April 20, 2021 • 56 mins
Robert is joined by Matt Lieb to discuss Dr. Oz.
FOOTNOTES:
- https://www.oprah.com/pressroom/oprah-bids-farewell-to-dr-oz-as-he-launches-his-own-show-september-14#ixzz6ryQsKlGx
- https://www.healthnewsreview.org/2018/02/pulling-back-the-curtain-on-the-doctors-and-the-dr-oz-show-what-our-analysis-reveals/
- https://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/the-dr-oz-health-quiz/all#ixzz6ryqeqPD3
- https://www.nature.com/articles/nn0412-497
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6167233/
- https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/how-dr-oz-effect-has-hooked-american-consumers-n134801
- https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/magazine/18Oz-t.html
- https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/04/reiki-cant-possibly-work-so-why-does-it/606808/
- https://quackwatch.org/nccam/research/energy/
- https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/case-dr-oz-ethics-evidence-and-does-professional-self-regulation-work/2017-02
- https://www.marketwatch.com/story/dr-oz-slammed-for-suggesting-it-may-only-cost-us-2-to-3-of-american-lives-to-reopen-schools-2020-04-16
- https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/17/business/media/dr-oz-apology-coronavirus.html
- https://www.businessinsider.com/dr-oz-false-misleading-baseless-medical-claims-coronavirus-2020-4#a-strawberry-and-baking-soda-mixture-can-whiten-teeth-oz-said-8
- https://www.vox.com/2015/4/16/8412427/dr-oz-health-claims
- http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2013/01/can_you_trust_dr_oz_his_medical_advice_often_conflicts_with_the_best_science.single.html
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
M what's lighten my dumpster? First, I'm Robert Evans hosted
Behind the Bastards. That little introduction was an honor of
my hometown, Portland, which just had a police officer murder
a man who is having a mental health crisis. And
we'll probably be lighting some dumpsters on fire tonight. Um,
(00:21):
although you won't hear it the day that this happens.
But anyway, that's all beside the point right now, because
the point right now is that I'm introducing our guest today,
the inimitable Matt Leabe. Hey, what's going on, Matt? How
are you doing? I'm doing well. I'm excited to be here.
A big fan of the pod. Uh love me some bastards?
(00:43):
And you are? You do a Sopranos podcast and the
name is it really pod yourself a gun? That's alright, gun.
That's where the world's only Sopranos podcast. Don't go looking
for any other ones, because they do not exist. Little
known TV show, the Sopranos. You might have heard of
it very obscure, a niche, a niche TV show that
only people who really like art understand. Um, And that's
(01:06):
that's why we talk about it. We talked about the art.
It's fun thinking about that because I believe the song
that introduced that show was something about waking up in
the morning and getting yourself a gun, which is what
I did this morning. You bought a gun. I did,
I did. I did buy a gun this morning. Um.
Not for sopranos like uses. Um, although I am Italian,
so you can't really know for sure. You can't really
(01:29):
know for sure. Yeah, you woke up with a blue
moon on in your eye and you decided I'm gonna
go get myself a gun and then I'm gonna commit crimes.
And the pine Barons of New Jersey, Yeah, they do
that a lot in the show, right, a lot of
Pine Baron crimes. They do it at least once and
uh and it's great, yeah that they're chasing that guy
through the yeah, yeah, the Russian Yeah, and they leave
their DNA everywhere, well they everywhere, and you know they look.
(01:55):
We Italians are not a subtle people. Know. They spend
that whole episode literally like dying of like cold and
they're lost in the woods, but they spend all the
time talking about how they're starving because they haven't eaten
in twelve hours. The most in the world. But I
want to hear about this gun. Oh it's just a gun, um.
But today we have something much more exciting than a gun.
(02:17):
We have a bastard and are bastard? Are you ready
for this? I'm so excited? Are you settling in? Yes?
Doctor Oz and I never introduced them like that. We're
talking about Dr fucking Oz today. Yes, that's right. Who's
the thought he'd be a bastard a TV doctor? Who
would have thought a TV doctor could be a bad man? No,
(02:40):
they take an oath TV doctors. They say, do no
harm and get good ratings. That's the the hippocratic oath
do they do? They also oath to be bad guest
hosts on Jeopardy because he sucked and I didn't enjoy it. Honestly,
if you are going up against LaVar Burton for any job,
your first action should be like, you know what, I'm
(03:01):
bowing out immediately. I'm not going to compete with LaVar
Burton fighting, Jordy fighting, Kunta Quinte fighting whatever the Reading
Rainbow guys name was. Yeah, yeah, No, I did not
watch him on Jeopardy, but I have seen the show
(03:22):
and had no idea he was a bastard. Yes, um,
he's a piece of ship. He's he's a different piece
of ship. We're also going to be talking in the
very near future about Dr Phil who's a much worse person.
Dr Oz is bad for some reasons that you'll suspect,
you know, the pseudoscience stuff, but also for some I
think more complicated reasons, which will we'll have us a
(03:43):
nice talk about at the end of this episode. So
I've always said that one of the great tragedies of
American public life is that our very best doctors are
usually like kind of shlubby dudes and ladies, uh maybe
aren't the best at at social graces, and certainly don't
have enough time because are wildly overworked to do TV appearances. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I agree. They're not hot. I've always said the problem
(04:08):
they're not hot. I look at them and I'm like, you, like,
we need to put a couple of billion dollars into
a national program from more funck able doctors. Come on, yes,
doctors who fuck that's the next level of healthcare in America.
It won't be universal health care, but at least doctors
will look fuckable. Now, I mean, I think the problem
is not their fun ability, because it's inherently hot to
(04:28):
be a doctor. It's more the fact that they're not
necessarily even the ones who are have a good bedside manner,
are good at explaining things, just don't have the time
to spend a lot of it on television because they're
busy saving lives. This has led to a thriving industry,
well documented in this show of grifter health influencers and
scam artists selling people poison with honeyed words and practice smiles. Today, though,
(04:50):
we're talking about a different kind of medical grifter, kind
of a grifter who helps to launder those more shady grifters,
the guy people who aren't doctors, people who have no
medical training, who are just trying to sell you nonsense cures.
The guy we're talking about today exists to give them
credibility and launder them into the public consciousness. And his
name is memt Oz. Ment Oz is maybe the most
(05:10):
influential public physician in the country, possibly the world. He is,
in every professional sense of the word, an excellent doctor,
exceptional eason. Even within the bounds of what it is
he is trained to do, he may be one of
the best in the world at what he does um
and he uses his you know, the thing that makes
him a bassard is that he uses these exceptional qualifications
(05:32):
along with his charisma his handsome face to sell millions
of people on nonsense cures every single year. And that's
that's a bad thing to do. He's kind of made worst.
We'll talk with this a lot by the fact that
he is he's a he's a he's a heart surgeon,
and he's an exceptional heart surgeon. That's so sad. It's
always sad when like an amazing doctor is a piece
(05:53):
of ship. This is like how I felt when Ben
Ben Carson turned out to be a Trump guy, was like,
but you're so good the surgeons, which you talk to
doctors will be like yeah, of course. It's always surgeons. Yeah, yeah.
They're the ones who think they're God's right. They essentially
have a God complex and that they'll be really good
(06:14):
at one thing and then they'll also think that they're
good at like yes, politics and ship like that. I
think good surgeons are so prone to being also like nonsense,
like so many of our nonsense public doctors or surgeons.
For the same reason that so many of our terrorists
or engineers. They're people who get really good at a
specific thing, and it lets them convince themselves that they
know what they're talking about in a wider variety of
(06:36):
things than they really do. That's great, it's it just
makes me glad that I never, you know, got really
proficient in anyone's skill. Never gain skills, I never ever
learn how to do things. You'll become too smart for
yourself and think that you are God. If no one
learned to do anything, we would still be living in
the mud and eating grubs. And you know what, we
(06:56):
wouldn't have salesman oh, or that we would have very
little at all mimits sang his Oz was born on
June eleven, nineteen sixty two, parents Suna and Mustafa Oz,
who must have fucked at some point in October of
nineteen in order to conceive him. We have to assume
(07:16):
his parents fucked in the October. That, yeah, he could
be immaculate conception. You know, possible, I would say right now.
The most likely theory is that they fucked sometime in October.
All his father, Mustafa had been born in Boscre, a
village in southern Turkey. He had grown up poor in
the countryside during the Great Depression. Uh. And obviously, you know,
(07:38):
Great Depression, bad time everywhere, real bad time. If you're
like in rural Turkey, you know, um, you're you're dealing
with a different kind of poverty than even like our
grandparents dealt with here. Um. So he had to work
himself to the bone in order to make something of himself,
in order to get into medical school and distinguish himself
enough that he was able to earn scholarships which allowed
(08:00):
him to immigrate to the United States as a medical
resident in nineteen fifty five. So this is a this
is a hard working man, um, and a man who
has to struggle, I'm mean to guess in ways that
that are kind of difficult to imagine for most p
even as difficult as our present times are. He's like
a true lift yourself up by your bootraps kind of guy. Yeah. Yeah,
(08:20):
came from the middle of like nowhere, rural Turkey and
worked himself into becoming a good enough doctor that he
got you know, he was able to get over the
racism of the fucking nineteen fifties immigration system. You know,
that's that's an achievement. Yeah, good for him. Started from
the bottom and now he's on TV. That's his dad. Um,
(08:44):
that's his dad. That's not yeah, yeah, that's Mustafa. So
we're talking about his dad and his mom right now.
His mom, Soona, came from a much wealthier background. I
don't know if this is what helped his dad get
into the country or not. It may have been. Her
father was a successful pharmacist in both sides of her
family came from Istanbul. She grew up with a lot
(09:05):
of money. As befits his more modest upbringing, Mustafa was
an observant traditional Muslim as soon as family was more
moderate and secular. Memit and his two sisters grew up
split between both approaches to religion. The Oz kids spent
their childhood speaking Turkish and English fluently at home, so
they grew up in a bilingual house. Mement was from
a young from a young age, ambitious, starving for success
(09:28):
and his father's approval. He was wont to note that
he was born in the year of the Rat according
to the Chinese zodiac. In one interview, he noted of
this quote, you run the maze. If you put cheese
in that maze, I swear to God I'll get to it,
and I'll get to it really fast. But should I
be running after that cheese? Am I in the right maze?
All of these questions, which people much greater than I
(09:49):
am think through I put on the back burner as
I'm running after that cheese. What the fuck? Like, that's
way too much stock into the year of what animal?
Year the rat? At least he wasn't born into the
Year of the pig. And he's like, well, you, what
you gotta do is you gotta take your snout and
put it into the trough of life and just really
got to just shut your face into food as hard
(10:11):
as you can. You roll around in the ship, and
then you hope that someday you find another piggy to
fun and then you have little piglets. I was born
in the Year of the Pig, and that's why I
disposed of bodies for the mob. It's just what you do. Well,
that's a it's a nice take on your of the rat.
For him, it is it is telling because what he's
(10:31):
saying there is like, I don't think about why I'm
doing what I'm doing. I just I just strive to
to to achieve things, and I don't think about whether
or not they're good or bad. I just I have
to achieve. Yeah, he just wants that cheese. Yeah, he
wants that cheese. It's ambition without an analysis, I think,
is what you'd call it. And he's pretty open about
(10:53):
that now. Mustafa his dad repeatedly told the growing doctor
Oz who's not yet a doctor obviously, that when he
grown up, when Mustapa had grown up, he hadn't been
able to relax for even a second on his road
to escaping poverty and establishing himself as a cardiothoracic surgeon. Um.
So he's like telling his kid as he grows up, like,
you know, like if you want to succeed, you can't
(11:13):
relax for even a second. You can't can't take a
moment off. You always gotta be hustling. Uh. And that's
how mem It grows up. He's an excellent student, but
no amount of success is ever enough for his dad.
He later recalled, I'd say I got a ninety three
on a test, He'd say, did anyone get better? That
was always the question, he asked. Sounds like a fun
guy would hang, Yeah, the school I grew up in
(11:38):
because of just where we were in North Texas. Like
about half of the kids in my school, um were
either from India or from China or Japan. Um. And
so you had a lot of kids who would talk
that way about their parents, right, um. And some of
them had, especially around our senior year, there were a
couple of kids who had to get like taken in
by an ambulance because they would just like in one
(11:59):
case easing as a result of stress. Like Jesus good
to put this kind of pressure at a kid. Yeah,
like straight having like nervous breakdowns just from like trying
to get good grades. Once again, don't get good at anything.
