Maintenance Phase - Mini-Sode： The Dr. Oz Campaign

00:00:00.000 Hi everybody and welcome to Maintenance Phase, the podcast that keeps hearing something about

00:00:04.200 killing puppies. What's happening? The podcast that refuses to look into it. I'm not a Pennsylvania

00:00:11.680 voter. We're not engaging on the puppy stuff. It's too bleak. Yeah. I'm Aubrey Gordon. I'm

00:00:19.780 Michael Hobbs. And today we are bringing to you for the first time a re-release. It's not a thing

00:00:25.120 we've done before but as it turns out someone that we covered on this show is now running for

00:00:31.440 U.S. Senate yes you know we haven't returned to Dr. Oz in a minute but I did re-listen to our

00:00:38.600 episode same and I just thought about what a lovely thing it would be if that guy went back

00:00:44.140 to just being a crackerjack surgeon or a crackerjack anything I wish that he was good at

00:00:49.000 something aside from being like a pt barnum carnival barker person first of all the episode

00:00:55.340 is fun because it's like you can tell it's one of our earlier episodes yeah welcome to i you're

00:00:59.800 about to hear the difference between my new microphone and my old microphone and like the

00:01:04.400 editing is a little looser there's some there's some cameos in there by like apple cider vinegar

00:01:08.620 and resveratrol there's a resveratrol cameo most of the campaign has been covered with sort of

00:01:16.200 scandal to scandal or like gotcha to gotcha there's the stuff about the puppies there's the

00:01:21.420 stuff about does dr oz live in pennsylvania there's this talk about like the messaging like

00:01:27.660 the way that his opponent john fetterman has kind of tried to frame him in campaign attack ads and

00:01:33.260 like is that working and like what's the kind of messaging that democrats should do and as usual

00:01:37.860 the media is kind of like inviting voters to become their own pundits and try to make these

00:01:44.300 like strategic choices about like what other people are concerned about and so what i wanted

00:01:49.400 to do just like as a brief intro to this episode was talk about like dr oz's policies i will also

00:01:55.740 say that it feels to me like the response to the dr oz campaign particularly from folks uh on the

00:02:03.840 political left writ large gives me big trump 2016 vibes oh how so we've got someone who is

00:02:11.680 a politician and has done a lot of political work for a long time and is, you know, clearly very

00:02:17.380 qualified for this particular job. And then we've got someone with no government experience and 20

00:02:23.080 plus years of name recognition who everyone is saying can't possibly win and is hilarious to

00:02:27.960 make fun of. I think part of how he's gotten this far without any real consequences is folks not

00:02:33.380 wanting to take him particularly seriously. Yes, very much so. So I just want to give like a quick

00:02:38.940 overview of what Dr. Oz is promising to do. Politicians can't do everything that they

00:02:44.180 promise to do, but it seems like that's like a pretty good starting point of like, what can I

00:02:48.620 expect? So the first thing is he does a thing on his campaign website that I think is very common,

00:02:54.760 especially for Republican candidates these days, where they'll describe themselves in these kind

00:02:59.640 of vague terms that make them seem kind of appealing. But then it also sounds like it's

00:03:06.460 written by a child so this is this is uh the intro on dr oz's website if he's like about page

00:03:13.580 he says politicians in both parties have failed to provide a vision for america that is worthy

00:03:18.900 of the people they seek to represent they're too focused on their own re-elections or platitudes

00:03:23.320 rather than offering cures to america's sickness surgeons keep their priorities straight and always

00:03:29.220 protect their patients first with competent delivery of the best approaches okay he keeps

00:03:34.860 using the doctor metaphor in a very clunky way the writing is not great and also i don't know 0.99

00:03:40.480 i was gonna say something that i should not say into a microphone you must be like fuck this dude 0.91

00:03:44.940 you can you can do that here no just like surgeons are sort of famously like among the 0.98

00:03:52.960 most egotistical doctors i know it's sort of like so i'm just like surgeons always deliver

00:03:58.240 seems like that sounds like a surgeon wrote that americans love the health care system everyone

00:04:02.640 knows the healthcare system is everybody's favorite part of living in america can i just say

00:04:07.100 this is like very tried and true messaging this like i'm not part of the problem right i come from

00:04:14.200 somewhere else to the point that like hilariously uh that was sort of the messaging around the

00:04:20.100 john mccain and sarah palin campaign oh yeah mama bear fighting the bears mama bear she was going

00:04:26.180 rogue. He was a maverick. And I was like, a maverick career senator. Interesting. It's a

00:04:34.640 really fascinating thing. This has always been a little bee in my bonnet that like one of the lead

00:04:40.840 messages in this country for getting into federal office is I have no idea what I'm doing. I've

00:04:46.460 literally never done this before. Like it's bananas. It's also fake, right? Because once

00:04:51.780 Once you get down to his policies, what he wants is just like total boilerplate Republican stuff.

00:04:56.960 He wants the reason why people don't like Republicans and why their policies are unpopular.

00:05:02.400 So we're not going to go through every single issue on his website because some of it is like very boilerplate.

00:05:07.640 Like I'm going to wake up the economy and make our economy strong.

00:05:10.560 It's like you can't really debunk that because he's not really saying anything.

00:05:13.480 So on his website, he says that he wants to overturn regulations that stop oil and natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania.

00:05:21.780 He has a whole section, obviously, on COVID.

00:05:24.100 We mentioned on our episode that he was like borderline responsible when it came to COVID

00:05:28.660 stuff.

00:05:29.340 He wasn't good, but he kind of wasn't as bad as he could have been.

00:05:32.580 But because this is now what you have to say to appeal to a Republican audience, he's now

00:05:38.900 just like spreading COVID misinformation.

00:05:41.820 On his website, he says, COVID-19 became an excuse for government and elite thinkers who

00:05:46.580 controlled the means of communication, especially social media and our major news agencies,

00:05:50.540 to suspend debate dissenting opinions from leading scholars even noble laureates were

00:05:55.980 canceled and ridiculed so their ideas could not be disseminated good lord doctors were forbidden

00:06:01.900 from prescribing legal medications for the first time in our nation's history that's a reference

00:06:06.860 to ivermectin i believe and hydroxychloroquine and these other like conspiracy theory medications

00:06:13.120 that there's this secret cure for covid but doctors aren't telling you which benefits them

00:06:18.380 somehow like it doesn't make any fucking sense were doctors prohibited no yeah doctors can 0.98

00:06:24.380 prescribe you ivermectin if you're a fucking horse with worms yeah it gets really bad in the section 0.96

00:06:30.900 of his website called stop illegal immigration which begins dr oz believes that one of the core 0.99

00:06:36.800 responsibilities of the federal government is to protect you in order to do that we have to have a 0.98

00:06:42.060 secure border god fucking damn it so keeping you safe means keeping immigrants out that's not even 0.98

00:06:48.560 me like doing a a non-charitable interpretation that's like that's the text that's what it says 0.99

00:06:53.500 that's what it says did you hear this thing about ghost flights during the pandemic what it's this

00:06:59.140 fake made-up thing that like far-right republicans started saying that there's ghost flights there's

00:07:04.800 flights that arrive in the middle of the night at airports that are full of immigrants are you 0.98

00:07:09.920 fucking kidding me they're offloading immigrants and like injecting immigrants into the population 0.97

00:07:15.620 he has a whole video where he's like i'm at philadelphia airport and here's a ghost flight 0.99

00:07:21.540 behind me or something like he he's spreading this myth there's no such thing as ghost flights

00:07:26.900 it's it's extremely normal when unaccompanied minors arrive in the country oftentimes federal

00:07:32.900 agencies will fly them to places that have services that are available for them and oftentimes

00:07:38.000 unaccompanied minors, they'll have like a cousin or an uncle or somebody who lives in Portland or

00:07:43.040 something. And once they're kind of assessed by the authorities at the border, they will be flown

00:07:47.300 to Portland so they can be reunited with their relative. It's a part of the immigration system

00:07:51.560 that most people just don't know about because most of us don't really know the ins and outs of

00:07:54.720 the US immigration system. And it's just taking this thing that is like fairly routine and normal

00:07:59.460 and it's casting that as some sort of like secret deep state, what the government doesn't want you

00:08:04.380 to know no one's ever lied about this no one's ever hid this these aren't ghost flights in any

00:08:09.000 meaningful sense it's just part of the way that this works well and it's like air travel we take

00:08:15.060 people from one place and we take them to the place that they want to be yeah the boogeyman 0.84

00:08:20.160 in this story is that there are brown people and black people close to you who you didn't like 0.99

00:08:26.380 personally approve of exactly it's not even a dog whistle it's just like here it is they're 0.90

00:08:31.200 bringing immigrants to you freak out i know aubrey i miss the dog whistles i miss i miss when it wasn't 0.88

00:08:37.200 this fucking bad the old days it was like oh reading reading between the lines there's some 1.00

00:08:41.940 like problematic ideas in here now it's just like immigrants are gonna fucking murder you 0.99

00:08:46.100 and we should stop them it's like okay well we're not we're not whistling anymore great 0.99

00:08:50.800 jesus christmas so he's also 100 pro-life his website says dr oz is a successful heart surgeon

00:08:58.260 he has literally held a beating heart in his hands. He knows how precious life is and is 100%

00:09:04.400 pro-life. So any of these like miserable abortion laws that are going into place that have like no

00:09:11.020 exemptions for rape and incest, like the most like Romania 1967 ass abortion restrictions, 0.81

00:09:19.500 he's going to be for those, just so you know. He is spreading the critical race theory panic.

