood Sugar Rising.

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Speaker 1: And the fundamental difference between the two is what.

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Speaker 2: Well, the fundamental difference between the two is the burden

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Speaker 2: of disease that we see in low income communities and

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Speaker 2: people of color far outstrips that which we see in

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Speaker 2: the private hospital. So the reason that the waiting rooms

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Speaker 2: are so packed in public hospitals is not just because

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Speaker 2: we don't have enough doctors and nurses, but because the

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Speaker 2: demand for healthcare is so logarithmically exponentially higher because of

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Speaker 2: the burden of disease that comes with poverty. Think about

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Speaker 2: what it's like to be a poor person working two jobs,

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Speaker 2: the stress that they have in their daily lives, and

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Speaker 2: all that is around them in the every corner store,

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Speaker 2: every advertisement, every billboard is pushing the food that you

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Speaker 2: appropriately described is causing your diabetes. And it's the same

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Speaker 2: for people who are poor but really on steroids, no

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Speaker 2: pun intended.

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Speaker 1: Well, what's interesting to me? You know, I'm some and

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Speaker 1: this is just my belief that when you abuse alcohol,

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Speaker 1: when you wake up in the morning and you look

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Speaker 1: at yourself, you don't like what you see. Maybe if

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Speaker 1: you smoke too much, you know it's wrong. Sugar is

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Speaker 1: something that is indoctrinated into our lives from day one.

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Speaker 1: We have appended the consumption of some sugary product with

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Speaker 1: nearly everything we do. Birthday caicks. You don't have a

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Speaker 1: birthday salad, you have a birthday cake. Everything has their

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Speaker 1: designated sweets.

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Speaker 2: I mean, the holiday is just that it's a holy

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Speaker 2: day and we are meant to celebrate it as a

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Speaker 2: very special and unique day in the year for whatever ritual,

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Speaker 2: whatever reason, And so the introduction of sweets into that

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Speaker 2: holiday was a signal, a symbol of the sweetness of

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Speaker 2: life that we celebrate or whatever the memory is that

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Speaker 2: we're trying to celebrate. And you're absolutely right that what

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Speaker 2: the food industry and the hallmark industry has done is

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Speaker 2: take this natural joy we feel when we consume added

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Speaker 2: sugar and essentially make it such that every meal now

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Speaker 2: has to have that endorphin and dopamine rush experience that

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Speaker 2: we used to only experience two or three times a year.

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Speaker 2: And what we've learned increasingly from both basic science and

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Speaker 2: behavioral science, is that added sugar, particularly liquid added sugar

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Speaker 2: in the form of sugar sweetened beverages.

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Speaker 3: Are addictive.

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Speaker 2: They have all the characteristics in terms of brain response

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Speaker 2: that we see with alcohol, cocaine, etc. And I am

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Speaker 2: not exaggerating when I say this. The cravings, the joy,

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Speaker 2: the withdrawal, all of these things the food chemists have

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Speaker 2: learned and have then implemented into marketing strategies and distribution strategies.

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Speaker 2: And for those who are under stress or depressed or

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Speaker 2: down and need to pick me up, this is the

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Speaker 2: perfect drug. And the modern food system has trained, has

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Speaker 2: formed itself, to deliver high doses of added sugar, particular

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Speaker 2: liquid sugar on an ongoing basis and we create the

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Speaker 2: false belief that this is part of our culture, and

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Speaker 2: I think that it indeed is, but it's based on

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Speaker 2: a model of addiction and the corporate takeover of the

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Speaker 2: food system by harnessing the addictive properties of their foods.

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Speaker 2: It's not a level playing field. Your body has natural

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Speaker 2: hormones and chemical messages that say my appetite is satisfied,

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Speaker 2: I'm going to stop eating. But the food chemists have

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Speaker 2: created foods that do not stimulate the appetite suppressant hormone.

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Speaker 2: I mean specifically that so that we're being played, so

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Speaker 2: that you feel that you and your willpower are inadequate

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Speaker 2: in terms of your question as to when we should

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Speaker 2: be screened. This is highly controversial, and I can tell

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Speaker 2: you what I do in my practice and my practices,

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Speaker 2: I take care of low income people who have a

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Speaker 2: very high point revalence of type two diabetes. If you

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Speaker 2: take the average adult who is a person of color

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Speaker 2: in the United States, there's about a twenty twenty five

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Speaker 2: percent chance that that person off the street's going.

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Speaker 3: To have diabetes at one age.

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Speaker 2: That's the average age, so we're talking about in their fifties.

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Speaker 2: But we see the incidence of diabetes occurring younger and younger,

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Speaker 2: and particularly in people of color. In fact, we're seeing

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Speaker 2: it now in children. We're seeing type two diabetes emerge.

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Speaker 2: If I had said twenty five years ago, I've got

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Speaker 2: a child with type two by diabetes as supposed to

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Speaker 2: type one, people would you know, laugh me off the stage.

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Speaker 2: But now this is this is just an everyday phenomenon,

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Speaker 2: and the rates of type two diabetes and children of

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Speaker 2: color has gone up three four fold over the last decade.

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Speaker 1: The young man you see in the film who you're

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Speaker 1: taking care of, the black guy who's going to be

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Speaker 1: lose his foot, Yeah, Montille, Montille. Now he looks pretty

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Speaker 1: whippity and pretty lean. So I'm assuming you don't have

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Speaker 1: to be morbidly obese to qualify for this.

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Speaker 2: Correct, That's absolutely true. I think there is a there.

