November 27, 2025 • 23 mins
Happy Thanksgiving! Today we’re bringing you a special Best Of episode featuring some of our favorite segments from the past year. Hours 1 through 4 revisit the moments, conversations, and stories that had everyone talking. Enjoy the holiday, enjoy the highlights, and we’ll be back with fresh episodes soon.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to KFI
AM six forty, the Gary and Shannon Show on demand
on the iHeartRadio app. There is an article in the
New York Times and the headline is this, more teens
are taking anti depressants. Could it disrupt their sex lives
for years?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Not? Could it? It could?
Speaker 3 (00:21):
It's the headline. This was an awfully sad article. To
make my way through. There is a dysfunction labeled PSSD
post SSRI sexual dysfunction, a loss of sexuality that persists
after someone is off of their SSRIs, these selective serotonin
(00:46):
reuptake inhibitors. That's a very common class of drug that's
used for things like depression and anxiety, and especially lately,
it's been more commonly prescribed to very young children. I'm
as young as eleven at least as the example of
this art.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Well, yeah, okay, so we'll get into that some of
those examples. Marie is one of the girls who is highlighted.
She began taking the generic form of prozac when she
was fifteen. It's one of these SSRIs, and she says
I was in touch with initial sparks of sexual energy.
Relatively young She remembers crushes going back to the age
of seven. Shortly before starting on the drug, she was
(01:29):
dazzled from a distance by a hockey player at school.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Tall, funny, charismatic.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Again, she's fifteen, and she remembers the feeling of the
butterflies and the tummy, the whole bit. But when she
went on the medication, she felt the infatuation vanished quickly,
and then she said, she realized, I'm not even developing
new crushes now. She had no idea that this drug
may be in correlation with the how she was feeling,
or the changes and how she was feeling, But.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
She does know she was never informed about the sexual
side effects.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
She was never told what may happen is you lose
interest in the opposite sex or whatever sex you're into.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Another example, a kid at the age of nineteen just
really quick Marie.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
By the way, he's thirty eight now and she's been
off psychiatric medication for more than six years. Still no
sexual desire. She says, it's an empty dark space, There's
nothing there.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Nineteen year old Kale Boy was stressed out about moving
out of his family home starting college. He was prescribed
ssriyes and SNR eyes, which are norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors and
sexual dysfunction, he said, came with the pills. I'm going
to read specifically because these are descriptions I've never heard before.
(02:49):
Precarious erections and if he could actually reach them, orgasms
that felt like pleasureless abstractions. He's twenty three now, he's
been off the medications for a year, year and a
half and what has what disappeared has not returned, and
he's asking himself, now, what if I have this for
the rest of my life? He's twenty three.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
So we have talked about schizophrenia before and about how
people that are prescribed medications to handle that disorder and
disorders like it, don't like taking them. Don't like taking
the pills that make them normal, because then they don't
feel alive. Right, One could argue that the highs and
(03:34):
lows of life are what make you feel quote unquote alive. Right,
you take away the highs and lows, you take away
the ceiling and the basement, which causes you know, the
swings of mania and depression and all the things, and
you've just got that baseline, which is fine.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
But if you're used to.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Operating on the highs and lows, and you just got
that baseline. I can see where you wouldn't be sexually.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Interested well, and there may be I mean, that's the
kind of the emotional aspect of it, right, You're just
kind of your life is just mid.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
But is how much of your sex drive is tied
to your emotions for women?
Speaker 3 (04:19):
It's everything right, And the chemical aspect of it, I mean,
there are hormones that when you're seventeen are absolutely raging
through your body. Does this if you're on these early enough,
or like I mean this kid is nineteen th break.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
It, does it destroy it? I mean, it stops.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
It's There's actually an incredibly disturbing study that comes up
in this article that we'll talk about next that explains
the difference between I mean, there are reasons why, specifically
with a man, but there are reasons why you can't
get erections for whatever reason, physical trauma, other chemical problems
(04:58):
that have gone on either in your body or at birth,
you know, some genetic issue that's going on. But this specifically,
this class of drugs, this SSRI class of drugs, does
something physiologically to the tissue of your organ that destroys it. Wow,
it can, all right, I should say it can.
Speaker 5 (05:21):
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on Demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
We're talking about this study that needs to be done
on whether or not antidepressant drugs in teenagers are suppressing
their sexual development and in some cases destroying it completely
to the point where it never comes back.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Prescriptions for the drugs have soared in this age group.
Around two million twelve to seventeen year olds in this
country are on SSRIs.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
A couple things about this, There have been no really
reliable stuff.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
Go ahead.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
I was just going to say that that has climbed
sixty nine percent since twenty sixteen.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
It's terrifying. It should be terrifying to people, to parents.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
That's less than ten years and it's up seventy percent
that these things are being handed out.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Yeah. Yeah, and something like one in one in eight
people have at some point taken these antidepressant anxiety medications.