00:09:25.060 he says dr oz believes that the extreme left wants to use our schools to indoctrinate our

00:09:31.520 children with an anti-american ideology and as senator he'll fight to block that from happening

00:09:37.120 this is again pretty dangerous rhetoric to be accusing people of anti-americanism

00:09:42.660 basically treason for things like you know we should teach kids about the tulsa massacre and

00:09:47.600 japanese internment when you use the phrase un-american in the context of the u.s senate 0.59

00:09:53.400 we're like really getting into mccarthy territory it's also funny to juxtapose this with one of the

00:09:59.080 other sections of his website that's about cancel culture it says dr oz will push back on cancel

00:10:04.720 culture by protecting the first amendment and defending our freedom for conservatives to say

00:10:09.040 what we see who's attacking the first amendment riddle me this batman where's the constitutional

00:10:15.320 convention to remove the first amendment i i'm against cancel culture and like saying what we

00:10:20.920 believe but also i want to restrict the curricula of schools so that people can't teach what is 0.96

00:10:25.760 accurate yeah of course there's just no actual coherent ideology behind this it's just fucking 0.59

00:10:31.160 grievance he has a whole thing about law enforcement uh dr oz believes law enforcement 0.67

00:10:37.820 has a hard enough job on the streets and they shouldn't have to fend off calls to defund them

00:10:43.120 from radicals and the extreme left radicals he says i will keep our communities safe he opposes

00:10:49.800 anti-law proposals, like cashless bail, that make it tougher for police to do their jobs. 0.99

00:10:55.480 Fuck. How? 1.00

00:10:57.060 Bail is, by definition, something that is offered to people who have not been convicted of a crime.

00:11:03.100 These are people who are presumed innocent. A huge percentage of the people incarcerated

00:11:06.940 in the United States are in pretrial detention because they cannot afford to get out of jail.

00:11:13.200 So the idea of allowing these people to live their lives with minimal disruption while we

00:11:17.420 are determining whether or not they are innocent or guilty does not seem like a radical proposal

00:11:22.380 to me it seems extremely basic yeah but of course he's linking that to crime like this is a another

00:11:28.380 sort of far-right myth also cash bail is functionally as it is sort of implemented right

00:11:35.520 rich people don't have any fucking problem paying for bail exactly it's all poor people it's all 0.79

00:11:40.340 poor people so if you miss the good old days of debtors prisons come on down to the dr oz camp 0.95

00:11:47.040 I'm not even going to go into the gun rights section of his website because you know what it's going to say. He's against any form of gun control whatsoever. So enjoy all of the school shootings and mass shootings that you're going to get due to a complete refusal to do anything about this problem. Great stuff. 0.87

00:12:04.220 he also has a section on election integrity where he basically agrees with all of the myths about

00:12:11.500 voter fraud he says dr oz supports voter id laws that ensure safe and secure elections nope voter

00:12:18.940 id laws that exclude poor people communities of color black folks indigenous people and trans

00:12:25.620 people great voter fraud is a myth there have been numerous like republican commissions that

00:12:31.420 have scoured the country looking for examples of this actually happening and they cannot find any.

00:12:36.940 This is not something that we as a society need to be concerned about, but it's something that

00:12:41.080 Republicans have ginned up so that they can restrict voting rights. It's just like absolute

00:12:45.480 total nonsense to be concerned about this side of election security. There are election security

00:12:52.020 things to be concerned about. There are voting machines to be concerned about. There's like

00:12:56.220 accuracy. There's elections protection stuff and making sure that elections are properly funded.

00:13:01.420 there's plenty of systemic stuff to worry about this is not one of them like pervasive

00:13:08.780 individual fraud are you fucking kidding me the voter fraud thing has always struck me as like

00:13:13.320 kind of funny because it's so hard to get people to vote once yes oh my god that like i'm gonna 0.96

00:13:19.260 wait in line for like three hours and go vote and then like go to another place and vote again it's

00:13:25.400 like, I voted twice. It's the highest risk, lowest reward activity. Exactly. Ha ha! Instead

00:13:32.780 of having 0.001% effect on this election, I'll have 0.002%. Like, okay. Dr. Oz says that he wants

00:13:41.580 voter IDs. He also says Dr. Oz will reject efforts by liberals to have the federal government take

00:13:47.020 control of our elections away from the states. Great. This is another thing that Republicans

00:13:51.740 are trying to do so that Republican officials in states can overturn the results of the votes.

00:13:57.460 It's extremely worrying. They're already setting up to give their electoral votes

00:14:02.600 to the losing candidate. And Dr. Oz, despite all of his bullshit, like, I'm a surgeon, 0.99

00:14:08.480 I'm going to fix Washington's heart or whatever, he is signing on to these efforts. This is a 0.99

00:14:14.220 far-right candidate who proposes far-right policies. And the fact that we've spent most

00:14:20.040 of the campaign debating sort of sideline stuff is a huge discredit to the media that is not just

00:14:28.500 like explained to you in very clear and simple terms like this is what you are voting for 1.00

00:14:32.920 regardless of how you feel about dr oz personally i mean he's also kind of a piece of shit as a 0.99

00:14:37.040 person so it doesn't even really matter but it's like this is what he is going to do this is what 0.98

00:14:42.540 he's explicitly saying this is also a point in campaigns where folks will fall back on he might

00:14:48.020 be saying it, but he may not believe it. Yeah. Oh, my God. I know. Right. I don't care. I don't

00:14:53.120 care. And I would posit that that does not matter. If you're willing to say it, then you are likely

00:14:58.640 also willing to act on it. Yeah. Right. And also, maybe he won't believe it when he votes to

00:15:03.080 overturn the election results in 2024. I don't. OK. Yeah. Even if you think that he doesn't

00:15:09.200 believe any of this stuff, he's going to keep not believing it, but doing it anyway. Yeah,

00:15:13.160 that's what doesn't really matter to me whether he believes this stuff or not. Like, I think

00:15:17.560 there's a tendency to sort of like psychoanalyze these people. Yeah. When we're talking about what

00:15:22.520 people are doing with power and giving somebody power, I don't really care. Yeah. I'm not going

00:15:27.840 to say much else. We're not going to get into the killing puppies stuff. Maybe he did. Maybe he

00:15:32.020 didn't. Whatever it is, I'm sure that it's bad because like everything you look into for Dr.

00:15:35.600 Oz turns out to be worse than it sounds. So I have no idea what other things like various scandals

00:15:43.320 and gaffes and like i don't really care that much about that stuff again none of our listeners are

00:15:48.520 really in the market for voting for dr oz probably anyway but if you have relatives i think this is

00:15:53.140 like the thing to talk to them about i don't know man we for sure get emails from people who identify

00:15:59.520 as politically conservative i would say about about once a week and they all start with all of

00:16:06.300 our emails from like any sort of politically conservative listeners and also from like

00:16:10.820 most like straight white cis dudes just start with the phrase i know i'm not probably your

00:16:16.560 target audience yeah we get a lot of those it's really funny to me like clockwork i'm probably

00:16:23.500 not your average listener but uh i've really found some use in this so if you want a candidate who's

00:16:32.060 going to pass like center-left popular policies vote for john fetterman and if you want a far

00:16:39.080 right candidate who's going to make the country worse in every way that we know how to measure

00:16:43.500 vote for dr oz for folks in pennsylvania if you are eligible to vote and would like to register

00:16:49.800 to vote it's worth noting that that deadline is coming right up it's october 24th monday the 24th

00:16:56.260 you can register to vote online you don't actually have to go anywhere we'll link that in the show

00:17:02.060 notes for you should you yes uh should you decide to register to vote or if you need to update your

00:17:06.540 registration uh so enjoy our previous cancellation and uh if you live in pennsylvania double cancel

00:17:13.940 this guy we're showing up on the cancel culture section of the dr oz campaign website he's gonna

00:17:20.300 outlaw us. Yeah, enjoy everybody. Hi, everybody. Welcome to Maintenance Phase, your favorite

00:17:39.120 podcast about health and wellness myths and the human version of Oscar the Grouch. Maybe.

00:17:45.940 I think your favorite might be a little ambitious. I think we're a middling podcast.

00:17:51.920 An okay podcast sometimes.

00:17:54.240 It's fun. If there's lots of dishes, it's okay. It'll do.

00:17:57.460 We're the green bean casserole.

00:18:01.520 My name's Aubrey Gordon, and I am a writer and fat lady about town.

00:18:06.340 And I am Michael Hobbs. I am a reporter for the Huffington Post.

00:18:09.260 You can find us on social media pretty much everywhere at Maintenance Phase.

00:18:12.340 You can also find us on Patreon, which is patreon.com slash maintenance phase.

00:18:17.160 That is also linked on our website, which is maintenancephase.com.

00:18:20.860 And you can also find t-shirts.

00:18:22.160 If you want some t-shirts, you can go get some t-shirts.

00:18:24.500 T-shirts.

00:18:25.600 Yes.

00:18:26.360 Or you can not support us.

00:18:27.700 That's fine, too.

00:18:28.440 Yeah.

00:18:28.740 Do what you want.

00:18:29.400 Yes.

00:18:29.820 And today we are talking about Dr. Oz, no?

00:18:32.660 Dr. Oz.

00:18:33.400 Mr. Oz.

00:18:34.460 America's doctor.

00:18:35.700 America's sweetheart.

00:18:36.680 Dr. Oz.

