Maintenance Phase - The Diet Crimes of Metabolife

00:00:00.000 what do you have i'm not tagging us in i was hoping i could just do that and you wouldn't

00:00:17.540 notice you thought i wouldn't notice the problem is i don't i literally don't know

00:00:21.380 what metabolite is is it a shake no it's a it's a pill it's a diet supplement ah okay

00:00:27.280 uh the podcast i can't express to our listeners how many weeks of thinking about

00:00:34.940 more than a month i could have googled at any moment

00:00:39.840 uh okay tell me if this is problematic welcome to maintenance phase the podcast that will help

00:00:47.200 you lose 10 pounds but you will be grinding your teeth for days honestly yes is that the

00:00:52.260 twist of the episode that i spoil it because it's methamphetamine i'm aubrey gordon i'm michael

00:00:56.960 hobbs if you'd like to support the show you can do that at patreon.com slash maintenance face

00:01:01.740 oh the tiny repeating machine is back uh or you can subscribe on apple podcast it's the same

00:01:09.220 audio content yeah there he is michael aubrey today we are talking about one of the most

00:01:17.220 popular diet pills of the sort of y2k era 90s into y2k okay the name of it is metabolife 356

00:01:27.820 wait are they wrong about the number of days in the year no i that is exactly the thought that i 0.55

00:01:32.660 had every time i saw the fucking name mike i was like do you mean 365 do you mean every day do you 0.87

00:01:38.120 mean metabolife every day is that because you get nine cheat days they're like 356 days no 0.96

00:01:44.140 once a month you can just go nuts 356 was the number that the lab assigned it when they were

00:01:50.880 formulating it it's the name of the founder john 356 we are beginning our story in the mid 90s

00:01:57.400 by this point the 80s and 90s sort of fitness craze has grown into a massive industry this is

00:02:06.120 the era of buns of steel of stop the insanity of sweating to the oldies this is also a time

00:02:14.000 when the popularity of mlms are on the rise oh yeah at this point the burgeoning wellness

00:02:20.960 industry is championing supplements and vitamins become much more widely used they sort of move

00:02:27.180 from like a thing that crunchy granola hippies do to a much more mainstream thing this is when

00:02:34.180 we get flintstones vitamins and that kind of thing right oh yeah and anxieties about weight

00:02:39.820 are on the rise mostly in an individual way at this point and in sort of a cosmetic way yeah so

00:02:46.020 michael i'd like you to imagine this with me it's 1994 you're watching tgif and between an ad for

00:02:54.420 slim fast and maybe like a bop it are those snap bracelets that killed like 3 000 children you see

00:03:01.060 this ad.

00:03:08.200 With drug abuse spiraling,

00:03:10.140 the federal government has created

00:03:11.480 special units to combat

00:03:13.500 what they believe could be a more

00:03:15.720 serious problem.

00:03:18.060 It's like soldiers

00:03:19.920 tooling up, like getting their gear

00:03:21.980 together. Yeah, it looks like a scene from

00:03:23.700 Heat. Yeah.

00:03:25.780 Yeah.

00:03:26.900 The action is the juice.

00:03:31.060 Okay, they're breaking into a house.

00:03:33.580 They're, like, SWAT teaming into this, like, giant McMansion.

00:03:35.800 They're disarming the security system.

00:03:37.700 There's some night vision footage.

00:03:39.620 It's all very serious. 0.91

00:03:40.840 Very Osama bin Laden.

00:03:45.800 Freeze!

00:03:46.500 Drug enforcement!

00:03:47.060 Ah!

00:03:47.540 Oh! 0.74

00:03:48.160 Oh!

00:03:48.660 Guys, hey, it's only vitamins. 0.92

00:03:50.280 What the hell?

00:03:51.000 It's only vitamins.

00:03:52.160 The FDA is conducting raids against natural vitamin users,

00:03:55.420 but vitamins are not drugs.

00:03:57.040 This harassment must stop.

00:03:58.620 Vitamin C, you know, like in oranges.

00:04:03.820 Protect your right to use vitamins.

00:04:05.660 Call Congress now.

00:04:07.460 What?

00:04:08.340 Okay, this is a bizarre ad.

00:04:09.820 So they're breaking into a house, the SWAT team going in,

00:04:12.080 and then it's Mel Gibson.

00:04:13.400 Jump scare, gremlin surprise, it's Mel Gibson.

00:04:16.460 In the kitchen, in a bathrobe,

00:04:18.480 like, I guess putting vitamins in his water or something,

00:04:22.580 or like taking a vitamin, and they're arresting him.

00:04:25.700 Putting vitamins in his what?

00:04:27.660 Or like, whatever, I don't know.

00:04:29.000 Do you know how vitamins work?

00:04:30.840 It's too early for this.

00:04:32.500 My brain is not awake yet.

00:04:33.520 Listener, it's 10.20 a.m.

00:04:35.500 All right, all right, all right, all right, all right, all right.

00:04:38.560 Don't unmask me.

00:04:41.680 But it's like, they're basically lying to you here and creating a scenario that I assume does not actually exist.

00:04:46.340 No, not one single solitary case that I'm aware of of anyone's house getting broken into for possession of vitamin C. 0.52

00:04:54.460 yeah vitamin fucking c which has been on the market for like many decades at this point 0.59

00:04:58.000 this is an ad that is bankrolled by the supplement industry designed to astroturf the idea that 0.96

00:05:07.380 supplements are over regulated and that the government is on the precipice of some really

00:05:13.240 perilous overreach right yeah there's a little bit of backstory here in the 80s and early 90s

00:05:20.220 Congress had considered a number of bills that would have increased FDA oversight and requirements

00:05:25.660 of supplement manufacturers. One of them would have standardized labeling for supplements and

00:05:31.860 would have required ingredient disclosures at like a more detailed level. Oh, tyranny. That's

00:05:37.360 actual government tyranny. No one was talking about raids. No one was talking about confiscating

00:05:44.980 supplements no one was talking about charges for possession of supplements they were talking about 0.98

00:05:51.160 a label that tells you what's in it it's so funny like rfk jr's whole fucking thing is like pushing 0.94

00:05:55.440 back it's like the conspiracy of big pharma and stuff but it's like the supplement makers are 0.99

00:05:59.260 such fucking scammers dude yep they don't even have to have fucking vitamins in their vitamins 0.99

00:06:03.040 they can just sell you anything those sort of coordinated lobbying efforts in the industry 1.00

00:06:08.260 first really bore fruit with the passage of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act. 0.98

00:06:19.780 I've been saying D-Shay. D-Shay away, as they always say when you cause red race. 1.00

00:06:24.960 They're talking about drug relations. The D-Shay recategorized dietary supplements as food 0.99

00:06:32.140 instead of drugs. So it was drafted primarily to do one thing, to define dietary supplements

00:06:39.720 and exempt them, not only from the FDA's drug approval process, but from an FDA approval

00:06:47.680 process at all. So supplement makers do not have to prove that an ingredient is safe before taking

00:06:58.140 it to market love this and it meant that the fda could only restrict a supplement ingredient if it

00:07:05.420 posed a quote significant and unreasonable risk if used as instructed so the whole point of the