Reliable data about this kind of impact on sexual function,
a sexual desire, et cetera has never been done because, well,
(06:35):
for a couple reasons, but biggest issue is that pharmaceutical
companies are the ones that fund the research on this,
and they are not in any rush or financial interest
in finding out how well or how poorly patients do
down the line. They're taking the immediate impact. This is
similar to what we've said about GLP ones. Yeah, they work,
(06:57):
and they can get you to lose weight quickly and
that can reduce a lot of the other problems that
you may be having. But long term down the road,
what kind of an impact is this going to have
on your body?
Speaker 4 (07:08):
Now?
Speaker 3 (07:09):
One study that was done by doctor Irwin Goldstein University
of California, San Diego. He says he sees about seventy
new patients each year for a rectile dysfunction and one
of the big things that he did.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
One point was he.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Tried to figure out what's going on when it comes
to men who are impotent, and he talked, We're not
talking about sixty five year olds, I'm talking about sixteen
year olds. He took one group who traced their impotence
to taking an SSRI. The one group ranged in age
from sixteen to forty three. They had been off the medicine,
(07:47):
and then there were two comparison groups. One of them
had physical trauma like a motocross accident, bike seat injury
kicked in the crotch, and the other group was made
up of men over fifty diagnosed with things like diabetes,
cardiovascular disease, high cholesterol, etc. In that first group, again
this is the younger people who had been on SSRIs.
(08:10):
He did an ultrasound of the tissue in the penis.
It was black, indicating XS collagen pervasive scarring in there.
And again these are not injuries, these are results of
these young men apparently on the SSRIs.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
It's not just penises.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
There was one parent named Ruth in one of these
studies that reported that a couple decades ago, her daughter
was prescribed Zoloft, also an SSRI.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
She was eleven.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
She was prescribed by a psychiatrist after a humiliating incident
at school after feeling out of sorts and anxious, just
pulling the car over. Briefly, what eleven year old female
doesn't have a bad day at school that leaves them
feeling out of sorts and anxious.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
That's peak time.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
It's awful for everybody, and the psychiatrist prescribes her Zoloft. Anyway,
Mom Ruth says, I guess I thought it was a
good thing. She spoke of her niavete at the time,
her blind trust in the doctor. Her daughter wound up
staying on the drug for a decade, and over the
past few years only Ruth has learned from her daughter
(09:21):
about the sexual side effects. She still lives with her
Horogenous zones don't work. It's not just the effect on
the penis, it is on women as well.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
They just don't work anymore.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
So there's a couple of things to wrap this up.
There's a couple of things that doctors are struggling with.
One of them is and I think this is ridiculous.
But one of the arguments has been doctors don't want
to talk to an eleven year old or a twelve
year old or a thirteen year old about the potential
sexual side effects because a they can't they don't know
(09:58):
what that is. They don't know go going forward.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
What if they don't know what that is, then they
shouldn't be well, it's not my business.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
But then the doctors say they're walking into a minefield
if they try to discuss this with a child about
the potential future impacts. The other thing is some doctors
say this has nothing to do with the drug itself.
It has to do with the underlying condition that brings
them to a psychiatrist to ask them about you know,
why would they be prescribed anti anxiety anti depression medicine
(10:30):
in the first place. They're saying that their sexual desire
is more tied to what the problem is with the
brain than it is whatever is going on with.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Yes, medication, but how did you fix that? The damage
is done.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Whether it's in the actual Rogena's zone or it's in
your head, the damage is done.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
There is a weird thing.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Obviously, these drugs are designed to sort of blunt the
high end and the low end, right, and this as
their sexual function declines. Because it's blunting that high end,
we assume everything is going to be high end when
it comes to that sort of activity. But the pleasure
seeking declines as well. So not only are they not
(11:14):
able to experience that, they're not looking for it, they're
not looking for it and there's no drive. Some of
the quotes from these people in this article are like,
I guess it's just not part of me, right, Oh
my god, which is a weird thing for people who
have a normal drive to think about it.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
I guess I'll just deal with your mood swings. You
can just stay off that are you just come in
here and you just fly off the handle one day
and depress the next day, and I'll just.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
Deal with it.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
I bring it because I care about a lot of
highs and lows to this place.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
It's a message a lot of high My god, you
never know what you're gonna get.
Speaker 5 (11:49):
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
I being a total blind spot and cloning a pet
there did a deep dive and while fifty thousand dollars
sounds like a lot of money, not If you can
bring your pet back and then have another twelve years
with your dog, that's not that much to pay.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
I'm surprised more people aren't doing this.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
We talked about it when when Fergus was in his.
Speaker 4 (12:20):
Late late stages of what do you so?
Speaker 2 (12:22):
What do you have to do?