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Speaker 2: Of course, obesity and high BMI is a risk factor

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Speaker 2: for the development of type two diabetes. But I have

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Speaker 2: plenty of patients, particularly young patients, who have type two

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Speaker 2: diabetes who are not overweight. So yes, he developed diabetes

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Speaker 2: in his late twenties. He was born in poverty and

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Speaker 2: raised in poverty, severe food and security. He grew up

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Speaker 2: eating what he told me were syrup sandwiches, which is

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Speaker 2: syrup put in between two pieces of wonderbread. For much

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Speaker 2: of his childhood, his father was incarcerated. He raised himself

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Speaker 2: and his younger brother, and they would drink you know,

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Speaker 2: high Sea and the fruit, you know, the powder mixes

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Speaker 2: of sugar, sweet and beverages, three meals a day. So

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Speaker 2: he was really addicted, if you will, but also overly

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Speaker 2: exposed to added sugar, particular liquid sugar. And in his

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Speaker 2: twenties he came in at a diabetic coma. And you know,

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Speaker 2: in the old days, we would have thought that was

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Speaker 2: type one diabetes, the so called autoimmune disease where you

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Speaker 2: you know, children, juvenile onset diabetes, where the body attacks itself,

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Speaker 2: you know, the pancreas stops producing insulin. But what we're

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Speaker 2: seeing now in these younger people is type two diabetes,

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Speaker 2: which I like to think of as the body politic

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Speaker 2: attacking the child or the young person. It's not the

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Speaker 2: body attacking itself, it's our society attacking the body of

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Speaker 2: that young person. And that's what happened with Montille, and

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Speaker 2: he has suffered all of the consequences of uncontrolled type

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Speaker 2: two diabetes. He's now forty, and he just sustained another amputation.

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Speaker 1: The sugar consumption in my family as a child was habitual.

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Speaker 1: My mother was diabetically. Yeah, it was diabetic, and she

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Speaker 1: did had no amputations. But she was really very sick

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Speaker 1: from diabetes for many, many years.

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Speaker 3: But how old was she when she developed diabetes? I'm

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Speaker 3: interested to her.

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Speaker 1: I would say that she was identified and treated when

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Speaker 1: she was She died at ninety two last year.

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Speaker 3: Do you remember how old she was when she was sixty?

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Speaker 1: I'd say, okay, probably sixty.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting because you would say to your doctor,

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Speaker 2: I have a family history of diabetes. It's interesting. Many

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Speaker 2: of my patients say, oh, this is happening because of

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Speaker 2: my genetics. I have a family history of diabetes. And

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Speaker 2: I say, well, that's interesting. How old was your grandmother

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Speaker 2: when she got diabetes? Oh she was eighty okay.

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Speaker 3: And how old was your mother when she got diabetes?

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Speaker 2: She was seventy. And how old are you now? Oh,

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Speaker 2: I'm forty five. And how about your son who has diabetes?

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Speaker 2: Oh he's twenty one. I have patients who tell me

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Speaker 2: the story and so say, yeah, you have a family history.

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Speaker 2: We are all vulnerable to getting diabetes. But your history

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Speaker 2: went from ninety to seventy to fifty to thirty. And

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Speaker 2: it's very different to have diabetes at a young age

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Speaker 2: than it is to have an old age. And so

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Speaker 2: something has gone on in our environment, something pathologic has

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Speaker 2: gone on our environment. To unmask this nearly human, universal

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Speaker 2: human tendency, we have to acquire diabetes such that it's

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Speaker 2: happening at younger and younger ages, with tremendous implications for

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Speaker 2: work productivity, raising a family, sexual activity, you know, and

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Speaker 2: all of those things. And so it's really you know,

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Speaker 2: in the context of the COVID pandemic, of course that's

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Speaker 2: gotten all the intention. But what's happening at a much

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Speaker 2: more chronic, slow growing, and insidious pace is the diabetes epidemic.

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Speaker 2: And the two of them together, of course, were a disaster,

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Speaker 2: you know, the so called syndemic of having diabetes making

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Speaker 2: you much more likely to die of COVID than you

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Speaker 2: see how these two things interact with each other. So

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Speaker 2: it's a very important national urgent problem. And you know,

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Speaker 2: we've recently had some federal policy work around this that

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Speaker 2: I hope will change the conversation such as well, the

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Speaker 2: conversation is focused very much on you know what you

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Speaker 2: and I have been talking about, which is people's individual

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Speaker 2: choices that they make in their day to day lives,

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Speaker 2: right the intimates and donuts that your mother served you

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Speaker 2: and that you enjoyed. Really much of this exposure is

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Speaker 2: occurring in the context of federal policy that in many

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Speaker 2: ways promotes the diabetes epidemic.

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Speaker 3: Let's take, for.

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Speaker 2: Example, the most important nutrition assistance program, the SNAP Program

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Speaker 2: Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program formerly known as food stamps. Something

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Speaker 2: like forty forty five million individuals receive SNAP benefits every year,

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Speaker 2: and because of the efforts of the junk food industry

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Speaker 2: in particular, we have never been able to actually make

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Speaker 2: that a nutrition assistance program. Rather, what it is is

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Speaker 2: it gives people a little bit of money to buy food,

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Speaker 2: including junk food. So last year we spent maybe eighty

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Speaker 2: billion dollars on providing SNAP benefits to low income America.

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Speaker 2: It's very important program to reduce poverty and food and security.

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Speaker 2: Four billion dollars four billion of the eighty billion was

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Speaker 2: spent only on sugar, sweet and beverages.

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Speaker 1: And any attempts we've made to attach restrictions to that

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Speaker 1: money have been rebuffed by even civil rights activists who

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Speaker 1: are saying, don't tell us what.

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Speaker 3: To eat, right.

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Speaker 2: We have the misconception that this freedom to eat in

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Speaker 2: some way restricts our freedom of life. And you know,

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Speaker 2: we're not saying you can't drink a sugar sweet and beverage.

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Speaker 2: What we're saying is that the government funding should not

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Speaker 2: be used in a nutrition assistance program. And just by

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Speaker 2: way of comparison, with the four billion dollars in that

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Speaker 2: same year, the CDC would have spent six hundred million

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Speaker 2: dollars on all chronic diseases in America.

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Speaker 3: So what is that like?

