June 5, 2025 • 30 mins
If you’re a dog person, only other dog people can relate to the relationships we have with our pets. To help explain it, Manny Munoz spoke with Mark Sutherland, Director and human in the film Abby’s List: A Dogumentary.
AND, roughly 10% of Americans have some sort of ‘life threatening’ food allergy. Millions of others live with other food allergies. Munoz discussed it with Dr. Sung Poblete, CEO of Food Allergy Research and Education.
AND, roughly 10% of Americans have some sort of ‘life threatening’ food allergy. Millions of others live with other food allergies. Munoz discussed it with Dr. Sung Poblete, CEO of Food Allergy Research and Education.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to iHeartRadio Communities, a public affairs special focusing on
the biggest issues in facting you this week.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Here's Many Munos.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
And welcome to another edition of Iheartradios Communities. As you heard,
I am Manny Munyo's We've all heard the cliche about movies, right,
It'll make you laugh, it'll make you cry, It's a
heartwarming story.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
You know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Well, if you're a dog person, or even if you're
not a dog lover, all of those that are can relate.
I want to tell you about a movie. It's titled
Abbey's List, a documentary. It is streaming now everywhere, and
I want to bring on Mark Sutherland. He's director and
the human in the movie Abbey's List, a Documentary. You
can also follow it on Instagram at Abby's List.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Mark. I appreciate the time, Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Thanks many. What can I say? It'll make you laugh,
it'll make you cry.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Well, even I remember when I had first seen just
the trailer alone. I knew where the movie was headed,
I knew what the movie was about, and so I
had tears in my eyes watching the trailer as I'm laughing,
as I'm crying. So it's one of those special movies.
Tell us about it first. The film again, Abby's List,
a documentary, is about your whippet, Abby and the journey
(01:20):
you decided to go on with her when you realize
that your time as her dog dad was probably pretty
soon going to be coming to an end.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Yeah, and I should mention too that, you know, I
think one of the reasons the film is working, and
you know, it was picked up by AMC Theaters for
a national release in like twenty three cities and the
rest of it, and it's going to be and it's
streaming now too. I think one of the reasons it's
working is because we didn't set out to make a film.
(01:50):
I just wanted an excuse to spend some time with
my dog because I thought that that she was probably
nearing the end of her life at fourteen, and I
lost two other whippets at thirteen, and so we started.
We went sailing, and I put a camera in front
of her, and I put her behind the wheel of
the yacht, this big, beautiful wooden sailing ship, and I
(02:13):
let her steer it. And I was pretty sure she
was enjoying herself, but I really didn't realize how much
she was enjoying until we got home and looked at
the footage, and I've never seen her so happy, And
I was just like, you know what, it gives me
chills still to think about it, Like, you know what,
we need to do more of this sort of thing.
Let's just have some fun. And I'm an old radio guy,
(02:34):
so when I think of having fun, I think of
ridiculous stuff. Like first thing we did was we drove
to Sequoia National Forest so she could tea on the
world's color trees. You know, this is the way my
warped mind thinks. But we were just going to make
some fun Facebook videos and share them with friends and
maybe do a short, you know, documentary, and then call
(02:56):
it quit. We figured it would take us three weeks
to cross the country. And what happened was we noticed
almost immediately that Abby started aging in reverse, and then
we went crazy viral to the tune of like five
million views all across the world, and we went, you know,
what's something magical is happening here, And so we just
(03:19):
kept on going and kept on doing things together, and
ultimately three weeks became three years, and we made a
film out of it.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
How did you decide on some of the places that
you were going to go on with Abby? You call
it her bucket list. You went, you went to the
Disney World and SeaWorld. You took her to Vegas. Uh,
she went to the Columbus Zoo, got to meet Jack
Hannah Tag.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Jack was her pet sitter.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
How did you come up with some of these things?
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Well, I'm pretty sure there was alcohol involved, But you know,
I sat down with a friend or two, some some
creative friends, and we, you know, we had a laugh
and had a drink or two and talked about the
fun stuff that a dog might like to do. I'm
using air quotes when I say dog, because you know,
the guise of a dog, but also kind of fun
stuff that people would like to do too. And what's
(04:13):
interesting is so we started out doing some of that
over the top stuff because the humor is in the
absurdity of it all. You can't just go to Vegas.