Speaker 4 (12:23):
I have no idea that I mean, that's as far
as we got.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
I assume they take the blood from the dog and
then you science takes care of it.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
You could basically take any part of the dog.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
They say that you pay the initial deposit about twenty
five grand, and then the remaining balance when you meet
the dog and the dog acts just like your other dog, But.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
How would you know, Like, would you know you're going,
you know, for a while, I think you're going just
for looks at that point, because yes.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Because behaviors you're not. You couldn't cloned the pet's behavior. No,
because that's what you really miss, is right.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
But if you're the one that trained the dog, if
you're if the dog always lived with you, for example,
and that and your house hasn't changed very much, and
you're your person, you are, your own personality hasn't changed.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
They're that specific dog. Probably as a propensite to become
exactly the same way as.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
That dog could definitely could.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Well, then then there's the conversation of, well, your kids
grew up in the same house with the same family, they're.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Well, they're wildly different. That's also a possibility. It's a crapshoot.
I mean that that would be a very expensive.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Like I'd love my dog Sparky to come back, but
if not, if it was look like Sparky but didn't
behave like Sparky, like.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
That would be weird, that would be sad. What's wrong
with Sparky.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Spark he's not being sparky. But I mean, you could
have say this worked. You could have the same dog
your whole life, your whole life.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
The problem being, you are then desensitized to losing that
dog because you know it's going in a few months,
that dog's coming right there.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
That sounds great.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
I'd love to be desensitized against losing a pet. It's
why I don't have any. But then you're but then
you don't have a true love. For a lot of people,
that loss of the pet is the very first time.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Knowing it's impermanent.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Yeah, it's the first time you're faced with the reality of, uh,
Sparky's not coming back, right, And it is awful. You're right,
it is. It is awful. The pain of losing a
pet is just.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
The word destroys you.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Yeah, But at the same time, the thought of losing
grandma or a cousin or a child, I mean, all
of that is also devastating and destroys you.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
And I would not put a cousin in there with no,
I'm just kidding. I love myone, specifically love my cousins.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
I hope they're not listening.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
They do, but that's I'm just surprised this isn't more mainstream,
This doesn't show up, and like.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Think it does. I think it is just one of
those things. But I don't know.
Speaker 4 (15:02):
Like the dogs, is.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
There a stigma? Do people not tell you they're doing this?
Speaker 4 (15:06):
Yeah? You spent how much to clone your dog?
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (15:09):
But like around here where everyone advertises overspending in LA,
that's true too. Why aren't we hearing about this? Why
isn't it in shows and movies of like, Oh, there's
you know, that's my neighbor. You know, she's old and
she's got a bunch of money, and she was a
Hollywood starlet. And that's her cat kitty. And that's her
seven version cat kitty.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Like, we had friends in Seattle that would get the
same kind of dog, Yeah, and I think we knew
them for three different versions of Fred Fred one, Fred
two and.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Same name three, same name.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
And because the dog looked exactly a big white, fluffy
Samoyd looked identical. There was nothing that you could tell
different from the other dogs. My two dogs, the two
dogs that I've are currently heard from that very different
same breed, but the different body shape, different coloring, much
different attitude.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
Yeah, so I don't know.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
My friend Katie Scott, I'll screw it up.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
The King Charles Charles King, Cavalier King, Charles Cavalier, Cavalier King, Charles.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Sure, I'm combination of those series.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Yeah, and and her dog died and her Wait what
second dog?
Speaker 6 (16:22):
No?
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Not the one you met when you met was the
second one?
Speaker 4 (16:24):
Okay, okay, No.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Buster was the first. Charles Barkley, Barkley is the second one.
Buster was the first.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
And Buster and Barkley to me look very similar, very similar.
They behave similar to But I haven't spent a hell
of a lot of time with Barkley, but they remind
me a lot.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Anytime you want to talk pets, you just come right
here to this show.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
I can't get a pet. I'd be devastated. Is that
why you don't have pets? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (16:49):
I can't handle your cat. Cats are different. Cats are
not the same.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
Oh wait a minute, Hold on a second. I want
everybody to mark this momentary.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
I'm not the one who's laughing at the death of chats.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
You trust me, you are.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
I'm saying they're different. They are very different. You see different.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
Your mouth.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
And Shannon will.
Speaker 5 (17:21):
Like you're listening to Gary and Shannon on Demand from
kf I A M six forty.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Huntington Beach has become California's angriest MAGA city, according to
according to who this.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Article is Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle, Let's not forget where
it came from.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
I spent quite a bit of time in Huntington Beach
and I don't get the angry vibe there.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
But what do we know.
Speaker 4 (17:52):
Joining us to talk about all of this.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
Gracie Vandermark, of course, one of the city council members
there in Huntington Beach, first of all, councilwoman. Thanks taking
time out of your day for us.