It's not worth it that loop skills. Don't develop skills,
You'll get seizures. You're at risk of seizures. You're at
(12:21):
risk of your of your dad not loving you. You know,
you just gotta you no matter what. Yeah, exactly, stop
caring about your dad. You know, just toast coast some dirt,
eat some grubs. You'll be fine. Yeah, start a Sopranos podcast.
That's all you've got to do. Really really bringing it
back there. So Memitt decided to become a doctor when
(12:47):
he was just seven years old. Uh. He recalls standing
in line at an ice cream parlor. Quote. I remember
it like yesterday. There was a kid in front of
me who was tin My dad just to pass the time,
said what do you want to be when you grow up?
The kids said, I don't know, I'm ten. My father
waited until he was out of earshot and said, I
never want you to tell me that if I ask
you that question, I never want you to tell me
(13:09):
you don't know. It's okay if you change your mind,
but I never want you to not have a vision
of what you want to be. Moment, go kill that kid,
kill that kid, murder that, lose your kid, and tell
me what you want to do with your life. God damn,
that is way too much pressure. Way that's so much
pressure to put on a kid. And it seems like
(13:31):
the kids like that always end up becoming the like
going into the career that their father wanted them to do,
and then eventually their dad dies and then they're like,
oh fuck, I didn't get to do what I wanted
to do with my life and now I'm miserable. Yeah, yeah,
it's it's it's a real bummer. Um. It's not just
don't put pressure on people. There's plenty of grubs. By
(13:53):
the time Moment was ready to start school, his father
was wealthy enough to pay to send his son to
Tower Hill School, a K through twelfth grade private college
preparatory school in Wilmington, Delaware. Jesus, that sounds horrible. I know,
it sounds like a fucking nightmare. Fancy boy uniforms ties. Yeah,
(14:13):
probably like during the summer. Yeah, the fancy boy prep
school worked well enough that Memitt was accepted to Harvard,
where he played football and water polo. His grades were,
as always exceptional. One of his roommates later recalled, he
was very competitive. There was never any question that he
wasn't going to be a doctor. He wanted to be
(14:34):
a fantastic surgeon. So people around him, like, everyone kind
of recognizes this kid is brilliant. Everyone recognizes he's got
the drive he's going to achieve, you know, so good
for him. I mean, it's just like I just look
back now at my own childhood and I'm like, God
damn it. If I can think of one friend where
where I knew what they wanted to do for a career,
(14:56):
I don't think we ever talked about like, what's your
career gonna be? No one was like I'm a doctor,
you know. It was it was mostly just like, uh,
you know, how's how's your hip hop album working out?
And they're like good and they're like cool, and that
was the whole thing. That's interesting. I think it was
different from me because there was definitely a lot of
pressure to have something. You know, I went to a
(15:16):
public school. Um, I didn't go to a private school,
but I went to a public school in my early
schooling years. Was in a dirt, poor farming town called Idebelle, Oklahoma.
And the school was as good as it could be
in a place like that, Like they paddled us and
stuff like. It was not not a high end educational
but once I'll do in a in a public school.
Yeah yeah, damn. They still did that in Oklahoma back
(15:38):
in them days. Yeah you got to sign the paddle
afterwards too. But when I was in on a third
grade or so, UM, I moved to planoh which is
a a fairly wealthy suburb of Dallas, and the schools,
the public schools are very good and there's a lot
of drive to achieve. Like I said, a lot of
like kids who were really motivated by their parents to
(16:00):
achieve um, and so you either were kind of planning
to be a doctor or you know, something on that level,
or you were planning to join the military. Because it
was Texas and I was in r OTC, So me
and all my friends, I think we all kind of
assumed we're all going to join the army, you know, yeah, yeah.
I went to yeah, public school, you know, my entire life,
(16:20):
and I think most of my friends either wanted to
they were either going to go into the army or
they were um or they wanted to be famous musicians
and or athletes. So I see, my brother is a
doctor and knew he was going to be a doctor
from that. He's my older brother too, from the time
that he was like seven, so like, and I'm like,
(16:41):
la la la, no idea. I'm just saying, like a
level of ambition at a very very young age has
always been a turn off for me when it comes
to like friends, because it's just, uh, they always have
that like sense where they're trying to get there. You're
you're some sort of stepping stone into their what ever
their career path is, and I don't like it. So
(17:03):
Oz took only one break during his relentless progress through
medical school. Uh, and that break was to do a
compulsory I think it was a one year term of
service in the Turkish Army in order to maintain his
dual citizenship. Um. Other than that straight onto like becoming
a doctor, that's the only kind of break. He So,
I guess that's his gap year is being in the
Turkish Army. I'm just gonna take a break, have a
(17:26):
gap year and joined the military of a foreign country
that helps suppress you know, Kurdish liberatory movements and stuff. Whenever. Yeah,
they got to stop trying to have their own thing. Yeah.
He got a four year degree in biology and then
transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where he doubled up
working on both an m D and an m b A.
(17:47):
He succeeded in earning both. So that's interesting to me.
He gets both. He gets at the same time as
he's getting his m d. He also gets a business degree. Yeah,
this is a very Uh, there's a lot of foreshadowing going. Yeah,
there's a foreshadow He earned both obviously with flying colors.
He's an incredibly intelligent man, right, this isn't just a
guy like we'll talk about Dr Phil later. Dr Phil
(18:08):
I don't think is very smart. He's incredibly good at
reading and manipulating people. He's not particularly a genius. Mem
at Oz is a genius like I think almost certainly
is an actual genius. In nineteen eighty five, at age
twenty five, he married Lisa Limole, who was the daughter
of a cardiothoracic surgeon who worked with his father. They
met at like a party or something. This relationship gradually
(18:30):
opened him up to alternative medicine and Eastern mysticism because
Lisa's mom was hardcore into homeopathy, meditation, and other New
Age stuff. We'll talk about that more in a little bit.
For the next decade and change, Dr Oz's career zoomed forward.
He became triple board certified, which I don't know what
that means, but it sounds impressive. It's at least three boards.
It's at least three boards. That's I got zero boards
(18:54):
under my bottom one, not a single board between the
three of us. So we really should find a board
just to get us some certifications, guys, just to get certified.
If you're a board, if you're a medical board board
out there, well, you know what. The state of New
Jersey has certified me as a reverend doctor, so I'm
one board certify. There is there a board in the
(19:16):
Universal Life Church because I am a ministers last Jedi night,
I'm gonna say that counts all right, I'm board stified.
Can you get me painkillers? But you know, I know
a guy that sounds legal enough. So he starts working
as a heart surgeon um and he's very good at
(19:37):
being a heart surgeon. And he's not just good at
the heart surgery part, he's good at the science part.
Over time, he authors hundreds of peer reviewed articles and
he's awarded eleven patents. One of them is for a
solution to preserve transplanted organs. Another is for an aortic
valve that can be implanted without open heart surgery. Like
he's he's not just really good at the mechanics of surgery,
(19:59):
he's an ex lent scientist. Yeah, Levin Pattents is pretty good. Seriously,
one might say he's the Wizard of Oz. There. I
think I read like six articles with variations of that
title on the guard. Alright, well I gotta go. Then
it's just a fig. Journalists can't fucking help themselves. Anybody
(20:22):
you see Oz and you're like, I got a callum
a wizard, not a call um a wizard. Dr Oz
was hired by Columbia Medical School UH as a teacher,
and as you know, he's also working. They've been a hospital.
He's working there, but he's also teaching, and he very
quickly rises to the level of full professor and becomes
the vice chair of the cardio of the heart surgery department.
(20:43):
Basically at this point, he's in his thirties. Oh man. Yeah,
Like everything I've read right now on its own would
be a career trajectory. Any doctor in medicine would envy.
Like you could die happy with that being your fucking resume.
Like that's a hell of an achievement. Um. Yeah. In nine,
(21:04):
a New York Times profile referred to doctor Oz as quote,
probably the most accomplished thirty five year old cardiothoracic surgeon
in the country. He might be the best at what
he does in the entire United States at this point.
I mean, I don't know how to measure that, but
he's he's very good. I mean I don't know any
other heart surgeons by names, so fuck, I mean he's
(21:26):
the guy. Yeah. Now, the article that I found that
quote in however, gives some hints about what was to come,
because that article was about doctor Oz's increasing experimentation with
alternative medicine. It opens with the story of one of
his patients, a forty nine year old diabetic smoker who
suffered a critical heart attack. She went under Memets knife
for a dangerous surgery. Quote at the invitation of Oz
(21:50):
and his patient, there were two other people on hand
in surgical gowns and masks, a second year medical student
named Sally Smith stationed at the patient's feet, and a
fifty two year old healer named Julie Motts, who was
standing at the patient's head. As volunteers in Oz's cardiac
Complimentary Care center, they worked for free through the operation,
seldom moving except to reposition their hands as Oz requested
(22:11):
suitures and clamps and units of light a cane. Mots
called softly to Smith to move her hands from the
small toe of the patient's right foot to a point
on the soul known as the bubbling spring. What they
were doing, no one else in the operating room knew
how to do, or had ever seen done during a
coronary bypass, or had ever thought worth doing. Even as
an experiment in this ultimate theater of scientific medicine. The
(22:32):
women were using their hands as kings once did dis
treat subjects with scrupula, and as Jesus is said to
have done, and as shamans and mothers and Chinese quigong
practitioners still do. They were using their hands to run
a kind of energy which science cannot prove exists into
the patient's kidney meridian, which also may or may not exist.
The kidney meridian. Yeah, you gotta get that meridians. That's
(22:54):
the best part of the kid the meridian. That's the
most delicious part of the kidneys. Man with fucking on
a ritz cracker slice, then I love me a little
little You just want to get You want to get
like some duck fat or some butter, and you want
to get it sizzling in the pan, and you just
slap that meridian on for like a half a second
and it's good to go. That's all you fucking which
(23:15):
just a little bit of a little bit of char
you know. I mean, this all feels like he's gonna
start turning his patients into far gra and very excited
for what's to come. This heel turned that he's gonna take. So, yeah,
that's that's that's silly. I I think that's silly. Um.
But out at the other hand, like it's in a hospital.
(23:38):
These people are clearly following sanitation guidelines. They're not getting paid,
the patient's not getting charged extra, So I don't have
a problem with that. And that's the smartest doctor in
the world. It's like one of those things where you're like,
I feel like this is wrong, but I don't know
enough to dispute it. So I'm with my kidney meridian.
I'm not willing to morally condemn him for that, even
(24:00):
though I think it's silly, just because like, yeah, yeah,
what's the fucking harm and seeing you know, and in
that case, if you're actually doing it in a medical context,
you you're guaranteeing everybody's taking proper sanitation procedures, fucking whatever.
And it seems like from what I can tell, that sounded, uh,
non invasive. It's yeah, they were just doing energy work
or when they were, you know, crystals and doing fucking
(24:23):
pendulums over over him. It falls into the category of
it couldn't possibly hurt, so why not give it a shot, right,
which is We'll talk about this more later, but that's
kind of what they were going for. You know what
else can't hurt I don't know. The products and services
that support this podcast guaranteed to not harm you. In fact,
every one of the products of ours that you buy
(24:45):
extends your life by exactly forty five minutes. So you know,
spend all your money and gain immortality. We're back. We're
talking about doctor Oz, who in the mid nineties has
started some weird alternative medicine stuff. Now he's not the
(25:07):
person who starts the alternative medicine program at Columbia Presbyterian
Hospital UM, which is also like a teaching hospital whatever.
It's one of those hospitals that they have a medical
school with. You know how. You know the thing if
television has taught me accurately, all of the doctors are
fucking constantly m doctors fucking teach, That's what they doctors,
fucking they teach, that's all they do. You know, when
(25:28):
you're not teaching, you're fucking um. And Columbia Presbyterian was
among the most reputable medical establishments on planet, or it
still is as far as as I'm aware. UM, So
this alternate medicine program. There is kind of an odd thing.
It was not started at the behest of anyone at
the top of the school. Um. The whole thing came
about because in nine a retired utility executive named Richard
(25:50):
Rosenthal gave them three quarters of a million dollars as
a private grant in order to establish a center to
study alternative medicine. Just gifted money and just said magic
doct during school and they're like, okay, um. Now, Richard
had been motivated by having several close friends of his
(26:13):
get terribly sick um in such a way that doctors
told them there was nothing that could be done to
help them. And his response was to basically throw a
bunch of money into a hole to see if alternative
medicine could come up with solutions. And it's one of
those things I could make fun of, Like this is
almost exactly a week after my mom just died of
a type of cancer that when you get diagnosed with it, pancreatic,
(26:34):
there's basically nothing they can do. You know. It's even
like like she went through chemo and it did nothing.