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Speaker 2: A sevenfold greater expenditure on sugar sweet and beverages than

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Speaker 2: the prevention of all chronic diseases.

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Speaker 1: Doctor Dean Schillinger. If you enjoy conversations on public health,

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Speaker 1: check out my episode with doctor Robert Lustig, a pediatric

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Speaker 1: endocrinologist who studied the link between sugar and childhood obesity.

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Speaker 4: Sixteen percent of all of the corn grown in America

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Speaker 4: today ends up as high fructose corn syrup. We have

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Speaker 4: boatloads of it, and it's cheap, and because it's cheap,

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Speaker 4: it started finding its way into things that never had

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Speaker 4: sugar before. Like hamburger buns, hamburger meat, barbecue, sauce, ketchup, salad, dressing.

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Speaker 4: I mean pretty much everything you can imagine in the store. Indeed,

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Speaker 4: Barry Popkin at the University of North Carolina has just

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Speaker 4: done a study that shows that eighty percent of the

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Speaker 4: food items there are six hundred thousand food items in America,

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Speaker 4: eighty percent of them relays with sugar added sugar.

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Speaker 1: To hear more of my conversation with doctor Lustig, go

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Speaker 1: to Here's Thething dot org. After the break, Doctor Dean

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Speaker 1: Schillinger shares how conflicts of interest in scientific studies and

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Speaker 1: lobbying prevent change from within the sugar industry. I'm Alec Baldwin,

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Speaker 1: and you're listening to Here's the Thing. Doctor Dean Schillinger

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Speaker 1: served as a co chair of a federal Advisory Commission

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Speaker 1: on Diabetes policy and Chief Medical Officer for Diabetes Prevention

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Speaker 1: for the State of care California, among many other high

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Speaker 1: profile appointments. I wanted to learn about his approach to

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Speaker 1: advising elected officials and trying to bring about real legislative change.

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Speaker 2: You know, we've gotten to the point now where one

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Speaker 2: in seven adults on average has diabetes in America one

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Speaker 2: in seven, and in communities of color, it's, like I said,

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Speaker 2: one in four, sometimes one in three. We can't avoid

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Speaker 2: hearing stories of the consequences of diabetes. And what I've realized,

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Speaker 2: I've stopped giving talks on the statistics and the p

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Speaker 2: values and the you know, and graphs, and I've just

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Speaker 2: started telling real stories from my own practice that sort

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Speaker 2: of give people a wake up call around like this

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Speaker 2: is like really important shit here. These aren't just numbers.

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Speaker 2: And this sort of happened to me when I was

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Speaker 2: working as chief of the diabetes Prevention Control Program in

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Speaker 2: the state of California. So when I started the job

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Speaker 2: in two thousand and eight, two and a half million

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Speaker 2: Californians had diabetes, and when I left twenty thirteen to

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Speaker 2: four million Californians had diabetes.

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Speaker 3: So I'm like, gee, I did a great job, right,

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Speaker 3: what a fantastic job I did.

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Speaker 2: And the reason I wasn't able to do my job

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Speaker 2: is I couldn't get into the heads of legislators how

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Speaker 2: important this was. And then I quickly learned, probably too late,

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Speaker 2: that I needed to tell them real stories. And the

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Speaker 2: story that I told them then and I've told another

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Speaker 2: regulatory in policy settings was a story of Melanie, a

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Speaker 2: lovely forty year old African American woman who had developed

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Speaker 2: diabetes just like Montelle in her late twenties and had

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Speaker 2: been addicted to a number of things, smoking cocaine, sugar

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Speaker 2: sweeten beverages, but the addiction she could not kick. With

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Speaker 2: sugar sweeten beverages, she loved seven ups. She just could

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Speaker 2: not give up the seven up and she was desperate.

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Speaker 2: And I remember on her fortieth birthday, I came into

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Speaker 2: clinic and I saw her hospital card, like, it's your

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Speaker 2: fortieth birthday, Why are you here? You should be celebrating,

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Speaker 2: And she said, oh, don't worry. You know, my girlfriend

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Speaker 2: going to take me tomorrow to the water park, my

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Speaker 2: favorite thing to do. I'm going to go to the

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Speaker 2: water park and do the water slides. I haven't done

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Speaker 2: it in fifteen years. I was like, oh, that sounds

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Speaker 2: like a great birthday. And then a couple months later,

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Speaker 2: at her follow up appointment, she didn't show, but her

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Speaker 2: girlfriend showed and I said, where's Melanie And she said

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Speaker 2: I it was horrible. We went to the water park

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Speaker 2: and you know Melanie who can't feel her feet because

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Speaker 2: of her. The nerve damage from the diabetes burnt the

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Speaker 2: bottom of her feet while she was standing on the

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Speaker 2: hot staircase, and she developed gangreen in both feet, hospitalized

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Speaker 2: and had amputations, and then the gangreen spread to her

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Speaker 2: body and she died. And this is what I learned,

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Speaker 2: you know, at her follow up visit.

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Speaker 1: And for those people that don't know, for those people

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Speaker 1: who don't have a real sense of the diabetic neuropathy

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Speaker 1: where and for some of my friends, that neuropathy came

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Speaker 1: on in somewhat rapid surges.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I had friends of mine who had along that outer

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Speaker 1: pad of your foot, the balls of the feed and

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Speaker 1: then the heel. They had a neuropathy like sensation for

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Speaker 1: an extended period of time, like let's say a year,

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Speaker 1: and they felt the tingling right, and then all of

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Speaker 1: a sudden, it seemed like they told me, like overnight

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Speaker 1: he went to burning and numbness.