Speaker 6 (18:02):
Yeah, thank you for having me when these articles come out.
It's always nice to be approached so we can give
our side of the story as well.
Speaker 5 (18:09):
Well.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
I've always bucked at whichever city San Francisco, Huntington Beach, Chicago,
Dall whatever. It is, the idea that you would put
a political party label on any of it. Yes, you
can find places that have more Democrats than Republicans in
those city wide offices or vice versa, but that's not
(18:31):
what identifies each of these incredible cities.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
That we have.
Speaker 6 (18:36):
No of course, not Huntington Beach. We're just known of
Search City, USA. We're laid back and we just kind
of want to be left alone. We are tired of
big government and it's our right.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
To fail that way.
Speaker 6 (18:48):
Many cities are great, they just don't speak out as
loud as we do.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Yeah, I think that there's a distinction between that and
the angry distinction wanting to be free and do what
you want to do and live your life the way
you want to live it.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
It's not angry at all.
Speaker 6 (19:07):
No, we just feel suffocated by the governor who tries
to just impose his views. I mean, I don't even
know if he's ever even been to Huntington Beach. I've
invited him several times. He doesn't come out. What we're
doing is we are fighting for our residents, for our community,
and I guess that makes us seem angry, and some
of us are angry. I shorted it off in politics
(19:28):
as an angry mom. Now I'm an angry grandma. But
we just keep moving forward. We're just fighting to protect
our residents and it'd be a shame if we didn't
do so.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
There's also something ironic about the I think for people
outside of California, the image of beach bum, surfer guy,
surfer gal and they just want to be left alone.
That's not Republican or Democrat. That's not a political ideology.
They just want to be left alone to do their
own thing. And now it's being labeled, at least in
(19:59):
this art goal as that as being angry for some reason.
Speaker 6 (20:05):
You and a lot the majority of ours are for community.
They're very down the middle. They support stances and positions
from conservatives, some more liberal, but they really do just want.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
To be left alone.
Speaker 6 (20:18):
And that is why we were so upset when our
beaches were shut down during COVID. That was our only escape,
our only getaway, and that was taken from us. And
to send armed troopers onto our beach was crossing the
line that we had never seen before.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Yeah, and you know, I find you very interesting just
reading your background here for the first time that you
were a registered Democrat, and I'm wondering if you decided
to get rid of that affiliation because you felt like
you were a hit over the head by California Democratic
politics so much so that you change your affiliation to Republican.
(20:57):
And also are looking to get into sacrament with a
bid for State Assembly. Having seen things from both sides, now,
do you see yourself as more of a California Independent?
Speaker 6 (21:10):
Well, I see things from both sides. I was a Democrat,
and I felt my party abandoned me. I felt that
just because I'm Latina, they felt I should got a
certain way all the time. I don't agree one hundred
percent with the party, so I felt like I was
being attacked if I didn't do what they said. And
then when I found an appropriate content in our school curriculum,
all I did is could you change it? Please fix it.
(21:33):
Our kitchenn't be exposed to this, and then I was.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
Attacked for it.
Speaker 6 (21:36):
I just felt like you either have to walk their
fine line or they kick us out. So that's actually
what pushed me to switch parties because the Republican Party
was the one that embraced They don't agree with everything
I do or say, but they said we agree with
your right to say it. And that was really important
for me. And now that Tony Strickland left to State Assembly,
(21:58):
I'm sorry to state sent He asked me to run
for the State Assembly seat, and I just asked him,
I said, do you need me out there, he said yes.
I said, do you think I can win? He said
one hundred percent. And I said, well, then if you
need me out there, then this is what I'll do.
But most of us just want to be left alone
and we don't like government overreach. And my parents are immigrants.
They came from their countries. They immigrated here not because
(22:19):
they wanted to, but because they had to because their
government abandoned them. So I was raised with that ideal
that the government's not perfect. We're all just human. Both
parties have humans in there. We all make mistakes, don't
always be blindly loyal to a party. And at this point,
I just felt the Republican Party in line more with
my conservative values. And as a Latina, i am culturally conservative.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Because I hate that everything in line with the party,
and I feel like Democrats have gotten in trouble with that.
I mean at the highest level in terms of the
ascension of who's going to become the nominee for president?
Speaker 2 (22:54):
What have you do?
Speaker 4 (22:55):
You have to check all the walks.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
God, it's just it's suffocating.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
So Councilwoman Gracie Vandermark from Huntingson Beach, thanks for your
time again today.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (23:05):
Have a great day you too.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
There's a dangerous arrogance I think that comes with politics,
that you you automatically assume that your side is right,
and then when you write an article that suggests that
for some reason, huntingson Beach is angry because of what
would generally be considered an independent kind of value.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
You know who's coming off angry is the people who
wrote that article.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
It's a good point. You've been listening to the Gary
and Shannon Show.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
You can always hear us live on KFI AM six
forty nine am to one pm every Monday through Friday,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to KFI
AM six forty, the Gary and Shannon Show on demand
on the iHeartRadio app. There is an article in the
New York Times and the headline is this, more teens
are taking anti depressants. Could it disrupt their sex lives
for years?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Not? Could it? It could?
