Speaker 1: This is Gavin Newsom, and we continue with doctor Gupda.
Speaker 1: I want to talk in Sanjay, because you've been I mean,
Speaker 1: you've been one of the great thought leaders and written
Speaker 1: so much about longevity, and you talk about nutrition and
Speaker 1: health and some of the remarkable breakthroughs that are just
Speaker 1: they seem just shockingly common sense, I mean just sort
Speaker 1: of foundational, just leading with common sense, eating well, sleeping well, hydrating, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, socialization, et cetera. But you've been writing particularly
Speaker 1: about some breakthroughs and some examples of real successes as
Speaker 1: it relates to longevity and wellness that give I think,
Speaker 1: distill a sense of well being at least people like
Speaker 1: me that with an aging grain population, that we should
Speaker 1: be more optimistic than I think some of us have
Speaker 1: painted the future.
Speaker 2: With what we know now, not not any new medical
Speaker 2: breakthrough or some big development. I think we could greatly,
Speaker 2: greatly expand life expectancy and health span. That's a term
Speaker 2: I'm sure you've heard, but health span versus lifespan, it's
Speaker 2: the number of really functional years you have left. I
Speaker 2: think the data has become very compelling on this. I
Speaker 2: think anecdotally we've known this for a while. By looking
Speaker 2: at other countries around the world and saying they spend
Speaker 2: a lot less. They do pretty simple things. They walk
Speaker 2: to their meet friends as opposed to driving. They eat right,
Speaker 2: They fresh foods, healthier foods. They sleep well. Some of
Speaker 2: the healthiest communities in the world have either non existent
Speaker 2: healthcare systems, are very very small healthcare systems. So and
Speaker 2: that's heart disease, that's dementia, that's diabetes, all at a
Speaker 2: fraction of the rates that we have in the United States.
Speaker 2: They don't have anything that we don't have. What's happening
Speaker 2: to us is not because of what we're not doing.
Speaker 2: It's because of what we are doing to our bodies.
Speaker 2: But I'll tell you something interesting, Governor, if you talk
Speaker 2: about longevity overall or aging sort of as a construct,
Speaker 2: what scientists will stay, including Eric Topol, who you may
Speaker 2: know in your state, aging is really made up of
Speaker 2: several different things. It's not just revolutions of planets. It's
Speaker 2: how well your immune system is working, how much inflammation
Speaker 2: you have, how much something that you have known as senescence,
Speaker 2: how many cells that are in a sinesseence stage. There's
Speaker 2: seven different things like this that you can sort of
Speaker 2: think about that actually make up aging that will determine
Speaker 2: your health span, far more important than your genetics. We
Speaker 2: can control many of those things. We can improve our
Speaker 2: immune function, we can decrease our inflammation, we can decrease sinessence,
Speaker 2: and there's all these different ways to do it now
Speaker 2: that have great data behind that. There are certain medications
Speaker 2: and I'm not you know, Hockey any medications here, but
Speaker 2: like something like met Foreman even, which is something that's
Speaker 2: gotten a lot of attention Nil's Bursley, who's a longevity
Speaker 2: research out of SINAI will say met Forman is probably
Speaker 2: the closest thing we have to targeting all these different
Speaker 2: cardinal issues of aging, which I find really really interesting.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't call it a breakthrough. I would call it
Speaker 2: a recognition of what aging really is, what is really
Speaker 2: happening to the human body, especially as we get older,
Speaker 2: wire function decreases, and what can be done about it.
Speaker 2: You're quite right, it comes down to the big three,
Speaker 2: how we nourish ourselves, how we move, and how we rest.
Speaker 2: But you know, there's there's more nuance to it now
Speaker 2: based on a lot of the data people like Eric
Speaker 2: and Nill's are collecting.
Speaker 1: And at the core. I mean you've you know, you've
Speaker 1: you've written about I mean when it comes inflammation, obviously,
Speaker 1: sugars issues are around dairy meats. I mean, what's I mean,
Speaker 1: what yeah, you are You're solidified in that sort of
Speaker 1: core sort of understanding that limiting obviously sugar seems to
Speaker 1: make a lot of sense. I don't know if everybody's
Speaker 1: familiar with dairy as a component concern, uh, and and
Speaker 1: and then we can have the great meat debate as well.