00:07:12.120 law is like give the fda less power over this it is functionally like almost complete deregulation

00:07:18.040 of the supplement industry yeah you don't know that what they put in there is what they said

00:07:23.040 they put in there yeah you don't know that it's not contaminated with something like lead yeah

00:07:28.100 you don't know that it is as potent or as non-potent as they say it is you're just trusting

00:07:34.720 Gwyneth with like your your long-term health and Gwyneth is like the best case scenario honestly

00:07:40.560 it was signed into law by President Clinton in October of 1994 D. Shea was co-sponsored by

00:07:49.220 tom harkin a democrat from iowa and orrin hatch notorious trash can orrin hatch republican from

00:07:56.900 utah one of the longest serving trash cans trash cans in congress for both harkin and hatch both

00:08:05.640 the democrat and the republican one of their largest campaign contributors for both of them

00:08:10.980 was previous maintenance phase subject and weight loss super mlm herbalife oh really hundreds and

00:08:18.060 hundreds of thousands of dollars what was the like stated argument for this that supplement

00:08:23.580 makers should be able to like do what they need unencumbered by government uh incursion it's just

00:08:28.540 like hollow anti-regulation yeah they should be free to innovate and it's like general god 0.95

00:08:34.280 deregulation shit and it's like 1994 right so we're like coming in hot off of uh reagan and hw bush 0.94

00:08:42.020 but think about think about how much less often mel gibson is getting raided in his home for having 0.98

00:08:47.040 a vitamin supplement in the middle of the night this is the other thing that i do want to say 0.98

00:08:50.120 about the fucking mel gibson ad is like that is also indicative of how much fucking money they 0.92

00:08:54.880 had mel gibson was arguably the biggest movie star in the world in 1994 yeah and they are hiring him 0.96

00:09:02.220 for a tv ad yeah that in itself you should call congress and be like whatever they want don't 0.99

00:09:07.720 give it to them these people have too much fucking money listen sugar tits yeah 0.99

00:09:11.060 so this is the environment in which metabolite goes to market okay it was a multi-level 0.99

00:09:19.820 marketing company that like herbal life before it sold herbal weight loss supplements quote

00:09:26.040 unquote that's always a good sign when like you can't buy it at a store or from like a normal

00:09:29.940 place you have to like call up somebody and like their website doesn't say what they do or what it

00:09:34.260 comes that's how you know it works when a friend from high school asks you to sell it it was started

00:09:39.060 by michael blevens and michael ellis two dudes from the greater san diego area um who had been

00:09:45.800 childhood friends they're not gays are they i don't have to be mad at no they're not homosexuals

00:09:50.180 because then i would have to support it especially if they were under 5 8 you just start yelling

00:09:55.400 representation matters short gay michaels i'm sorry at the time that the dietary supplement 0.62

00:10:01.140 health and education act passes ellis is bouncing around from one job to another he reportedly

00:10:08.180 worked for a time as a chauffeur a real estate agent and a private investigator oh no

00:10:13.520 oh no is correct michael i'm just like red flag red flag red flag again there are two

00:10:20.980 co-founders there's michael ellis and michael blevins michael ellis went on to write a book

00:10:26.020 about metabolife and he also became the face of the company so we're going to focus more on him

00:10:32.520 because we've heard more from him in the book he writes about a couple of his prior jobs in the

00:10:38.560 1980s before founding metabolife the first is as a police officer for the national city police

00:10:46.580 department near san diego okay he writes at some length about how competitive the application

00:10:53.060 process was that there were 300 applicants for three open jobs and that he made the cut okay

00:10:59.320 But he also says he just needed the money and that, quote, a job with a gun sounded interesting.

00:11:07.180 Cool.

00:11:07.940 You had me at I wanted a gun.

00:11:10.160 That's it.

00:11:10.800 I want to buy your weight loss supplements.

00:11:13.020 I'm already in.

00:11:13.640 When he talks about the neighborhoods he policed, it is also not great.

00:11:18.680 He has long passages about how run down the streets and buildings are. 0.99

00:11:22.860 He goes on at length about the scourge of street gangs that are predominantly Latino. 1.00

00:11:29.320 On one of those calls to the quote-unquote gangbanger war zone. 1.00

00:11:34.060 Nice.

00:11:34.520 He ends up chasing someone who he says starts threatening to stab him and his partner with a screwdriver.

00:11:43.480 Michael Ellis goes on to shoot this person who collapses and stops moving.

00:11:48.480 According to Ellis, this young man is permanently disabled as a result.

00:11:53.720 Is he telling this as like an I'm a hero story?

00:11:56.340 This is his story of being like, this is how I learned being a cop was not for me.

00:12:01.580 But it's very odd that in the book, he only really talks about the impacts on his own emotional state.

00:12:09.180 He doesn't really grapple with like the life this dude could have lived or the effect on his family or the implications for the community.

00:12:17.320 There's no existential anything.

00:12:19.400 It's like I shot someone and I felt really bad and I didn't want to feel bad anymore.

00:12:23.080 I can't believe a pathological individualist would go on to sell weight loss supplements.

00:12:27.200 In 1990, after leaving the police force, Michael Ellis faces drug charges.

00:12:32.860 Wait, what?

00:12:33.240 So he was charged because he had rented a house for the express purpose of cooking meth in it.

00:12:40.740 My meth joke is true?

00:12:42.300 Your meth joke is so much truer than you realize. 0.99

00:12:45.440 Wait, he's literally cooking fucking meth and then he goes on to sell a weight loss pill? 0.98

00:12:49.140 He and Michael Blevins, his future co-founder, rented a house, hired a cook, and attempted to make meth. 1.00

00:12:56.940 They hired a meth cook?

00:12:58.300 They hired a meth cook. 1.00

00:12:59.280 You hire a meth cook?

00:13:01.200 Writing the ad on Craigslist?

00:13:02.860 It sounds like he was like, neither one of them was very good at being a drug kingpin.

00:13:07.620 Ellis rented a house that the owners were trying to put on the market.

00:13:12.120 So they kept getting things set up to cook meth.

00:13:15.900 and then they'd get a notice from the landlord that like hey some buyers are coming by and

00:13:20.200 they're like you have to put a blanket over the meth lab they have to like dismantle it and put

00:13:26.500 it all away that's like the sitcom version of breaking bad like we gotta hide the meth lab

00:13:31.320 again it's just heisenberg shrugging and looking into the camera like dude that's so funny that

00:13:38.240 like he couldn't even cook the meth himself he had to delegate it he like he it was such a

00:13:42.820 calculated plan like i'm gonna be a meth kingpin that he like hired it it's like opening a bakery

00:13:48.380 or something well now i have to hire some bakers to their credit both blevens and ellis uh turned

00:13:53.700 themselves in and pled out so the cops eventually found them and then they were like yes we did this

00:13:59.320 and then got a plea deal again this is a place where we don't have digitized records of other

00:14:03.840 reporting from the time so much wait so in his book he says for no reason he just marched into

00:14:11.180 the police station said hello i'm cooking meth he was like we had a conversation about it we decided

00:14:16.400 it was the right thing and we wanted to be like upstanding guys so we turned ourselves in there's 0.98

00:14:21.180 no fucking way no a couple of fucking san diego dirt bags are turning themselves like absolutely 0.97

00:14:27.540 not absolutely excuse me officer excuse me i i stole something yesterday i just want to let you 1.00

00:14:31.840 know that i broke the law so you can punish me i cannot tell a lie yeah he must have gotten caught

00:14:37.800 Michael Ellis is sentenced to probation and Michael Blevins is sentenced to prison as the

00:14:43.500 guy who hired the cook and transported the meth. So while Michael Blevins is in prison,

00:14:50.180 Michael Ellis starts Metabolife. Okay. He's like, with my experience in meth,

00:14:56.420 I went into diet supplements. Correct. So the story that Michael Ellis tells about this sort

00:15:02.840 in the press throughout and in his book is that he developed Metabolife while his father was

00:15:09.720 undergoing cancer treatment to help him combat fatigue and negative symptoms. Does he have any

00:15:14.760 background in chemistry or anything? No. He's like a random guy. He's a cop, a chauffeur, a PI.