You know, I get it. You go through something, I think, okay, well,
let's try other ship. You know. Um, so I can't
I can't even blame Richard for like it seems like
he was motivated out of grief to do this. You know,
you can't blame people for trying to try any other
(26:56):
alternative to I mean, you know, something in which there
is no cure and modern medicine, I might will blame
the snake oil salesman. I'm never going to blame someone
who's like, well, doctor said they can't cure me. So
I'm going to eat this route. You know, why not
go for it? Who gives a ship like you can't
hurt if you're definitely gonna die? Um, And it is
(27:17):
to be honest, like it is kind of within even
you could argue within kind of medical best practices because
one of the things I like, I took em T
training years ago. One of the things they tell you
is that you're not supposed to use an A E. D.
You know, like paddles to restart a heart. You're supposed
to use them on an infant, But if an infant
is in you know the state where like you use
(27:38):
them on them because they're dead. Yeah, they're dead. You
can't make dead worse, So like, why not so I
guess like, yeah, you can't. I don't know, can't make
it worse? Why not see if, if, if something happens.
I'm not against the basic idea of testing some of
this ship is what the worst thing you're going to
get out of that is a really cool TikTok video
of electrocuting a dead body. Absolutely, and then you get
(28:00):
a funkload of followers and then you start selling brain pillars.
It's a perfect plan. Uh so yeah, um, so I
can't blame the college for this. I can't blame the
guy for funding it. It's a reasonable thing. Why not,
you know what? That's kind of my attitude is why
the funk not? And that's more or less with The
Dean of Faculty of Medicine at the college said like,
(28:23):
all right, well, we're not paying for it, why not
give it a shot? That said a lot of medical
professionals were really angry about the idea. Dr Victor Herbert,
a Columbia Medical School graduate and a professor of medicine
at Mount Sinai and a board member of the National
Council Against Health Fraud, publicly lambastad. The lecturers brought in
by the program as con artists and sociopathic liars, and
(28:45):
knowing the kind of people who get into the selling
this ship business. I don't know if he's wrong about that.
A lot of these people are fucking sociopaths, you know,
he says, quote, I am nasty. I call practitioners of fraud,
practitioners of fraud. It's my feeling that the Rosenthals enter
has been promoting fraudulent alternatives is genuine um and I
get his critiques, you know, that is one of the
(29:05):
like I can say, on one hand, what's the harm,
but also maybe the harm is that people here, this
stuff is being done in a hospital, so it must
help when it doesn't, and maybe some of those people
do that not the way Dr Oz is doing it,
where we're going to do the normal medical procedure, will
have this done. Maybe some people decide I just want
to have the energy work done, and then they dropped
out of a heart attack because it doesn't replace a valve.
(29:26):
You know. I'd like to think that even at a
hospital or research facility with Western medicine, that they still
peer review and try out different you know, like alternative medicines, right,
you know, like some of them, some of them work.
Some of them work. Like there was a time when
you know, acupuncture was seen as kind of like a
(29:49):
croc and now it's like kind of just a standard
part of Western medicine. It's just you know, so yeah,
and there's a there's a lot to be said about
even acupuncture. You know, I went through a lot of
it as a kid, and it did nothing for me.
But my grandpa swore by it for his Parkinson's And
even if it was I don't know, you could say
it's like fucking uh whatever placebo, but he experienced relief.
So I don't care, like, um, I don't know. I'm
(30:12):
not going to get into like because I don't know.
I don't know all of the I know, it's one
of those things where there's a number of divergent opinions
on actual but a number of things that were initially
considered alternative medicines have been found to have medical you know, benefits.
Not that that's the norm, but it has happened in history,
you know, different kind of traditional or whatever treatments. Um
So this is very controversial, though, is the point I'm making.
(30:34):
And a number of people even picketed the college when
the Rosenthal center opened. None of this dissuaded doctor Oz
from participating in it. His explanation as to why he
embraced alternative medicine was to be quite honest, kind of brilliant.
He said that his by this point vast experience as
a real doctor had really informed him of the limits
of medical science. Specifically, he said that while he could
(30:56):
so bypass grafts and even implant a new heart into
someone's chest, he couldn't change the habits that had made
them sick in the first place, nor could he cure
the emotional issues that they were dealing with. Depression, he
pointed out, was a major risk factor in heart patient
recovery post surgery, and things like meditation. Right, that's kind
of considered woo new age. That can help with depression,
(31:18):
and that can help with healing. And he's right about that.
Bad point to make, um so he seemed to insinuate
when he was talking to The New York Times. Why
wouldn't a caring physician want to try everything possible to
improve his patients? Odds, he could point out that meditation
had shown some benefit for heart disease patients, Who was
to say that other stuff wouldn't work. Doctor Oz told
(31:39):
The New York Times that he felt ethically obliged to
experiment in new directions in medicine. The article makes it
clear that doctor Oz had not let up one bit
in the workaholic tendencies that he inherited from his father
as well. And I'm going to quote from the Times
again here, mem at Oz is one of those rare
beings who seem incapable of sloth. He's doing a heart
transplant right now, his secretary says on the phone, own,
(32:00):
And he's got a double lung transplant waiting, and those
are in addition to his two regularly scheduled open hearts.
And then at three he's supposed to fly to Boston
to deliver a lecture. So exceptional is oz is energy
that some of his colleagues use him as a benchmark
correlating their own vitality is a fraction of a full
mement unit. He runs down Lobbs Sizes tennis partner mentor
(32:20):
and department chairman Dr Eric A. Rose, who at forty four,
is one of the top hearts transplant surgeons in the world.
So I can't tell you how uh nervous I would
be going into a lung transplant procedure and then hearing
like this doctor has got to do a heart after
you and then got to fly to Boston. I'd be like,
do you think you could maybe take your time with
(32:41):
this bro? Like, could you get that? I I do.
It is a man. We'll talk about the Z in two.
We don't have enough of these guys. It's actually a
major health problem. How few people there are that can
do this. Um but it it is exhausting everything you
read about this guy's day, Like, you're just one of
those people who I think, I kind to get the feeling.
I don't want to psychoanalyze someone, but you get the feeling.
(33:03):
He can't be alone and still like he he has
to always be moving towards something. He's got his dad
in the back of his head and telling him to
murder that kid in the ice cream show, yea to
kill that he just like, I mean, I imagine that
would create a bit of a problem later in life
(33:25):
with stillness. Yeah, I feel for him a little bit
of that sum now. The article also goes into more
to tail about how dr oz Is wives family. Dr
Oz's wife's family piqued his interest in alternative medicine. His
father in law was one of the surgeons on the
first heart transplant team in Texas. He'd also been nicknamed
(33:46):
the rock Doc by Rolling Stone for playing music in
the o r to relax patients. His mother in law
had developed a special low fat diet for her husband's
cardiac patients, and this was really before it was accepted
that low fat diets would be good for patients. She
once refused surgery for her own inflamed gall bladder and
handled it instead by altering her diet. She taught her
(34:07):
son in law, Dr Oz about using arnica for store
muscles and herbal tea for stomach aches. So he gets
brought in in part by to alternative medicine, by these
people who have a real medical background and are doing
things that aren't widely accepted but also may help, you know, music.
I think there's there's some data now on how music
can help with with certain respects of the healing process.
(34:29):
Mother in law seemed to be on on the cutting
edge of that doc. I I got concerned. I thought
it was gonna like replace people's hearts with crystals and
ship and I was like, oh no, oh no, they
all die. But my God, their hearts are pretty So
this is how mem it gets introduced to the wide
world of quack cures, and it makes sense he enters
(34:50):
it through largely reasonable ways, alternative treatments that have some
positive impact on people. That's in there's extremely reasonable stuff
in the article in general, like doctor Oz points out
that in American hospitals it only recently allowed family to
stay in the hospital with a patient, while in Turkey
it was common for families to do this, and of
course having loved ones nearby can help a patient's morale,
(35:12):
which can influence how well they heal. No one I
think today would even like think to disagree with that.
It didn't used to be common Um it changed. So
he's he's in medicine during a time when a lot
of stuff that like just wasn't. That is kind of
now common sense medicine wasn't. And I think that kind
of opens his eye to like, well, maybe all this
other ship works. Yeah, maybe everything in my head is
(35:35):
correct him turning into a complete narcissist. Yeah, And the
article kind of veers right from yeah, having loved ones
in the room can can influence how well you heal
to Dr Oz's love of energy work, particularly his work
with a lady named Motts, who believed she could sense
the energy of heart transplant patients. The Times article certainly
(35:56):
does not portray this woman in a particularly positive light. Well,
she now has her surgical sea legs under her, but
the first time Mots observed open heart surgery she had
a shaky debut. She had been standing at the patient's
head outside the sterile field, periodically telling Oz what changes
she was able to sense into patient's energy. The patient
was obviously not awake, but probably had some awareness, most
(36:17):
likely smell and perhaps hearing. Open heart patients are often
fitted with headphones and provided with tapes to listen to,
including if they want, Oz's own specially recorded Supi trance
music for the bypass team. It was quite a novelty
to hear Mots report that she was registering the patient's
moods and her body various states of fear, anger, or satisfaction.
Perceived this roughness in her chest or turbulence in her stomach.
(36:38):
At one point, seeing that Mots was not looking so
good herself, Oz asked a burly assistant to take her
outside for some air. When he returned, he said, I'd
sense a change in my stomach. It's a tenseness. No,
it's a growling. No, wait a minute, I'm just hungry.
Oh my god. I swear she's like she seemed like
she is just desc having her own feelings and then
(37:02):
just ascribing them to an opening. But yeah, it's it's
one of those things. I'm not sure exactly what type
of energy work this person is doing. Um, because there's
a few different kind of categories of it. Um checking
the vibes, dude, she's checking the vibes, just making sure
you know the vibe dipstick is filled with oil. I
should note, if I'm going to be totally fair, that Rieky,
(37:24):
which has its origins in Japan, has been shown in
some early scientific studies to help diminish the symptoms of
chemotherapy and to significantly alter people's experience of physical and
emotional pain. UM. And I have some friends who swear
by it for kind of physical and emotional pain in particular. UM.
I don't know what ricky is. I've heard of it.
(37:45):
Is it like when Mr Miyagi rubs his hands together
and then he puts energy work. I guess I don't know.
It's not a kind of thing that I particularly believe in,
and I kind of think in a lot of cases
it's that you have a good relationship with the practitioner
and you trust them, and it can be, you know,
in an emotionally soothing thing which I don't know. UM,
there were early studies, scientific studies that showed that it
(38:06):
could diminish the symptoms of chemotherapy and reduce people's experience
of pain. Now, further studies were commissioned after these early studies,
which starting in the early two thousands were more negative.
A number of hospitals did, however, add Reeky practitioners to
their stable of a vitable of available providers and parts
as a result of like the work that doctor oz
(38:26):
in the Center at Columbia was doing. UM, you can
find these people in hospitals now. And it's worth noting
that a number of the positive studies about riki and
other kind similar things were conducted by the National Center
for Complementary and Alternative Medicine UM. Their work is problematic,
to say the least. And I'm gonna quote now from
an analysis of several studies conducted by this organization by
(38:50):
professor doctor edzard Ernst. Quote three studies suggested that energy
medicine had an effect, but their authors either applied statistics
and appropriately confounded the effects of energy healing by adding
unrelated interventions to the experimental condition, or failed to design
or blind equivalent placebo controls. Their results are therefore untrustworthy.