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Speaker 3: And then numbness. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: You know, the statistic that I think is most compelling is,

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Speaker 2: you know, we think of amputees, We think of soldiers, right,

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Speaker 2: we think of the Iraq War and IEDs and people

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Speaker 2: getting their leg blown off, and that indeed happened in

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Speaker 2: the fifteen years of that conflict, twenty five hundred soldiers

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Speaker 2: lost a limb and it's a catastrophe. It's devastating. In

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Speaker 2: that same period of time, one million people with diabetes

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Speaker 2: in the United States lost a limb. And we think

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Speaker 2: of amputation as like this most catastrophic thing, but it

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Speaker 2: is happening. If you go into low income neighborhoods, you

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Speaker 2: see people in wheelchairs. Why are they in wheelchairs? They've

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Speaker 2: lost a limb. So I mean, at some point, and

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Speaker 2: I think we've hit this point, the discourse begins to

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Speaker 2: change around, just like we saw with tobacco use, that

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Speaker 2: maybe this is something we need to do in moderation,

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Speaker 2: and we have to recognize it's not only we who

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Speaker 2: have to change, it's the businesses that are pushing this

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Speaker 2: at us that need to change.

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Speaker 1: I was told by people years ago when I was

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Speaker 1: more active on an ongoing basis in advocacy work in

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Speaker 1: the nineties and so forth, the sugar lobby is like borderline,

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Speaker 1: like the Mediine cartel. You know, the biggest sugar producer

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Speaker 1: I was in Brazil. The great families that are some

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Speaker 1: of them Cuban expatriates in the Miami area Great Miami

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Speaker 1: Fortunes logged countless millions of dollars in federal subsidies for

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Speaker 1: these products. You know, it's almost like they look at

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Speaker 1: sugar like oil, Like if we don't have a steady

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Speaker 1: supply of this stuff, the country is going to grind

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Speaker 1: to a halt. You know, sugar is a heavily What

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Speaker 1: do you think about that? In terms of this idea,

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Speaker 1: people was talking about putting warnings on candy labels.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think this is a critical, critical issue. The

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Speaker 2: outsized influence in this case of the American Beverage Association,

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Speaker 2: which is, you know, in cahoots with the sugar industry.

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Speaker 2: It's part of it, and I mean I've had firsthand

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Speaker 2: experiences with them.

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Speaker 3: I'll give you example.

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Speaker 2: So in twenty fifteen, the City and County of San

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Speaker 2: Francisco passed an ordinance because we've had this explosion of diabetes,

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Speaker 2: that would place warning labels on billboards that advertise sugar,

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Speaker 2: sweet and beverages, you know, warning consuming one or more

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Speaker 2: of these. The City County of San Francisco that consuming

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Speaker 2: one or more of these may contribute to OBEs, diabetes,

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Speaker 2: tooth decay, and heart disease.

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Speaker 3: Pretty reasonable and this went to court.

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Speaker 2: The American Beverage Association sued the city and county for

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Speaker 2: breach of their First Amendment rights, so called compelling their

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Speaker 2: free speech making them say something that they claimed was misleading,

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Speaker 2: scientifically false, and controversial.

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Speaker 3: And so this went to of all places.

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Speaker 2: Of federal court, the Ninth Circuit Court because it's a

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Speaker 2: constitutional case.

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Speaker 1: And who were the litigants again, the the.

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Speaker 2: American Beverage Association, the City and County of San Francisco

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Speaker 2: to plaintiff with you. And so I was asked to

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Speaker 2: be the expert scientist to develop a report around, Okay,

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Speaker 2: is this warning actually scientifically factual? And I provided that

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Speaker 2: report and that case was one but was interesting. In

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Speaker 2: the research that I was doing to try to determine

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Speaker 2: whether sugar, sweet and beverages were causally associated with these outcomes,

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Speaker 2: something sort of interesting happened, which is about half of

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Speaker 2: the studies showed that, yes, there is a causal relationship

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Speaker 2: between these products and these outcomes, but half of them

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Speaker 2: found no effect. I would say fifty to fifty was

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Speaker 2: kind of, you know, coincidental. And so after that court

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Speaker 2: case happened, I went back and I very carefully went

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Speaker 2: through the funding sources of each of these studies there

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Speaker 2: were something like sixty studies in a fifteen year period,

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Speaker 2: and looked at the funding sources of the scientists who

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Speaker 2: had written those coursers. And as it turned out, not

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Speaker 2: surprisingly those studies that were funded in some way by

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Speaker 2: the American Beverage Association or the scientists had been sent

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Speaker 2: on trips to Hawaii or whatever. It was almost universally,

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Speaker 2: with only one exception, thirty three out of thirty four

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Speaker 2: found no association between their product. No diabetes is zero, right,

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Speaker 2: And every study that was independently funded founded, and so

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Speaker 2: the likelihood of having an association found if you were

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Speaker 2: funded by the industry was basically zero.

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Speaker 3: And so I wrote up these findings because that, I mean, everybody.

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Speaker 2: Knows there's conflicts of interest, right the chemical industry and

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Speaker 2: the tobacco industry. But this strength of the conflict of

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Speaker 2: interest essentially entirely determining the result of the study, showed

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Speaker 2: how the industry controlling the scientists, controlling and hijacking science itself.

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Speaker 2: Being on the editorial boards of nutrition journals, for example.

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Speaker 3: Really was unprecedented.

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Speaker 2: And so I wrote this up in the Anamals of

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00:23:54,000 --> 00:23:57,720
Speaker 2: Internal medicine, and needless to say, the American Beverage Association

438
00:23:57,960 --> 00:24:02,119
Speaker 2: responded immediately and quote a scathing letter to the editor

439
00:24:02,240 --> 00:24:05,639
Speaker 2: saying that Okay, yeah, he claims doctor Schellinger claims that

440
00:24:05,640 --> 00:24:08,720
Speaker 2: there are conflicts of interest at play here. He needs

441
00:24:08,760 --> 00:24:11,560
Speaker 2: to understand that they are intellectual conflicts of interest that

442
00:24:11,640 --> 00:24:14,800
Speaker 2: he is subject to. In other words, saying, I somehow

443
00:24:14,840 --> 00:24:18,760
Speaker 2: religiously believe that sugar sweeten beverages are cause of diabetes,

444
00:24:18,800 --> 00:24:22,959
Speaker 2: and therefore that belief is a conflict of interest that

445
00:24:23,160 --> 00:24:27,760
Speaker 2: undermines the scientific study that I did, and intellectual conflicts

446
00:24:27,760 --> 00:24:28,080
Speaker 2: of interest.