00:15:21.020 What does that mean? Like I developed, how would you even do that as like a random civilian? He

00:15:25.200 doesn't say. Yeah. In 1992, he starts selling it. Initially, he starts marketing it as a bodybuilding

00:15:33.380 supplement at gyms in the sort of Gold's Gym era. And it's a weight loss thing or it's a muscle

00:15:38.820 building thing? Right now he's saying it's a muscle building thing, but that doesn't work.

00:15:41.920 So he goes, it's for weight loss. Those are opposite things, which is very funny.

00:15:46.460 One of them helps you put on weight. The other one helps you take off weight. Correct. Yeah.

00:15:49.720 the active ingredient is marketed as ma huang a chinese herbal supplement that's true that's an

00:15:55.680 actual herb that's an actual herb metabolite uses ma huang as an appetite suppressant but

00:16:00.860 historically in chinese medicine it was used as a cold remedy okay the historical herbal use of

00:16:07.600 ma huang is to make a tea out of the leaves that are not distilled down and crushed into a capsule 0.96

00:16:12.620 and all of that kind of shit metabolite distributors are telling you to take this every 0.83

00:16:17.420 day right that's why i take mucinex every day to make me feel a little bit healthier right it would 0.99

00:16:21.660 be like if you were like i'm taking nyquil every fucking day of my life this is also it's such it's 0.59

00:16:26.660 so funny thinking back on this time when you could just say like it's an ancient chinese ingredient 0.69

00:16:30.440 and everybody like oh that is the entire herbal life model right and the entire metabolite model 0.99

00:16:37.180 we now have two mlms that are just like doing the full like ancient chinese secret fucking bullshit 0.92

00:16:43.280 it totally metabolite distributors tell really extraordinary stories about its effectiveness in 0.99

00:16:50.900 weight loss eating whatever you want still losing weight amazing wow i feel incredible

00:16:55.660 they also brag after the passage of the dj they advertise that we're the only weight loss 0.96

00:17:03.960 supplement that's lab tested for safety oh what but also they can just fucking say that because 0.95

00:17:09.560 under regulation they can just fucking lie yes correct correct correct and you called it it's 0.95

00:17:15.220 both ma huang 12 milligrams of ma huang in a metabolite caplet and 40 milligrams of guarana 0.97

00:17:22.720 concentrate uh that's caffeine baby wait is it guarana so it's about one espresso shot worth of

00:17:31.200 caffeine okay as the business is getting started as an mlm michael blevens he who is in prison

00:17:37.700 starts recruiting distributors in prison wait really use your networks baby get those facebook

00:17:45.460 messages out i had real conflicted feelings about this it's an mlm so it is garbage from top to 0.96

00:17:51.540 bottom they are selling a product that is garbage from top to bottom and also famously the people 0.85

00:17:56.340 who make money in an mlm are the first people to get in the door so in this case the prisoners got

00:18:02.700 like rich off of it they're like the first 10 people so i was like is this redistribution of 1.00

00:18:07.420 wealth and they're like no they're recruiting from their fucking networks yeah they're fucking 0.96

00:18:11.880 over people that they know and the first 10 prisoners might make money but the next 90 0.98

00:18:15.920 prisoners don't once metabolife launches as a weight loss supplement and as an mlm in 1995

00:18:22.400 the business grows really big really fast in the first couple of years it's profits it's already

00:18:30.400 turning a profit in the millions no way in the first like two years in 1999 just four years

00:18:37.220 after the launch, they report $1 billion in sales. I guess they just got in early after this law got

00:18:44.620 passed. There's probably like a vacuum that they were able to fill and just making these insane

00:18:49.420 health claims before essentially everybody started doing that. It was a crowded market.

00:18:52.720 Yes. And it's not the only one using Mahuong. It's one of the most popular ones, but it's not

00:18:59.940 the only one. There are also brands on the market. You may remember these. I definitely do.

00:19:03.980 xenodrine efx no hydroxy cut i may have even taken that one for a while and one called and i quote

00:19:11.840 herbal ecstasy it'll make you lick someone else's face but it's herbal wait i'm looking i googled i

00:19:18.500 want to see their logo it's bad at this time oh it's so bad metabo life it's like bright yellow

00:19:26.000 and there's like seven different fonts happening there's like a little gold seal yeah red font

00:19:32.080 and it just says diet and yeah herbal formula to enhance your and then it's like the font goes up

00:19:37.160 like 50 sizes and it says diet oh and provide energy asterisk asterisk super small print all

00:19:44.640 of these brands also get a big boost in 1997 a big windfall from the release of entrapment

00:19:51.220 starring catherine jesus jones and yeah everybody wanted to look like her snaking through those

00:19:55.280 lasers a little laser no the boost they get in 1997 is that fen fen has pulled off the market

00:20:00.260 oh right so fen fen miracle drug that stopped people's hearts and the thing that we have done

00:20:07.260 a previous episode on if you would like to know that story go back and listen to the fen fen

00:20:10.600 episode it is kind of a miracle that with what with a single pill you can stop your heart

00:20:14.040 incredible humans have been working on that for so long so amazing that uh winds up being quite

00:20:19.240 a boon to the industry right you've got all these people who were on fen fen who are really dejected 0.97

00:20:23.640 that it's like off the market because it didn't stop their heart what the fuck yeah yeah and

00:20:28.080 they're looking for something else and actually these things you can get cheaper and at the gas 0.95

00:20:32.100 station you don't even need to get a doctor involved you can get it from your neighbor

00:20:35.320 yeah so these are now some of the biggest sort of like pill makers in the country right and they 0.88

00:20:44.880 have a bunch of fucking money so their ads are all over tv yeah so we are going to watch a metabolife 0.95

00:20:52.920 ad from 2000 fuck yes you want to buy some metabolites is it laboratory tested for safety 0.99

00:21:03.240 no but it's cheaper how about some metabolite does it have the same proprietary herbal blend 0.97

00:21:09.220 as metabolite 356 no but it's got all the same herbs i don't think well what about a watch you

00:21:15.440 want to buy a watch don't be fooled by imitators metabolite is number one for a reason laboratory

00:21:19.980 tested for safety and clinically shown for weight loss only available through metabolite retailers