Speaker 1: But are these sort of these foundational in terms of
Speaker 1: addressing particularly issues around Alzheimer's and dementia. I mean, I
Speaker 1: know Dean Ornish is out here in sas Alito. Uh,
Speaker 1: California has been pushing a lot in that space. What's
Speaker 1: what's your sense on the basis all your research and work, well.
Speaker 2: Sugar i'd put into its own category, like illuding to
Speaker 2: sugar is toxic. I mean, I did a piece for
Speaker 2: sixty minutes years ago called the Toxic Truth, and it
Speaker 2: was all about sugar, and it is. It is remarkable
Speaker 2: to me what sugar does to the body. We are
Speaker 2: our bodies just don't know how to process the amount
Speaker 2: of sugar that we eat. Nowadays, it basically hits our
Speaker 2: liver like a tsunami. And I think what's what's rising
Speaker 2: to people is that because the body can handle all
Speaker 2: that sugar, it turns out these byproducts, which are typically
Speaker 2: what are called LDL particles low density lipoprotein particles. You
Speaker 2: would typically think my LDL is going to go out
Speaker 2: because I ate a cheeseburger, which is true, but it
Speaker 2: might go up even more from a sugary drink. That's
Speaker 2: how toxic sugar can be to the body. So sugar
Speaker 2: I'd almost put into its own category. But I think
Speaker 2: with regard to the other things darian even meat. I
Speaker 2: do eat meat. I'm not a total vegetarian. I hope
Speaker 2: Dean's not listening because he's you know, he's vegan. But
Speaker 2: I think it really has to do with how those
Speaker 2: foods are processed. It's all the other junk that's added
Speaker 2: to a lot of those foods that I think make
Speaker 2: them really problematic and increase inflammation. What Dean was able
Speaker 2: to show, and I thought it was fascinating, was that
Speaker 2: going on a vegan diet was greatly associated with decreasing
Speaker 2: inflammation in the body and in the brain, and could
Speaker 2: if it could stall and potentially reverse Alzheimer's disease. That
Speaker 2: that was a big deal. I mean, people, once you
Speaker 2: get diagnosed with dementia, it is a downward spiral from
Speaker 2: there on out. He was able to show that you
Speaker 2: could at least stall it, if not reverse it, by
Speaker 2: simply changing diet and increasing activity as well. But diet
Speaker 2: was the big thing, and we've anecdotally sort of known
Speaker 2: this to be true, but I think he was really
Speaker 2: able to show this, and I think that's that's certainly
Speaker 2: made me reconsider my eating. So I've cut back on meat.
Speaker 2: But you know, I I we you know, I got
Speaker 2: three teenagers. You got to you got to balance your
Speaker 2: your life with what you know. I mean, if we
Speaker 2: were going to live forever, Kevin, if that was a
Speaker 2: can I call you Gavin, by the way.
Speaker 3: Please do the the the if if if we if
Speaker 3: there was a possibility we could live forever, that immortality
Speaker 3: was attainable, I might live my life differently, but I
Speaker 3: think you've got to balance your joy with your your lifestyle.
Speaker 2: And and I'm a very healthy exercise every day intensely,
Speaker 2: but also take long walks with my wife and my
Speaker 2: dogs and stuff like that. So I have more moderate
Speaker 2: activity as well, eat healthily, don't eat sugar and ill,
Speaker 2: don't drink alcohol. Alcohol is terrible. I mean, yeah, why
Speaker 2: do well anyways? But but the the.
Speaker 1: I'm in the wine business. You're talking to the wrong guy.
Speaker 1: But I completely appreciate your point.
Speaker 2: My guess is when you drink wine and I and
Speaker 2: I have. I have drank wine, and I can appreciate it.
Speaker 2: It's virtues. But do not do not get a terrible
Speaker 2: night's sleep.
Speaker 1: I mean, now, if I have any this works against
Speaker 1: my personal interests. I've not got to say no sugar
Speaker 1: and whether of course there's a byproduct of the wine
Speaker 1: as well. But by the way, are you a coffee drinker?