447
00:24:28,160 --> 00:24:29,200
Speaker 3: The last time I saw.

448
00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:32,160
Speaker 2: That raised was when the tobacco industry, you know, went

449
00:24:32,160 --> 00:24:35,480
Speaker 2: against the scientists who found the relationship between tobacco and

450
00:24:35,520 --> 00:24:39,280
Speaker 2: lung cancer. So then about a year later, two years later,

451
00:24:39,680 --> 00:24:41,919
Speaker 2: a study came out in that same journal, the Annals

452
00:24:41,960 --> 00:24:45,200
Speaker 2: of Internal Medicine, that claimed that all of the national

453
00:24:45,240 --> 00:24:48,320
Speaker 2: guidelines internationally that said that we should have less than

454
00:24:48,320 --> 00:24:52,119
Speaker 2: ten percent of our caloric consumption from added sugars are fraudulent,

455
00:24:52,240 --> 00:24:53,240
Speaker 2: They're bad science.

456
00:24:53,520 --> 00:24:53,760
Speaker 3: You know.

457
00:24:53,920 --> 00:24:56,920
Speaker 2: It was a very well done systematic review funded by

458
00:24:57,560 --> 00:25:02,000
Speaker 2: the International Life Science Institute, which is the Americ Beverage Association, Snickers,

459
00:25:02,080 --> 00:25:04,720
Speaker 2: Mars Bar, all of these people. And I was asked

460
00:25:04,760 --> 00:25:08,520
Speaker 2: to write an editorial about this study, and I basically

461
00:25:08,560 --> 00:25:11,320
Speaker 2: called them out in the editorial, and then The Atlantic

462
00:25:11,359 --> 00:25:14,840
Speaker 2: Monthly said, well, wow, what's going on with this sugar controversy.

463
00:25:14,840 --> 00:25:17,480
Speaker 2: We're going to have a story about the sugar controversy,

464
00:25:17,560 --> 00:25:21,040
Speaker 2: and they interviewed me, and they interviewed the editor of

465
00:25:21,040 --> 00:25:24,240
Speaker 2: the Anamals of Internal Medicine, an esteemed physician colleague of mine,

466
00:25:24,760 --> 00:25:26,919
Speaker 2: and they said, you know what, why did you publish

467
00:25:27,400 --> 00:25:31,600
Speaker 2: this study funded by the Beverage Association? And she said, well,

468
00:25:31,800 --> 00:25:33,480
Speaker 2: I felt like it was really important to have two

469
00:25:33,520 --> 00:25:36,320
Speaker 2: sides of the story. And I learned that yes, there

470
00:25:36,320 --> 00:25:39,840
Speaker 2: are financial conflicts of interests, but they're also intellectual conflicts

471
00:25:39,840 --> 00:25:44,560
Speaker 2: of interest. So this idea of intellectual conflicts of interest

472
00:25:44,960 --> 00:25:48,080
Speaker 2: is being pushed by the industry and is finding its

473
00:25:48,119 --> 00:25:54,480
Speaker 2: way into scientific discourse and really creating another mechanism for disinformation.

474
00:25:55,560 --> 00:25:57,720
Speaker 1: Now, in the time we have left, I wanted to

475
00:25:57,800 --> 00:26:00,840
Speaker 1: highlight the fact that your wife is a public interest

476
00:26:00,840 --> 00:26:04,000
Speaker 1: attorney who serves a director of the Program and Advocacy

477
00:26:04,040 --> 00:26:07,480
Speaker 1: at Bay Area Legal Aid. So both of you did

478
00:26:07,520 --> 00:26:13,360
Speaker 1: your wife's and your own public service mindedness, your civic mindedness,

479
00:26:13,760 --> 00:26:16,600
Speaker 1: your commitment to helping the less fortunate. Is that a

480
00:26:16,640 --> 00:26:19,560
Speaker 1: glue that drew you to your wife, something you admired

481
00:26:19,640 --> 00:26:20,160
Speaker 1: about her?

482
00:26:20,600 --> 00:26:23,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, it's something that I think she's been an

483
00:26:23,000 --> 00:26:25,800
Speaker 2: inspiration for me. She I mean, we often joke that

484
00:26:25,800 --> 00:26:28,120
Speaker 2: we serve the same clients, you know, and I'm trying

485
00:26:28,119 --> 00:26:30,919
Speaker 2: to promote their health and she's trying to promote their rights,

486
00:26:31,080 --> 00:26:33,679
Speaker 2: and in some cases we have shared clients coincidentally.

487
00:26:33,800 --> 00:26:34,280
Speaker 1: That's funny.

488
00:26:34,440 --> 00:26:37,560
Speaker 2: But I grew up in a public housing project actually

489
00:26:37,640 --> 00:26:39,840
Speaker 2: in Buffalo in my early years, and I saw what

490
00:26:40,359 --> 00:26:43,600
Speaker 2: poverty was like, and then we came out of that,

491
00:26:43,680 --> 00:26:46,320
Speaker 2: and I saw how different life was for me, you know,

492
00:26:46,600 --> 00:26:49,160
Speaker 2: once we had some money, and how that impacted my health.