Speaker 3 (00:21):
It's the headline. This was an awfully sad article. To
make my way through. There is a dysfunction labeled PSSD
post SSRI sexual dysfunction, a loss of sexuality that persists
after someone is off of their SSRIs, these selective serotonin
(00:46):
reuptake inhibitors. That's a very common class of drug that's
used for things like depression and anxiety, and especially lately,
it's been more commonly prescribed to very young children. I'm
as young as eleven at least as the example of
this art.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Well, yeah, okay, so we'll get into that some of
those examples. Marie is one of the girls who is highlighted.
She began taking the generic form of prozac when she
was fifteen. It's one of these SSRIs, and she says
I was in touch with initial sparks of sexual energy.
Relatively young She remembers crushes going back to the age
of seven. Shortly before starting on the drug, she was
(01:29):
dazzled from a distance by a hockey player at school.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Tall, funny, charismatic.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Again, she's fifteen, and she remembers the feeling of the
butterflies and the tummy, the whole bit. But when she
went on the medication, she felt the infatuation vanished quickly,
and then she said, she realized, I'm not even developing
new crushes now. She had no idea that this drug
may be in correlation with the how she was feeling,
or the changes and how she was feeling, But.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
She does know she was never informed about the sexual
side effects.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
She was never told what may happen is you lose
interest in the opposite sex or whatever sex you're into.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Another example, a kid at the age of nineteen just
really quick Marie.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
By the way, he's thirty eight now and she's been
off psychiatric medication for more than six years. Still no
sexual desire. She says, it's an empty dark space, There's
nothing there.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Nineteen year old Kale Boy was stressed out about moving
out of his family home starting college. He was prescribed
ssriyes and SNR eyes, which are norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors and
sexual dysfunction, he said, came with the pills. I'm going
to read specifically because these are descriptions I've never heard before.
(02:49):
Precarious erections and if he could actually reach them, orgasms
that felt like pleasureless abstractions. He's twenty three now, he's
been off the medications for a year, year and a
half and what has what disappeared has not returned, and
he's asking himself, now, what if I have this for
the rest of my life? He's twenty three.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
So we have talked about schizophrenia before and about how
people that are prescribed medications to handle that disorder and
disorders like it, don't like taking them. Don't like taking
the pills that make them normal, because then they don't
feel alive. Right, One could argue that the highs and
(03:34):
lows of life are what make you feel quote unquote alive. Right,
you take away the highs and lows, you take away
the ceiling and the basement, which causes you know, the
swings of mania and depression and all the things, and
you've just got that baseline, which is fine.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
But if you're used to.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Operating on the highs and lows, and you just got
that baseline. I can see where you wouldn't be sexually.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Interested well, and there may be I mean, that's the
kind of the emotional aspect of it, right, You're just
kind of your life is just mid.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
But is how much of your sex drive is tied
to your emotions for women?
Speaker 3 (04:19):
It's everything right, And the chemical aspect of it, I mean,
there are hormones that when you're seventeen are absolutely raging
through your body. Does this if you're on these early enough,
or like I mean this kid is nineteen th break.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
It, does it destroy it? I mean, it stops.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
It's There's actually an incredibly disturbing study that comes up
in this article that we'll talk about next that explains
the difference between I mean, there are reasons why, specifically
with a man, but there are reasons why you can't
get erections for whatever reason, physical trauma, other chemical problems
(04:58):
that have gone on either in your body or at birth,
you know, some genetic issue that's going on. But this specifically,
this class of drugs, this SSRI class of drugs, does
something physiologically to the tissue of your organ that destroys it. Wow,
it can, all right, I should say it can.
Speaker 5 (05:21):
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on Demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
We're talking about this study that needs to be done
on whether or not antidepressant drugs in teenagers are suppressing
their sexual development and in some cases destroying it completely
to the point where it never comes back.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Prescriptions for the drugs have soared in this age group.
Around two million twelve to seventeen year olds in this
country are on SSRIs.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
A couple things about this, There have been no really
reliable stuff.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
Go ahead.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
I was just going to say that that has climbed
sixty nine percent since twenty sixteen.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
It's terrifying. It should be terrifying to people, to parents.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
That's less than ten years and it's up seventy percent
that these things are being handed out.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Yeah. Yeah, and something like one in one in eight
people have at some point taken these antidepressant anxiety medications.