Speaker 1: Everybody's got is a mushroom coffee. People are in what's
Speaker 1: going on with coffee? Should I be drinking coffee?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I didn't know about the mushroom coffee. But I
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 1: Everyone's saying you should try mushroom coffee.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I'm asking you. I I like so,
Speaker 2: I you know, it's a funny. Funny thing is I
Speaker 2: really did not drink coffee up until a few years ago,
Speaker 2: and it was for no particular reason other than I
Speaker 2: just didn't like the taste of it. I am. It
Speaker 2: was unusual because most surgical residents and medical students, they
Speaker 2: started drinking coffee, you know, sort of you know, early twenties,
Speaker 2: and they become part of their lifestyle. I just never
Speaker 2: liked it. But during the pandemic, actually is when I
Speaker 2: started drinking coffee. I was waking up at four thirty
Speaker 2: in the morning every day and working till eleven thirty
Speaker 2: at night, you know, for a couple of years in
Speaker 2: a row. And my wife actually introduced me to this coffee.
Speaker 2: I don't know if we're allowed to talk about brands,
Speaker 2: but I really like it. It's called Purity Coffee and
Speaker 2: Pure coffee. It's just it's it's got no none of
Speaker 2: the additives that we were talking about. It's it's pesticide free,
Speaker 2: and to me, it tasted really clean. When I drank
Speaker 2: coffee and the asked it, I always felt like I
Speaker 2: could almost taste the aftertaste to it, and this was
Speaker 2: just a really good coffee. And then I started really
Speaker 2: doing a deep dive into coffee, and I think, you know,
Speaker 2: it's associated with all these different health benefits, cardiac dementia, inflammation, overall.
Speaker 2: So I drink a cup of days, sometimes two cups
Speaker 2: a day, and I think it's I think it's been
Speaker 2: really good for me.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, I think I mean as a guy
Speaker 1: who's got a few cups behind him in front of
Speaker 1: him on the.
Speaker 2: Side, just black coffee, or what are you drinking?
Speaker 1: It's just black coffee. No, I'm not adding any of
Speaker 1: that cream, any of that nonsense.
Speaker 2: And it takes a little bit to get used to
Speaker 2: the taste I think of just a black coffee. But
Speaker 2: once it's there, ye.
Speaker 1: Once you're there on the other side, you can hold strong.
Speaker 1: How worried should I be about this floride movement now
Speaker 1: we're seeing I mean Utah, Florida, there's big debates in
Speaker 1: Louisiana other states to take floride out of the water?
Speaker 1: Where did that? Where did this even come from? How
Speaker 1: important is I read in the past one of the
Speaker 1: great success stories in the last half century in terms
Speaker 1: of just you know, tell me give me your over
Speaker 1: under on fluoride.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well see, this is why I appreciate about podcasts
Speaker 2: like this, because there's a nuance to this, and you
Speaker 2: can actually get into the nuance a bit. Fluoride in
Speaker 2: really high doses can be problematic. It can cause something
Speaker 2: known as skeletal fluorosis. I'm talking about ingested fluoride. So
Speaker 2: you're taken it into your body through usually through water.
Speaker 2: It can cause skeletal fluorosis, which can make your bones
Speaker 2: in your skeleton weak. It can cause dental fluorosis. I
Speaker 2: don't know if you've ever seen governor people who have
Speaker 2: white streaks in their teeth. Yeah, sometimes that is a
Speaker 2: dental fluorosis. That's an indication of high fluoride levels. And
Speaker 2: I think most recently and interestingly, there's been concerns about neurotoxicity.
Speaker 2: There were studies done, all of them outside this country
Speaker 2: where fluorid levels are much higher than the United States,
Speaker 2: where they showed that moms, for example, during pregnancy, if
Speaker 2: they had high fluorid exposure, their kids later in life
Speaker 2: was associated with a lower IQ. So that was obviously concerning.
Speaker 2: These are hard studies to do, and there was some
Speaker 2: you know, getting the methods right on these studies is challenging,
Speaker 2: but I think there was enough of a concern about
Speaker 2: that for people to really start paying attention. To give
Speaker 2: you a little bit of context, the levels that we're
Speaker 2: talking about are at least twice as high as the
Speaker 2: levels in the drinking water in the United States, so
Speaker 2: quite a bit higher. And in medicine we always use
Speaker 2: this phrase the dose makes the poison things in any
Speaker 2: just about anything in a high enough dose could potentially
Speaker 2: be problematic. But it's you know, it definitely gets people's attention.
Speaker 2: What I would say when you talk about the fact
Speaker 2: that it's touted as one of the greatest public health
Speaker 2: achievements of the last century. I saw that as well,
Speaker 2: and I think that there's a kernel of truth to that.