00:21:24.700 and distributors call for the location nearest you so for the listener what is happening is that

00:21:31.540 there is a guy wearing a trench coat who opens his trench coat and it's lined with like fake

00:21:37.840 bottles of metabolite he's up late at night like meticulously sewing the extra pockets into his

00:21:42.940 trench coat he's like i gotta be able to open the flap this drug dealer has dedication yeah so

00:21:49.740 they're doing this weird thing where they're like implying that their competitors are like

00:21:55.960 a shady and be like drugs and they are not drugs it's so funny for them to complain about like 0.97

00:22:02.920 fly by night counterfeit yeah they're like take it from us a fucking cop who disabled someone but 0.98

00:22:09.980 also a guy who doesn't cook the meth but does hire the guy who cooks the mess because you just 0.99

00:22:15.520 made this up too you're just like you're just as much of a drug dealer as people selling counterfeit

00:22:19.280 metabolite well michael the drug dealer plot thickens because the active ingredient mahuang

00:22:26.420 is better known in english as ephedra wait what's ephedra ephedra is the name for the plant

00:22:34.140 the plant has sub compounds uh called alkaloids called ephedrine and pseudo ephedrine oh that's 1.00

00:22:43.140 the meth shit that's the shit you can't buy with that id anymore yep correct dude that's the shit 0.99

00:22:48.480 whenever you're sick if you get like what is it called mucinex part d or some shit it's a full 1.00

00:22:53.780 on crack cocaine it's like the shit that you have to go to the store and like ask for the thing 0.98

00:22:57.880 behind the counter i did this once because the uh suggested dose or whatever is two of them and i 0.99

00:23:02.900 was like i've never taken this before i'll take one i felt like i could like lift a fucking 0.92

00:23:06.900 volkswagen yes i'm like they tell you to take two of these fucking things so for americans who bought 0.96

00:23:12.120 cold medicine before like the mid 2000s you will recognize the brand name pseudofed you can still 0.96

00:23:18.780 get it it's behind the counter yeah it's short for pseudo ephedrine that's what it was yeah in

00:23:23.540 addition to its chinese medicine use as a cold remedy it was also used in the u.s for the same

00:23:31.820 purposes until the 1980s ephedrine was an over-the-counter cold and allergy medicine 0.99

00:23:39.080 I bet it clears out your fucking sinuses. Your heart is beating like 300 times a minute. 1.00

00:23:43.780 Yeah. So ephedrine does, in fact, constrict your blood vessels and speed up your heart.

00:23:50.460 For people with asthma, that means that it helps reduce the swelling in their airways and can genuinely be helpful for respiratory stuff.

00:24:00.780 But it was ultimately banned by many, many states because of the safety risks and the risk of dependence.

00:24:07.920 And it was also the basis for cooking meth, right?

00:24:10.700 Yes. Pseudoephedrine, as one of the sort of subcompounds, was absolutely like a key ingredient in cooking meth, which is what ultimately got pseudoephedrine banned.

00:24:21.760 That's why you have to show your ID, because you can't just go into the store and buy like 300 packets of it, because then they assume you're cooking a shitload of meth. And I believe it's not sold in the EU at all anymore.

00:24:29.780 There was like a high risk of dependence.

00:24:32.800 Yeah.

00:24:33.020 There are major safety risks for selling something over the counter that speeds up your heart.

00:24:38.580 Are you kidding me?

00:24:39.800 I only took half the recommended dose.

00:24:41.420 What if you took twice the recommended dose?

00:24:43.100 I mean, it felt like you could like really hurt yourself.

00:24:45.360 I was like, as soon as I took it, I was like, why is this legal?

00:24:47.540 You know, we mentioned that this is predominantly used as a respiratory thing in the US in the 80s.

00:24:54.180 i will say that they honest to god learned about the weight loss effects of ephedra during asthma

00:25:00.920 research so they're doing some research into the effects of ephedrine on asthma and the researchers

00:25:07.360 are like man these asthma patients are getting real skinny they're tripping balls and they're

00:25:12.240 like fighting and like biting each other all the time but look how trim they are very svelte skinny

00:25:17.200 many god on the less intense end uh ephedrine users can experience jitteriness anxiety and

00:25:26.140 insomnia yeah on the more intense and ephedra does increase your heart rate it does increase

00:25:34.240 your blood pressure which in turn can lead to cardiac events stroke all kinds of acute

00:25:40.760 and really scary things. And on top of all of that, ephedrine users may even experience

00:25:48.380 hallucinations, seizures, and psychosis. Also, there are people with ephedra allergies who

00:25:55.640 might experience like their throat closing up, hives, like that kind of thing. And on top of

00:26:01.700 all of that, ephedrine, like the methamphetamine that it is then used to make, people can develop

00:26:09.380 a tolerance really quickly to a small amount and they need to up their dose. So very quickly in

00:26:15.960 order to get the same effects, people have to take more and more and more. And then you're

00:26:20.880 talking about long-term health and side effects and everything else. Yes. You rebrand this thing

00:26:24.980 that is just like a pharmaceutical, you rebrand it as like ancient Chinese medicine and people

00:26:28.940 think they're taking something like natural and herbal, but I mean, everything is natural when

00:26:32.780 you think about it. There are lots of parts of the natural world, not to get all Werner Herzog

00:26:38.060 on it but like there are lots of parts of the natural world that are trying to kill you it's 0.84

00:26:42.760 all just marketing to be like oh it's mahuang it's very natural and ancient it sounds like 0.96

00:26:46.780 it's just fucking drugs you're just like taking drugs yes and the ingredient listed on metabolife 0.99

00:26:52.340 isn't just mahuang it's uh mahuang concentrate right so it's just like it's a fucking drug 1.00

00:26:58.820 you're taking pseudophed yeah you're taking ephedrine also also didn't you say earlier 0.80

00:27:02.820 of the metabolite is mahuang and caffeine basically right so research found at the time

00:27:09.740 that the combination of ephedra and caffeine marginally increased weight loss over ephedra 0.93

00:27:15.300 alone right well yeah probably fucking hell yeah you're on crack but caffeine like ephedra 0.89

00:27:22.220 also increases your heart rate and your blood pressure it also increases the likelihood of 0.98

00:27:27.680 those side effects and particularly the like vascular and cardiac effects right so adding

00:27:34.100 caffeine to this is really like pouring lighter fluid yeah totally risk side of it right and also

00:27:40.120 this is something that you would want on like a warning label of like this is habit forming

00:27:43.760 you can fucking overdose on this stuff i mean you can overdose on caffeine yes again this is like 0.99

00:27:48.780 the perfect argument for the fucking fda to regulate this shit michael leave me with my 1.00

00:27:53.240 panera lemonade in peace yeah exactly you can like really hurt yourself so unsurprisingly 1.00

00:28:00.020 knowing all of this adverse reaction reports started to roll in with just within just a year

00:28:05.880 or two of metabolife's launch right metabolife comes onto the market as a weight loss supplement

00:28:10.680 in 1995 and by 1997 there's this massive wave of adverse uh reaction reports it's like i only lost

00:28:19.640 three pounds and I murdered my entire family. So the early adverse reactions that come in show

00:28:27.860 reports of sudden hypertension in people without existing cardiovascular conditions.