00:18:37.340 I mean, this is another one of those episodes where it's so hard to research because you're

00:18:41.280 like you know he's trash and then you read all the research and you're like okay he's like more 0.70

00:18:45.720 trash than i thought and like trash in slightly different ways that seems right to me i feel like 0.98

00:18:51.540 the things that i know about dr oz are just these peak moments of garbage nonsense like i know about 0.98

00:18:58.600 him being an oprah not disciple what's the word that i'm looking for frankenstein's monster so

00:19:05.320 i know about him being sort of oprah approved i know about him like pretty consistently promoting

00:19:10.280 fat camps and i know about him getting hauled in front of congress yes we're going to talk about

00:19:15.720 that in great detail i feel like that's just from like moving through the world in which dr oz

00:19:20.900 exists you know what i mean like i don't really feel like i know more than that i mean i feel

00:19:24.660 like the aubrey version of i'm coming in fresh is still like pretty well versed on this stuff

00:19:31.640 compared to most of the general public all right fine so i i mean for listeners that don't know

00:19:36.700 who he is? Can you just give us the broad strokes? Who's this Dr. Oz dude?

00:19:40.520 Yeah. So Dr. Mehmet Oz. Yeah.

00:19:43.760 Yes.

00:19:44.260 He was a frequent guest on Oprah Winfrey's show is my recollection.

00:19:48.520 He made 55 appearances between 2001 and 2009.

00:19:53.200 And that led to him getting a like an afternoon talk show where he would sort of like address

00:19:59.000 medical topics and sometimes would take questions from the audience that were like, I have this

00:20:02.880 crash or whatever yeah i don't know how long it was on the air but i have a sense that it was on

00:20:08.100 the air for like 10 years and it might still be on the air and i don't know yeah it's still on

00:20:11.840 jesus is it yeah they do 175 shows a year oh and he still does surgery like literal heart surgery

00:20:20.340 one day a week every thursday wow yeah the show is like consistently one of the top five shows

00:20:25.400 like on the daytime charts just because we have to have a cameo by her every episode now michelle

00:20:30.860 obama has showed up on his show twice so later on we are going to talk about sort of how dr oz got

00:20:37.240 like this but i think it's important to establish what like this actually means yeah there's

00:20:42.460 basically four different categories of topics that he has on his show so the first is weight loss

00:20:48.720 and weight related you know diet exercise stuff which is by far the most like that's probably 40

00:20:53.340 percent of his topics are in some way related to weight loss one of them to pick a random example

00:20:58.160 is apple cider vinegar that he says that like if you take a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar

00:21:02.600 with a meal you'll like lose more weight than you would on other diets without it blah blah blah

00:21:08.300 and then of course you look into it and it's like there's one study and it's on mice

00:21:13.220 like 1992 and then like people try to debunk it but then he just like leans in like one thing he's

00:21:19.160 doing now with apple cider vinegar is he stopped talking about it as like a diet aid he started

00:21:24.480 talking about it as like a detox like you should only drink the apple cider vinegar oh god what

00:21:29.580 which is worse and then he starts now he's talking about it as skincare and actual skincare people

00:21:35.860 are like just because something is quote-unquote natural doesn't mean that you should like rub it

00:21:39.800 all over your face every morning right apple cider vinegar is natural it's also not a great

00:21:43.920 contact lens solution yes exactly like no he's also really big on anti-cancer stuff

00:21:51.060 One of the headlines I saw on his website was what you can eat to defeat cancer.

00:21:55.220 Good God.

00:21:56.040 Another one of the major categories of stuff that he talks about in his show is anti-aging.

00:22:00.880 Yeah.

00:22:01.460 There's also a fourth category of stuff.

00:22:03.840 And so I'm about to send you a link.

00:22:06.140 Very excited.

00:22:07.820 Oh, my God.

00:22:09.620 Oh, no.

00:22:11.760 I know.

00:22:12.800 Mike!

00:22:13.220 I know.

00:22:13.740 It's so bad.

00:22:14.620 So this is apparently a title of an episode and it says,

00:22:18.940 From gay to straight?

00:22:20.000 question mark? The controversial therapy. He did an episode on gay conversion therapy,

00:22:26.660 like recently. Yeah. So the sort of little synopsis says, is there a gay cure? Dr. Oz

00:22:33.720 investigates reparative therapy. Recently banned in California for minors. Experts on both sides

00:22:40.880 speak out. Watch the heated debate. So recently banned in California for minors means that this

00:22:46.520 episode happened in the last five years yes we are not in the middle of a society-wide debate

00:22:51.120 about whether conversion therapy for gay people is useful that is a closed debate we do not have

00:22:56.940 questions about that as a society yeah we are not going to watch this segment together because 0.99

00:23:00.600 it's a fucking nightmare but it's like one of the most unethical six minutes of tv i've ever seen 0.98

00:23:05.800 he basically brings on a bunch of gay men talking about like i had these urges and then i found gay 1.00

00:23:11.480 conversion therapy and now i don't have them anymore which is like what are you fucking kidding 0.99

00:23:15.480 me? Like this is like Donahue episodes from the mid 90s. Like all that shit has been completely 0.91

00:23:20.860 debunked, dude. Right. I don't think you and I've talked about this. This is a campaign that I 0.99

00:23:25.340 worked on for like years. I worked on the Oregon campaign to ban conversion therapy. It is a shit

00:23:31.740 show. And so I will tell you, I know inside and out that there is zero dispute amongst psychologists 1.00

00:23:38.880 and psychiatrists. Zero. It doesn't work. And even if it did, why would we do it? I mean,

00:23:45.080 i think this is important for understanding sort of the dr oz phenomenon because on some level

00:23:50.600 like some of the things on his show you can defend right like helping people live longer

00:23:55.400 like diet and exercise blah blah blah fine but then it's like every fifth or sixth segment

00:24:01.060 is just random moral panic bullshit yeah so there's this infamous one where during the ebola

00:24:07.000 panic which i think was 2013 he had a whole show about how it might go airborne at any time what 0.88

00:24:12.740 There was one of the ones that I found. He had Jordan Peterson on to do divorce counseling with, like, a couple that was fighting?

00:24:20.960 What? 0.94

00:24:21.620 You're just going to have, like, this random alt-right fucking ghoul help people with, like, oh, John works too much and he's never home anymore. Like, why does this exist? 0.98

00:24:30.400 I was laughing in anticipation of him being like, let's do the carnivore diet.

00:24:34.840 I know.

00:24:35.580 Not, like, Jordan Peterson marriage counselor.

00:24:38.940 It's nuts. He's had like mediums on like one of the headlines that is still up on his website is how talking to the dead can keep you healthy. His website has a true crime section. He'll randomly do these like this girl went missing in Albuquerque or whatever. And you're like, why the fuck are you talking about this?

00:25:00.760 no health tie-in got it i want to sort of spoil the ending one of the best articles that i came 0.96

00:25:06.880 across on dr oz was written by a doctor like doctors loathe dr oz it's an article called

00:25:13.260 why dr oz makes us crazy and it's by a universe of chicago doctor called adam sifu and he

00:25:19.120 summarizes i think really well just like the central problem not just with dr oz with this

00:25:24.540 entire genre of entertainment bear with me it's kind of a long quote but it's really good great

00:25:28.460 The day-to-day practice of medicine is about caring for the individual.

00:25:31.960 While we physicians fill our days providing sound advice to our patients,

00:25:35.100 there are, by comparison, remarkably few recommendations that we can make to the population as a whole.

00:25:40.940 Everyone should exercise and wear seatbelts.

00:25:43.180 Nobody should smoke or drink excessively.

00:25:45.260 Everyone should receive childhood vaccines.

00:25:47.320 Not only are these types of recommendations limited in number,

00:25:49.920 they are also neither terribly interesting nor surprising.

00:25:52.800 They would certainly not support a daily or even weekly television show.

00:25:56.140 And this is really the central problem with a figure like Dr. Oz.

00:26:00.000 Yeah.

00:26:00.220 Instead of trying to actually like be America's doctor, he's just like giving everybody everything at once with no context.

00:26:08.120 Totally. And I think like most of research world is like pretty unsatisfying.

00:26:12.500 If you've not done the deep dive into like Google Scholar, there are very few medical studies that like a single study comes up with a definitive conclusion about what every individual should do differently.

00:26:26.140 Exactly. And those things where there are definitive findings are the things that you're

00:26:30.000 talking about, which is just like, you should probably drink some more water. Yeah. It's like

00:26:33.620 a little bit of, you know, squeezing blood out of a stone. Yeah. So I want to do a deep dive into

00:26:40.000 the green coffee bean kerfuffle. Oh, tell me. Which I'm sure you were aware of.

00:26:45.520 All I know is that it was a big thing. And it was a big thing mostly because of him.

00:26:49.880 Yeah. But I don't know anything about the science behind it. I don't know anything about sort of

00:26:54.380 how it became this sort of juggernaut. Would you like me to walk you through it with clips

00:26:58.820 and Google Scholar citations? Oh my god, everything. Yes, please.

00:27:02.800 All right, I'm gonna send you a clip. It's kind of long, but there are specifics in this clip

00:27:06.200 that we need to dissect. Gotcha. So here it is. Oh, okay. So I will say while we're getting it

00:27:10.640 cued up, Dr. Oz is standing in front of a screen. He is surrounded by these little pedestals that

00:27:16.660 have flames on the side of them. And the screens behind him say the miracle pill to burn fat fast.

00:27:24.380 I know, and it only gets worse, Aubrey.

00:27:26.800 Just wait till we get into this.

00:27:29.020 Oh, Lord. 0.87

00:27:30.960 This little bean has scientists saying they've done a magic weight loss cure for every body type.

00:27:37.140 It's green coffee beans.

00:27:39.240 And when turned into a supplement, this miracle pill can burn fat fast for anyone who wants to lose weight.

00:27:47.520 Naturopathic doctor and certified nutritionist Lindsay Duncan is here with the findings.

00:27:51.600 So, Dr. Liz, you love this bean.

00:27:54.620 Why is that?

00:27:55.620 You know, I usually don't recommend weight loss supplements, but this one has got me

00:27:58.760 really, really excited.