Speaker 2: But the nuance is most of the data that exists
Speaker 2: on the benefits of fluoride exists before nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 2: Nineteen seventy five was a timeframe when dental care became
Speaker 2: much more widely available and fluoridated toothpaste, So prior to that,
Speaker 2: fluoridating the water probably had an incrementally a much bigger
Speaker 2: benefit than it does today, So it doesn't provide as
Speaker 2: much benefit. I think it's low risk because the levels
Speaker 2: don't get as high as they used to, and they
Speaker 2: don't get as high in the United States, as I
Speaker 2: should say, as they do in other countries. But it's
Speaker 2: also lower reward, So fluoride today lower risk, lower reward
Speaker 2: than it used to be. Iceland does not fluoridate their water.
Speaker 2: England does not floridate their water. Israel does not fluoridate
Speaker 2: their water. In Iceland, the kids all do twice a
Speaker 2: month fluoride rinses, and England, interestingly, they fluoridate milk, so
Speaker 2: it's not water. So you're floridating milk. They like, we
Speaker 2: don't want to put it in the water supply kids
Speaker 2: you know, who drink milk, they should still get their
Speaker 2: florid That was sort of their thinking. Calgary in Canada,
Speaker 2: they stopped fluoridating their water back in twenty eleven, I believe,
Speaker 2: but then brought it back because cavity rates went up
Speaker 2: and there was a new study that said, in the
Speaker 2: United States, how much of an impact would it have
Speaker 2: to take a fluoride out of the water, And they
Speaker 2: said it could potentially be, you know, twenty five million
Speaker 2: more cavities within the next five years, fifty million cavities
Speaker 2: within the next ten years. So, you know, I think
Speaker 2: we need better dental care overall, and this is almost
Speaker 2: a policy discussion. I think people it's hard to get
Speaker 2: dental care. It's hard to get dental coverage. But I
Speaker 2: think if we had fluoride rinses, if kids got better
Speaker 2: dental care, then I think the incremental benefit of fluoride
Speaker 2: goes down even more. Sexually, Kennedy's been talking about florid
Speaker 2: for a long time, heavy metals in general, but fluoride
Speaker 2: in particular for a long time. And you know, as
Speaker 2: with these other things we're talking about, there's a nuance
Speaker 2: to it. I don't think it's as big a public
Speaker 2: health issue now as it was fifty years ago, sixty
Speaker 2: years ago. But and we can even model how much
Speaker 2: of an impact it would have. But I think it
Speaker 2: really speaks to the fact that we need better dental
Speaker 2: care overall.
Speaker 1: Boy, I really appreciate the nuance of the response, and
Speaker 1: it just look, it goes to I think our frustration
Speaker 1: just generally as consumers and as people that you know,
Speaker 1: just are so desperate just for the facts and a
Speaker 1: deeper understanding. And you talked earlier about the politics and
Speaker 1: these binaries and how everything is seen through a political lens.
Speaker 1: It's just the larger issue of misinformation. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: obviously COVID seemed to expose a lot of that stress
Speaker 1: and anxiety. And you know, obviously our politics has been
Speaker 1: I think profoundly shaped sort of post COVID framework, and
Speaker 1: I think in some respects significantly so obviously with RFK
Speaker 1: as HHS Secretary in terms of health care policy today,
Speaker 1: what's your you know, as you reflect back and you
Speaker 1: know your own experience living through sort of helping us
Speaker 1: all through the pandemic experience in COVID, how do we
Speaker 1: get back to the kind of platform that we need
Speaker 1: in order to row in the same direction as a country,
Speaker 1: to be prepared again, my gosh, for another novel virus
Speaker 1: moving forward, where we're not at each other's throats, we're
Speaker 1: not talking down to each other, past each other. Help
Speaker 1: give us a sense of how we get back into
Speaker 1: the trust and truth space.
Speaker 2: You know, I think it's I think it's tough, for sure,
Speaker 2: And as a medical reporter, you know, I think I
Speaker 2: have a really front row seat to how this is
Speaker 2: all sort of unfolded. I'd say one thing, just for
Speaker 2: historical reference, is that if you go back and you
Speaker 2: look at the nineteen eighteen flu pandemic, that was a
Speaker 2: time when obviously we didn't have cell phone, social media,
Speaker 2: you know, rapid sort of spread of information, but there
Speaker 2: was still a lot of distrust overall of basic public
Speaker 2: health recommendations. There was a fair that was supposed to
Speaker 2: take place, I believe in Saint Louis and or maybe
Speaker 2: in Philadelphia. Philadelphia and Saint Louis were the two cities.