You had to get a three thousand dollars night sweet
and let her do room service, you know, and play
lots and all the rest of the stuff that dogs
wouldn't normally do. You have to go to Disneyland or
(04:34):
Disney World and she has to ride it's a small world,
so you can watch her face and see if she
looks like, you know, like a childhood when you're seeing
that for the first time. And so we made a
list of a couple of these sort of things, and
then we just figured it out as we went. We
found stuff that we thought we'd be entertained by, and
(04:57):
then we also found stuff that we knew she'd love.
And the funny thing was that she even loved the
ridiculous stuff that, you know, like ping on the world's
tallest tree. You could tell she knew that she was
doing something rather impressive, and you know, so it's that
sort of stuff, you know. That's how we came up
(05:21):
with the stuff and how it all came together, and
we were basically for a lot of it, we were
just flying by the seat of our pants.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
How did you manage to actually do some of the things.
You did get the celebs to be part of the
film or was it easy? Because dog lovers, those of
us that loved dogs were kind of our own community,
So you managed to get approval to do some of
these things just because of.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
That little bit of both. I knew Bill farmer. Bill's
been the voice of Goofy for Disney for the last
thirty eight years now, and I thought it would be
funny if Abby met the world's most famous dog. And
the great part about the scene with Bill is she's
(06:03):
literally meeting the most famous dog in the world and
she could care less you know her, He does the
voice and her eyes just roll, and to me, that's
just hilarious. So like in that instance, Bill said, yeah, sure,
I'll do it, and he trusted me with this bizarre
idea that might have really flopped but actually ended up
(06:25):
really good. With the Jack Hannah thing. I actually tried
to get in touch with him a couple of times
because I'd known him years ago, and I couldn't get
through his wall of people. And then I just randomly
ran into him doing voiceover at a production company in Columbus, Ohio,
and he said, how are you What have you been
up to? I'm so like, are you kidding me? I've
been trying to get in touch with you. And I
(06:46):
told him about what I'd been shooting and he said,
how can I help? And so again there are other
forces at work here. We planned stuff as well as
we could, bumped into people like I ran into Scott Simpson,
PGA pro and asked him if you'd let Abby caddy
for him on the golf course for a day. And
I didn't know him from Adam, but he said yes
(07:09):
because he loves dogs and thought it sounded fun. And
so back to what you said, there were some people
that just bought in just because they're just such fan
of dogs and this sounded a little ridiculous and a
little fun, and so they trusted me, and I'm just
so grateful that it's turned out so well.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
We're speaking with Mark Sutherland. He is the director and
the human in the movie Abbey's List, a documentary. It
is streaming everywhere right now. You can also check the
film out on Instagram at Abby's List. You've mentioned a
couple of times that you spent years in radio broadcasting.
You actually even helped launch radio Disney did. How did
(07:50):
that history, that experience help you into putting your experience
with Abby on film and telling her story.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
So when I I did local radio for years Ohio
and Orlando and and Houston Morning Radio, and I learned
local radio there, and of course I learned how to
do bits, which is really just storytelling just in a
you know, shorter segment. When I moved out to Los
(08:20):
Angeles and helped build Radio Disney, I did the afternoon
show there for the first five years of the network,
and I learned how the big machine works, you know,
the Hollywood machine, the because you know, there's a level
or two above the local stuff, and in local we
interact with it, but we don't necessarily know how it works.
And I learned better how that works. The other thing
(08:43):
was I just really learned a little more about stories.
It's like everything that you do, you're telling stories. Every
single day, you're telling stories, and so when you're in radio,
you're in the trenches and you know how to tell
a story. They maybe three minutes in lenk, maybe five minutes,
maybe thirty seconds, but every one of them has a beginning,
(09:03):
a middle, and an end, and then the challenge is
to try to figure out how that translates to an
overall story arc of the film. And so I just
sort of had to toy with that. And what I
did with the film was I shot these little segments
that were again take We drove four hours north, and
(09:23):
the challenge was to get Abby to pee on one
of the tallest trees in the world. And so we
had a beginning, we had a middle, and we knew
what we were striving for. The end was if she
actually did it. And we built this fund and this
trauma up in between, you know, the beginning and the end,
and that was a little story in itself. And so
(09:44):
I had about by the time the film was done,
I had about fifteen of those little stories. And then
I had to work the story arc, which I knew
what had happened, but you still have to figure out
a way to pressage stuff in. Like we went to Canada,
but we actually I took her to ca Hannada three
separate times, to camp on this private island three separate
(10:04):
times that summer, noticed just an unbelievable change in her
up there out in the wilderness. But for story purposes,
I melded all of that into one week for the film,
just because it was too complicated bouncing back and forth.