493
00:26:50,040 --> 00:26:52,919
Speaker 2: On the other side of my family, my uncle was

494
00:26:53,600 --> 00:26:57,840
Speaker 2: running science education for UNESCO in Paris, and my aunt

495
00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:02,959
Speaker 2: was a radio broadcaster in Israel for Colistrael. And so

496
00:27:03,040 --> 00:27:07,080
Speaker 2: this idea of communication and science and health all sort

497
00:27:07,080 --> 00:27:10,159
Speaker 2: of I think I grew up with somehow, and so

498
00:27:10,680 --> 00:27:15,560
Speaker 2: I'm able now to try to harness science and communication

499
00:27:16,640 --> 00:27:19,960
Speaker 2: to make the world a better place. And it's extremely gratifying.

500
00:27:20,000 --> 00:27:21,919
Speaker 2: To be able to work in a public hospital where

501
00:27:21,960 --> 00:27:23,760
Speaker 2: you're working side by side with others who.

502
00:27:24,080 --> 00:27:25,840
Speaker 3: Who they're not in for the money. I mean we

503
00:27:25,920 --> 00:27:26,800
Speaker 3: get paid, we get.

504
00:27:26,640 --> 00:27:31,240
Speaker 2: Well paid, but really get to see their efforts returned.

505
00:27:31,600 --> 00:27:33,000
Speaker 3: You know, so many times.

506
00:27:32,760 --> 00:27:40,280
Speaker 1: Over, Doctor Dean Schillinger. If you're enjoying this conversation, tell

507
00:27:40,320 --> 00:27:43,080
Speaker 1: a friend and be sure to follow Here's the Thing

508
00:27:43,480 --> 00:27:49,040
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

509
00:27:49,640 --> 00:27:52,840
Speaker 1: When we come back, doctor Dean Schillinger shares the most

510
00:27:52,880 --> 00:28:07,160
Speaker 1: important change you can make to help fight diabetes. I'm

511
00:28:07,200 --> 00:28:11,280
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. Doctor

512
00:28:11,480 --> 00:28:16,000
Speaker 1: Dean Schillinger co founded a nonprofit campaign, The Bigger Picture,

513
00:28:16,440 --> 00:28:20,240
Speaker 1: to help young people of color tell their stories about diabetes.

514
00:28:20,880 --> 00:28:24,639
Speaker 1: They share how the issue affects their families, their communities,

515
00:28:25,080 --> 00:28:29,560
Speaker 1: and themselves through poetry, song and film. I wanted to

516
00:28:29,600 --> 00:28:32,680
Speaker 1: know what was behind the campaign and how it might

517
00:28:32,800 --> 00:28:36,840
Speaker 1: change the public perception surrounding sugar. Well.

518
00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:39,440
Speaker 2: I mean, I think there are two parts of the

519
00:28:39,480 --> 00:28:44,400
Speaker 2: conversation about diabetes. The first part is the individual patient right,

520
00:28:44,480 --> 00:28:47,719
Speaker 2: get your A one C, get tested, treat your diabetes,

521
00:28:47,800 --> 00:28:50,680
Speaker 2: eat right, exercise, I think we do a really good

522
00:28:50,760 --> 00:28:52,760
Speaker 2: job of that in the United States. The American Diabetes

523
00:28:52,800 --> 00:28:57,800
Speaker 2: Association is front and center where we don't have the megaphone. However,

524
00:28:58,600 --> 00:29:02,680
Speaker 2: is ref framing the conversation about diabetes to be not

525
00:29:02,720 --> 00:29:04,960
Speaker 2: just a biomedical problem at the individual level, but that

526
00:29:05,040 --> 00:29:06,680
Speaker 2: it is a societal problem.

527
00:29:06,360 --> 00:29:07,680
Speaker 3: That needs societal fixes.

528
00:29:07,760 --> 00:29:10,040
Speaker 2: And that's where this Bigger Picture campaign, with these young

529
00:29:10,080 --> 00:29:13,600
Speaker 2: poets of color basically speaking truth to power about what's

530
00:29:13,640 --> 00:29:17,480
Speaker 2: going on, has really changed the conversation away from this

531
00:29:17,600 --> 00:29:22,920
Speaker 2: individual blame and shame kind of narrative to actually, we're

532
00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:25,360
Speaker 2: kind of being victimized here, and it's not just people

533
00:29:25,400 --> 00:29:27,800
Speaker 2: of color being victim but we're all being victimized by

534
00:29:28,560 --> 00:29:32,840
Speaker 2: these insidious practices around the food industry. And this requires

535
00:29:33,240 --> 00:29:36,120
Speaker 2: a movement alec if we are going to change the

536
00:29:36,160 --> 00:29:38,200
Speaker 2: course of the epidemic, and we've begun to see that.

537
00:29:38,240 --> 00:29:42,160
Speaker 2: As I mentioned earlier, it's going to require a social movement.

538
00:29:42,760 --> 00:29:45,040
Speaker 2: And you know that the impact of these young people

539
00:29:45,040 --> 00:29:47,640
Speaker 2: in the Bigger Picture campaign, when they get in front

540
00:29:47,640 --> 00:29:51,160
Speaker 2: of policymakers and bang out a poem in front of them,

541
00:29:52,080 --> 00:29:54,600
Speaker 2: far outstrips the impact that I've been able to make

542
00:29:54,640 --> 00:29:55,240
Speaker 2: as and so.

543
00:29:55,240 --> 00:29:56,200
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have thought that.

544
00:29:56,640 --> 00:29:59,600
Speaker 2: I think bringing together the arts and public health in

545
00:29:59,640 --> 00:30:02,960
Speaker 2: terms of a megaphone around changing the conversation around diabetes

546
00:30:03,440 --> 00:30:07,480
Speaker 2: to be reframed as a social problem that we can

547
00:30:07,520 --> 00:30:10,760
Speaker 2: get our arms around. Is where the money should be.