00:28:34.760 As with Herbalife before it, a lot of people didn't report their adverse reactions, right?

00:28:40.940 Some assumed that because it was listed as herbal and because Metabolife touted that they were lab

00:28:47.240 tested for safety that it couldn't hurt them so they didn't think to report that they're just

00:28:52.460 like weird mystery hypertension right others assumed that their weight already put them at

00:28:58.500 ill health so they blamed their weight and not the medication again metabolife is launched in 1995

00:29:05.460 by 1996 multiple states are already proposing full or partial bans yes on ephedra it's crack

00:29:15.020 When fen-fen is taken off the market, it's September, and just immediately thereafter,

00:29:21.740 ephedra supplements like Metabolife start marketing themselves as quote-unquote herbal

00:29:26.080 fen-fen. By November, two months later, the FDA is already issuing official warnings about ephedra

00:29:33.060 use and the dangers of ephedra. Still, the product continues to grow, the business continues to grow,

00:29:39.300 And by 1999, the FDA reports over 1000 adverse reactions, and 35 of those are deaths.

00:29:47.880 Oh, wait, what people died?

00:29:49.820 35 people have died in four years that the FDA is tracking.

00:29:54.520 What?

00:29:55.080 Yes, correct. 1.00

00:29:55.820 How do we pull Fen Fen and we didn't pull this shit? 1.00

00:29:58.040 This is fucking crazy. 1.00

00:29:59.100 So of course, this leads to a wave of lawsuits. 0.99

00:30:03.120 There are class action suits from consumers.

00:30:05.980 there are suits from distributors many of whom are also consumers yeah but there are also

00:30:12.460 lawsuits from metabolife wait what they start suing people wait who so as these adverse events

00:30:21.860 grow and more states consider bans on ephedra so too does the negative media coverage as it 0.93

00:30:29.080 fucking should, right? And when these negative news stories crop up, Metabolife often files 0.75

00:30:36.080 suit for defamation. Again, great sign that you're running a real business. You're selling a useful

00:30:44.320 product to people. In his book about Metabolife, Michael Ellis writes about this wave of lawsuits

00:30:51.140 and his reactions are nutso. Send it, send it, send it, send it. No, I'll send you a quote in a

00:30:59.060 passage and he talks about his power combo to prep for depositions is it like seven metabolites

00:31:05.480 it's a bunch of metabolite pills and dip gross gross he's like spitting into the cup in like a

00:31:15.020 little room he for our younger listeners dip is like zins but without the like tea bag so gross

00:31:23.940 dude he does talk in the book about how much dip you can put in your lip without it showing up on

00:31:29.940 camera in the deposition video he's like doing that like with the brown liquid coming out of

00:31:37.260 his mouth um he talks he's like i would check my lip sometimes and feel if there was like a bump

00:31:42.480 no we're good also think about how psychotic you would feel if you're also if you're on caffeine 0.99

00:31:47.440 and like dollar store meth and fucking tobacco yeah your little heart is just like a little 0.99

00:31:52.820 shrew like right i imagine the effects being somewhere on the cocaine spectrum i would not 0.99

00:31:58.960 want to give it a deposition in that state disaster someone asked you like what's your

00:32:03.420 address and you start talking about your screenplay idea so i just sent you a little

00:32:06.740 passage uh from the book of him talking about his attorneys and depositions i'm gonna add

00:32:12.580 little spitting sounds no don't he has to do that every couple seconds i don't like it he says

00:32:18.780 Most of the attorneys I've met in my long string of legal battles fall into one of two categories.

00:32:24.300 Either they work their asses off or they do the opposite of work their asses off.

00:32:27.820 Oh, he's a good writer.

00:32:28.760 Wow, this is just singing.

00:32:31.380 He really paints a picture.

00:32:32.960 The reason they could exist in either of these ways is that they've basically created their own industry.

00:32:37.620 In other words, the legal world is so complex, so convoluted, that you now need an attorney for everything.

00:32:43.220 From defending yourself against trumped up lawsuits to filing paperwork at the office.

00:32:47.820 lawyers just help you get through the fog a fog they created throw in the fear that gets

00:32:52.920 propagated by the justice system and you can't help but want to hire a whole team of lawyers 0.99

00:32:57.460 that's the ultimate job security right there i love how you're also just like a dick to your 0.97

00:33:02.420 own lawyers like oh what do i need you for oh my god the way he writes about he's like one of my 0.99

00:33:07.340 lawyers real fat he was real baby huey type where you're like gross yeah but also he thinks

00:33:13.640 lawyers are grifting yeah i know i know how dare they he thinks everyone is grifting all the time 0.55

00:33:24.160 it is a self-justification narrative right yeah like i'm just doing what everyone's doing also

00:33:30.080 lawyers only have ultimate job security if you're constantly getting sued for people dying the reason

00:33:35.180 they have job security is in fact metabolites maybe if you sold a product that like helps people

00:33:40.600 or like ads to their life rather than killing them, maybe you wouldn't have this problem.

00:33:43.900 All of that legal activity increases media attention, which publicizes some more troubling

00:33:51.800 aspects of ephedra products. There's more and more media from more and more outlets. It is frankly

00:33:59.560 too many to sue. Yeah, yeah. And that includes this 1999 coverage from the New York Times

00:34:06.060 talking to a researcher who tested ephedra products on the market.

00:34:11.100 That researcher's name is Dr. Gurley.

00:34:13.420 Dr. Gurley said most ephedra users who become ill 1.00

00:34:15.960 can blame their own stupidity 1.00

00:34:17.720 for going well over their recommendations on labels. 1.00

00:34:20.320 But he and his colleagues have tested the potency of a dozen ephedra products

00:34:23.760 and found that the amount of active ingredient in some brands

00:34:26.700 varied by as much as 130%.

00:34:29.100 Most contain less ephedrine than the labels claimed,

00:34:32.340 but Dr. Gurley is still troubled.

00:34:34.220 As a consumer and a pharmaceutical scientist, it was an eye-opening experience.

00:34:38.100 He said, you can't trust what's on the label.

00:34:40.900 Yeah, dude, they're varying by as much as 130%.

00:34:44.440 So you might be getting 10 milligrams or like 23.

00:34:47.620 Yes.

00:34:47.980 That's huge.

00:34:49.140 Yes.

00:34:49.340 Also, the fact that most of them are under what the label claimed is also bad.

00:34:53.880 I mean, like, it's not like people need more ephedrine, but it's like, yeah, if you're 0.88

00:34:56.320 selling 10 milligrams of something, it should have fucking 10 milligrams in it. 0.68

00:34:58.900 So by the end of the 90s, there's a growing number of adverse reactions, a growing number 0.98

00:35:04.420 of deaths, a growing list of side effects.

00:35:07.120 It's not just the sort of jitteriness and hypertension stuff.

00:35:10.260 It's cardiac events.

00:35:11.740 It's psychosis.

00:35:12.940 And that is when 2020 decides to film a piece about ephedra and metabolife.

00:35:20.600 Okay.

00:35:21.340 In 1999, 2020 filmed 72 minutes of interview with Michael Ellis for this piece.