00:28:00.580 The recent study that you were talking about earlier, the participants took the capsules

00:28:05.580 and they did nothing else.

00:28:07.360 They didn't exercise.

00:28:08.480 They didn't change their diet.

00:28:10.180 They actually consumed 2,400 calories a day.

00:28:13.700 They burned only 400 calories.

00:28:16.180 Now that's weight gain, not weight loss.

00:28:18.940 And they lost over 10% of their total body weight.

00:28:22.360 And they had no side effects.

00:28:24.400 Zero side effects.

00:28:25.400 That's remarkable.

00:28:26.400 Yes.

00:28:27.400 Are you guys interested in this?

00:28:28.400 Yeah.

00:28:29.400 I thought so.

00:28:30.400 So, this is the raw material for coffee that we drink.

00:28:34.860 Why wouldn't just drinking coffee do this?

00:28:36.720 It's what we call a triple threat.

00:28:38.260 Okay.

00:28:39.260 And it's the chlorogenic acid that causes the effect and it works three ways.

00:28:42.380 The first way is it goes in and it causes the body to burn glucose or sugar and burn

00:28:48.440 fat mainly in the liver the second way and the most important way is it slows

00:28:53.180 the release of sugar into the bloodstream when the two are combined

00:28:57.800 together you get this synergistic effect that basically burns and blocks and

00:29:03.200 stops fat but it also is natural and safe so the capsules you can buy where

00:29:09.560 you buy it online you want to make sure that this is important that it's pure

00:29:13.220 so you go to your web browser you type in pure green coffee beans or pure green

00:29:18.260 coffee bean extract and you make sure that it doesn't have all the additives the excipients

00:29:23.340 the binders the cellulose and the silica and all the other stuff so look under other ingredients 0.99

00:29:28.440 to make sure that it's a pure product boo it's such bullshit but it's such compelling bullshit 0.99

00:29:37.360 do you want to keep going are you bummed that we stopped i hardly even know where to start with 0.98

00:29:42.180 this right you have to make sure that it's pure but there's no regulation on supplements yes 0.99

00:29:48.200 and truly every even just like street drug dealers will tell you shit is pure 0.88

00:29:53.620 it feels certain that both of these people probably know better than to just say hey 0.97

00:30:00.140 check and make sure it's pure oh sweet sweet aubrey it's so much worse than you think aubrey

00:30:07.060 it's so bad okay tell me all of this information is from a federal trade commission lawsuit so

00:30:14.300 So what we find out from the discovery files, once everything goes public, this guy, Lindsey

00:30:20.260 Duncan, he's not a medical doctor.

00:30:22.720 He has a naturopathic degree from the Clayton College of Natural Health, which is a school

00:30:29.760 that the state of Texas has said confers fraudulent and substandard degrees.

00:30:35.740 He seems like he's just like a doctor on this, right?

00:30:38.520 Like, I'm just somebody who cares about your health.

00:30:40.020 he's actually a marketing executive for a company that makes supplements yeah that's right so about

00:30:47.320 a month before he comes on dr oz he gets an email that eventually ends up in the federal trade

00:30:51.540 commission lawsuit from the dr oz show and they say you know we're hearing about this green coffee

00:30:56.640 bean extract do you know anything you know have you heard anything about this you know there's

00:31:00.100 this study that's coming out showing weight loss have you heard anything about this he at this

00:31:04.080 point has never heard of this thing he immediately writes back and says yes i've heard of it i'm

00:31:08.180 really excited about it and then that same day starts calling manufacturers to start producing

00:31:15.240 green coffee bean extracts oh god it's dark so over the next month he calls up like walgreens

00:31:23.500 and amazon all these other retailers and says look i'm gonna be on the dr oz show you guys need to

00:31:29.700 have this on your shelves and ready another really important thing remember in the clip

00:31:34.820 how he said like you need to take 800 milligrams of it twice a day and you need to look for the

00:31:39.720 pure version of it whatever these are search terms that he bought on google what yes so he's done seo

00:31:48.320 exactly to make sure that when people search those terms they will get his version and not

00:31:52.940 anybody else's version exactly so according to the lawsuit all of this is completely deliberate

00:32:00.100 Like all of the wording that he uses on the show is deliberate.

00:32:03.340 And he's going back and forth with the producers of Dr. Oz, like working on the script for

00:32:08.000 weeks before this airs.

00:32:09.060 So he knows exactly what he's going to say.

00:32:11.180 That's so upsetting.

00:32:12.860 Like, so truly, like, I feel like I don't have a ton of like Pollyanna kind of moments.

00:32:17.800 I really, really, really thought this episode was going to be like, he's been reckless, 0.99

00:32:22.280 not this is like an evil mastermind scheme to like, just to sell shit. 0.98

00:32:27.360 I mean, the closest thing we have to a defense of Dr. Oz is that Dr. Oz does not sell and never 0.98

00:32:32.660 has sold supplements. The only thing that he sells is he has like a sleep store on his website where

00:32:38.080 he sells like pillows and mattresses and shit. I think Dr. Oz probably didn't know, but also 0.95

00:32:43.260 they didn't do any background checks on this guy. Right. Zero due diligence. Zero due diligence.

00:32:48.680 Yeah. While we're at it, the study that they mentioned on the Dr. Oz show, the study that

00:32:53.580 shows that people do no diet they do no exercise all they do is they start taking green coffee

00:32:59.240 beans and then all of a sudden the weight magically melts off oh yes and they also said like this

00:33:04.700 miracle pill for 16 weeks you just the weight just drops off i was like this is all of the

00:33:09.720 language from fen fen and redux dude yes so it turns out that this study is a total scam the

00:33:15.980 study was initiated by the manufacturer of green coffee bean extract oh god the study was on 16

00:33:24.460 people already huge red flag that it's that small they found a researcher in india and then hired a

00:33:31.860 researcher to do this study like to recruit participants and then what they find out this

00:33:37.260 this is all part of the ftc lawsuit eventually they find out that the researcher is like constantly

00:33:41.940 changing things like she's not putting the data into the study well so like people's weights are

00:33:47.860 fluctuating all over the place she's mixing up who's in the green coffee bean group and the

00:33:53.000 placebo group oh no basically the company that makes this green coffee bean stuff loses confidence

00:33:59.920 in this researcher and they hire two more researchers at the university of scranton

00:34:04.480 they basically take her data which they already knew was bad because the numbers had been changing

00:34:09.220 all over the place. And they they present it at a conference. So it's never actually published,

00:34:13.400 but it's presented at this Cleveland Clinic conference. That is the entire basis for this

00:34:18.380 claim that you can do no diet and exercise and lose 10% of your body weight.

00:34:22.880 Right. Which is also, again, since time immemorial, this has been sort of like the magic

00:34:29.140 claim. Yes.

00:34:30.360 At the very least, if we had found something like that, you would hear it from your doctor.

00:34:36.180 I mean, so much of this really, to me, comes back to this idea that like there's something doctors don't want you to know. I mean, this is language that Dr. Oz uses on his show all the time. He's like, this is what the Western medical system won't tell you. And it's like the obesity epidemic is a pretty entrenched component of our culture. And if there was a cure for it that was this easy, you wouldn't just be hearing about it in like a four minute segment on a dodgy TV show.

00:35:01.280 right it would be cover of time it would be cover of newsweek it would be a huge fucking deal right 0.98

00:35:06.380 and even then it would be fen-fen yeah exactly even then it would still like maybe kill you 0.97

00:35:11.760 probably make you super sick right like so oh so do you want to know how he got this way

00:35:17.000 aubrey how did he get this way what's his backstory it's kind of a fascinating and like

00:35:22.740 tragic story so memet oz he's born in 1960 he grows up in ohio his parents are turkish

00:35:31.100 so he spends summers in Turkey growing up. His father is also a surgeon and just seems to be

00:35:37.780 like one of those dads that just like wants you to be number one all the time. The story that Dr.

00:35:42.200 Oz always tells is that he tells his dad, you know, I'm one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential

00:35:48.240 people in America. And his dad immediately says, what number are you? So he goes to Harvard for

00:35:53.700 undergraduate in 1985. This actually turns out to be a really important moment for him. He meets

00:36:00.340 his wife, who at the time is named Lisa Lemole. Her dad's a surgeon. And her mom is like kind of

00:36:06.860 a woo woo new age person. And it seems like as soon as Dr. Oz marries Lisa, this is when he starts

00:36:15.240 dabbling in like alternative medicines. In 1986, this is wild. He got a dual MD MBA from the

00:36:24.400 University of Pennsylvania. Right. But also it feels like that's some solid foreshadowing to be

00:36:31.480 like, I'm going to be good at doctoring and businessing. Businessing. Yeah. Then he immediately

00:36:36.500 gets a post at the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York. This is when like all the

00:36:41.060 doctors, all his colleagues, everybody says that he's a wildly talented surgeon. Julia Ballouz,

00:36:46.480 this really great journalist for Vox, goes and interviews a bunch of his colleagues. And most

00:36:50.500 of them say, I would let Dr. Oz do surgery on me. He wins like prestigious awards. He has 11

00:36:56.420 patents for various, you know, open heart, aorta, valve, something, something stuff. But then this

00:37:03.700 is also when he gets more serious about the alternative therapies. So this is an excerpt

00:37:10.300 from an article that Julia Balooz wrote about Dr. Oz, basically trying to answer the question,

00:37:14.100 like, how did he get this way? And this gets published in 2014. She says, with his father-in-law's

00:37:18.780 encouragement, he began to explore music therapy, energy fields and therapeutic touch and began to

00:37:25.040 offer them to his surgical patients. Here too, Lisa played a major role. She is a reiki master

00:37:30.880 and Oz soon became famous at New York Presbyterian for encouraging the practice of reiki in the

00:37:36.380 operating room. This is are you familiar with reiki? I am a queer lady from Portland, Oregon.