(39:11):
The two studies that were well designed failed to demonstrate
effects from energy and healing. The odds of generating a
useful result of a clinical trial of energy medicine are small. Moreover,
what impact would negative studies have. Scientists will simply say
we could have told you so, and proponents are unlikely
to change their mind. Proponents may then claim that the
negative study must have been flawed, or that energy medicine
(39:33):
cannot be investigated by the tools of science, or they
might rely on the n c C a M. That
organization I talked about funded studies that generated biased but
apparently positive results. The n c c a M S
approach encourages a self perpetuating cycle of misinterpreting research and
conducting flawed research, which inevitably generates some studies that erroneously
(39:54):
claim positive effects and give the false impression that the
efficacy of energy medicine is still scientifically resolved. Man, we
are just veering into anti back's territory, and like anti
mask territory. People who just they google stuff and then
they go this article right here says that mass act
and they can't they can't analyze, and it's from a
(40:15):
government science organization. You know, these guys like and here's
a study that's it, and it's like, well, okay, but
you actually look at scientists you don't have a vested
and often financial interest in this, and they point out
all these very obvious flaws in the study. It's worth
noting that the n c c a M was founded
in nine, three years after the New York Times article
about Dr Oz and the Alternative Medicine Center at Columbia
(40:38):
was published. Now. Dr Ross at this point was not
yet on Oprah Show, but he had been featured on
TV several times for his pioneering work with mechanical hearts,
as well as his embrace of alternative medicine. You can
draw a direct line. I don't know if we would
have it in c c a M without Dr Oz.
I don't know. You can't say that for certain um,
but he is someone who before his embrace of alternative
(41:00):
medicine starts to be well known as an exceptional doctor
and scientist. He embraces this stuff. Columbia starts studying this stuff,
and even though everything they find is pretty inconclusive, um,
the fact that it's in an actual hospital lends it legitimacy.
This organization is started in order to test this stuff.
The organization is filled with people who already believe in it,
(41:21):
carrying out tests that are flawed. Um. And it it
helps prepare this culture believing too much in this stuff.
My god, it's just like it's a real life Facebook group,
you know. It's just like everyone already believes in all
the stuff and they just keep like just co signing
each other's bullshit. And it's one of those things like
I again, I know people who swear by Riki, who
(41:42):
gain you know, emotional benefits from it, um, who think
it helps with you know a number of things, um,
including like physical including emotional pain, and like if you
find something that helps you alleviate your emotional pair, more
power to you know. You're gonna hear me it, you know,
go with God. That's that. That's all great, But uh,
(42:03):
I mean, if you want to relieve pain, yeah, try
some morphine though, dog, because that'sh it, oh mark morphine.
There's no downsides to morphine that. I can't think of
one downside to morphine. It's not a single one. Yeah,
it just feels good the whole time, and you just
need to take more. My issue is not so much
with any particular treatment, not that not not even an
(42:25):
issue that people would like. It's number one. A lot
of people will issue actual medical treatment in favor of
some of this stuff, and it's not going to I'm
trying to be as fair as I can. He's not
going to solve your blocked cardiac pathways, you know, like
it's not going to fix it. Yeah, I mean energy
(42:46):
is great, but plavix works, Wonders is a lot better.
Um and it's it's it's more to the point, even
more than that, is it. It gets us on this
this road of increasingly accepting and legitimizing things that there's
no there's not a scientific basis for, and that leads
us to ship like let's drink bleach to cure the coronavirus.
(43:10):
Like you know, it's where the road ends. I have
more of a problem with than doctors experimenting with an
energy worker during a surgery, like it's where that leads to,
and he plays a major role in legitimizing that. He's
he helps put he helps put our national foot on
the gas pedal into the post science age. Yeah, it's
(43:32):
a slippery slope to that, you know, downing that brain
octane oil. Exactly, exactly. Um so yeah. At this point,
though we're talking still in the mid nineties, everything doctor
Oz is saying is reasonable from a certain point of view.
He's not claiming that rinky's gonna cure cancer. He's not
even claiming it's gonna cure your heart disease. He's saying
(43:52):
it could help with recovery, and a lot of recovery
is mental, and he's not you know, it's possible, He's right,
you know, he's not a bastard. It's certainly not impossible
for this kind of stuff to have a mental impact
which can positively affect recovery. Okay, um, so yeah, he's
not a bastard. At this point, nearly all of his
alternative medical claims were things that you could argue were
(44:14):
at least to some extent reasonable based on the way
he framed them. And he was most importantly regardless of
whatever kind of woo woo stuff. He got into an
exceptionally gifted medical perfecture professional who was performing something like
two fifty heart surgeries a year. You know, that's two
hud lives a year extended. That's that's great. He's not
a bastard yet. And yeah, he's doing great work so
(44:35):
far despite the heart but fine, a little bit of energy,
a little bit of heart surgery, it works out. And
the thing though, that is I think is happening during
this period. And I don't know how conscious a choice
this is by Dr Oz. I think it is because
of the fact that he gets an MBA as well,
and the fact that he's very good at getting pressed,
(44:57):
very good at getting on TV, at getting in the news.
I think he is at this point crafting his career
to make himself into an ideal candidate for famous TV doctor.
I think he is building a background that will allow
him to establish his celebrity career later. Um. It is
not hard to see how a handsome doctor with TV experience,
a New York Times profile talking about alternative medicine, and
(45:19):
a seriously impressive resume was going to wind up eventually
on Oprah. Winfrey's radar. He almost built himself perfectly for
that to happen. And he he tried in the early
two thousand's, he tried with his wife to start a
TV show. They like filmed a pilot episode. It didn't
really take off. Um, but he he succeeds and I
and I think he's pushing and his wife is pushing
(45:41):
him to to get in. She's very much his business
partner to develop himself into a media personality, and he
eventually succeeds. In two thousand four, uh in getting invited
to Oprah Winfrey's show Now Memit immediately endeared himself to
Winfrey's audience with his willingness to discuss frank health details
in a way that was demystifying and humorous. He most
(46:03):
famously explained that healthy poops tended to be shaped like
an S and should hit the water like an Olympic
diver with very little splash. Over herself later recalled when
he made it okay to talk about the shape of
a good poop, I knew he could talk about anything.
He always found ways to make the human body endlessly fascinating. Man.
That is uh, I mean, I'm I'm low Key impressed
(46:25):
that he impressed Oprah with do do Shapes. It's it's moms,
don't you know. Moms love poop, I love talking. And
that's what like Oz does exactly the right things to
endear himself to like millions of middle class moms, which
is the best markets, an incredible market. You can make
(46:47):
all of the money if you can get a few
million middle class moms to love you. I worked at
this this digital uh what do you call it, like
a digital production company, and the most famous person that
we dealt with was a famous Facebook mom who had
millions of followers, and I would watch her stuff and
I was like, this is, you know, maybe the most
(47:09):
awful ship I've ever seen. It's just a you know,
lady in a car yelling at people about kids and uh,
but the she was a famous mom. I mean, if
you can become a famous mom, you will be one
of the most famous people in the country. Yeah, I mean,
it's it's the power of of particularly middle class moms
can't be exaggerated. Like the cops and the Feds were
(47:32):
able to funk over as many people as they wanted
until they started gassing moms and the whole countries pists. Yeah,
they're like like, hey, listen, you can do that to
people of color, but those are moms. Those are white moms,
white moms that could be my mother. Yeah, you know
(47:54):
what else at the actually, you know what else? Did
your mom? That's where I thought you were going with.
You know what else is your mother? The products and
services that support this podcast. We're back. So we've so
(48:14):
we've all just agreed that Matt is very fine. That
was the discussion over the break. You made this one
into a two parter, Matt, So you audience can thank
you for two episodes about Dr Oz this week, or
they can blame you. And if they blame and blame him,
Matt's home address is we love to docs our guests.
(48:39):
So Oprah had Doctor Oz on her show fifty five
times over the course of five years. She gave him
the nickname America's Doctor, which stuck. And although I'm not
saying this in a positive sense, is unfortunately accurate. He's
definitely America's doctor, just appealing to the lowest commons denominator,
(48:59):
this stupidest human doctor. And if you look at the
health of the average American until the quality of job,
he's done eat bread. Well, actually that's the one thing
he is he's actually pretty good about. Like wait, well,
I don't know that's still debatable. Stop defending doctor I'm
(49:20):
not going to defend I just love to be fair.
You know, you know you're very fair. Look say what
you will about Hitler Will he was a vegetarian and
that's good for the environment. The man cared about animal rights.
By two thousand nine, it was clear that Doctor Oz
had more than enough star power to justify a shot
(49:41):
at his own show. Oprah's production company had little trouble
finding a buyer for what was sure to be a
blockbuster new series. Her show celebrated the launch of Doctor
Oz Show with an entire episode dedicated to Doctor Oz,
which acted as something of a coming out party for
his brand. From a press release on oprah dot co, um,
this is talking about the special Doctor Oz episode. Moving
(50:04):
personal stories and extraordinary surprises are featured throughout the hour
as doctor Oz meets viewers who share how his advice
saved their lives. From those who noticed life threatening diseases
their doctors missed to those who lost weight thanks to
his diet tips from Doctor Oz, Real people step forward
to offer their thanks to America's doctor. Plus, it's the
reunion that Dr Oz never imagined would happen, as Oprah
(50:27):
Show producers tracked down a young boy he cared for
in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the two reunite
for the first time. He's like the fucking perfect, perfect
guy for this. I mean, I love that. It's literally
sounds like an hour long special of people just thanking him,
which might be the most narcissistic thing I think I've
ever heard. Yeah, I mean, like it's one thing for
(50:49):
Oprah to do that, because I think America does legitimately.
Oh her, thanks for just years of content, you know,
but years of mostly danger is health based content. Oh yeah, No,
I mean it's awful content. But the fact is it's
it's quantity over quality in America. And uh, you know,
but an hour of just thanking Dr Oz and having
(51:11):
people come up to him like you saved me, fucking
what it's worth noting in terms of his bastardry. That
and and and kind of the acceleration from hey, maybe
energy healing works to becoming a monster. The early two
thousands of the period in which Oprah becomes aware of
a Brazilian healer named John of God who believes he
can do psychic surgery, and like, yeah, yeah, oh of
(51:36):
of the of the Brazilian of God's and on the
episode in which she introduces John of God to America,
Dr Oz comes on and gives his professional opinion that, like,
he seems like he's really having an effect on people,
and I can't explain it. I don't think medical excience
can explain what this man is doing. Basically giving a
(51:56):
real doctor's opinion that this guy has gotta be legit.
John of God later turned out to be a mass
rapist on these on a scale, hundreds of victims, on
a scale almost incomprehensible. We did a two parter on
John of God. You can listen to it. It's a
fucking nightmare. Um, this guy never gets half the following
that he has if it's not for Oprah and Dr Oz.
(52:18):
So holy shit, it's good ship, good ship. I found
a fascinating New York Times article written a few months
into Dr Oz's new show. It notes that, in transitioning
to his own series, Dr Oz had to spice up
his act for a daily day for a daily daytime audience.
Quote potentially distracted by the tantrums of a toddler or
(52:39):
the yelping of a labradoodle. They go on to summarize
his early episodes. His show tackles topics as diverse and
diversely wady a skin cancer, kitchen burns, sleep eating, and
pubic hair loss. Returning constantly to the same television mother load,
Winfrey profitably mind we be overweight guests who vow and
often fail to get in shape, and it is take
(53:00):
in its star far away from any sort of traditional
medical practice. He explains that transition as the product of frustration.
Too often. He told me he would sit in office
and be telling you stuff too little, too late, that
if you've been able to lose a little weight, or
if your diabetes had been managed more aggressively, then it
would have dramatically altered your destiny, which is now to
go downstairs and have open heart surgery. With his TV show,
(53:22):
he can exhort Americans to end all aspects, to tend
all aspects of their health head to toe before they
reach a point of no return, lose weight, go to
Brazil and get sexually assaulted by a con man. Oh boy,
you know, there's always that point. You know, I've listened
to your show, and there's always that point in the
(53:42):
episode where the comedian or the guest has no other
option but to just say fuck, that sucks, dude, there's
no other comment, but what oh that's crazy. But you know, hey,
John of God, dr Ras there, they all sound like
great people. Yeah. Yeah, and it's it's going to get worse,
(54:05):
you know, he he, This is kind of the period.
One of the things he's just to do in this
period is he starts cutting back on his surgical practice
and performing fewer surgeries. Yeah, because he's got to keep
up all those TV dates. Yeah, in order to tell
people about John of God, the mass rapist. Uh, and
in order to tell people about I don't know, some
stuff that's good, right. Telling people to eat healthier is
(54:28):
a good. America's diet sucks. His diet advice, I think
is well, we'll talk about that later. It's also problematic anyway.
He's trading objectively useful medical work for being a nonsense doctor.
But he's making millions of dollars. Yeah, And and in America,
that is the ultimate marker of doing the right thing.
(54:50):
That's the only thing that tells you whether or not,
you're doing the right thing. It makes a lot of money,
then whatever you're doing is the right thing to do. Yeah,
it's morally correct to make a lot of money. Yeah,
morally righteous, righteous wealth. Yes. You know what else is righteous,
Matt is the products and services. No, my man, it's you.