00:35:27.240 the segment they run is under 15 minutes and it includes about one minute of ellis's interview

00:35:33.540 in the press ellis says that the interview felt quote more like a deposition because you were

00:35:39.960 dipping because you had a deposition that's what i called so he after the interview he was like uh

00:35:52.340 oh, the fix is in.

00:35:53.340 This is going to be a hit piece.

00:35:55.160 So Metabolife cooked up a wild strategy.

00:35:58.440 You can't say cooked up in this episode.

00:36:00.240 Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry.

00:36:02.720 It's like zing.

00:36:04.060 2020 recorded the interview and filmed it.

00:36:06.380 So did Metabolife.

00:36:07.760 This was like a relatively common practice at the time.

00:36:10.680 Yeah.

00:36:11.120 They were afraid that the edit was going to be unfavorable.

00:36:15.380 So they came up with like a pretty wild and innovative solution for 1999 purposes.

00:36:22.340 They decide to upload the uncut interview on a standalone website.

00:36:27.500 This has become like more common since then.

00:36:29.360 Yeah.

00:36:29.460 And then they sink $2 million into an ad campaign, buying full page newspaper ads in the Post

00:36:36.500 and the Times and TV spots, including some TV spots during 2020.

00:36:44.600 That's actually kind of good.

00:36:45.960 Okay.

00:36:46.260 Being like, go to this website and see the full uncut interview.

00:36:50.640 Right.

00:36:50.840 The website, Michael, is televisioninterview.com.

00:36:55.900 What? Dude, sit on that domain. That domain's probably worth millions.

00:36:59.500 I should also say Michael Ellis' website, after all of the Metabolife stuff, is like

00:37:03.940 mjellis1.com.

00:37:07.940 Realmichaelellis.com. Yeah.

00:37:09.300 When the interview airs, it's focused on Metabolife's claim that it is, quote unquote,

00:37:14.060 lab tested for safety. As it turns out, and as 2020 reports, their, quote unquote,

00:37:20.380 studies have extremely small sample sizes. They have high dropout rates. And in one case,

00:37:27.560 they couldn't account for the contents of the bottles in what was supposed to be a blinded

00:37:32.760 trial. We think we're giving you medieval life. We don't, we're not sure. These meth cooks can't

00:37:36.980 do anything right. Ellis in the book writes about the 2020 interview and his account is bananas.

00:37:44.580 the tone is a hundred percent like the fix was in from the beginning yeah the chapter title on this

00:37:51.180 scenario is called hindsight is 2020 got him he writes about sort of every aspect of it he's like 0.92

00:37:59.500 these fuckers are so shady for example he talks about like the interviewer from 2020 is getting 0.98

00:38:06.460 in makeup for tv and ellis is like who's gonna do my makeup is there somebody to do my makeup 1.00

00:38:11.500 the interview is like no okay and ellis writes i get it i thought he's kennedy and i'm nixon i

00:38:18.780 know dude or you could sell a product that doesn't kill people i don't know or you could do that you

00:38:22.180 have a billion dollars in sale you could hire a makeup person you could get some concealer you

00:38:26.800 could do it you could go to sephora he also says that a bunch of metabolite staff came to watch

00:38:33.620 the filming of the interview okay and that they burst into applause after yes because ellis was

00:38:41.020 so good and he made the 2020 interviewer look so bad why didn't you put that on your tv he takes

00:38:47.660 issue with the editing he's like we recorded 72 minutes and they only aired one minute and i was

00:38:52.980 like do you know how editing works yeah in the book he writes quote i guess everything else just

00:38:58.140 made me look too good to air yeah the entire segment ran for 14 minutes so in his head he

00:39:05.660 thought it was going to be a full hour on metabolite you thought it was gonna be a live 0.99

00:39:09.880 interview with you just like a verbatim interview yeah like a sitting fucking president like we're 0.97

00:39:15.600 just gonna dedicate an hour also does he say that it's not true like they made substantive 0.95

00:39:20.680 allegations against him about like the lab testing and stuff because ultimately the interview doesn't

00:39:25.580 really matter if the allegations that they're making are true then like what what is the

00:39:29.120 interview even supposed to fucking say it's very funny because there are some press pieces that 0.82

00:39:33.740 come out after this where they talk to michael ellis and they're like when they said this thing 0.94

00:39:38.060 do you think that was fair and he was like oh sure and they're like what about this thing when they

00:39:43.920 made this allegation was that a fair thing to go after and he was like well it's true he's like

00:39:47.540 yeah our product is not tested but anyway there was one incident that he wrote about where i was

00:39:52.240 like oh okay so now he's just lying so i'm gonna send you a passage from his book he's talking

00:40:00.060 about Mr. Diaz in this, that's the interviewer from 2020. It says, Mr. Diaz, we heard the

00:40:06.280 producer say, would you like to meet Mr. Ellis's mother? Diaz turned around to glare at me.

00:40:11.180 Fuck Mrs. Ellis, he said. And without another word, he stalked away. In one microscopic instant, 1.00

00:40:18.180 my mood changed from triumphant to enraged. It took every ounce of my effort not to chase him

00:40:23.360 down, grab him and beat the hell out of him. I mean, who in his right mind would say something

00:40:28.120 like that to an old woman, to a man's mother. For me, Diaz's slight was the turning point.

00:40:33.640 The point when I decided that the media had harmed my family for long enough.

00:40:37.560 From that moment on, I would remain on the offensive. I'd had enough rolling over.

00:40:42.220 Yeah. When he said, fuck your mom to my face, I was like, that's it. This is a real thing that 1.00

00:40:46.560 happened. And I'm super mad about it. Two things. One, I do not believe that this happened.

00:40:51.640 There's no fucking way this happened. And two, when were you rolling over? 0.98

00:40:56.740 when you were suing TV stations

00:40:59.460 for covering your product?

00:41:01.480 I've also, I've been in situations

00:41:02.600 where someone's like,

00:41:03.140 do you want to meet my friend?

00:41:04.080 Or like, do you want to say hi to my mom?

00:41:05.240 And I like, definitely don't want to do that. 1.00

00:41:06.720 I'm not gonna be like, fuck your mom. 1.00

00:41:08.720 There's no way. 1.00

00:41:10.620 There's no way an actual professional

00:41:12.540 in a setting like this would say, 1.00

00:41:14.160 fuck your mom. 1.00

00:41:14.880 There's no way. 1.00

00:41:15.880 The only way that that's coming out of my mouth

00:41:18.440 is if your mom is like Christy Noem.

00:41:21.220 So the 2020 piece, as it aired,

00:41:23.640 included some interviews with doctors and researchers

00:41:26.220 who had researched Metabolife. One of those doctors worked for Columbia University's

00:41:34.100 hospital, St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital. In the piece, he was asked a factual question,

00:41:40.740 which was, did your research definitively prove that Metabolife was safe? He said no.