00:37:41.040 Yes, I am. You're doing it right now.

00:37:43.520 yeah it's sort of like the idea is that you're doing this sort of laying on of hands but you're

00:37:49.700 not actually touching someone right yes and the idea is that you're manipulating their energy

00:37:54.240 field yes i think this is a really big moment because on some level the reiki stuff seems fine

00:38:00.980 to me if a surgeon is a little kooky and you know they they think that playing classical music helps

00:38:06.800 you recover faster or there's some things in sort of ancient chinese medicine that might help

00:38:11.700 surgical patients recover from a heart surgery. The placebo effect is a real thing. And so if the

00:38:16.600 doctor is convinced that these therapies work, and the patients are convinced that these therapies

00:38:19.840 work, they probably do actually have some beneficial effect. Yeah, very truly couldn't

00:38:24.060 hurt. But then it seems like from this little seed, he then starts just expanding more and more

00:38:31.800 and more. So in 1994, he opens his own clinic, and then he starts doing sort of hypnosis and

00:38:39.260 aromatherapy and prayer. It just becomes like this weird grab bag.

00:38:44.820 Right. And it's not like he's not adopting whole cloth additional sort of like systems of medical

00:38:51.200 thinking, right? He's not going like, we're going to do a hybrid of Western surgery plus

00:38:56.120 principles of Chinese medicine, plus blah, blah, blah. He's just going like,

00:39:00.460 yeah, sure. Sounds like a good idea.

00:39:01.960 Right. There's no there's no sort of theory behind it. He's just vacuuming up whatever's around.

00:39:07.320 Whatever you got. All right.

00:39:08.380 Yeah. Another really important thing that starts happening in the mid 90s is he starts to get mainstream press attention. So the surgical team that he's part of in New York does a bunch of sort of firsts, like a bunch of genuinely really innovative surgeries and gets press attention. And once journalists start sniffing around and they realize there's this like charismatic, handsome doctor who does these sort of weird kooky things in the operating room, but is also really effective, stories start trickling out of this clinic.

00:39:37.140 And so Julia Ballou interviews one of his former nurse practitioners. She says it became about Oz, not about the project, not about the patients, not about the work. That all became secondary to his rise to the top. He was always acting. He didn't know this patient. He was not connected to this patient. We'd give him a two or three minute soundbite and he'd sit there in front of cameras like he'd done this work and had this deep connection.

00:40:01.200 Yeah, it's it's so sad, because I'm like, I can totally understand why people get irritated. And

00:40:06.420 I can also totally understand how this would be so enticing for someone whose dad just always

00:40:10.540 wanted them to be number one. Seriously. Oh, I feel for you, bud. But also,

00:40:15.200 this might not be the way. Right. And also, he has the confidence of an evangelist. You know,

00:40:20.960 I mean, the guy's literally doing heart surgery on people. He's saving people's lives. And so

00:40:24.620 it's very easy after that to say it wasn't the heart surgery. It was the reiki that saved

00:40:28.380 somebody's life. I know. This is also 2001 is when he gets his TV show for the first time.

00:40:34.760 So little known fact, Dr. Oz's roommate in college ended up becoming the president of

00:40:42.160 the Discovery Channel. So after them talking and him getting all this press attention and doing

00:40:47.040 this interesting surgical stuff, eventually he and his wife pitched the show to the Discovery

00:40:51.800 Channel called Second Opinion with Dr. Oz. They do a series. It's 13 episodes where every

00:40:58.160 episode is him interviewing a celebrity about some sort of health issue. So fatefully, his first

00:41:05.780 episode is about obesity and he interviews Oprah. So this is how they come in contact. She really

00:41:13.220 likes him. And she starts thinking, hey, why don't I have this guy on my show? He's charismatic. He's

00:41:17.400 smart. He's interesting. Yeah, he's a super likable dude. Yes, exactly. And he has a way

00:41:22.420 of presenting information in a way that makes it really easy for people. So one of his first

00:41:28.040 appearances on oprah famously he comes on with like a heart like an actual heart and he's like

00:41:32.960 this is a healthy heart and then he pulls out like a big gross sort of white marbled heart and

00:41:38.180 he's like this is a heart if you have obesity and like look how bad it is but this sort of this

00:41:43.360 this showmanship this way of having visual aids this becomes his trademark yeah i absolutely as

00:41:49.560 you were describing that i was like oh i absolutely remember both watching that show

00:41:54.220 and then hearing the way that people talk to me afterwards yeah it was this wild moment of

00:42:01.340 super charging the like don't you care about your health i know i also remember from prop world that

00:42:07.240 he had one episode that i saw at one point i think i might have been getting my nails done

00:42:11.200 or something where he was like let's talk about your colon and he had this big fabric tube set up

00:42:17.280 that was like have people like walk through yeah the inside of their colon there's a lot of poopings

00:42:24.160 stuff that i cut out of this episode honestly he's like obsessed with bombers and like the way that

00:42:30.880 your poo is supposed to look and how it's supposed to sound and like this sort of demystification of

00:42:35.520 these kinds of things that you're quote-unquote not supposed to talk about is actually a big part 0.94

00:42:38.720 of his brand are you happy now dad i'm the number one poop doctor i can't believe you brought up the

00:42:43.940 poop stuff i really wanted to skip the poop stuff i'm so sorry i'm so sorry it was like watching

00:42:51.080 one of those like dystopian future things where i'm like in the future people laugh at a doctor

00:42:56.140 talking about pooping i know what is this the hunger games so in 2009 is when he finally gets

00:43:04.380 his own show so it's been 11 years yes oh one of the most interesting studies i found was a bmj

00:43:10.980 study that did a systematic content analysis of what he presents on his show so they watched 40

00:43:18.560 episodes, they got 479 health recommendations from those 40 episodes. And then they picked 80

00:43:25.900 of them at random to look at the evidence. What they found is that only 46% of them had any

00:43:33.200 evidence to support them. And 15% had evidence against them, like evidence that they don't work.

00:43:39.480 Wow. 0.98

00:43:40.000 So nestled among the sort of the bullshit, weight loss, intermittent fasting, 0.99

00:43:45.020 take a green coffee bean pill you'll find things like how to get a better night's sleep 0.99

00:43:50.080 how to get more fruit into your diet here's tips for how to quit smoking so it's not all bullshit 0.99

00:43:56.860 but the fact that it's half bullshit and half not and he's toggling between them without necessarily 0.96

00:44:04.700 like good road signs for this has evidence and this doesn't like that's the central problem 0.95

00:44:09.800 right i would actually argue that that is more destructive than the like straight up like

00:44:14.060 medicine show pitch of just like, I've got your miracle cure right here. It just sort of fortifies

00:44:20.060 this soup that we're all living in all the time, which is when it comes to health and wellness and

00:44:27.140 weight loss and nutrition and all of that kind of stuff. We're like in this mucky combination of

00:44:34.520 real verified information and marketing and wishful thinking.

00:44:40.640 Right. So for the rest of the episode, I want to walk through the way that he defends what he's

00:44:47.420 doing. Oh, interesting. Most of this comes from his 2014 congressional testimony, which I think

00:44:52.540 is like a rich text. Yeah. The sort of the clips from that testimony that go viral are the back

00:44:57.660 and forth between him and the senators. And I mostly think those are bullshit because the 0.99

00:45:02.120 senators are just kind of playing to the cameras. Sure. But when you give congressional testimony, 1.00

00:45:05.940 you have to give a long detailed statement. And Dr. Oz's statement is actually very interesting

00:45:11.480 because it's the first time that he's ever in detail had to defend the impact that his show

00:45:18.260 has on the health of Americans. That's so fascinating. I realized like,

00:45:22.260 as you're saying this, I'm realizing that I don't think I've ever heard him answer for any of this

00:45:28.400 sort of on his own terms. Like you, I watched the sort of like Claire McCaskill and Dr. Oz back and

00:45:35.120 4th, which was, I will say, totally playing to the cameras, totally political theater.

00:45:39.560 Don't care.

00:45:40.440 Very compelling political theater.

00:45:42.180 It's fun to watch.

00:45:43.120 We're going to do it later in the show.

00:45:44.800 Yes.

00:45:45.520 He makes four claims in defending his show, and we're going to walk through them one by

00:45:49.760 one.

00:45:50.120 Great.

00:45:50.500 The first claim that he makes is that he's educating viewers about their health.

00:45:55.020 So this is what he says in his congressional testimony.

00:45:57.940 When we write a script, we need to generate enthusiasm and engage the viewer.

00:46:01.840 Viewers don't watch the show because they're seeking dry clinical language.

00:46:05.120 They watch because we use language that's familiar to them, which they would use when

00:46:08.740 speaking to friends and loved ones.

00:46:10.540 Which is a laudable goal.

00:46:12.460 If he was actually doing that, yes, that would be great.

00:46:15.380 Totally.

00:46:16.220 This is, I feel like this is going to be like probably how this testimony all plays out

00:46:21.200 where I'm like, that sounds good and reasonable.

00:46:22.740 And you're going to be like, but it's not what he was doing.

00:46:24.660 Exactly.

00:46:25.340 Because, so, okay, I should not have done this. 0.99

00:46:27.440 This was like the biggest waste of my fucking time. 0.98

00:46:29.040 But I read one of his books. 0.99

00:46:30.620 No, Mike.