So there was a lot of that too. I'm probably
getting in the weeds fars the whole thing, but anyway,
(10:26):
that's part of what the whole Disney thing taught me
as well.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
So there's telling stories and stories are meant to touch
different emotions.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Right.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
You talked about some of the funny stuff in the film,
there's also some incredibly touching stuff. There's there's Abby meeting Trooper,
who was a three legged deer. There's Abby going to
SeaWorld and how all the dolphins there seemed entranced by
her just staring at her there across the glass. Just
(10:56):
briefly touch on the different emotions and those two scenes
in the movie.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Yeah, Well the dolphin scene just had us all amazed
even and in fact, when we left, we were just
praying that we'd be able to capture what we saw
and what we captured on film that would be able
to translate that in the edit, because it was so
amazing that these dolphins all ignored all the people over
there to our left, and all of them went right
(11:23):
to abbey and just stayed there for five ten minutes.
It was just it made me cry when we were
watching it, and really gave me sort of hope for
animals and for life, and you know what I mean,
for people and animals are good. And Trooper was a
We found out about this three legged deer that had
been injured when it was young, and and so it
(11:45):
had been raised by people, and so it was still tame.
So I took Abby to meet Trooper, and while we
were with Trooper, we realized that Trooper needed help because
Tripper was having troubles with the local authorities, or at
least had, and the deer in Ohio we're really, you know,
(12:08):
having some problems with the state not letting injured ones
be rehabbed, and we found out about that. And the
cool thing about that segment was not only hurt getting
able to beat this deer, but realizing that most of
these segments other people are doing something for us or
(12:29):
that sort of thing, but in this segment we were
able to give back. Abby was able to do something
for Trooper, to raise awareness for the whole Trooper thing.
So once again you just get this just an amazing
scene and a warm and fuzzy and something that the
film can do for somebody else, which gives it a
(12:50):
little bit of depth and of course makes us feel
good as human beings to be able to do that.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Going back to the fact that again those of us
that are dog lovers are our own community. If you know,
you know, if you will right, you've said, the journey
prolonged Abby's life that she started reverse aging in reverse.
The journey also did something for you. What did it
help you learn about yourself, about life, about humanity?
Speaker 3 (13:19):
Uh, simplify. You know, I'd lived out in Los Angeles
for twenty years. I'm living in Ohio now. I moved
back here to care for my mom, who had Alzheimer's,
and she actually just passed away a few months ago.
So I cared for Abby in her old age and
then cared for mom. But it taught me to simplify
(13:40):
and focus and how important friends are, and also to
get off the couch and live life now.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Not to ruin the movie, This isn't a spoiler, Abby,
Abby is no longer with us.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
How how long ago did she pass? How was that?
Speaker 1 (13:57):
And for those of us that have lived, how did
you deal with it? Especially after you know this incredible
experience that you had with her during the journey.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
It was tough, I mean, to say the least. I
think one of the reasons the film was so powerful
is because for months I was editing the film, and
she'd come to work with me every day and she'd
lay on the couch there while I was editing. So
I'd be editing, but sometimes through tears because I could
watch her really go downhill because we didn't do much,
(14:29):
you know, for the last six months of her life.