Speaker 2: One city said, how can we possibly do a big
Speaker 2: fare like this in the middle of a pandemic? And
Speaker 2: the other city said, we don't think it's a big deal.
Speaker 2: We'll do the fairs. They took it on, and they
Speaker 2: had twelve times the rate of fluid deaths as the
Speaker 2: city that chose not to do it. Point being that
Speaker 2: there has been this skepticism that I think exists just
Speaker 2: in human nature forever, you know. And I'll go so
Speaker 2: far as to say this Governor, maybe some of that
Speaker 2: skepticism is necessary, you know. I think that I think that,
Speaker 2: you know, if we look at human beings like organisms,
Speaker 2: some people just have their antennas raised really really high.
Speaker 2: And I think when you're antenna's raised really really high,
Speaker 2: two things happen. You see things that aren't there. You
Speaker 2: just see things and the blurry off in the distance,
Speaker 2: and you think that there's an attack coming and it's
Speaker 2: not coming. But on the other hand, sometimes you see
Speaker 2: things before everyone else does as well. And so I
Speaker 2: think there are people whose intendos are raised really high,
Speaker 2: who are just concerned citizens. I think there are you know,
Speaker 2: SCHD starters who sort of fall into that category as well,
Speaker 2: but not all of them. It's a heterogeneous group of
Speaker 2: people who are who are going to be resistant to
Speaker 2: basic public health measures. It's it's a much more diverse
Speaker 2: group of people than I think I realized. That's one
Speaker 2: thing I think with regard to misinformation and even disinformation,
Speaker 2: purposeful misinformation, I think my largest concern right now is
Speaker 2: that we're getting to the point and I hope it changes,
Speaker 2: and I'm optimist. I'm an optimist. I think it will change,
Speaker 2: but I think right now we're at a point where
Speaker 2: nobody believes anything. Yeah. I was talking to my youngest daughter.
Speaker 2: It's about a year year and a half ago, and
Speaker 2: I was very close to Senator John McCain and she
Speaker 2: showed me some meme on TikTok or Instagram or something
Speaker 2: about John McCain. She knew that we were close, and
Speaker 2: especially after he had his brain tumor and things, and
Speaker 2: this was a funny meme, but it somehow suggested that
Speaker 2: he was alive and that his whole death was a hoax, right, crazy,
Speaker 2: crazy stuff. And I said, hey, Sole, okay, funny, right,
Speaker 2: but you know that's not true, right, And she said, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's here on Instagram whatever. And I said, yeah, but
Speaker 2: you know it's not true. And she said to me, Governor,
Speaker 2: she said, any of this stuff is true, Dad, And
Speaker 2: it really got me thinking, like what happens to a
Speaker 2: generation of people that grow up without a locus of trust?
Speaker 2: I mean, forget who they trust. You know, they should
Speaker 2: trust you, they should trust me, they should trust experts.
Speaker 2: I think, I really do believe that, But maybe they
Speaker 2: don't trust anybody. And I think unless you can touch somebody,
Speaker 2: unless you know somebody personally, you don't really trust them anymore,
Speaker 2: which I think is is really problematic, and I think
Speaker 2: that's where we're headed. It starts to hyperlocalize suspicion of everybody,
Speaker 2: and I think that's where we're headed. So I think,
Speaker 2: for me, you know, as as a reporter, instead of
Speaker 2: constantly combating misinformation, which is like playing whack a mole
Speaker 2: all day long, just continuing to try and put out
Speaker 2: good information and explain things in a way that is
Speaker 2: accessible to people, and you know, leans into the nuance
Speaker 2: and the uncertainty of things as a country. If the
Speaker 2: question you're asking is about preparing for the next pandemic,
Speaker 2: I would say the precautionary principle is important, and that
Speaker 2: is that is how we do many things in our country.
Speaker 2: We have, you know, more than a dozen aircraft carriers
Speaker 2: right now that are circumnavigating the globe and they're keeping
Speaker 2: us safe. We don't pay a lot of attention to that.