00:46:31.860 It's called You, the User's Manual. 0.92

00:46:33.820 it was actually really easy because it's mostly like recipes and shit like there's very little

00:46:38.800 actual content in his book but there's a difference between boiling scientific information down for a 0.97

00:46:45.300 lay audience and fucking lying to them and he consistently lies give me a flavor of some of 0.79

00:46:50.980 those lies like what are some of the things that are just like categorically untrue okay so i'm 0.99

00:46:55.460 gonna read to you from his from his miserable book okay oh god you don't need to be a road 0.73

00:46:59.260 scholar to stay mentally strong. Simple changes can do the trick. Take another study, one that 0.66

00:47:04.000 measured brain function of retirees who frequented a Starbucks in Illinois. The half who just sat and

00:47:09.520 drank their coffee got no smarter, while the half who drank their coffee while walking for 45 minutes

00:47:14.560 at least three days a week actually improved their IQs. Parentheses, no word on how many bathroom

00:47:20.660 breaks they needed. Oh lord. The explanation? Physical activity improves arterial function,

00:47:25.500 and better arterial function improves brain function.

00:47:28.800 I feel like I'm going to go into the methodology flaws of this study and be like,

00:47:33.680 right, but these kinds of people have access to these kinds of spaces to do walking and

00:47:38.120 blah, blah, blah.

00:47:38.460 And then you're just going to be like, it wasn't a study.

00:47:41.100 Look, I could start to pick it apart, but I also know that I'm going to be like too

00:47:45.580 generous with how I pick it apart.

00:47:47.800 This is exactly what I was expecting.

00:47:50.920 You would find some sort of specific things to nitpick at.

00:47:54.000 And then the twist. I'm like, the study does not exist, Aubrey, which is true. I spent half a

00:48:00.220 fucking day looking for this actual study. I put it out on Twitter. I was like, if you have any 0.99

00:48:05.480 background in neuroscience, cognitive function, anything, have you ever heard of this study?

00:48:09.800 I looked at literature reviews. I could not find a study that found people in Starbucks,

00:48:15.600 and some of them drank coffee, and some of them walked and drank their coffee. This study does

00:48:19.120 not exist oh and i want to be clear this is the first study in his book that i looked it's not

00:48:26.720 like i went through his book and i wrote down all the studies and i looked for it's like oh that

00:48:30.180 one's real and that one's real oh this one's fake this is the first one i looked into and it's not

00:48:35.040 a fucking real study there is no study that measured the effect of walking on iq and what

00:48:40.160 actual cognitive neuro people say they don't use iq as a variable in studies like this because iq 0.97

00:48:45.760 does not change like that that's not how these studies work and it didn't even happen it's not

00:48:49.380 even making you smarter because it didn't even happen that study doesn't exist oh my god mike 0.82

00:48:52.920 also can i just be a total dick yes of course all of his thing is like oh we need to use 0.99

00:48:57.540 colloquial language we just like to talk to folks how they're folks and then listen to this fucking 0.99

00:49:02.340 sentence physical activity improves arterial function and better arterial function improves 0.99

00:49:06.960 brain function yeah that's a shitty sentence like exercise increases your blood flow and your brain 0.72

00:49:13.140 needs blood to function yes oh jesus this is why science communication is hard is because you don't

00:49:18.500 want to misrepresent anything but you do want to get it across in a way that people can absorb it

00:49:23.420 and that's something that dr oz like instead of doing the difficult work of coming up with like

00:49:27.460 metaphors that can help people understand complex phenomena or whatever he's just like this is a

00:49:32.220 breakthrough revolutionary thing walking and coffee iq you're like well you're not actually

00:49:36.800 simplifying anything you're making stuff up those are two different things he's like coming up with

00:49:41.740 these sort of like studies that like don't exist or if they do he's not citing them or whatever

00:49:47.240 and then he's building giant fabric colons for a tv set and like flames of green coffee beans

00:49:55.340 and whatever right like oh it's not science yes so okay second second defense that dr oz offers

00:50:03.200 for himself he is giving people an alternative to western medicine no he's not i know i know

00:50:10.460 stop spoiling the episode. So for this one, we're gonna do a little table read. Oh my god.

00:50:17.540 Okay, are you sending me a link? Yes, I was gonna I was gonna play the clip of his exchange with

00:50:22.980 Claire McCaskill in the congressional hearing. But it's just really long and really boring. So I took

00:50:28.300 the transcript and I condensed it down. So we're gonna do a sort of distilled version of this.

00:50:33.940 Okay, do you want to play Dr. Oz? Or do you want to play Claire McCaskill?

00:50:37.400 I'll be Claire McCaskill. That sounds fun.

00:50:39.340 Okay. So this is from the 2014 congressional hearing. Congress was looking into false weight

00:50:44.180 loss claims.

00:50:45.180 Oh, dang. All right. It is.

00:50:46.900 It's long.

00:50:47.560 It's serious business.

00:50:48.840 I know.

00:50:49.140 Okay.

00:50:49.460 All right. Your motivation is that you're mad at Dr. Oz and you need viral moments for your

00:50:54.840 Twitter feed later today.

00:50:55.860 All right.

00:50:56.180 All right. Grill me.

00:50:57.000 Now, here are three statements you made on your show. Quote, you may think magic is make-believe,

00:51:02.300 but this little bean has scientists saying they found the magic weight loss cure for every body

00:51:07.400 type. Quote, I've got the number one miracle in a bottle to burn your body fat. It's raspberry

00:51:13.500 ketone. Sorry, I just got it sounds like a delicious salad dressing. You're breaking

00:51:19.640 character already. I know. I'm unprofessional. I'm very disappointed. Quote, Garcinia Cambogia.

00:51:27.580 It may be the simple solution you've been looking for to bust your body fat for good.

00:51:32.140 I don't get why you need to say this stuff, because you know it's not true.

00:51:35.640 With regards to whether they work or not, take the green coffee bean extract as an example.

00:51:39.500 I'm not going to argue that it would pass FDA muster if it was a pharmaceutical drug

00:51:42.840 seeking approval, but among the natural products that are out there,

00:51:45.900 this is a product that has several clinical trials.

00:51:47.940 I mean, I've tried to really do a lot of research in preparation for this hearing,

00:51:51.400 and the scientific community is almost monolithic against you

00:51:54.500 in terms of the efficacy of the three products that you called miracles.

00:51:58.740 And when you call a product a miracle and it's something that you can buy and it's something that gives people false hope, I just don't understand why you needed to go there.

00:52:06.500 My job, I feel, on the show is to be a cheerleader for the audience.

00:52:10.120 And when they don't think they have hope or when they don't think they can make it happen, I want to look, and I do look, everywhere, including in alternative healing traditions, for any evidence that might be supportive to them.

00:52:20.160 So you pick on green coffee bean extract.

00:52:22.560 With the amount of information that I have on that, I'm still comfortable telling folks

00:52:25.920 that if you can buy a reputable version of it, and I say this all the time, I don't

00:52:29.400 sell it, and these are not for long-term use.

00:52:33.680 And then it's over.

00:52:35.800 Oh, God.

00:52:37.140 What do you think?

00:52:37.900 It is total political theater because he doesn't say anything substantive.

00:52:41.480 No.

00:52:41.820 It's a satisfying exchange.

00:52:43.600 But there's nothing in there where she goes, no, these are the studies. 0.99

00:52:47.580 How do you respond to all these studies that say this doesn't do shit? 0.99

00:52:51.380 Right. 0.99

00:52:51.600 So the thing that jumps out at me about this, and I think because I've read so many interviews with him and he does this all the fucking time and it drives me nuts, he does this three-step move. 0.68

00:53:01.660 First of all, he says green coffee bean extract is good because look at the studies that show how much weight you can lose by taking this extract, right?

00:53:11.280 And then somebody pushes back on him and they say, well, that study was only of 16 people.

00:53:16.380 That study wasn't very high quality.

00:53:17.860 And then instead of responding to those points, he then says, well, it's alternative medicine.

00:53:24.120 I don't know if it would necessarily pass FDA muster, but, you know, there's different

00:53:27.840 healing traditions around the world and we couldn't possibly apply those standards.

00:53:31.460 And it's like, if we can't apply those standards, then why were you saying that you should take

00:53:35.100 it because of a study?

00:53:36.160 Right.

00:53:36.480 No, pick one.

00:53:37.980 This is an alternative treatment.

00:53:39.560 And the way that we know that is because of Western studies.

00:53:42.540 Yes.

00:53:42.940 And it isn't doing right by those medical traditions either.

00:53:46.160 Well, that's the thing. 0.99

00:53:46.740 Green coffee bean extract is a fucking pill that is made by like a multinational corporation. 0.99

00:53:52.520 And then you're saying it's alternative. 0.99

00:53:54.160 You know, in a lot of ways, it mimics the like medicine show stuff that we talked about

00:53:58.600 during our snake oil conversation, right?

00:54:01.280 People like have been rightfully disappointed by Western medicine.

00:54:05.480 People have had bad experiences. 0.65

00:54:07.100 I'm a fat lady.

00:54:08.180 You don't need to tell me about bad experiences in doctor's offices.

00:54:11.240 And what he's doing is sort of like glomming on to this sort of vague, but not totally founded idea that there is like, someone else is doing it better somewhere. It's sort of riding the coattails of the genuine mistrust that folks have for understandable reasons often.

00:54:32.220 Yes. Also, another really interesting thing, there's a lot of really good articles by doctors, like people who literally practice Western medicine. They say that it's also kind of bullshit to be saying, you know, these are alternative medicines. We couldn't possibly measure them with Western medicine. And what these doctors point out is that, you know, if you talk about something like yoga, that's like a alternative medicine, you know, seen as very woo-woo 20 years ago, the medical benefits of yoga are extremely well documented.