Reliable data about this kind of impact on sexual function,
a sexual desire, et cetera has never been done because, well,
(06:35):
for a couple reasons, but biggest issue is that pharmaceutical
companies are the ones that fund the research on this,
and they are not in any rush or financial interest
in finding out how well or how poorly patients do
down the line. They're taking the immediate impact. This is
similar to what we've said about GLP ones. Yeah, they work,
(06:57):
and they can get you to lose weight quickly and
that can reduce a lot of the other problems that
you may be having. But long term down the road,
what kind of an impact is this going to have
on your body?
Speaker 4 (07:08):
Now?
Speaker 3 (07:09):
One study that was done by doctor Irwin Goldstein University
of California, San Diego. He says he sees about seventy
new patients each year for a rectile dysfunction and one
of the big things that he did.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
One point was he.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Tried to figure out what's going on when it comes
to men who are impotent, and he talked, We're not
talking about sixty five year olds, I'm talking about sixteen
year olds. He took one group who traced their impotence
to taking an SSRI. The one group ranged in age
from sixteen to forty three. They had been off the medicine,
(07:47):
and then there were two comparison groups. One of them
had physical trauma like a motocross accident, bike seat injury
kicked in the crotch, and the other group was made
up of men over fifty diagnosed with things like diabetes,
cardiovascular disease, high cholesterol, etc. In that first group, again
this is the younger people who had been on SSRIs.
(08:10):
He did an ultrasound of the tissue in the penis.
It was black, indicating XS collagen pervasive scarring in there.
And again these are not injuries, these are results of
these young men apparently on the SSRIs.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
It's not just penises.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
There was one parent named Ruth in one of these
studies that reported that a couple decades ago, her daughter
was prescribed Zoloft, also an SSRI.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
She was eleven.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
She was prescribed by a psychiatrist after a humiliating incident
at school after feeling out of sorts and anxious, just
pulling the car over. Briefly, what eleven year old female
doesn't have a bad day at school that leaves them
feeling out of sorts and anxious.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
That's peak time.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
It's awful for everybody, and the psychiatrist prescribes her Zoloft. Anyway,
Mom Ruth says, I guess I thought it was a
good thing. She spoke of her niavete at the time,
her blind trust in the doctor. Her daughter wound up
staying on the drug for a decade, and over the
past few years only Ruth has learned from her daughter
(09:21):
about the sexual side effects. She still lives with her
Horogenous zones don't work. It's not just the effect on
the penis, it is on women as well.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
They just don't work anymore.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
So there's a couple of things to wrap this up.
There's a couple of things that doctors are struggling with.
One of them is and I think this is ridiculous.
But one of the arguments has been doctors don't want
to talk to an eleven year old or a twelve
year old or a thirteen year old about the potential
sexual side effects because a they can't they don't know
(09:58):
what that is. They don't know go going forward.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
What if they don't know what that is, then they
shouldn't be well, it's not my business.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
But then the doctors say they're walking into a minefield
if they try to discuss this with a child about
the potential future impacts. The other thing is some doctors
say this has nothing to do with the drug itself.
It has to do with the underlying condition that brings
them to a psychiatrist to ask them about you know,
why would they be prescribed anti anxiety anti depression medicine
(10:30):
in the first place. They're saying that their sexual desire
is more tied to what the problem is with the
brain than it is whatever is going on with.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Yes, medication, but how did you fix that? The damage
is done.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Whether it's in the actual Rogena's zone or it's in
your head, the damage is done.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
There is a weird thing.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Obviously, these drugs are designed to sort of blunt the
high end and the low end, right, and this as
their sexual function declines. Because it's blunting that high end,
we assume everything is going to be high end when
it comes to that sort of activity. But the pleasure
seeking declines as well. So not only are they not
(11:14):
able to experience that, they're not looking for it, they're
not looking for it and there's no drive. Some of
the quotes from these people in this article are like,
I guess it's just not part of me, right, Oh
my god, which is a weird thing for people who
have a normal drive to think about it.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
I guess I'll just deal with your mood swings. You
can just stay off that are you just come in
here and you just fly off the handle one day
and depress the next day, and I'll just.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
Deal with it.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
I bring it because I care about a lot of
highs and lows to this place.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
It's a message a lot of high My god, you
never know what you're gonna get.
Speaker 5 (11:49):
You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
I being a total blind spot and cloning a pet
there did a deep dive and while fifty thousand dollars
sounds like a lot of money, not If you can
bring your pet back and then have another twelve years
with your dog, that's not that much to pay.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
I'm surprised more people aren't doing this.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
We talked about it when when Fergus was in his.
Speaker 4 (12:20):
Late late stages of what do you so?
Speaker 2 (12:22):
What do you have to do?