548
00:30:10,920 --> 00:30:12,680
Speaker 2: It's where the money is. So it's where the money

549
00:30:12,720 --> 00:30:16,320
Speaker 2: should be. And I mean, you have a tremendous megaphone

550
00:30:16,320 --> 00:30:18,719
Speaker 2: at your disposal, and I hope you use it in

551
00:30:18,760 --> 00:30:23,520
Speaker 2: that regard. But there are many gifted members, particularly of

552
00:30:23,560 --> 00:30:27,840
Speaker 2: disproportionately affected communities, who can do a much better job

553
00:30:27,920 --> 00:30:32,600
Speaker 2: representing the experiences of individuals and communities more than the

554
00:30:32,640 --> 00:30:35,280
Speaker 2: public health expert can. So bringing together the public health

555
00:30:35,280 --> 00:30:38,720
Speaker 2: experts with vocal community members, who's.

556
00:30:38,440 --> 00:30:41,160
Speaker 1: Doing the talking and who's delivering the message exactly?

557
00:30:41,240 --> 00:30:43,800
Speaker 3: And what is that message? Yeah, I mean my message.

558
00:30:43,840 --> 00:30:45,720
Speaker 2: If I had said, oh, go do a diabetes campaign,

559
00:30:45,840 --> 00:30:49,080
Speaker 2: it probably would have been far less effective than what

560
00:30:49,160 --> 00:30:52,320
Speaker 2: you heard Obassi Davis and Joker Rosco's say.

561
00:30:52,200 --> 00:30:52,880
Speaker 3: In their poems.

562
00:30:53,000 --> 00:30:55,920
Speaker 2: Joker Orosco's poem, you know he's a kid who grew

563
00:30:56,000 --> 00:30:58,760
Speaker 2: up in Central Valley of California, which is, you know,

564
00:30:58,800 --> 00:31:02,640
Speaker 2: the fruit basket of the world, world growing fruits and vegetables,

565
00:31:02,800 --> 00:31:05,160
Speaker 2: and all the kids exposed to his junk food. He

566
00:31:05,200 --> 00:31:09,280
Speaker 2: can't you know, his family's farming the Bounty of America

567
00:31:09,560 --> 00:31:12,440
Speaker 2: and everywhere in Stockton is just junk food, and everybody's

568
00:31:12,480 --> 00:31:13,200
Speaker 2: got diabetes.

569
00:31:13,640 --> 00:31:17,160
Speaker 1: But you always see, I mean I did for a

570
00:31:17,160 --> 00:31:19,360
Speaker 1: period of time. You always see where they're going into

571
00:31:19,400 --> 00:31:23,000
Speaker 1: the school lunch program and they're taking the administrators of

572
00:31:23,040 --> 00:31:25,200
Speaker 1: the school district, and they're taking the administrators of the

573
00:31:25,200 --> 00:31:27,600
Speaker 1: individual school, and they're saying, you got to get the

574
00:31:27,680 --> 00:31:30,240
Speaker 1: soda machines out of the school. You got to get

575
00:31:30,240 --> 00:31:32,240
Speaker 1: the high fructose vending out of the school.

576
00:31:32,280 --> 00:31:35,440
Speaker 2: How do we not have federal legislation around that?

577
00:31:35,920 --> 00:31:38,800
Speaker 1: I wonder who can defend that? Who wasn't just completely

578
00:31:38,800 --> 00:31:41,960
Speaker 1: in the pocket of the beverage lobby or the sugar lobby.

579
00:31:42,280 --> 00:31:46,360
Speaker 1: You're sitting there saying you want your children, don't condemn

580
00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:47,920
Speaker 1: your children to what you have.

581
00:31:48,760 --> 00:31:50,880
Speaker 2: Right, Well, that's why we need a social movement. I mean,

582
00:31:50,920 --> 00:31:54,680
Speaker 2: we don't have cigarette vending machines in high schools right anymore?

583
00:31:55,520 --> 00:31:57,760
Speaker 3: We don't. That's true that we used to.

584
00:31:58,920 --> 00:32:01,680
Speaker 1: Now one last question, which is that so you're not

585
00:32:01,720 --> 00:32:05,000
Speaker 1: an endoquinologist and I'm assuming you're not a nutritionist either.

586
00:32:05,400 --> 00:32:08,240
Speaker 1: So when people come to you, whether it's the young

587
00:32:08,320 --> 00:32:10,440
Speaker 1: man who lost who was the subject of the film

588
00:32:10,440 --> 00:32:14,160
Speaker 1: who had the amputation, very sad case. And when people

589
00:32:14,160 --> 00:32:16,560
Speaker 1: are coming to you, I'm assuming within your body or

590
00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:19,120
Speaker 1: your network of your organizations you work with in hospitals,

591
00:32:19,200 --> 00:32:21,280
Speaker 1: there's a nutritionists you pass them on to who can

592
00:32:21,320 --> 00:32:24,200
Speaker 1: give them some guidance about what to eat, not eat. Eat.

593
00:32:24,600 --> 00:32:29,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, I provide basic nutritional counseling. Often it's not rocket science.

594
00:32:29,040 --> 00:32:30,600
Speaker 2: When you hear what people are you just have to

595
00:32:30,600 --> 00:32:32,400
Speaker 2: take a good history. You have to hear the story.

596
00:32:32,440 --> 00:32:34,520
Speaker 2: Tell me what you ate yesterday, Tell me what It

597
00:32:34,560 --> 00:32:37,320
Speaker 2: doesn't take long to figure out that they're having four

598
00:32:37,360 --> 00:32:40,280
Speaker 2: bowls of rice with every meal, or you know, having

599
00:32:40,520 --> 00:32:43,120
Speaker 2: three sugar sweetened beverages a day. And you know, a

600
00:32:43,120 --> 00:32:46,480
Speaker 2: lot of this is pretty out there and obvious. But yes,

601
00:32:46,520 --> 00:32:49,280
Speaker 2: we do have nutritionists who work in the outpatient's setting,

602
00:32:49,800 --> 00:32:52,280
Speaker 2: and they're very effective. I think the most effective thing

603
00:32:52,320 --> 00:32:53,680
Speaker 2: that they do is they have the person keep a

604
00:32:53,720 --> 00:32:56,120
Speaker 2: food diary and then they review the food diary.