She died at almost seventeen.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
That was back in great life for any dog.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
Yeah, And we started, we started when she was fourteen
years old, and again we thought maybe she'd be around
a couple of months, and she ended up living almost
three more years, which again is just almost unheard of.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Mark Sutherland, director and the human in the movie titled
Abbey's List, a documentary.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
It is streaming everywhere right now.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Follow it on Instagram at Abby's List. Whether you're a
dog lover or not, I guarantee you this movie will
touch you.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Mark.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
I appreciate the time, thank you for doing this film
and continued success to.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
You and the movie.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Manny, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
It's amazing to think about, but roughly one in ten
Americans are living with life threatening food allergies. Doctors call
it a silent public health epidemic. Tens of millions of
others live with food allergies I imagine, which are more
of a major inconvenience or annoyance than deadly. To bring
in an expert to discuss it, doctor Sung publicly is
(15:38):
CEO of Food Allergy Research and Education.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Doctor. I appreciate you joining.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
Us, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
I know the FDA just issued some new guidance on
food allergies things like that. I want to get to
that in a moment, but let me start off with this.
Explain who FAIR is Food Allergy Research and Education and
what the organization does.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
Food Allergy Research and Education is the largest nonprofit organization
here in the United States, focusing on research, education, and advocacy.
In other words, we are curing food allergies for the
more than thirty three million Americans.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
I don't want to age myself, but when I was
growing up in the seventies and eighties, I don't think
I knew anybody who had a peanut allergy, or milk
or wheat allergy. Nobody had ever heard of gluten or
celliac disease, any of these things. How did all of
this become so prominent in our society?
Speaker 4 (16:36):
You know, it's really about eating early and eating often.
Our doctors had given some advice to parents stating that
you should avoid giving us certain foods until later in life,
(16:57):
and more than recently we've kind of reversed that and said, okay,
we should give certain food proteins now earlier during four
to six months, and introduce these proteins early and often. So,
for instance, penuts, if you introduce it during the ages
(17:21):
of four to six months, you will decrease the chance
that this infant will not develop peanut allergies. So yeah,
by eighty percent. So we've had these studies now showcasing
that if you introduced proteins early and often, you can
(17:46):
prevent these types of allergies. So we've sort of like
you know, told parents not to introduce.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Them to figure out how to solve it, I.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
Know exactly. And of course there's also the germ theory, right.
You know, back when we were growing up, we were
making mud pies. Yeah, we were producing ourselves lots of germs,
and so our immune system, you know, recognize germs and
our immune system was able to fight that.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
I almost feel like that's what this is what happens
when we try to wrap our kids in bubble wrap
to protect them, we create these problems that we don't
necessarily anticipate.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
Absolutely, and so you know, when our immune system doesn't
recognize a food protein as a food protein. Instead, it
sees it as a ford invader, and our immune system
just goes haywire and attack it as a foreign invader,
(18:53):
and you have this anaphylactic reaction. And that's what's going
on within our bodies and our immune system.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Is there a difference between a food allergy and a
food intolerance or just sensitivities.
Speaker 4 (19:07):
For example, Absolutely, because when you have an intolerance, you're not,
you know, developing the worst case scenario, a anaphylaxis, because
anaphylaxis can kill you if you do not intervene with
an epinephrine. And epinephrine now, thank goodness, doesn't only come
(19:34):
in an injection. There's also a nasal spray. And uh,
thank you for individuals that are afraid of needles like myself,
I'm happy to give an injection to anyone except for myself.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
I've known people who have had absolute nightmares and being
diagnosed with food allergies. They've gone to doctor after doctor
after doctor.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Is that a big challenge diagnosing specific food allergies? And
why do some people seem to go undiagnosed for years?
Speaker 4 (20:06):
Well, I think that is a great question. There's more
than one hundred and sixty food proteins that can cause
life threatening food allergies. So that's one hundred and sixty
proteins that you have to be tested for. It's top
nine allergiens. And I think that's really easy. But if
(20:30):
it's something very very unique, it could be challenging because
you have to confirm it with an oral food challenge,
meaning you have to test for that exact protein food
protein and you have to test it meaning you have
(20:51):
to have an oral food challenge that leads to anaphylaxis.