Speaker 4 (12:23):
I have no idea that I mean, that's as far
as we got.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
I assume they take the blood from the dog and
then you science takes care of it.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
You could basically take any part of the dog.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
They say that you pay the initial deposit about twenty
five grand, and then the remaining balance when you meet
the dog and the dog acts just like your other dog, But.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
How would you know, Like, would you know you're going,
you know, for a while, I think you're going just
for looks at that point, because yes.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Because behaviors you're not. You couldn't cloned the pet's behavior. No,
because that's what you really miss, is right.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
But if you're the one that trained the dog, if
you're if the dog always lived with you, for example,
and that and your house hasn't changed very much, and
you're your person, you are, your own personality hasn't changed.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
They're that specific dog. Probably as a propensite to become
exactly the same way as.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
That dog could definitely could.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Well, then then there's the conversation of, well, your kids
grew up in the same house with the same family, they're.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Well, they're wildly different. That's also a possibility. It's a crapshoot.
I mean that that would be a very expensive.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Like I'd love my dog Sparky to come back, but
if not, if it was look like Sparky but didn't
behave like Sparky, like.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
That would be weird, that would be sad. What's wrong
with Sparky.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Spark he's not being sparky. But I mean, you could
have say this worked. You could have the same dog
your whole life, your whole life.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
The problem being, you are then desensitized to losing that
dog because you know it's going in a few months,
that dog's coming right there.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
That sounds great.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
I'd love to be desensitized against losing a pet. It's
why I don't have any. But then you're but then
you don't have a true love. For a lot of people,
that loss of the pet is the very first time.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Knowing it's impermanent.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Yeah, it's the first time you're faced with the reality of, uh,
Sparky's not coming back, right, And it is awful. You're right,
it is. It is awful. The pain of losing a
pet is just.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
The word destroys you.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Yeah, But at the same time, the thought of losing
grandma or a cousin or a child, I mean, all
of that is also devastating and destroys you.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
And I would not put a cousin in there with no,
I'm just kidding. I love myone, specifically love my cousins.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
I hope they're not listening.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
They do, but that's I'm just surprised this isn't more mainstream,
This doesn't show up, and like.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Think it does. I think it is just one of
those things. But I don't know.
Speaker 4 (15:02):
Like the dogs, is.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
There a stigma? Do people not tell you they're doing this?
Speaker 4 (15:06):
Yeah? You spent how much to clone your dog?
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (15:09):
But like around here where everyone advertises overspending in LA,
that's true too. Why aren't we hearing about this? Why
isn't it in shows and movies of like, Oh, there's
you know, that's my neighbor. You know, she's old and
she's got a bunch of money, and she was a
Hollywood starlet. And that's her cat kitty. And that's her
seven version cat kitty.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Like, we had friends in Seattle that would get the
same kind of dog, Yeah, and I think we knew
them for three different versions of Fred Fred one, Fred
two and.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Same name three, same name.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
And because the dog looked exactly a big white, fluffy
Samoyd looked identical. There was nothing that you could tell
different from the other dogs. My two dogs, the two
dogs that I've are currently heard from that very different
same breed, but the different body shape, different coloring, much
different attitude.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
Yeah, so I don't know.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
My friend Katie Scott, I'll screw it up.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
The King Charles Charles King, Cavalier King, Charles Cavalier, Cavalier King, Charles.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Sure, I'm combination of those series.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Yeah, and and her dog died and her Wait what
second dog?
Speaker 6 (16:22):
No?
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Not the one you met when you met was the
second one?
Speaker 4 (16:24):
Okay, okay, No.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Buster was the first. Charles Barkley, Barkley is the second one.
Buster was the first.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
And Buster and Barkley to me look very similar, very similar.
They behave similar to But I haven't spent a hell
of a lot of time with Barkley, but they remind
me a lot.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Anytime you want to talk pets, you just come right
here to this show.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
I can't get a pet. I'd be devastated. Is that
why you don't have pets? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (16:49):
I can't handle your cat. Cats are different. Cats are
not the same.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
Oh wait a minute, Hold on a second. I want
everybody to mark this momentary.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
I'm not the one who's laughing at the death of chats.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
You trust me, you are.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
I'm saying they're different. They are very different. You see different.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
Your mouth.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
And Shannon will.
Speaker 5 (17:21):
Like you're listening to Gary and Shannon on Demand from
kf I A M six forty.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Huntington Beach has become California's angriest MAGA city, according to
according to who this.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Article is Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle, Let's not forget where
it came from.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
I spent quite a bit of time in Huntington Beach
and I don't get the angry vibe there.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
But what do we know.
Speaker 4 (17:52):
Joining us to talk about all of this.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
Gracie Vandermark, of course, one of the city council members
there in Huntington Beach, first of all, councilwoman. Thanks taking
time out of your day for us.
Speaker 6 (18:02):
Yeah, thank you for having me when these articles come out.
It's always nice to be approached so we can give
our side of the story as well.