(55:14):
Because the episode is over. Part one is over, and
we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna sail out. At first,
you've got to plug your plug doubles, and I just
decided to compliment you before we were that's very nice
here here, I thought you were just trying to get
me to talk about products and services. Well, I thank
you for having me on. Um. I have a product
and or service called pod Yourself a Gun. It's a
(55:36):
Sopranos podcast and uh uh yeah, if you like the Sopranos,
or even if you don't, check it out on the
you know wherever the podcasts store is. Podcast All right, Well,
this is the show that it is, and we're done
doing the things that we do. So go out into
(55:56):
the world and I don't know, find Dr Oz and
scream at him. Give me a good screaming m m hm.
M what's lighten my dumpster? First, I'm Robert Evans hosted
Behind the Bastards. That little introduction was an honor of
my hometown, Portland, which just had a police officer murder
a man who is having a mental health crisis. And
we'll probably be lighting some dumpsters on fire tonight. Um,
(00:21):
although you won't hear it the day that this happens.
But anyway, that's all beside the point right now, because
the point right now is that I'm introducing our guest today,
the inimitable Matt Leabe. Hey, what's going on, Matt? How
are you doing? I'm doing well. I'm excited to be here.
A big fan of the pod. Uh love me some bastards?
(00:43):
And you are? You do a Sopranos podcast and the
name is it really pod yourself a gun? That's alright, gun.
That's where the world's only Sopranos podcast. Don't go looking
for any other ones, because they do not exist. Little
known TV show, the Sopranos. You might have heard of
it very obscure, a niche, a niche TV show that
only people who really like art understand. Um, And that's
(01:06):
that's why we talk about it. We talked about the art.
It's fun thinking about that because I believe the song
that introduced that show was something about waking up in
the morning and getting yourself a gun, which is what
I did this morning. You bought a gun. I did,
I did. I did buy a gun this morning. Um.
Not for sopranos like uses. Um, although I am Italian,
so you can't really know for sure. You can't really
(01:29):
know for sure. Yeah, you woke up with a blue
moon on in your eye and you decided I'm gonna
go get myself a gun and then I'm gonna commit crimes.
And the pine Barons of New Jersey, Yeah, they do
that a lot in the show, right, a lot of
Pine Baron crimes. They do it at least once and
uh and it's great, yeah that they're chasing that guy
through the yeah, yeah, the Russian Yeah, and they leave
their DNA everywhere, well they everywhere, and you know they look.
(01:55):
We Italians are not a subtle people. Know. They spend
that whole episode literally like dying of like cold and
they're lost in the woods, but they spend all the
time talking about how they're starving because they haven't eaten
in twelve hours. The most in the world. But I
want to hear about this gun. Oh it's just a gun, um.
But today we have something much more exciting than a gun.
(02:17):
We have a bastard and are bastard? Are you ready
for this? I'm so excited? Are you settling in? Yes?
Doctor Oz and I never introduced them like that. We're
talking about Dr fucking Oz today. Yes, that's right. Who's
the thought he'd be a bastard a TV doctor? Who
would have thought a TV doctor could be a bad man? No,
(02:40):
they take an oath TV doctors. They say, do no
harm and get good ratings. That's the the hippocratic oath
do they do? They also oath to be bad guest
hosts on Jeopardy because he sucked and I didn't enjoy it. Honestly,
if you are going up against LaVar Burton for any job,
your first action should be like, you know what, I'm
(03:01):
bowing out immediately. I'm not going to compete with LaVar
Burton fighting, Jordy fighting, Kunta Quinte fighting whatever the Reading
Rainbow guys name was. Yeah, yeah, No, I did not
watch him on Jeopardy, but I have seen the show
(03:22):
and had no idea he was a bastard. Yes, um,
he's a piece of ship. He's he's a different piece
of ship. We're also going to be talking in the
very near future about Dr Phil who's a much worse person.
Dr Oz is bad for some reasons that you'll suspect,
you know, the pseudoscience stuff, but also for some I
think more complicated reasons, which will we'll have us a
(03:43):
nice talk about at the end of this episode. So
I've always said that one of the great tragedies of
American public life is that our very best doctors are
usually like kind of shlubby dudes and ladies, uh maybe
aren't the best at at social graces, and certainly don't
have enough time because are wildly overworked to do TV appearances. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I agree. They're not hot. I've always said the problem
(04:08):
they're not hot. I look at them and I'm like, you, like,
we need to put a couple of billion dollars into
a national program from more funck able doctors. Come on, yes,
doctors who fuck that's the next level of healthcare in America.
It won't be universal health care, but at least doctors
will look fuckable. Now, I mean, I think the problem
is not their fun ability, because it's inherently hot to
(04:28):
be a doctor. It's more the fact that they're not
necessarily even the ones who are have a good bedside manner,
are good at explaining things, just don't have the time
to spend a lot of it on television because they're
busy saving lives. This has led to a thriving industry,
well documented in this show of grifter health influencers and
scam artists selling people poison with honeyed words and practice smiles. Today, though,
(04:50):
we're talking about a different kind of medical grifter, kind
of a grifter who helps to launder those more shady grifters,
the guy people who aren't doctors, people who have no
medical training, who are just trying to sell you nonsense cures.
The guy we're talking about today exists to give them
credibility and launder them into the public consciousness. And his
name is memt Oz. Ment Oz is maybe the most
(05:10):
influential public physician in the country, possibly the world. He is,
in every professional sense of the word, an excellent doctor,
exceptional eason. Even within the bounds of what it is
he is trained to do, he may be one of
the best in the world at what he does um
and he uses his you know, the thing that makes
him a bassard is that he uses these exceptional qualifications
(05:32):
along with his charisma his handsome face to sell millions
of people on nonsense cures every single year. And that's
that's a bad thing to do. He's kind of made worst.
We'll talk with this a lot by the fact that
he is he's a he's a he's a heart surgeon,
and he's an exceptional heart surgeon. That's so sad. It's
always sad when like an amazing doctor is a piece
(05:53):
of ship. This is like how I felt when Ben
Ben Carson turned out to be a Trump guy, was like,
but you're so good the surgeons, which you talk to
doctors will be like yeah, of course. It's always surgeons. Yeah, yeah.
They're the ones who think they're God's right. They essentially
have a God complex and that they'll be really good
(06:14):
at one thing and then they'll also think that they're
good at like yes, politics and ship like that. I
think good surgeons are so prone to being also like nonsense,
like so many of our nonsense public doctors or surgeons.
For the same reason that so many of our terrorists
or engineers. They're people who get really good at a
specific thing, and it lets them convince themselves that they
know what they're talking about in a wider variety of
(06:36):
things than they really do. That's great, it's it just
makes me glad that I never, you know, got really
proficient in anyone's skill. Never gain skills, I never ever
learn how to do things. You'll become too smart for
yourself and think that you are God. If no one
learned to do anything, we would still be living in
the mud and eating grubs. And you know what, we
(06:56):
wouldn't have salesman oh, or that we would have very
little at all mimits sang his Oz was born on
June eleven, nineteen sixty two, parents Suna and Mustafa Oz,
who must have fucked at some point in October of
nineteen in order to conceive him. We have to assume
(07:16):
his parents fucked in the October. That, yeah, he could
be immaculate conception. You know, possible, I would say right now.
The most likely theory is that they fucked sometime in October.
All his father, Mustafa had been born in Boscre, a
village in southern Turkey. He had grown up poor in
the countryside during the Great Depression. Uh. And obviously, you know,
(07:38):
Great Depression, bad time everywhere, real bad time. If you're
like in rural Turkey, you know, um, you're you're dealing
with a different kind of poverty than even like our
grandparents dealt with here. Um. So he had to work
himself to the bone in order to make something of himself,
in order to get into medical school and distinguish himself
enough that he was able to earn scholarships which allowed
(08:00):
him to immigrate to the United States as a medical
resident in nineteen fifty five. So this is a this
is a hard working man, um, and a man who
has to struggle, I'm mean to guess in ways that
that are kind of difficult to imagine for most p
even as difficult as our present times are. He's like
a true lift yourself up by your bootraps kind of guy. Yeah. Yeah,
(08:20):
came from the middle of like nowhere, rural Turkey and
worked himself into becoming a good enough doctor that he
got you know, he was able to get over the
racism of the fucking nineteen fifties immigration system. You know,
that's that's an achievement. Yeah, good for him. Started from
the bottom and now he's on TV. That's his dad. Um,
(08:44):
that's his dad. That's not yeah, yeah, that's Mustafa. So
we're talking about his dad and his mom right now.
His mom, Soona, came from a much wealthier background. I
don't know if this is what helped his dad get
into the country or not. It may have been. Her
father was a successful pharmacist in both sides of her
family came from Istanbul. She grew up with a lot
(09:05):
of money. As befits his more modest upbringing, Mustafa was
an observant traditional Muslim as soon as family was more
moderate and secular. Memit and his two sisters grew up
split between both approaches to religion. The Oz kids spent
their childhood speaking Turkish and English fluently at home, so
they grew up in a bilingual house. Mement was from
a young from a young age, ambitious, starving for success
(09:28):
and his father's approval. He was wont to note that
he was born in the year of the Rat according
to the Chinese zodiac. In one interview, he noted of
this quote, you run the maze. If you put cheese
in that maze, I swear to God I'll get to it,
and I'll get to it really fast. But should I
be running after that cheese? Am I in the right maze?
All of these questions, which people much greater than I
(09:49):
am think through I put on the back burner as
I'm running after that cheese. What the fuck? Like, that's
way too much stock into the year of what animal?
Year the rat? At least he wasn't born into the
Year of the pig. And he's like, well, you, what
you gotta do is you gotta take your snout and
put it into the trough of life and just really
got to just shut your face into food as hard
(10:11):
as you can. You roll around in the ship, and
then you hope that someday you find another piggy to
fun and then you have little piglets. I was born
in the Year of the Pig, and that's why I
disposed of bodies for the mob. It's just what you do. Well,
that's a it's a nice take on your of the rat.
For him, it is it is telling because what he's
(10:31):
saying there is like, I don't think about why I'm
doing what I'm doing. I just I just strive to
to to achieve things, and I don't think about whether
or not they're good or bad. I just I have
to achieve. Yeah, he just wants that cheese. Yeah, he
wants that cheese. It's ambition without an analysis, I think,
is what you'd call it. And he's pretty open about
(10:53):
that now. Mustafa his dad repeatedly told the growing doctor
Oz who's not yet a doctor obviously, that when he
grown up, when Mustapa had grown up, he hadn't been
able to relax for even a second on his road
to escaping poverty and establishing himself as a cardiothoracic surgeon. Um.
So he's like telling his kid as he grows up, like,
you know, like if you want to succeed, you can't
(11:13):
relax for even a second. You can't can't take a
moment off. You always gotta be hustling. Uh. And that's
how mem It grows up. He's an excellent student, but
no amount of success is ever enough for his dad.
He later recalled, I'd say I got a ninety three
on a test, He'd say, did anyone get better? That
was always the question, he asked. Sounds like a fun
guy would hang, Yeah, the school I grew up in
(11:38):
because of just where we were in North Texas. Like
about half of the kids in my school, um were
either from India or from China or Japan. Um. And
so you had a lot of kids who would talk
that way about their parents, right, um. And some of
them had, especially around our senior year, there were a
couple of kids who had to get like taken in
by an ambulance because they would just like in one
(11:59):
case easing as a result of stress. Like Jesus good
to put this kind of pressure at a kid. Yeah,
like straight having like nervous breakdowns just from like trying
to get good grades. Once again, don't get good at anything.
It's not worth it that loop skills. Don't develop skills,
You'll get seizures. You're at risk of seizures. You're at
(12:21):
risk of your of your dad not loving you. You know,
you just gotta you no matter what. Yeah, exactly, stop
caring about your dad. You know, just toast coast some dirt,
eat some grubs. You'll be fine. Yeah, start a Sopranos podcast.
That's all you've got to do. Really really bringing it
back there. So Memitt decided to become a doctor when
(12:47):
he was just seven years old. Uh. He recalls standing
in line at an ice cream parlor. Quote. I remember
it like yesterday. There was a kid in front of
me who was tin My dad just to pass the time,
said what do you want to be when you grow up?