Speaker 2: It's not something we have in the forefront of our minds,
Speaker 2: but they're out there basically displaying the precautionary principle. A
Speaker 2: virus is a national security threat. We saw what it
Speaker 2: did to our country. If we're able to apply the
Speaker 2: precautionary principle at a policy level, so things just go
Speaker 2: into effect, as opposed to Seattle's doing this and New
Speaker 2: York is doing this, and Alabama's doing this, and Florida
Speaker 2: is saying we're not going to do any of that,
Speaker 2: and it was just a mess. Instead, if we actually
Speaker 2: applied the precautionary principle as a country treated as a
Speaker 2: national security threat, which it is, I think we'd be
Speaker 2: much better prepared. But you know, right now we're in
Speaker 2: a position where you have people who believe COVID was
Speaker 2: a hoax the entire thing. So we have some work
Speaker 2: to do, I think before we get there.
Speaker 1: Because I think you know, there were obviously mistakes we
Speaker 1: did make. There was lessons that we do need to learn,
Speaker 1: and there were decisions that need to be reconciled going forward.
Speaker 1: And I think for denial about that that we're not
Speaker 1: going to build that level of trust moving forward for
Speaker 1: those that feel very very differently.
Speaker 2: No question, And I think you know one thing that
Speaker 2: I think was a real learning point. I think you know,
Speaker 2: as doctors, if we're you know, recommending I was in
Speaker 2: the operating room all day yesterday, you know, taking out
Speaker 2: brain tumors and doing things like that, we know that
Speaker 2: it leaves a toll on people to do that, to
Speaker 2: recommend chemotherapy. We know the impact of that on their lives.
Speaker 2: We think that the benefit is that it could cure
Speaker 2: their cancer, but we know it's going to be it's
Speaker 2: gonna be tough sledding for them for a while. How
Speaker 2: do you convey that at a societal level, you know,
Speaker 2: closing schools. The impact of that, you know, that was
Speaker 2: tough on my kids, you know, so so to really
Speaker 2: I think be very mindful of the the the impact.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying that the decisions are wrong, but being
Speaker 2: really mindful of the impact of those decisions on people.
Speaker 2: It's it's tough, you know. As doctors, I think we're
Speaker 2: a little bit more trained toward it, and because we
Speaker 2: have to like look at risk reward for everything. But
Speaker 2: I think assessing risk and balancing that reward as a
Speaker 2: country is hard. And I think that gets back to
Speaker 2: where we started, this precautionary principle. We don't know, Let's
Speaker 2: be cautious, let's be careful, Let's not accelerate around the
Speaker 2: blind curves here, Let's let's hit the brakes a little bit,
Speaker 2: you know. And I think that's that's still to me,
Speaker 2: that still makes sense.
Speaker 1: Final question, I'm curious, you know, you speaking of sense,
Speaker 1: speaking of risk, speaking of trust, where are we to
Speaker 1: make sense of AI and medicine. We're seeing just runaway
Speaker 1: costs and healthcare. It seems like every other industry is
Speaker 1: found efficiencies, every other industry. Costs seem to go down.
Speaker 1: It seems like more technology is introduced to the healthcare sector.
Speaker 1: Our costs seem to go up and up and up.
Speaker 1: Is AI over hyped in terms of medical expenses? Is
Speaker 1: it over hyped in terms of research and discovery? Is
Speaker 1: it under hyped as it relates to imaging benefits and
Speaker 1: just sort of supercapacity to address chronic disease and solve
Speaker 1: for some of life's great evils and cancers.
Speaker 2: I think it's going to be magnificent ultimately what AI
Speaker 2: can do for healthcare. It's going to need guardrails, but
Speaker 2: I think even those are, you know, very trainable. I mean,
Speaker 2: there's great companies, one of them out to California called
Speaker 2: Open Evidence, where you're already starting to see like for me,
Speaker 2: I'll give you an example. A guy comes into the
Speaker 2: office with back pain and leg pain and he's got
Speaker 2: a herniated disk and their lumbar spine in the lower back.
Speaker 2: Do they get an operation? Do they not get an operation?