00:41:48.400 For Metabolife, that was unacceptable. They hired a private investigator. They dug up some

00:41:54.560 allegations against one of his old supervisors who had been alleged to have doctored research

00:42:01.800 metabolife then reached out to 2020 to pass it along and quote unquote like make sure you were

00:42:08.980 aware pretty heavily implying that this doctor was in on the bad acts of his supervisor okay

00:42:16.620 they also start calling people at the hospital where he works they say again we just want to 0.97

00:42:22.020 make sure you knew that this guy was mixed up in this shit like you're fully just trying to get 0.97

00:42:26.820 this guy fired and also for this guy saying like a boilerplate thing did you prove that it's safe 0.98

00:42:31.060 any researcher would say no because there's no way to prove something is safe right that is a

00:42:35.020 factual statement yeah did one single study prove definitively that any substance was perfectly safe

00:42:42.660 no any responsible scientist would answer in that way so on top of that once again they take out

00:42:50.760 newspaper ads accusing this scientist of working for a competitor because he had also conducted

00:42:59.200 research separately on slim fast oh what that's also normal so they're like he's trying to fix

00:43:05.320 the market for slim fast he just looks like a normal right and they're so they're arguing that

00:43:10.600 he's like an operative for slim fast who's trying to undercut metabolite success is sort of the

00:43:17.020 implication right it wasn't just scientists that they were doing this for they were hiring pis on

00:43:23.480 plaintiffs in their lawsuits no way and in his book he alleges that many of them were feigning

00:43:30.700 disability and feigning their reactions good stuff to metabolite they were walking around just fine

00:43:37.840 they seemed good to me i saw the pictures oh my god so as you can tell there's like trouble in

00:43:44.220 paradise. All of that media attention leads to more government action. The FDA brings Michael

00:43:52.360 Ellis in for questioning about the negative side effects of their products, which they downplay

00:43:58.300 and about how many adverse reactions the company has heard about through their customer service

00:44:03.540 line. They say it's in the hundreds that diverges sharply from the FDA's records, which are over

00:44:08.960 a thousand, right? There are congressional hearings. Ellis is called to testify and he

00:44:16.220 invokes his Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination. So he shows up, but he

00:44:20.900 doesn't testify. And by 2002, the DOJ launches a criminal investigation into Metabolife.

00:44:30.260 Again, why do these companies still exist?

00:44:32.180 They are trying to determine whether or not executives understood the danger of their

00:44:36.540 product and the risks that it posed to consumers and by this point according to fda records

00:44:42.860 metabolite users have reported 95 heart attacks oh wow 69 strokes 70 seizures 91 cases of high

00:44:56.160 blood pressure and 81 deaths and that is what's reported is that bad is that is that bad 81 deaths

00:45:03.920 is that bad from a diet pill from an over-the-counter diet pill but how do those people

00:45:07.520 look but how do they look amazing are they like ropey still that same year the same year that the

00:45:13.360 doj criminal investigation launches the fda declines to take action on ephedra and says

00:45:19.440 that they're waiting for more studies while all of this is happening the irs is also investigating

00:45:25.640 michael ellis for hundreds of thousands of dollars of tax evasion oh wow of course of course

00:45:30.040 so this comes to a head when the irs raids one of ellis's houses and he depicts them in the book

00:45:36.920 as absolute super villains yeah he has different like little pet names uh he doesn't know the

00:45:43.660 names of the agents who raid this house one of them has a battering ram so he calls him rammy

00:45:50.980 and there's another one who he says he can smell alcohol on his breath so he calls him drunky

00:45:57.700 that's not even good he says that his wife was crying the whole time which i absolutely believe

00:46:04.260 if my house got raided i would cry and then barf and then cry and then barf and then barf and then

00:46:09.300 cry he writes quote when they had finished with the safe room they searched every other room in

00:46:15.420 the house beginning with the bedroom where drunky immediately started riffling through monica's

00:46:20.980 underwear drawer what holding each piece up and laughing oh he would say look at this one i wonder

00:46:28.480 what it cost laughter all of this happening right in front of my wife it's like the least

00:46:36.160 reliable narrator we've ever had one million percent where he's like like holding up his 0.98

00:46:42.000 wife's underwear i was like yeah if these guys are doing raids they see shit that is so much 0.95

00:46:47.680 more interesting than underwear yeah there's no way yeah they're not stopping to comment on like 0.99

00:46:53.240 this woman has underpants this woman has a crotch he also really leans into how the irs agents

00:47:00.940 raiding his house were armed at first that gave me pause irs agents with guns is just kind of a 1.00

00:47:08.520 wild fucking image yeah but then i learned what they found in the raid which was a hidden safe 0.97

00:47:13.880 with a million dollars in it and guns no way he again had been previously convicted of a felony 0.99

00:47:20.480 or he pled guilty to a felony so he's barred from owning guns also a million dollars in cash in the 0.74

00:47:25.880 safe is fucking crazy here is his explanation he says at the time of my conviction back in 1991 0.76

00:47:33.020 i knew that i could no longer possess firearms so i asked a federal agent friend of mine what i 0.94

00:47:38.140 should do with the two handguns that i already had so i gave my guns to monica my girlfriend at the

00:47:42.920 time, explaining to her that I couldn't have access to them, no matter what. She promised

00:47:47.620 that she would keep them away from me. And to that end, she bought a safe that only she would

00:47:51.800 know the combination to. She put several things in there with the guns, including her paper copy

00:47:56.280 of the safe's combination. Oh, don't put it in the safe. Long story short, for the three or four

00:48:01.060 years leading up to the raid, we couldn't access that safe even if we wanted to. So there are a

00:48:06.340 few things to note here. One, he's alleging that everything in the safe was his wife's and that

00:48:10.460 The safe belonged to his wife.

00:48:11.820 What about the million in cash?

00:48:13.480 Hers, according to him. 0.99

00:48:14.780 She's frugal. 0.99

00:48:15.620 She's very frugal. 1.00

00:48:16.280 He's fully throwing his fucking wife under the bus. 1.00

00:48:19.340 Although, I don't think that's like a useful loophole. 1.00

00:48:21.420 Like, you do have access to guns, but they're your wives? 0.98

00:48:23.640 I don't think that like works. 1.00

00:48:24.880 And you bought them.

00:48:26.260 Yeah.

00:48:26.760 When you know that you can't do that.

00:48:28.800 Yeah.

00:48:29.240 And you're married, so everything that is hers is also yours, my guy.

00:48:34.160 Right. 0.72

00:48:34.520 Unforged.

00:48:35.320 Unforged for you.

00:48:36.360 Yeah.

00:48:36.540 As part of the fallout from this, they raid Ellis' home.