The kids said, I don't know, I'm ten. My father
waited until he was out of earshot and said, I
never want you to tell me that if I ask
you that question, I never want you to tell me
(13:09):
you don't know. It's okay if you change your mind,
but I never want you to not have a vision
of what you want to be. Moment, go kill that kid,
kill that kid, murder that, lose your kid, and tell
me what you want to do with your life. God damn,
that is way too much pressure. Way that's so much
pressure to put on a kid. And it seems like
(13:31):
the kids like that always end up becoming the like
going into the career that their father wanted them to do,
and then eventually their dad dies and then they're like,
oh fuck, I didn't get to do what I wanted
to do with my life and now I'm miserable. Yeah, yeah,
it's it's it's a real bummer. Um. It's not just
don't put pressure on people. There's plenty of grubs. By
(13:53):
the time Moment was ready to start school, his father
was wealthy enough to pay to send his son to
Tower Hill School, a K through twelfth grade private college
preparatory school in Wilmington, Delaware. Jesus, that sounds horrible. I know,
it sounds like a fucking nightmare. Fancy boy uniforms ties. Yeah,
(14:13):
probably like during the summer. Yeah, the fancy boy prep
school worked well enough that Memitt was accepted to Harvard,
where he played football and water polo. His grades were,
as always exceptional. One of his roommates later recalled, he
was very competitive. There was never any question that he
wasn't going to be a doctor. He wanted to be
(14:34):
a fantastic surgeon. So people around him, like, everyone kind
of recognizes this kid is brilliant. Everyone recognizes he's got
the drive he's going to achieve, you know, so good
for him. I mean, it's just like I just look
back now at my own childhood and I'm like, God
damn it. If I can think of one friend where
where I knew what they wanted to do for a career,
(14:56):
I don't think we ever talked about like, what's your
career gonna be? No one was like I'm a doctor,
you know. It was it was mostly just like, uh,
you know, how's how's your hip hop album working out?
And they're like good and they're like cool, and that
was the whole thing. That's interesting. I think it was
different from me because there was definitely a lot of
pressure to have something. You know, I went to a
(15:16):
public school. Um, I didn't go to a private school,
but I went to a public school in my early
schooling years. Was in a dirt, poor farming town called Idebelle, Oklahoma.
And the school was as good as it could be
in a place like that, Like they paddled us and
stuff like. It was not not a high end educational
but once I'll do in a in a public school.
Yeah yeah, damn. They still did that in Oklahoma back
(15:38):
in them days. Yeah you got to sign the paddle
afterwards too. But when I was in on a third
grade or so, UM, I moved to planoh which is
a a fairly wealthy suburb of Dallas, and the schools,
the public schools are very good and there's a lot
of drive to achieve. Like I said, a lot of
like kids who were really motivated by their parents to
(16:00):
achieve um, and so you either were kind of planning
to be a doctor or you know, something on that level,
or you were planning to join the military. Because it
was Texas and I was in r OTC, So me
and all my friends, I think we all kind of
assumed we're all going to join the army, you know, yeah, yeah.
I went to yeah, public school, you know, my entire life,
(16:20):
and I think most of my friends either wanted to
they were either going to go into the army or
they were um or they wanted to be famous musicians
and or athletes. So I see, my brother is a
doctor and knew he was going to be a doctor
from that. He's my older brother too, from the time
that he was like seven, so like, and I'm like,
(16:41):
la la la, no idea. I'm just saying, like a
level of ambition at a very very young age has
always been a turn off for me when it comes
to like friends, because it's just, uh, they always have
that like sense where they're trying to get there. You're
you're some sort of stepping stone into their what ever
their career path is, and I don't like it. So
(17:03):
Oz took only one break during his relentless progress through
medical school. Uh, and that break was to do a
compulsory I think it was a one year term of
service in the Turkish Army in order to maintain his
dual citizenship. Um. Other than that straight onto like becoming
a doctor, that's the only kind of break. He So,
I guess that's his gap year is being in the
Turkish Army. I'm just gonna take a break, have a
(17:26):
gap year and joined the military of a foreign country
that helps suppress you know, Kurdish liberatory movements and stuff. Whenever. Yeah,
they got to stop trying to have their own thing. Yeah.
He got a four year degree in biology and then
transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where he doubled up
working on both an m D and an m b A.
(17:47):
He succeeded in earning both. So that's interesting to me.
He gets both. He gets at the same time as
he's getting his m d. He also gets a business degree. Yeah,
this is a very Uh, there's a lot of foreshadowing going. Yeah,
there's a foreshadow He earned both obviously with flying colors.
He's an incredibly intelligent man, right, this isn't just a
guy like we'll talk about Dr Phil later. Dr Phil
(18:08):
I don't think is very smart. He's incredibly good at
reading and manipulating people. He's not particularly a genius. Mem
at Oz is a genius like I think almost certainly
is an actual genius. In nineteen eighty five, at age
twenty five, he married Lisa Limole, who was the daughter
of a cardiothoracic surgeon who worked with his father. They
met at like a party or something. This relationship gradually
(18:30):
opened him up to alternative medicine and Eastern mysticism because
Lisa's mom was hardcore into homeopathy, meditation, and other New
Age stuff. We'll talk about that more in a little bit.
For the next decade and change, Dr Oz's career zoomed forward.
He became triple board certified, which I don't know what
that means, but it sounds impressive. It's at least three boards.
It's at least three boards. That's I got zero boards
(18:54):
under my bottom one, not a single board between the
three of us. So we really should find a board
just to get us some certifications, guys, just to get certified.
If you're a board, if you're a medical board board
out there, well, you know what. The state of New
Jersey has certified me as a reverend doctor, so I'm
one board certify. There is there a board in the
(19:16):
Universal Life Church because I am a ministers last Jedi night,
I'm gonna say that counts all right, I'm board stified.
Can you get me painkillers? But you know, I know
a guy that sounds legal enough. So he starts working
as a heart surgeon um and he's very good at
(19:37):
being a heart surgeon. And he's not just good at
the heart surgery part, he's good at the science part.
Over time, he authors hundreds of peer reviewed articles and
he's awarded eleven patents. One of them is for a
solution to preserve transplanted organs. Another is for an aortic
valve that can be implanted without open heart surgery. Like
he's he's not just really good at the mechanics of surgery,
(19:59):
he's an ex lent scientist. Yeah, Levin Pattents is pretty good. Seriously,
one might say he's the Wizard of Oz. There. I
think I read like six articles with variations of that
title on the guard. Alright, well I gotta go. Then
it's just a fig. Journalists can't fucking help themselves. Anybody
(20:22):
you see Oz and you're like, I got a callum
a wizard, not a call um a wizard. Dr Oz
was hired by Columbia Medical School UH as a teacher,
and as you know, he's also working. They've been a hospital.
He's working there, but he's also teaching, and he very
quickly rises to the level of full professor and becomes
the vice chair of the cardio of the heart surgery department.
(20:43):
Basically at this point, he's in his thirties. Oh man. Yeah,
Like everything I've read right now on its own would
be a career trajectory. Any doctor in medicine would envy.
Like you could die happy with that being your fucking resume.
Like that's a hell of an achievement. Um. Yeah. In nine,
(21:04):
a New York Times profile referred to doctor Oz as quote,
probably the most accomplished thirty five year old cardiothoracic surgeon
in the country. He might be the best at what
he does in the entire United States at this point.
I mean, I don't know how to measure that, but
he's he's very good. I mean I don't know any
other heart surgeons by names, so fuck, I mean he's
(21:26):
the guy. Yeah. Now, the article that I found that
quote in however, gives some hints about what was to come,
because that article was about doctor Oz's increasing experimentation with
alternative medicine. It opens with the story of one of
his patients, a forty nine year old diabetic smoker who
suffered a critical heart attack. She went under Memets knife
for a dangerous surgery. Quote at the invitation of Oz
(21:50):
and his patient, there were two other people on hand
in surgical gowns and masks, a second year medical student
named Sally Smith stationed at the patient's feet, and a
fifty two year old healer named Julie Motts, who was
standing at the patient's head. As volunteers in Oz's cardiac
Complimentary Care center, they worked for free through the operation,
seldom moving except to reposition their hands as Oz requested
(22:11):
suitures and clamps and units of light a cane. Mots
called softly to Smith to move her hands from the
small toe of the patient's right foot to a point
on the soul known as the bubbling spring. What they
were doing, no one else in the operating room knew
how to do, or had ever seen done during a
coronary bypass, or had ever thought worth doing. Even as
an experiment in this ultimate theater of scientific medicine. The
(22:32):
women were using their hands as kings once did dis
treat subjects with scrupula, and as Jesus is said to
have done, and as shamans and mothers and Chinese quigong
practitioners still do. They were using their hands to run
a kind of energy which science cannot prove exists into
the patient's kidney meridian, which also may or may not exist.
The kidney meridian. Yeah, you gotta get that meridians. That's
(22:54):
the best part of the kid the meridian. That's the
most delicious part of the kidneys. Man with fucking on
a ritz cracker slice, then I love me a little
little You just want to get You want to get
like some duck fat or some butter, and you want
to get it sizzling in the pan, and you just
slap that meridian on for like a half a second
and it's good to go. That's all you fucking which
(23:15):
just a little bit of a little bit of char
you know. I mean, this all feels like he's gonna
start turning his patients into far gra and very excited
for what's to come. This heel turned that he's gonna take. So, yeah,
that's that's that's silly. I I think that's silly. Um.
But out at the other hand, like it's in a hospital.
(23:38):
These people are clearly following sanitation guidelines. They're not getting paid,
the patient's not getting charged extra, So I don't have
a problem with that. And that's the smartest doctor in
the world. It's like one of those things where you're like,
I feel like this is wrong, but I don't know
enough to dispute it. So I'm with my kidney meridian.
I'm not willing to morally condemn him for that, even
(24:00):
though I think it's silly, just because like, yeah, yeah,
what's the fucking harm and seeing you know, and in
that case, if you're actually doing it in a medical context,
you you're guaranteeing everybody's taking proper sanitation procedures, fucking whatever.
And it seems like from what I can tell, that sounded, uh,
non invasive. It's yeah, they were just doing energy work
or when they were, you know, crystals and doing fucking
(24:23):
pendulums over over him. It falls into the category of
it couldn't possibly hurt, so why not give it a shot, right,
which is We'll talk about this more later, but that's
kind of what they were going for. You know what
else can't hurt I don't know. The products and services
that support this podcast guaranteed to not harm you. In fact,
every one of the products of ours that you buy
(24:45):
extends your life by exactly forty five minutes. So you know,
spend all your money and gain immortality. We're back. We're
talking about doctor Oz, who in the mid nineties has
started some weird alternative medicine stuff. Now he's not the
(25:07):
person who starts the alternative medicine program at Columbia Presbyterian
Hospital UM, which is also like a teaching hospital whatever.
It's one of those hospitals that they have a medical
school with. You know how. You know the thing if
television has taught me accurately, all of the doctors are
fucking constantly m doctors fucking teach, That's what they doctors,
fucking they teach, that's all they do. You know, when
(25:28):
you're not teaching, you're fucking um. And Columbia Presbyterian was
among the most reputable medical establishments on planet, or it
still is as far as as I'm aware. UM, So
this alternate medicine program. There is kind of an odd thing.
It was not started at the behest of anyone at
the top of the school. Um. The whole thing came
about because in nine a retired utility executive named Richard
(25:50):
Rosenthal gave them three quarters of a million dollars as
a private grant in order to establish a center to
study alternative medicine. Just gifted money and just said magic
doct during school and they're like, okay, um. Now, Richard
had been motivated by having several close friends of his
(26:13):
get terribly sick um in such a way that doctors
told them there was nothing that could be done to
help them. And his response was to basically throw a
bunch of money into a hole to see if alternative
medicine could come up with solutions. And it's one of
those things I could make fun of, Like this is
almost exactly a week after my mom just died of
a type of cancer that when you get diagnosed with it, pancreatic,
(26:34):
there's basically nothing they can do. You know. It's even
like like she went through chemo and it did nothing.
You know, I get it. You go through something, I think, okay, well,
let's try other ship. You know. Um, so I can't
I can't even blame Richard for like it seems like
he was motivated out of grief to do this. You know,
you can't blame people for trying to try any other
(26:56):
alternative to I mean, you know, something in which there
is no cure and modern medicine, I might will blame
the snake oil salesman. I'm never going to blame someone
who's like, well, doctor said they can't cure me. So
I'm going to eat this route. You know, why not
go for it? Who gives a ship like you can't
hurt if you're definitely gonna die? Um, And it is
(27:17):
to be honest, like it is kind of within even
you could argue within kind of medical best practices because
one of the things I like, I took em T
training years ago. One of the things they tell you
is that you're not supposed to use an A E. D.
