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