Speaker 5 (18:09):
Well.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
I've always bucked at whichever city San Francisco, Huntington Beach, Chicago,
Dall whatever. It is, the idea that you would put
a political party label on any of it. Yes, you
can find places that have more Democrats than Republicans in
those city wide offices or vice versa, but that's not
(18:31):
what identifies each of these incredible cities.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
That we have.
Speaker 6 (18:36):
No of course, not Huntington Beach. We're just known of
Search City, USA. We're laid back and we just kind
of want to be left alone. We are tired of
big government and it's our right.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
To fail that way.
Speaker 6 (18:48):
Many cities are great, they just don't speak out as
loud as we do.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Yeah, I think that there's a distinction between that and
the angry distinction wanting to be free and do what
you want to do and live your life the way
you want to live it.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
It's not angry at all.
Speaker 6 (19:07):
No, we just feel suffocated by the governor who tries
to just impose his views. I mean, I don't even
know if he's ever even been to Huntington Beach. I've
invited him several times. He doesn't come out. What we're
doing is we are fighting for our residents, for our community,
and I guess that makes us seem angry, and some
of us are angry. I shorted it off in politics
(19:28):
as an angry mom. Now I'm an angry grandma. But
we just keep moving forward. We're just fighting to protect
our residents and it'd be a shame if we didn't
do so.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
There's also something ironic about the I think for people
outside of California, the image of beach bum, surfer guy,
surfer gal and they just want to be left alone.
That's not Republican or Democrat. That's not a political ideology.
They just want to be left alone to do their
own thing. And now it's being labeled, at least in
(19:59):
this art goal as that as being angry for some reason.
Speaker 6 (20:05):
You and a lot the majority of ours are for community.
They're very down the middle. They support stances and positions
from conservatives, some more liberal, but they really do just want.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
To be left alone.
Speaker 6 (20:18):
And that is why we were so upset when our
beaches were shut down during COVID. That was our only escape,
our only getaway, and that was taken from us. And
to send armed troopers onto our beach was crossing the
line that we had never seen before.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Yeah, and you know, I find you very interesting just
reading your background here for the first time that you
were a registered Democrat, and I'm wondering if you decided
to get rid of that affiliation because you felt like
you were a hit over the head by California Democratic
politics so much so that you change your affiliation to Republican.
(20:57):
And also are looking to get into sacrament with a
bid for State Assembly. Having seen things from both sides, now,
do you see yourself as more of a California Independent?
Speaker 6 (21:10):
Well, I see things from both sides. I was a Democrat,
and I felt my party abandoned me. I felt that
just because I'm Latina, they felt I should got a
certain way all the time. I don't agree one hundred
percent with the party, so I felt like I was
being attacked if I didn't do what they said. And
then when I found an appropriate content in our school curriculum,
all I did is could you change it? Please fix it.
(21:33):
Our kitchenn't be exposed to this, and then I was.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
Attacked for it.
Speaker 6 (21:36):
I just felt like you either have to walk their
fine line or they kick us out. So that's actually
what pushed me to switch parties because the Republican Party
was the one that embraced They don't agree with everything
I do or say, but they said we agree with
your right to say it. And that was really important
for me. And now that Tony Strickland left to State Assembly,
(21:58):
I'm sorry to state sent He asked me to run
for the State Assembly seat, and I just asked him,
I said, do you need me out there, he said yes.
I said, do you think I can win? He said
one hundred percent. And I said, well, then if you
need me out there, then this is what I'll do.
But most of us just want to be left alone
and we don't like government overreach. And my parents are immigrants.
They came from their countries. They immigrated here not because
(22:19):
they wanted to, but because they had to because their
government abandoned them. So I was raised with that ideal
that the government's not perfect. We're all just human. Both
parties have humans in there. We all make mistakes, don't
always be blindly loyal to a party. And at this point,
I just felt the Republican Party in line more with
my conservative values. And as a Latina, i am culturally conservative.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Because I hate that everything in line with the party,
and I feel like Democrats have gotten in trouble with that.
I mean at the highest level in terms of the
ascension of who's going to become the nominee for president?
Speaker 2 (22:54):
What have you do?
Speaker 4 (22:55):
You have to check all the walks.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
God, it's just it's suffocating.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
So Councilwoman Gracie Vandermark from Huntingson Beach, thanks for your
time again today.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (23:05):
Have a great day you too.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
There's a dangerous arrogance I think that comes with politics,
that you you automatically assume that your side is right,
and then when you write an article that suggests that
for some reason, huntingson Beach is angry because of what
would generally be considered an independent kind of value.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
You know who's coming off angry is the people who
wrote that article.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
It's a good point. You've been listening to the Gary
and Shannon Show.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
You can always hear us live on KFI AM six
forty nine am to one pm every Monday through Friday,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
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