Speaker 2: I could ask ten different spine surgeons and maybe get
Speaker 2: eleven different answers. AI could look at nine billion pieces
Speaker 2: of data within a fraction of seconds that here are
Speaker 2: fifty thousand other people who are just like the person
Speaker 2: you're describing, and here are their various outcomes based on
Speaker 2: evaluating their medical records and doing this all in a
Speaker 2: de identified way. My resident's already walking around talking to
Speaker 2: their phones as they're walking into a patient room to
Speaker 2: figure out the best approach to to, you know whatever
Speaker 2: whatever al's they're they're patients, you know, so it's it's
Speaker 2: already changing. I think, I said on the Subcommittee for
Speaker 2: AI for the National Academy of Medicine, and I think
Speaker 2: one of the things that really struck me is we
Speaker 2: were creating these these guardrails, was this idea that we
Speaker 2: still have to think of AI from a trust but
Speaker 2: verify sort of model. It's it's wildly effective at finding
Speaker 2: breast cancers, for example, on mammograms, but sometimes it airs
Speaker 2: wildly as well. And you know, these hallucinations as people
Speaker 2: call them. I think they're already starting to get better
Speaker 2: about that. I think it's gonna you know, we we've
Speaker 2: been talking about big data, you know, for decades now.
Speaker 2: AI is actually going to be able to make sense
Speaker 2: of that big data and I think make it valuable
Speaker 2: for patients. I'll tell you a quick anecdote. You know,
Speaker 2: if you've been to the hospital lately or a clinic,
Speaker 2: and you got a letter from you know, sort of
Speaker 2: summarizing your care. It probably was generated by an AI platform.
Speaker 2: That's interesting. And most of and when they when they
Speaker 2: blinded these letters and they compared them to actual letters
Speaker 2: written by doctors or nurses and then gave them to
Speaker 2: random people, what they found was the AI letters were
Speaker 2: often referred to as more human the human letters, which I.
Speaker 1: Thought was that just is that the state of doctors,
Speaker 1: is that the quality of you know.
Speaker 2: I think if you if you said to me, hey,
Speaker 2: you know, my daughter's going to get married, you know,
Speaker 2: in July, you know, and I'm really excited about that,
Speaker 2: but you're here for your herniated disk, I may have
Speaker 2: deprioritized that information, whereas an AI platform may have listened
Speaker 2: to that and said, hey, Governor, I hope the wedding
Speaker 2: went well with your daughter. And you know, just these
Speaker 2: human touches. You had these moments where humans were looking
Speaker 2: at these AI letters and they were pausing at the
Speaker 2: moment that they read these human touches, and it was
Speaker 2: almost like humans learning from machines how to be more human.
Speaker 2: I think. So I'm bullish on AI. I think, and
Speaker 2: you know, I think one thing about New technologies. Is
Speaker 2: that there's always a disparity in terms of haves and
Speaker 2: have nots when they first come out. Before mimmography, black
Speaker 2: women and white women had similar rates of breast cancer.
Speaker 2: After mimmography, breast cancer rates went down overall, but much
Speaker 2: more so for white women than Black women. We see
Speaker 2: those disparities with AI already, so we have to address disparities,
Speaker 2: make sure this is very available and accessible to people.
Speaker 2: But I think it's gonna it's gonna change healthcare. We're
Speaker 2: gonna come up with new treatments and the right clinical
Speaker 2: decision making much more quickly as a result of AI.
Speaker 1: In thirty years, you're still doing brain surgeries or as
Speaker 1: a robot doing them?
Speaker 2: No, I'm still doing I'm still doing them. You'd be proud,
Speaker 2: you know. I say this as a as a brain
Speaker 2: surgeon who always carries around brain with me. I got
Speaker 2: it right here. Yeah, I don't know that a robot
Speaker 2: is yet able to fully grapple with three and a
Speaker 2: half pounds of the most enigmatic tissue in the known universe.
Speaker 2: I still think humans have to do that. Eventually, we may,
Speaker 2: we may get there, but right now I just think
Speaker 2: the you know, the dexterity and sort of the types
Speaker 2: of operations that we do. But look in cardiac surgery
Speaker 2: and prostate cancer surgery, you have Da Vinci, you have
Speaker 2: robots that that stuff. For a while, we'll get there.
Speaker 2: I'll be retired, I think by that point, hopefully. I
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 1: If you keep if you keep to your wellness program,
Speaker 1: you're going to be fine. Go hardly, hardly. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: watch ka. I already have my instructions on on my
Speaker 1: meat consumption in the s acknowledge. I'll acknowledge them.