00:54:59.880 it. That's not some woo-woo thing like we couldn't possibly say that yoga is good using our techniques

00:55:05.300 of Western medicine. It's like there are hundreds of studies showing that yoga improves people's

00:55:11.040 lives. Things like meditation and getting a good night's sleep and eating a balanced diet. We can

00:55:16.420 measure the effects of those things. Those are not somehow alternative. I don't know why we're acting

00:55:21.120 as if these are somehow these like mystical practices that we couldn't possibly assess.

00:55:25.560 no right and not every treatment from every corner of the world has been sort of like tested or

00:55:31.620 studied right there has to be money behind that there has to be all of this different kind of

00:55:35.100 stuff so we're not saying like if it's good western medicine quote-unquote will have validated

00:55:40.540 it right like but in this case like so if we take green coffee extract we have an incredibly

00:55:47.700 moneyed supplement company that stands to gain astonishing levels of wealth yes this stuff has

00:55:55.460 the money and the systems to be sort of studied and to see if its effects are what we think they

00:56:01.940 are. And that hasn't happened. So at the very least, that's like a red flag, dudes. That's a

00:56:07.900 red flag. There's this like weird fake dichotomy between alternative and Western medicine and

00:56:13.700 neither one of those terms are remotely defined. Right. It's sort of this like floating signifier,

00:56:18.420 right? Yeah. And it also it feels to me like it prevents change too, because if what you're

00:56:22.680 against is Western medicine. You're just going to do all this like naturopath random stuff.

00:56:27.080 You're not going to try to get better policies for universal health care, or maybe doctors should

00:56:32.320 be able to spend more than seven minutes with their patients. I mean, there's specific changes

00:56:37.060 that we can make to the American health care system to make it more responsive to people.

00:56:41.480 Right. If you have a critique of that system, listen, I'm an organizer. I am fucking on board.

00:56:47.700 This is not how that happens. 0.99

00:56:49.620 I mean, I do think the fact that Dr. Oz is a lifelong Republican is under discussed.

00:56:55.420 Oh, no.

00:56:56.460 This is a very Republican worldview, right?

00:56:59.260 That it's like the free market is going to solve these problems.

00:57:02.040 Yeah, there's nothing we can do to change our medical system except for the many massive

00:57:07.120 things that we have done to change our medical system.

00:57:10.640 Yes. 1.00

00:57:11.140 I just hate that shit. 1.00

00:57:12.600 I mean, this is like one of my like extreme pet peeves is like you can't change the world. 1.00

00:57:17.360 You can only change yourself kind of thing.

00:57:19.620 Well, Western medicine is going to be what Western medicine is going to be.

00:57:22.840 But listen, what you got to get on board with is this green coffee extract or raspberry 0.95

00:57:27.640 ketones or what the fuck ever.

00:57:30.020 So his next claim is that he never endorses specific products.

00:57:35.820 So this is an excerpt from his opening statement at the Congressional Hearing.

00:57:39.640 I started as a guest on the Oprah Winfrey Show in 2004 and had my first experiences

00:57:43.940 with scam advertising at that time.

00:57:45.840 When we discussed supplements like acai berry and resveratrol, there wasn't anything special about my description of them.

00:57:52.460 But immediately, the internet ads began springing up using pictures of us showing quotes claiming that Miss Winfrey and I were supporting these products and selling them.

00:58:02.260 This is basically his main claim that, you know, look, did we mention something called resveratrol on our shows?

00:58:10.500 I guess we mentioned it.

00:58:11.900 sure all of a sudden these random internet con artists start selling it and saying that we're 0.97

00:58:18.320 endorsing it how dare they yeah but also like you are fucking endorsing it dude dude do you want to 0.90

00:58:24.200 hear the actual transcript of what he said about resveratrol on oprah oh god okay keep in mind he 0.96

00:58:30.480 is saying how would anyone get the impression from this that i'm endorsing this product right

00:58:34.580 here's the actual words that he said uh-huh resveratrol does one other thing it turns on a

00:58:40.060 system in your body that prevents your cells from aging. Now think about it. Where do they grow these

00:58:45.280 grapes? On trees on hillsides, right? It's not a very hospitable environment. So these grapes are

00:58:50.700 sending a signal to us that life might not be so good. So why not turn on that cellular chemistry

00:58:56.880 that you have that allows you to live longer and better? What? It's like, oh yeah, how could anybody

00:59:02.020 get the impression that you're endorsing this product? Also, how does any plant survive on a

00:59:07.540 Hill? I know. So inhospitable. What? It's also not very convincing. Things grow everywhere. What

00:59:15.180 are you talking about? So I mean, on some level, like I have a teaspoon of sympathy for Dr. Oz,

00:59:21.540 because of course, after this show airs, all these scam companies appear out of nowhere. And

00:59:26.920 apparently they started selling, you know, 30 day supply of resveratrol. And people would sign up

00:59:33.780 for it but then they would make it impossible to cancel and at the same time they're saying

00:59:38.080 it's endorsed by dr oz and oprah so a lot of people end up getting mad at dr oz and oprah

00:59:42.300 it's totally shitty and also at some point he has to acknowledge and the show has to acknowledge

00:59:48.240 that that is an ecosystem that has sprung up around their show well this is the thing is that 0.96

00:59:52.740 if he had said on his show eat avocados avocados are good you know avocado sales probably would 0.99

00:59:58.040 have spiked or whatever but you wouldn't have all these fucking grifters coming out of the woodwork 1.00

01:00:02.620 because that's not like a grifty sector. 0.99

01:00:05.460 Right.

01:00:05.560 Anytime you're sending people to essentially a used car dealership,

01:00:10.480 they're going to get scammed because you're sending them into

01:00:12.980 this extremely grifty sector of the economy.

01:00:15.980 Yeah.

01:00:16.320 And you can't just say like,

01:00:17.820 I bought a Honda Civic and I love my Honda Civic and it's a handsome car.

01:00:20.760 And then be like,

01:00:21.260 I can't believe all these people bought Honda Civics.

01:00:23.380 It's like, well, four million people watch your show.

01:00:25.800 He's not even meeting the Instagram threshold where you have to be like,

01:00:29.600 hashtag ad.

01:00:30.640 So this is actually, I think, the biggest flaw in the congressional testimony is that over and over again, the senators will press him on selling these scam products, and then he will push back and say the problem is that they weren't really selling the product.

01:00:47.380 So this is what he says. I once confronted an egregious advertiser of Garcinia Cambogia on my show, in part because we found not only was he stealing my name, he was also only providing 10% of the active ingredient.

01:01:01.460 and it's like you don't get it do you mccaskill nobody follows up on this it doesn't matter the 0.91

01:01:09.100 active ingredient is bullshit it doesn't matter if it's 10 or 100 right there's like a darkly 0.97

01:01:13.000 hilarious section of the congressional testimony where he's going back and forth with one of the 0.99

01:01:16.940 male senators and they're like so what are your policy ideas for you know fixing these like scammy

01:01:21.180 weight loss grifty sector of the economy dr oz's main policy idea like how to fix it he's like we

01:01:27.900 need a database of products that are really endorsed by celebrities what that's that's for

01:01:34.960 you like that's to protect you dr oz that's not to protect other people look i need to know that

01:01:41.060 kim kardashian really endorsed black tummy tea okay so last claim we're gonna talk about yeah

01:01:48.100 this one is this one's really mean like i've been mean i've been like not charitable in this episode

01:01:52.500 and this is like the least charitable so oh my god the final claim that dr oz makes is that he's

01:01:59.060 gotten better one of the last things that he says in his congressional testimony is he's talking

01:02:05.020 about the green coffee bean extract thing he never says i'm sorry but like the closest thing he ever

01:02:09.920 does to saying i'm sorry he's like you know we made some mistakes there and you know as an example

01:02:14.880 of how i've learned we recently had a product on our show called yakon syrup have you heard of

01:02:23.540 this aubrey not ever it's basically an extract from like uh sweet potatoes like the syrupy stuff

01:02:28.480 that comes out of sweet potatoes sure when you bake a sweet potato there's like that little goo

01:02:32.240 that sort of puddle of goo yes he he says like look we recently did a segment on this on the show

01:02:39.480 we didn't call it a miracle we didn't call it magical we were really responsible and so of

01:02:44.140 course, as soon as I was reading this, I was like, I need to see this segment. Like, let's see the

01:02:50.020 new and improved Dr. Oz. So we are going to watch this clip. This is the new and improved Dr. Oz.