You know, like paddles to restart a heart. You're supposed
to use them on an infant, But if an infant
is in you know the state where like you use
(27:38):
them on them because they're dead. Yeah, they're dead. You
can't make dead worse, So like, why not so I
guess like, yeah, you can't. I don't know, can't make
it worse? Why not see if, if, if something happens.
I'm not against the basic idea of testing some of
this ship is what the worst thing you're going to
get out of that is a really cool TikTok video
of electrocuting a dead body. Absolutely, and then you get
(28:00):
a funkload of followers and then you start selling brain pillars.
It's a perfect plan. Uh so yeah, um, so I
can't blame the college for this. I can't blame the
guy for funding it. It's a reasonable thing. Why not,
you know what? That's kind of my attitude is why
the funk not? And that's more or less with The
Dean of Faculty of Medicine at the college said like,
(28:23):
all right, well, we're not paying for it, why not
give it a shot? That said a lot of medical
professionals were really angry about the idea. Dr Victor Herbert,
a Columbia Medical School graduate and a professor of medicine
at Mount Sinai and a board member of the National
Council Against Health Fraud, publicly lambastad. The lecturers brought in
by the program as con artists and sociopathic liars, and
(28:45):
knowing the kind of people who get into the selling
this ship business. I don't know if he's wrong about that.
A lot of these people are fucking sociopaths, you know,
he says, quote, I am nasty. I call practitioners of fraud,
practitioners of fraud. It's my feeling that the Rosenthals enter
has been promoting fraudulent alternatives is genuine um and I
get his critiques, you know, that is one of the
(29:05):
like I can say, on one hand, what's the harm,
but also maybe the harm is that people here, this
stuff is being done in a hospital, so it must
help when it doesn't, and maybe some of those people
do that not the way Dr Oz is doing it,
where we're going to do the normal medical procedure, will
have this done. Maybe some people decide I just want
to have the energy work done, and then they dropped
out of a heart attack because it doesn't replace a valve.
(29:26):
You know. I'd like to think that even at a
hospital or research facility with Western medicine, that they still
peer review and try out different you know, like alternative medicines, right,
you know, like some of them, some of them work.
Some of them work. Like there was a time when
you know, acupuncture was seen as kind of like a
(29:49):
croc and now it's like kind of just a standard
part of Western medicine. It's just you know, so yeah,
and there's a there's a lot to be said about
even acupuncture. You know, I went through a lot of
it as a kid, and it did nothing for me.
But my grandpa swore by it for his Parkinson's And
even if it was I don't know, you could say
it's like fucking uh whatever placebo, but he experienced relief.
So I don't care, like, um, I don't know. I'm
(30:12):
not going to get into like because I don't know.
I don't know all of the I know, it's one
of those things where there's a number of divergent opinions
on actual but a number of things that were initially
considered alternative medicines have been found to have medical you know, benefits.
Not that that's the norm, but it has happened in history,
you know, different kind of traditional or whatever treatments. Um
So this is very controversial, though, is the point I'm making.
(30:34):
And a number of people even picketed the college when
the Rosenthal center opened. None of this dissuaded doctor Oz
from participating in it. His explanation as to why he
embraced alternative medicine was to be quite honest, kind of brilliant.
He said that his by this point vast experience as
a real doctor had really informed him of the limits
of medical science. Specifically, he said that while he could
(30:56):
so bypass grafts and even implant a new heart into
someone's chest, he couldn't change the habits that had made
them sick in the first place, nor could he cure
the emotional issues that they were dealing with. Depression, he
pointed out, was a major risk factor in heart patient
recovery post surgery, and things like meditation. Right, that's kind
of considered woo new age. That can help with depression,
(31:18):
and that can help with healing. And he's right about that.
Bad point to make, um so he seemed to insinuate
when he was talking to The New York Times. Why
wouldn't a caring physician want to try everything possible to
improve his patients? Odds, he could point out that meditation
had shown some benefit for heart disease patients, Who was
to say that other stuff wouldn't work. Doctor Oz told
(31:39):
The New York Times that he felt ethically obliged to
experiment in new directions in medicine. The article makes it
clear that doctor Oz had not let up one bit
in the workaholic tendencies that he inherited from his father
as well. And I'm going to quote from the Times
again here, mem at Oz is one of those rare
beings who seem incapable of sloth. He's doing a heart
transplant right now, his secretary says on the phone, own,
(32:00):
And he's got a double lung transplant waiting, and those
are in addition to his two regularly scheduled open hearts.
And then at three he's supposed to fly to Boston
to deliver a lecture. So exceptional is oz is energy
that some of his colleagues use him as a benchmark
correlating their own vitality is a fraction of a full
mement unit. He runs down Lobbs Sizes tennis partner mentor
(32:20):
and department chairman Dr Eric A. Rose, who at forty four,
is one of the top hearts transplant surgeons in the world.
So I can't tell you how uh nervous I would
be going into a lung transplant procedure and then hearing
like this doctor has got to do a heart after
you and then got to fly to Boston. I'd be like,
do you think you could maybe take your time with
(32:41):
this bro? Like, could you get that? I I do.
It is a man. We'll talk about the Z in two.
We don't have enough of these guys. It's actually a
major health problem. How few people there are that can
do this. Um but it it is exhausting everything you
read about this guy's day, Like, you're just one of
those people who I think, I kind to get the feeling.
I don't want to psychoanalyze someone, but you get the feeling.
(33:03):
He can't be alone and still like he he has
to always be moving towards something. He's got his dad
in the back of his head and telling him to
murder that kid in the ice cream show, yea to
kill that he just like, I mean, I imagine that
would create a bit of a problem later in life
(33:25):
with stillness. Yeah, I feel for him a little bit
of that sum now. The article also goes into more
to tail about how dr oz Is wives family. Dr
Oz's wife's family piqued his interest in alternative medicine. His
father in law was one of the surgeons on the
first heart transplant team in Texas. He'd also been nicknamed
(33:46):
the rock Doc by Rolling Stone for playing music in
the o r to relax patients. His mother in law
had developed a special low fat diet for her husband's
cardiac patients, and this was really before it was accepted
that low fat diets would be good for patients. She
once refused surgery for her own inflamed gall bladder and
handled it instead by altering her diet. She taught her
(34:07):
son in law, Dr Oz about using arnica for store
muscles and herbal tea for stomach aches. So he gets
brought in in part by to alternative medicine, by these
people who have a real medical background and are doing
things that aren't widely accepted but also may help, you know, music.
I think there's there's some data now on how music
can help with with certain respects of the healing process.
(34:29):
Mother in law seemed to be on on the cutting
edge of that doc. I I got concerned. I thought
it was gonna like replace people's hearts with crystals and
ship and I was like, oh no, oh no, they
all die. But my God, their hearts are pretty So
this is how mem it gets introduced to the wide
world of quack cures, and it makes sense he enters
(34:50):
it through largely reasonable ways, alternative treatments that have some
positive impact on people. That's in there's extremely reasonable stuff
in the article in general, like doctor Oz points out
that in American hospitals it only recently allowed family to
stay in the hospital with a patient, while in Turkey
it was common for families to do this, and of
course having loved ones nearby can help a patient's morale,
(35:12):
which can influence how well they heal. No one I
think today would even like think to disagree with that.
It didn't used to be common Um it changed. So
he's he's in medicine during a time when a lot
of stuff that like just wasn't. That is kind of
now common sense medicine wasn't. And I think that kind
of opens his eye to like, well, maybe all this
other ship works. Yeah, maybe everything in my head is
(35:35):
correct him turning into a complete narcissist. Yeah, And the
article kind of veers right from yeah, having loved ones
in the room can can influence how well you heal
to Dr Oz's love of energy work, particularly his work
with a lady named Motts, who believed she could sense
the energy of heart transplant patients. The Times article certainly
(35:56):
does not portray this woman in a particularly positive light. Well,
she now has her surgical sea legs under her, but
the first time Mots observed open heart surgery she had
a shaky debut. She had been standing at the patient's
head outside the sterile field, periodically telling Oz what changes
she was able to sense into patient's energy. The patient
was obviously not awake, but probably had some awareness, most
(36:17):
likely smell and perhaps hearing. Open heart patients are often
fitted with headphones and provided with tapes to listen to,
including if they want, Oz's own specially recorded Supi trance
music for the bypass team. It was quite a novelty
to hear Mots report that she was registering the patient's
moods and her body various states of fear, anger, or satisfaction.
Perceived this roughness in her chest or turbulence in her stomach.
(36:38):
At one point, seeing that Mots was not looking so
good herself, Oz asked a burly assistant to take her
outside for some air. When he returned, he said, I'd
sense a change in my stomach. It's a tenseness. No,
it's a growling. No, wait a minute, I'm just hungry.
Oh my god. I swear she's like she seemed like
she is just desc having her own feelings and then
(37:02):
just ascribing them to an opening. But yeah, it's it's
one of those things. I'm not sure exactly what type
of energy work this person is doing. Um, because there's
a few different kind of categories of it. Um checking
the vibes, dude, she's checking the vibes, just making sure
you know the vibe dipstick is filled with oil. I
should note, if I'm going to be totally fair, that Rieky,
(37:24):
which has its origins in Japan, has been shown in
some early scientific studies to help diminish the symptoms of
chemotherapy and to significantly alter people's experience of physical and
emotional pain. UM. And I have some friends who swear
by it for kind of physical and emotional pain in particular. UM.
I don't know what ricky is. I've heard of it.
(37:45):
Is it like when Mr Miyagi rubs his hands together
and then he puts energy work. I guess I don't know.
It's not a kind of thing that I particularly believe in,
and I kind of think in a lot of cases
it's that you have a good relationship with the practitioner
and you trust them, and it can be, you know,
in an emotionally soothing thing which I don't know. UM,
there were early studies, scientific studies that showed that it
(38:06):
could diminish the symptoms of chemotherapy and reduce people's experience
of pain. Now, further studies were commissioned after these early studies,
which starting in the early two thousands were more negative.
A number of hospitals did, however, add Reeky practitioners to
their stable of a vitable of available providers and parts
as a result of like the work that doctor oz
(38:26):
in the Center at Columbia was doing. UM, you can
find these people in hospitals now. And it's worth noting
that a number of the positive studies about riki and
other kind similar things were conducted by the National Center
for Complementary and Alternative Medicine UM. Their work is problematic,
to say the least. And I'm gonna quote now from
an analysis of several studies conducted by this organization by
(38:50):
professor doctor edzard Ernst. Quote three studies suggested that energy
medicine had an effect, but their authors either applied statistics
and appropriately confounded the effects of energy healing by adding
unrelated interventions to the experimental condition, or failed to design
or blind equivalent placebo controls. Their results are therefore untrustworthy.
(39:11):
The two studies that were well designed failed to demonstrate
effects from energy and healing. The odds of generating a
useful result of a clinical trial of energy medicine are small. Moreover,
what impact would negative studies have. Scientists will simply say
we could have told you so, and proponents are unlikely
to change their mind. Proponents may then claim that the
negative study must have been flawed, or that energy medicine
(39:33):
cannot be investigated by the tools of science, or they
might rely on the n c C a M. That
organization I talked about funded studies that generated biased but
apparently positive results. The n c c a M S
approach encourages a self perpetuating cycle of misinterpreting research and
conducting flawed research, which inevitably generates some studies that erroneously
(39:54):
claim positive effects and give the false impression that the
efficacy of energy medicine is still scientifically resolved. Man, we
are just veering into anti back's territory, and like anti
mask territory. People who just they google stuff and then
they go this article right here says that mass act
and they can't they can't analyze, and it's from a
(40:15):
government science organization. You know, these guys like and here's
a study that's it, and it's like, well, okay, but
you actually look at scientists you don't have a vested
and often financial interest in this, and they point out
all these very obvious flaws in the study. It's worth
noting that the n c c a M was founded
in nine, three years after the New York Times article
about Dr Oz and the Alternative Medicine Center at Columbia
(40:38):
was published. Now. Dr Ross at this point was not
yet on Oprah Show, but he had been featured on
TV several times for his pioneering work with mechanical hearts,
as well as his embrace of alternative medicine. You can
draw a direct line. I don't know if we would
have it in c c a M without Dr Oz.