Speaker 2: Will be in the wine business, and that drinks so
Speaker 2: much wine?
Speaker 1: No, I mean that's an issue. I mean it's an
Speaker 1: objective issue. But I shouldn't be I can't be promoting well,
Speaker 1: maybe I should be promoting my businesses. Apparently that's not
Speaker 1: an issue anymore.
Speaker 2: Hey, can I ask you what's going on with you?
Speaker 2: Real quick? Like, what's what's what's up? After you know? Sacramento?
Speaker 1: Well, it's it's sure as hell. I ain't going to
Speaker 1: be medical school. I have no capacity there. But it's
Speaker 1: it's to be determined, all of it to be determined
Speaker 1: the time of profound uncertainty. And I'm just trying to.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm trying not only to not get fined today,
Speaker 1: but not get arrested tomorrow in the next few months.
Speaker 1: It's crazy what's going on in this country. But I
Speaker 1: will say, though on a serious note, just you know,
Speaker 1: it's also remarkable how just trying to just absorb what's
Speaker 1: happening with healthcare policy from the MEATA, we didn't even
Speaker 1: get into medicaid cuts. We didn't even get to the
Speaker 1: broader issues associated with the quote unquote reorg at HHS
Speaker 1: and all the cuts to you know, just people out
Speaker 1: there promoting vaccines, HIV issues and treatments. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is a lot going on, and it's hard to absorb
Speaker 1: just one hundred plus days in.
Speaker 2: I know, and as a reporter, I mean just every
Speaker 2: day there's something new and it changes. It's so ephemeral,
Speaker 2: like you get all ready to report on it. An
Speaker 2: hour later it's it's it's different. But you know, in
Speaker 2: the good fight, you know, I think certainly as reporters
Speaker 2: were information matters, good information matters. Fewer people are consuming it,
Speaker 2: you know, we we're well aware of that, right. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it doesn't mean me stop trying, you know, keep that.
Speaker 1: Well, Well, I love what I mean to your point.
Speaker 2: I mean, I made the point earlier.
Speaker 1: But your podcast is fabulous and it's great to see you,
Speaker 1: you know, out there doing especially with the just those
Speaker 1: sort of short clips where you're answering those tough questions,
Speaker 1: but doing with the kind of nuance I thought, and
Speaker 1: I mean that sincerely, your response on the floor ide.
Speaker 2: Is just something we don't hear.
Speaker 1: And it's hard to have a segment that is that
Speaker 1: COMPREHENDI because it just provides a different level of appreciation
Speaker 1: for perspective on this. It's it's not just as simple
Speaker 1: as yes and.
Speaker 2: Noah, it's not. And you know, I'm a dad, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, first and foremost in a husband, but a dad,
Speaker 2: you know who I think like I do put myself
Speaker 2: in the position of those people who are the honest skeptics.
Speaker 2: I'm an honest skeptic. You know, most scientists are on
Speaker 2: a skeptics I think, and I think that I think
Speaker 2: that that helps you know, I would I do that
Speaker 2: for my kid? Would I do that for my mom?
Speaker 2: I think it makes it there you go.
Speaker 1: No, it's in by the way, we had the exactly.
Speaker 1: I remember that conversation you mentioned with your wife do
Speaker 1: we do all of the shots at once.
Speaker 2: Or do you you fish?
Speaker 1: I quite literally had that conversation with four kids four
Speaker 1: different times.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: We concluded all four times, let's just get it done.
Speaker 1: But but but that it's a legitimate sensitivity. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: call it quote unquote hesitancy in this sort of weaponized sense,
Speaker 1: but just human And you have to acknowledge that that perspective.
Speaker 2: I don't mock those people at all. I mean, well,
Speaker 2: there are people who mock them. I that's not gonna work.
Speaker 2: I mean maybe that's the number one thing about misinformation.
Speaker 2: The mocking doesn't That doesn't work. It just it just
Speaker 2: creates tribes and politicizes it even further. So try not
Speaker 2: to do that.
Speaker 1: God Bless, I couldn't agree more. Hey, I really appreciate
Speaker 1: you taking the time. This was fabulous. Thanks for all
Speaker 1: you do and keep doing what you're doing. You're your
Speaker 1: your are a bright light in this darkness. Uh, And
Speaker 1: I appreciate you taking the time.
Speaker 2: He's a lot coming from you, Governor. Thank you