605
00:32:56,320 --> 00:33:00,080
Speaker 1: Because I'm always saying to people it's an incremental change.

606
00:33:00,360 --> 00:33:01,880
Speaker 1: I said, just give up one thing. I had a

607
00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:04,120
Speaker 1: doctor sit me down when I was fifty years old,

608
00:33:04,480 --> 00:33:07,120
Speaker 1: so it's fifteen years ago, and he said, here's my philosophy.

609
00:33:07,200 --> 00:33:10,000
Speaker 1: He said that is, once you turn fifty, start to

610
00:33:10,080 --> 00:33:13,480
Speaker 1: minimize or completely give up one of each category gradually

611
00:33:13,520 --> 00:33:14,160
Speaker 1: every five years.

612
00:33:14,600 --> 00:33:17,800
Speaker 2: I mean, I do think certainly individual decision making is

613
00:33:17,840 --> 00:33:19,920
Speaker 2: really important, which is what we do with an attritionness.

614
00:33:20,640 --> 00:33:22,960
Speaker 2: At the same time, we have to ensure that when

615
00:33:22,960 --> 00:33:25,600
Speaker 2: the person walks out of their home that within a

616
00:33:25,680 --> 00:33:28,040
Speaker 2: mile or two miles there's some place.

617
00:33:27,800 --> 00:33:30,600
Speaker 1: That's option go, there's oppositation that you can get.

618
00:33:30,760 --> 00:33:32,920
Speaker 2: And the price of healthy food over the last thirty

619
00:33:33,000 --> 00:33:37,240
Speaker 2: years has exorbitantly increased relative to the price of junk food,

620
00:33:37,240 --> 00:33:41,560
Speaker 2: which has declined adjusted for inflation. So the stress on

621
00:33:41,640 --> 00:33:45,080
Speaker 2: the pocket is real. And you know, a lot of

622
00:33:45,080 --> 00:33:48,360
Speaker 2: that is subsidized by the farm bill. Paradoxically, so if

623
00:33:48,360 --> 00:33:50,480
Speaker 2: we could have a farm bill that subsidizes the growth

624
00:33:50,560 --> 00:33:53,160
Speaker 2: of healthy food, which we do not have a program

625
00:33:53,200 --> 00:33:55,800
Speaker 2: to do, we could turn that around to.

626
00:33:56,040 --> 00:33:58,360
Speaker 1: Well, let's just say this, which is when you're ready

627
00:33:58,440 --> 00:34:01,560
Speaker 1: to go to Washington and fight the fight about school

628
00:34:01,640 --> 00:34:05,200
Speaker 1: lunches and vending and lunches, when you're ready to do

629
00:34:05,480 --> 00:34:08,239
Speaker 1: the next charge up that hill. Count me and I'll

630
00:34:08,239 --> 00:34:08,680
Speaker 1: go with you.

631
00:34:09,080 --> 00:34:10,480
Speaker 3: Thanks, So I appreciate it.

632
00:34:10,960 --> 00:34:11,919
Speaker 1: Your kids are how old?

633
00:34:12,160 --> 00:34:13,480
Speaker 3: I have twins who are twenty four.

634
00:34:13,520 --> 00:34:15,799
Speaker 2: They're jazz musicians in New York actually, and then I

635
00:34:15,840 --> 00:34:16,959
Speaker 2: have a sixteen year old daughter.

636
00:34:17,120 --> 00:34:20,120
Speaker 1: So your daughter, And what's the shill in your house

637
00:34:20,880 --> 00:34:22,919
Speaker 1: on a dietary basis cooking at home?

638
00:34:23,680 --> 00:34:24,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, we mostly cook at home.

639
00:34:25,000 --> 00:34:27,480
Speaker 2: Occasionally we order in, you know, when I'm lazy, and

640
00:34:28,000 --> 00:34:30,480
Speaker 2: we have desserts. I mean a lot of fruit, a

641
00:34:30,520 --> 00:34:32,640
Speaker 2: lot of fruit. But well, we'll have desserts every now.

642
00:34:32,640 --> 00:34:34,360
Speaker 2: And that we do not have sugar, sweet and beverages.

643
00:34:34,440 --> 00:34:37,120
Speaker 2: That's something that's very different from my chi. And we

644
00:34:37,120 --> 00:34:39,600
Speaker 2: didn't have the fruit loops that I grew up with,

645
00:34:39,719 --> 00:34:42,239
Speaker 2: you know, the pop tarts that I grew up And

646
00:34:42,280 --> 00:34:45,560
Speaker 2: my kids, my boys are like five or six inches

647
00:34:45,600 --> 00:34:49,359
Speaker 2: taller than me and look a lot better than I did.

648
00:34:49,719 --> 00:34:52,640
Speaker 1: Well, listen, I enjoyed so much seeing you in the film,

649
00:34:53,000 --> 00:34:55,120
Speaker 1: and I was so captivated by the work you're doing

650
00:34:55,160 --> 00:34:58,400
Speaker 1: and your articulation and your just your whole energy in

651
00:34:58,480 --> 00:35:01,400
Speaker 1: terms of you're caring for your your constituents there that

652
00:35:01,480 --> 00:35:03,480
Speaker 1: I was dying to talk with you, and thank you

653
00:35:03,520 --> 00:35:09,600
Speaker 1: so much for doing with us. Okay, thank you, my

654
00:35:09,760 --> 00:35:14,319
Speaker 1: thanks to doctor Dean Schillinger. This episode was recorded at

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Speaker 1: CDM Studios in New York City. Were produced by Kathleen Russo,

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Speaker 1: Zach MacNeice, and Maureen Hobin. Our engineer is Frank Imperial.

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Speaker 1: Our social media manager is Danielle Gingrich. I'm Alec Baldwin.

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Speaker 1: Here's the thing is brought to you by iHeart Radio