00:48:40.240 they also raid Blevins' home. Michael Blevins goes back to prison on gun charges, starts the

00:48:46.600 company with a prison sentence. His exit from the company is also a prison sentence. And Michael

00:48:53.040 Ellis ends up going to prison for lying to the FDA. It's actually so weird that he didn't just

00:48:59.960 go to the federal authorities and tell them that he was breaking the law. Because that's what he

00:49:04.400 usually does so once again as before michael ellis pled guilty he was sentenced to six months

00:49:11.400 in federal prison and a twenty thousand dollar fine wait what six months and a twenty thousand

00:49:16.140 dollar fine for a guy whose company made one billion dollars in one year but that's the thing

00:49:20.520 of like convicting people for lying to the fda or whatever when it's like the product that he

00:49:24.600 sells is trash because the actual problem here is is basically this previous law that means that

00:49:30.020 they don't have to label anything correct they are operating within the law but the law is 0.99

00:49:33.820 fucking bad yes agree also he dips i feel like go to jail just go to jail just for the dip just for 0.99

00:49:40.360 your fucking tin of skull anytime you have it if i catch you with it you're going to jail it also 0.99

00:49:45.660 turns out through this sort of increased government oversight period that the company was falsifying 1.00

00:49:53.020 its taxes clicking its books and concealing over 93 million dollars in four years whoa okay their

00:49:59.740 accountant michael compton admits to federal authorities that he did cook the books at the

00:50:06.500 behest of company executives no way and when the story broke about the company's tax evasion

00:50:12.240 compton died by suicide oh no way michael ellis writes about this in his book and he goes it's a

00:50:17.500 real shame and that's it that's it again it's not unlike the shooting when he's at the police force

00:50:25.100 where you're like what a bummer you don't seem to be grappling with this with any level of depth

00:50:30.680 yeah for hiding 93 million dollars the company is assessed a 600 000 fine what come on dude

00:50:39.460 after michael ellis is released from prison he publishes his book that's in 2008 i have not told

00:50:47.800 you this whole time what the title of the book is okay the title of the book is the metabolite 0.92

00:50:55.200 story colon the rape of cinderella what yes what the fuck does that even mean like we were a 0.99

00:51:01.700 cinderella story oh and they were raped by the irs and our company was raped by the federal 0.99

00:51:07.080 government that is rape no it has since if you look for it now it's still available as like an

00:51:14.080 ebook or whatever okay it now is called the metabolite story the rise and fall of an american 0.99

00:51:19.780 success story or something like that they're like make it normal please be fucking normal 0.98

00:51:24.700 give it a normal title dude because that title is just like oh you're a nutcase the final straw 0.98

00:51:30.300 for ephedra products comes when there is a high profile death so far there have been many deaths

00:51:39.800 from ephedra products and there is one from a public figure so in 2003 baltimore orioles pitcher

00:51:48.740 steve belcher heads to spring training in florida since last season he has put on some weight so he

00:51:56.640 starts taking an ephedra supplement to lose weight during spring training at 23 years old 0.96

00:52:04.460 steve belcher a professional athlete collapses and dies 23 holy shit as the reporting comes out

00:52:12.800 about steve belcher's death it comes along with like that reporting is like actually this isn't

00:52:18.520 the only ephedra incident for athletes another player for the orioles who had previously collapsed

00:52:25.700 and been found unconscious then disclosed that he had been taking ephedra supplements at the time

00:52:31.240 That's not even the only incident for the Orioles.

00:52:33.380 There are also adverse reactions for Corey Stringer from the Minnesota Vikings.

00:52:39.140 Devon Darling, a linebacker for Florida State.

00:52:42.900 A college student.

00:52:45.100 Like the list goes on.

00:52:46.240 There are many, many more.

00:52:48.460 This is popping up in sports media.

00:52:50.800 So it's no longer like government accountability reporting.

00:52:54.740 And it's no longer like quote unquote women's media reporting.

00:52:57.840 It's now getting in front of sports fans who are like, 0.98

00:53:00.820 wait a minute what the fuck yeah sorry what wait how much is the meth that i can go to the store 0.98

00:53:05.860 and buy right like there's like a big outcry following this death according to the nutrition 0.99

00:53:11.380 business journal u.s ephedra sales in 2002 were 1.28 billion dollars and by 2003 the year that

00:53:22.360 belcher died uh in the spring sales fell to 510 million okay 50 hit more than a 50 hit metabolife

00:53:29.900 is trying to defend themselves you know what i mean like they're trying to like save face a

00:53:35.800 little bit so they put up a statement on their website about belcher's death and they're like

00:53:39.920 he was overweight and he was exercising strenuously in the heat so don't do that everyone who does

00:53:45.600 that dies also like do you not think fat people are taking your weight loss product yeah no kidding

00:53:49.920 exactly do you not think that the people who are taking your weight loss product live in hot

00:53:53.660 climates and are also exercising they're trying to lose weight yeah steve belcher dies in the

00:53:57.560 spring of 2003 and in december of that same year the fda finally announces a ban of ephedra okay

00:54:04.420 at the time that it is banned ephedra represents five percent of sales of dietary supplements in

00:54:13.020 the u.s five percent of dietary supplements sold are ephedra but they are 45 percent of adverse

00:54:19.580 events linked to any dietary supplement soon after the fda banned sale of products containing

00:54:27.340 ephedra congress moved to ban pseudo ephedrine because of its role in the manufacture of black

00:54:35.500 market meth it was first introduced in congress as a standalone bill that had some i can't remember

00:54:43.260 the name but it was like something like the like combating methamphetamine act of 2005 or whatever 0.98

00:54:48.820 ultimately it passed as a part of the patriot act wait what it was in the fucking patriot act you

00:54:54.980 remember how they dropped it at night and it was like a bajillion pages yeah this was in the 0.73

00:54:59.020 patriot act dude we should do one of those sleep casts where we just read federal legislation

00:55:03.400 so today many nations around the world ban ephedrine some also ban ephedra as a whole

00:55:10.920 the u.s bans both and we also track sales of pseudo ephedrine and have moved it behind the

00:55:15.820 counter, Metabolife ended up filing for bankruptcy and its non-ephedra assets were sold to a new

00:55:24.200 owner. The product is still around, although it wouldn't be ephedra anymore. Yes, they have

00:55:28.520 reformulated with Dr. Oz's favorite green coffee bean extract. Okay, well, at least that's fake and

00:55:35.000 dumb and doesn't do anything. At least it's not like scary. I will say I didn't come to this one 0.99

00:55:39.840 thinking that I was telling you a story about money and politics, but like here we are. Yeah.

00:55:44.960 There's no real move today to repeal the Dietary Supplement Health Education Act.

00:55:51.220 Of course.

00:55:51.780 We clearly have bigger fish to fry as a nation, but it is a bad policy that puts consumers at risk. 0.99

00:55:59.400 If not with ephedra products anymore, then with all manner of other shit that doesn't have to prove that it's safe before it goes on the fucking market. 0.99

00:56:07.520 For no upside, for no benefit to anyone. 0.99

00:56:10.460 There are supplements on the market, legally, that are very, very, very hazardous.

00:56:15.440 Or just full-on scams or something you saw at us.

00:56:17.640 Or full-on scams.

00:56:17.960 And you're paying 12 bucks for it or whatever. 0.99

00:56:19.540 Or we don't fucking know. 0.87

00:56:21.100 Yeah. 0.97

00:56:21.240 And you should know and be able to know before you take a thing.

00:56:24.300 It's totally indefensible.

00:56:25.540 So Metabolife isn't the juggernaut that it once was.

00:56:29.180 Yeah.

00:56:29.580 But the system that created it remains.

00:56:32.360 By which you mean they are still raiding the home of Mel Gibson.

00:56:35.420 Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure.

00:56:37.060 Simply for putting vitamins in his water.

00:56:40.460 Thank you.

Maintenance Phase - February 12, 2026

The Diet Crimes of Metabolife

Episode Stats

Transcript