I don't know. You can't say that for certain um,
but he is someone who before his embrace of alternative
(41:00):
medicine starts to be well known as an exceptional doctor
and scientist. He embraces this stuff. Columbia starts studying this stuff,
and even though everything they find is pretty inconclusive, um,
the fact that it's in an actual hospital lends it legitimacy.
This organization is started in order to test this stuff.
The organization is filled with people who already believe in it,
(41:21):
carrying out tests that are flawed. Um. And it it
helps prepare this culture believing too much in this stuff.
My god, it's just like it's a real life Facebook group,
you know. It's just like everyone already believes in all
the stuff and they just keep like just co signing
each other's bullshit. And it's one of those things like
I again, I know people who swear by Riki, who
(41:42):
gain you know, emotional benefits from it, um, who think
it helps with you know a number of things, um,
including like physical including emotional pain, and like if you
find something that helps you alleviate your emotional pair, more
power to you know. You're gonna hear me it, you know,
go with God. That's that. That's all great, But uh,
(42:03):
I mean, if you want to relieve pain, yeah, try
some morphine though, dog, because that'sh it, oh mark morphine.
There's no downsides to morphine that. I can't think of
one downside to morphine. It's not a single one. Yeah,
it just feels good the whole time, and you just
need to take more. My issue is not so much
with any particular treatment, not that not not even an
(42:25):
issue that people would like. It's number one. A lot
of people will issue actual medical treatment in favor of
some of this stuff, and it's not going to I'm
trying to be as fair as I can. He's not
going to solve your blocked cardiac pathways, you know, like
it's not going to fix it. Yeah, I mean energy
(42:46):
is great, but plavix works, Wonders is a lot better.
Um and it's it's it's more to the point, even
more than that, is it. It gets us on this
this road of increasingly accepting and legitimizing things that there's
no there's not a scientific basis for, and that leads
us to ship like let's drink bleach to cure the coronavirus.
(43:10):
Like you know, it's where the road ends. I have
more of a problem with than doctors experimenting with an
energy worker during a surgery, like it's where that leads to,
and he plays a major role in legitimizing that. He's
he helps put he helps put our national foot on
the gas pedal into the post science age. Yeah, it's
(43:32):
a slippery slope to that, you know, downing that brain
octane oil. Exactly, exactly. Um so yeah. At this point,
though we're talking still in the mid nineties, everything doctor
Oz is saying is reasonable from a certain point of view.
He's not claiming that rinky's gonna cure cancer. He's not
even claiming it's gonna cure your heart disease. He's saying
(43:52):
it could help with recovery, and a lot of recovery
is mental, and he's not you know, it's possible, He's right,
you know, he's not a bastard. It's certainly not impossible
for this kind of stuff to have a mental impact
which can positively affect recovery. Okay, um, so yeah, he's
not a bastard. At this point, nearly all of his
alternative medical claims were things that you could argue were
(44:14):
at least to some extent reasonable based on the way
he framed them. And he was most importantly regardless of
whatever kind of woo woo stuff. He got into an
exceptionally gifted medical perfecture professional who was performing something like
two fifty heart surgeries a year. You know, that's two
hud lives a year extended. That's that's great. He's not
a bastard yet. And yeah, he's doing great work so
(44:35):
far despite the heart but fine, a little bit of energy,
a little bit of heart surgery, it works out. And
the thing though, that is I think is happening during
this period. And I don't know how conscious a choice
this is by Dr Oz. I think it is because
of the fact that he gets an MBA as well,
and the fact that he's very good at getting pressed,
(44:57):
very good at getting on TV, at getting in the news.
I think he is at this point crafting his career
to make himself into an ideal candidate for famous TV doctor.
I think he is building a background that will allow
him to establish his celebrity career later. Um. It is
not hard to see how a handsome doctor with TV experience,
a New York Times profile talking about alternative medicine, and
(45:19):
a seriously impressive resume was going to wind up eventually
on Oprah. Winfrey's radar. He almost built himself perfectly for
that to happen. And he he tried in the early
two thousand's, he tried with his wife to start a
TV show. They like filmed a pilot episode. It didn't
really take off. Um, but he he succeeds and I
and I think he's pushing and his wife is pushing
(45:41):
him to to get in. She's very much his business
partner to develop himself into a media personality, and he
eventually succeeds. In two thousand four, uh in getting invited
to Oprah Winfrey's show Now Memit immediately endeared himself to
Winfrey's audience with his willingness to discuss frank health details
in a way that was demystifying and humorous. He most
(46:03):
famously explained that healthy poops tended to be shaped like
an S and should hit the water like an Olympic
diver with very little splash. Over herself later recalled when
he made it okay to talk about the shape of
a good poop, I knew he could talk about anything.
He always found ways to make the human body endlessly fascinating. Man.
That is uh, I mean, I'm I'm low Key impressed
(46:25):
that he impressed Oprah with do do Shapes. It's it's moms,
don't you know. Moms love poop, I love talking. And
that's what like Oz does exactly the right things to
endear himself to like millions of middle class moms, which
is the best markets, an incredible market. You can make
(46:47):
all of the money if you can get a few
million middle class moms to love you. I worked at
this this digital uh what do you call it, like
a digital production company, and the most famous person that
we dealt with was a famous Facebook mom who had
millions of followers, and I would watch her stuff and
I was like, this is, you know, maybe the most
(47:09):
awful ship I've ever seen. It's just a you know,
lady in a car yelling at people about kids and uh,
but the she was a famous mom. I mean, if
you can become a famous mom, you will be one
of the most famous people in the country. Yeah, I mean,
it's it's the power of of particularly middle class moms
can't be exaggerated. Like the cops and the Feds were
(47:32):
able to funk over as many people as they wanted
until they started gassing moms and the whole countries pists. Yeah,
they're like like, hey, listen, you can do that to
people of color, but those are moms. Those are white moms,
white moms that could be my mother. Yeah, you know
(47:54):
what else at the actually, you know what else? Did
your mom? That's where I thought you were going with.
You know what else is your mother? The products and
services that support this podcast. We're back. So we've so
(48:14):
we've all just agreed that Matt is very fine. That
was the discussion over the break. You made this one
into a two parter, Matt, So you audience can thank
you for two episodes about Dr Oz this week, or
they can blame you. And if they blame and blame him,
Matt's home address is we love to docs our guests.
(48:39):
So Oprah had Doctor Oz on her show fifty five
times over the course of five years. She gave him
the nickname America's Doctor, which stuck. And although I'm not
saying this in a positive sense, is unfortunately accurate. He's
definitely America's doctor, just appealing to the lowest commons denominator,
(48:59):
this stupidest human doctor. And if you look at the
health of the average American until the quality of job,
he's done eat bread. Well, actually that's the one thing
he is he's actually pretty good about. Like wait, well,
I don't know that's still debatable. Stop defending doctor I'm
(49:20):
not going to defend I just love to be fair.
You know, you know you're very fair. Look say what
you will about Hitler Will he was a vegetarian and
that's good for the environment. The man cared about animal rights.
By two thousand nine, it was clear that Doctor Oz
had more than enough star power to justify a shot
(49:41):
at his own show. Oprah's production company had little trouble
finding a buyer for what was sure to be a
blockbuster new series. Her show celebrated the launch of Doctor
Oz Show with an entire episode dedicated to Doctor Oz,
which acted as something of a coming out party for
his brand. From a press release on oprah dot co, um,
this is talking about the special Doctor Oz episode. Moving
(50:04):
personal stories and extraordinary surprises are featured throughout the hour
as doctor Oz meets viewers who share how his advice
saved their lives. From those who noticed life threatening diseases
their doctors missed to those who lost weight thanks to
his diet tips from Doctor Oz, Real people step forward
to offer their thanks to America's doctor. Plus, it's the
reunion that Dr Oz never imagined would happen, as Oprah
(50:27):
Show producers tracked down a young boy he cared for
in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the two reunite
for the first time. He's like the fucking perfect, perfect
guy for this. I mean, I love that. It's literally
sounds like an hour long special of people just thanking him,
which might be the most narcissistic thing I think I've
ever heard. Yeah, I mean, like it's one thing for
(50:49):
Oprah to do that, because I think America does legitimately.
Oh her, thanks for just years of content, you know,
but years of mostly danger is health based content. Oh yeah, No,
I mean it's awful content. But the fact is it's
it's quantity over quality in America. And uh, you know,
but an hour of just thanking Dr Oz and having
(51:11):
people come up to him like you saved me, fucking
what it's worth noting in terms of his bastardry. That
and and and kind of the acceleration from hey, maybe
energy healing works to becoming a monster. The early two
thousands of the period in which Oprah becomes aware of
a Brazilian healer named John of God who believes he
can do psychic surgery, and like, yeah, yeah, oh of
(51:36):
of the of the Brazilian of God's and on the
episode in which she introduces John of God to America,
Dr Oz comes on and gives his professional opinion that, like,
he seems like he's really having an effect on people,
and I can't explain it. I don't think medical excience
can explain what this man is doing. Basically giving a
(51:56):
real doctor's opinion that this guy has gotta be legit.
John of God later turned out to be a mass
rapist on these on a scale, hundreds of victims, on
a scale almost incomprehensible. We did a two parter on
John of God. You can listen to it. It's a
fucking nightmare. Um, this guy never gets half the following
that he has if it's not for Oprah and Dr Oz.
(52:18):
So holy shit, it's good ship, good ship. I found
a fascinating New York Times article written a few months
into Dr Oz's new show. It notes that, in transitioning
to his own series, Dr Oz had to spice up
his act for a daily day for a daily daytime audience.
Quote potentially distracted by the tantrums of a toddler or
(52:39):
the yelping of a labradoodle. They go on to summarize
his early episodes. His show tackles topics as diverse and
diversely wady a skin cancer, kitchen burns, sleep eating, and
pubic hair loss. Returning constantly to the same television mother load,
Winfrey profitably mind we be overweight guests who vow and
often fail to get in shape, and it is take
(53:00):
in its star far away from any sort of traditional
medical practice. He explains that transition as the product of frustration.
Too often. He told me he would sit in office
and be telling you stuff too little, too late, that
if you've been able to lose a little weight, or
if your diabetes had been managed more aggressively, then it
would have dramatically altered your destiny, which is now to
go downstairs and have open heart surgery. With his TV show,
(53:22):
he can exhort Americans to end all aspects, to tend
all aspects of their health head to toe before they
reach a point of no return, lose weight, go to
Brazil and get sexually assaulted by a con man. Oh boy,
you know, there's always that point. You know, I've listened
to your show, and there's always that point in the
(53:42):
episode where the comedian or the guest has no other
option but to just say fuck, that sucks, dude, there's
no other comment, but what oh that's crazy. But you know, hey,
John of God, dr Ras there, they all sound like
great people. Yeah. Yeah, and it's it's going to get worse,
(54:05):
you know, he he, This is kind of the period.
One of the things he's just to do in this
period is he starts cutting back on his surgical practice
and performing fewer surgeries. Yeah, because he's got to keep
up all those TV dates. Yeah, in order to tell
people about John of God, the mass rapist. Uh, and
in order to tell people about I don't know, some
stuff that's good, right. Telling people to eat healthier is
(54:28):
a good. America's diet sucks. His diet advice, I think
is well, we'll talk about that later. It's also problematic anyway.
He's trading objectively useful medical work for being a nonsense doctor.
But he's making millions of dollars. Yeah, And and in America,
that is the ultimate marker of doing the right thing.
(54:50):
That's the only thing that tells you whether or not,
you're doing the right thing. It makes a lot of money,
then whatever you're doing is the right thing to do. Yeah,
it's morally correct to make a lot of money. Yeah,
morally righteous, righteous wealth. Yes. You know what else is righteous,
Matt is the products and services. No, my man, it's you.
(55:14):
Because the episode is over. Part one is over, and
we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna sail out. At first,
you've got to plug your plug doubles, and I just
decided to compliment you before we were that's very nice
here here, I thought you were just trying to get
me to talk about products and services. Well, I thank
you for having me on. Um. I have a product
and or service called pod Yourself a Gun. It's a
(55:36):
Sopranos podcast and uh uh yeah, if you like the Sopranos,
or even if you don't, check it out on the
you know wherever the podcasts store is. Podcast All right, Well,
this is the show that it is, and we're done
doing the things that we do. So go out into
(55:56):
the world and I don't know, find Dr Oz and
scream at him. Give me a good screaming m m hm.
Behind the Bastards News
Host
Robert Evans
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