01:02:57.340 This is Dr. Oz on his best behavior. Oh, God. Two women up here, right? I've got a woman that's

01:03:03.740 a little bit on the big side, right? You come next to me. I'll come next to you. You won't bite me. 0.85

01:03:08.300 No, I won't bite at all. All right. And on this side, I got a little bit of a thinner woman. So

01:03:11.680 researchers think that the first way the syrup works is to speed up your metabolism so if you

01:03:16.140 do have excess fat one of the reasons we think that's happening and a lot of you don't want to

01:03:21.000 look like that do i have that right yes all right so if we believe as more and more of us in the

01:03:27.000 science field are that the bacteria in your gut are what's making you heavy then the question

01:03:33.020 becomes can we change that that gut the bacteria you have is very different it's caused by having

01:03:38.460 too many processed foods in a poor diet you don't want those kinds of bacteria those are fat

01:03:42.620 bacteria this thin person's gut however is filled with more of the good bacteria i like to call it

01:03:48.400 skinny bacteria that's one of the reasons that people who are thin can this day thin that's the

01:03:53.880 first way that scientists believe that this yacon syrup works the next way that we believe that

01:03:59.500 yacon syrup may work for weight loss is that it makes you feel full yeah so in order to demonstrate

01:04:04.520 this i have to put you at a little bit of risk so come on up here i'll help you up all right we're 0.96

01:04:11.040 stopping now it's a fucking nightmare from here on i don't need to know why he's hooking her into 0.99

01:04:17.000 a sex swing he ends up doing this thing where he talks about how your cone syrup affects your hunger 0.99

01:04:22.880 and satiety hormones and it's like it lifts up the level of satiety hormones and then he like

01:04:29.060 lifts her off the ground what it's like him it's him trying to do like make a fun explanation out

01:04:34.340 of an extremely simple scientific concept. So when they step onto the stage, there is this sort

01:04:39.740 of wall of screens at the back of the stage that has a profile of a thin white woman in a bra and

01:04:47.000 panties. And I would say a pretty small fat white woman also in a bra and panties. That's what he's 0.99

01:04:52.760 referring to when he goes, most of you don't want to look like this, right? The woman that he has 0.99

01:04:57.260 brought up from the audience absolutely looks like that. Yeah, I know. Like she is the size and

01:05:04.000 shape that he is talking about while he's asking the audience, you don't want to look like that,

01:05:08.980 do you? I know. She seems nice. She seems lovely. I guess he's careful to say that it's not a

01:05:14.740 miracle and it's not magic. I mean, he doesn't technically use the words that he used in the

01:05:18.700 green bean extract clip. Right. But he straightforwardly says that it speeds up

01:05:22.920 your metabolism. He straightforwardly says that it gives you skinny stomach bacteria. He

01:05:27.500 straightforwardly says that it makes you feel full for longer. Like he's still making a bunch

01:05:32.380 of claims, like specific claims that are not true. And at this point, he doesn't need to say

01:05:38.920 that it's a miracle cure. He has the miracle cure show. Yes. That's what people tune in for.

01:05:45.240 Right. He's basically making the argument that it is this miracle thing without saying the word

01:05:50.060 miracle. But there's not a meaningful difference between those two things. Telling people that

01:05:54.220 switching from sugar to yacon syrup is going to lower their blood pressure, ease their constipation.

01:05:59.680 And of course, he mentions constipation speeds up your metabolism and makes you feel full

01:06:03.440 for longer.

01:06:04.480 That's what people want from a miracle weight loss cure is for those four things.

01:06:07.940 I have to say, now that I know your aversion to the poop stuff, I very much want to find

01:06:12.360 a poop center.

01:06:13.300 Please don't do this.

01:06:14.780 I don't want to do a poop episode.

01:06:16.540 This is our poop episode.

01:06:18.020 This is as close as we're getting.

01:06:19.440 No, this and Olestra.

01:06:20.660 Oh, yeah, huh?

01:06:21.380 Poop episodes.

01:06:22.300 I mean, of course, I looked up the science on your cone syrup. 0.99

01:06:25.280 It's a bunch of fucking mice studies. 0.99

01:06:27.300 It's a real thing. 0.99

01:06:28.160 it appears that there's actually some use of yacone syrup for diabetics because it's a way

01:06:32.480 of sweetening foods, but it's much less sweet than sugar. So like, okay, is like, is it a

01:06:38.080 completely useless thing in the world? No, it seems fine. But also it has side effects if you

01:06:43.140 eat too much of it. And also most people that switch from sugar to yacone syrup just end up

01:06:47.740 using more yacone syrup because they want the sweetness. Yeah, totally. I just think it's

01:06:51.260 incredible. Does he not think that we can see him like he goes in front of Congress and he's like,

01:06:55.180 look how much better i am now is this you better right no i don't think it's that he thinks we

01:06:59.700 can't see him i think it look if we're looking at this through like strategic communications

01:07:04.060 perspective right he knows that his audience is not watching his congressional hearings the people 0.94

01:07:10.260 who watch dr oz and the people who watch fucking c-span yeah no kidding like there's not a lot of

01:07:15.600 overlap guys so he's aware that he just has to give quotes that sound reasonable yeah and get

01:07:22.500 out of there yeah yeah the whole thing is just like a whole mess oh there's a huge like elite

01:07:28.220 accountability story here too yeah there was an open letter from 10 prominent physicians to

01:07:35.160 columbia saying that columbia should no longer have him working there oh wow there's been attempts

01:07:39.600 at the american medical association but the american medical association can't really do

01:07:43.320 anything because all the licensing is done at the state level and then the state level says that they

01:07:48.600 can't do anything because it would be setting a bad precedent etc etc i mean it's it's very

01:07:52.480 white collar crime right over and over again every form of accountability that would ever impose any

01:07:58.520 minor tiny consequences on dr oz finds an excuse not to do it yeah like one of the defenses of him

01:08:05.040 in inside higher ed which is doing this like panic thing about free speech doctors professors

01:08:10.000 tenure etc they say the real reason these writers are seeking to fire oz from columbia

01:08:15.760 is a form of public shaming and it's like yes people should be shamed for constantly lying

01:08:23.900 right or at the very least you shouldn't be continually provided with the tools to continue

01:08:28.900 to lie to people yes you have an ethical obligation to your patients and to people who think they are

01:08:35.540 your patients yeah you can't just keep doing everything as you have been doing it if it's

01:08:40.000 actively hurting people stop being bad yes stop being bad dude stop being bad and also since the

01:08:45.740 congressional hearing if anything he's gotten worse so in 2016 he does a physical exam on trump

01:08:53.140 what sort of live on tv yeah he had trump on and trump you know he's like uh why didn't you release

01:08:59.260 your medical records and trump is like i did release my medical records and dr oz is like

01:09:02.940 sounds good what and then he does this like theatrical fake physical exam which like he

01:09:08.640 doesn't in any way touch like it's not a real physical exam but he just asks trump a bunch of

01:09:13.680 these questions and trump is able to answer yes or no and then he's like you seem like you're in

01:09:16.780 good physical health jesus christ and then this is amazing synergy convergence for our show in 2018

01:09:24.700 trump appoints him to the president's council on youth fitness oh god that old chestnut i know so

01:09:33.440 just like all the bullshit fads coming together the last thing i googled on dr oz's website was 0.80

01:09:40.780 what he's been doing this year during COVID. And I'm going to read you some headlines. 0.96

01:09:45.800 Oh, God. Okay.

01:09:47.220 COVID-19 and immunity, the vitamin and mineral prescription plan recommended by experts.

01:09:53.020 This shopping list will help you choose foods for COVID-19 immunity. This is my favorite one.

01:09:58.560 Should zinc be added to treatment protocols for COVID-19 patients? In his defense, he has not

01:10:04.260 been a COVID anti-vaxxer. He's been very clear about like, you should get vaccinated for COVID.

01:10:08.860 So that's like the one saving grace.

01:10:11.280 But he spent a lot of 2020 spreading basically some like pretty bad information about COVID. 0.99

01:10:16.660 COVID immunity is not going to come from the fucking grocery store, dude. 0.95

01:10:20.300 All of those headlines sounded to me like Troy McClure educational films. 0.99

01:10:26.560 Yes.

01:10:26.860 As an actor, I need my eyeballs to be their whitest.

01:10:29.820 Yes.

01:10:30.300 Again, like if we're talking about playing on folks' anxiety about mortality,

01:10:33.780 I don't know if there's any clearer way to do that than say, oh, you got to take zinc.

01:10:39.280 Otherwise, you're going to get COVID. 1.00

01:10:40.560 Fucking zinc, dude. 0.99

01:10:42.180 I mean, this is the kind of stuff that makes me feel sort of like not hopeless, but despairing. 1.00

01:10:49.680 Dude, yeah.

01:10:50.140 All of this stuff makes it seem like weight loss is super simple.

01:10:54.460 All you need to do is buy this supplement.

01:10:56.400 All you need to do is have the right gut bacteria.

01:10:58.680 All you need to do is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

01:11:00.580 The idea that you could spend this much time talking about how terrible it is to be fat and all the ways that you don't have to be fat and that that would not sort of impact the way that people think about and treat fat people or disabled people or chronically ill people or what have you is fully bananas.

01:11:19.040 So it's also like not only is he playing real fast and loose with the truth and sometimes just making it up, he's also sort of feeding these fires, right?

01:11:31.320 So we should let Dr. Oz have the last word on this show.

01:11:34.920 So this is this is how he this is toward the end of his congressional testimony.

01:11:40.380 You're not going to believe this.

01:11:41.760 He says, you know what the biggest disservice I've done for my audience?

01:11:45.740 It's not the flowery language that Senator McCaskill is criticizing me for.

01:11:49.480 It's that I never told them where to buy the products.

01:11:54.560 But how dare they think I'm trying to sell something.

01:11:57.700 This is what he sees as his central sin, that he was not selling them reliable versions of raspberry ketones or whatever.

01:12:06.580 I love the idea that he's like, how dare people think I was selling them things?

01:12:10.420 That's actually my biggest mistake is that I wasn't.

01:12:13.060 I know.

01:12:14.480 No, sir.

01:12:15.740 So that's it. 1.00

01:12:16.220 That's our that's our tour through the yellow brick road of Dr. Oz's bullshit. 0.97

01:12:20.520 I have to tell you, I was kind of excited coming into this to just be like, yeah, that guy seems like. 1.00

01:12:27.700 garbage. And this is significantly darker. And then I made it really sad and horrible. I'm sorry. 0.97

01:12:34.580 No, no, no, no. It's not sad and horrible. It's just like, it is like way more sort of sinister.

01:12:40.020 It's sinister, dude. I know. Systemically sinister. But actually, you know, it's really

01:12:44.620 good if you're reeling. Tell me. Take a little bit of yacon syrup. Get out of here. One teaspoon.

01:12:50.360 Gut bacteria. I'm going to hang up on you.

01:12:57.700 Thank you.

Maintenance Phase - October 18, 2022

Mini-Sode： The Dr. Oz Campaign

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