The misconception is that food allergy is a diet, or
it's a preference, or it is a choice. But we
all know that food allergy is a disease. It's a
(21:11):
disease of the immune system.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
We're speaking doctor, some publicly CEO of Food Allergy Research
and Education.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
You have food allergies.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
I am. I do have food allergies. I developed food
allergy as an adult. But you know, I have what
we call the typical atopic march. When I was born,
I was born with eggzema, so that is the you know,
skinien and then I developed asthma and I thought, wow,
(21:48):
at least I don't have food allergies. And then as
a young adult I developed food allergies. And you know,
when you talk about a triple threat like Jennifer Lopez,
sure you know you think about not, you know, a
topic march so unlucky me I suffer from, Uh this
(22:11):
a topic march of egma, allergies. You know, food allergies
and asthma.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
I do.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
I don't imagine that most people would associate those three
things kind of going hand in hand. Exema a skin condition,
asthma a longer breathing issue, and then food allergies.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Are they connected?
Speaker 4 (22:34):
Yes? They are. They are definitely connected. And uh, you
know you'll see that individuals with egma or asthma or
food allergies they will have you know, uh two out
of story.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Wow, talk to me a little bit about the difficulty,
because obviously, if you're a sufferer, you know about food labeling,
and I'm sure you're probably thinking about what you can
and can eat and whether those foods are even in
your direct vicinity, don't you.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
You know, every single bite that I take, I have
to be very very vigilant about what goes in my
mouth every every food, I have to check the label,
and even brands that I'm familiar with, I have to
(23:28):
make certain that they didn't change any of the ingredients,
and I learned that the hard way. I mean, how embarrassing.
I'm the CEO of TWOD Allergy Research and Education, and recently,
as recent as a week ago, a very very trusted
brand that I have eaten for over ten years, they
(23:50):
twitched ingredients and it wasn't really clear. They didn't make
any announcements and they had to treat us. And I
am deftly trinas and so all of a sudden, I
take a bite of one of my favorite favorite cookies
and my throat is it'sying, my tongue is flowing up,
(24:13):
and I'm like, oh my god, what is going on.
I give, you know, give myself a nasal spray, a penephyrine,
and then I'm reading the label quickly and I see
there's trinuts now at it, and you know, it's a
rookie mistake, obviously, but I'm like, oh my god.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
I imagine that's got to be a challenge if you
go out to eat, if you're traveling things like.
Speaker 4 (24:38):
That, it's very very challenging. But you know, there are
a few restaurants that I know are very very safe
to eat, like a Chipotle, is one of the favorite places.
A burger king is another. And you know, when I
(24:59):
go to restaurants as I call ahead and I make
certain that I give them my list of allergens. And
you know, people are getting to really realize that there
are a lot of us and thinking about the fact
that there are more than thirty three million Americans with
food allergies. They're realizing that we're a huge consumer group.
(25:22):
And it's not just thirty three million, right, Like one
person a food allergy, the entire group of people have
a food allergy at the table. So we're a very
powerful consumer group. I mean, if I have a food allergy,
my entire family has a food allergy. If I can't
(25:45):
go to that restaurant, my friends can't go to the
restaurant with me. My restaurants. So I think restaurants are
catching on that we've got a lot of power and
they're becoming or accommodating.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
We always hear about peanut allergies, and now you see
a lot of gluten free options in restaurants and stuff
like that. There's a whole lot of other allergies though.
I mean people I know people with adult on send
seafood you know, seafood allergies and things like that, So
it's much broader than just people think about the peanuts
or the soy or things like that.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
That's correct, That is absolutely correct. I mean, you know,
we talk about top nine allergen, but you know, the
other tense allergen that is really you know, increasing, especially
on the East Coast, is alphagou where individuals are becoming
(26:46):
allergic to mammalian meat and it's a really unusual vector
transmission through loan or tick bites.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
Well, let me let me ask you that because it
brings me to a conversation about our food here in
the United States, ultra processed foods and things like that.
Do you find in your research that there are people
just as many people rather in other countries Canada, the
European Union, or what have you, that have similar food
allergies than we do here, or is it it's much
(27:20):
more widespread here than anywhere else.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
You know, food allergies exist in other countries, but for instance,
in Israel, there aren't as many children with peanut allergies,
and it's for one reason. They have these soft ways
(27:47):
for a type of I want to say, they're like cheetos,
but they're called Bomba and there are a date of peanuts,
and so when they're infants, when they're like you know,
three to four months, they are given the Bomba treats
(28:08):
to kids and so kids are eating these often and early,
so there's no peanut allergies. So it's the diet and
the choices of how these kids are introduced to certain foods.
So I think back the variation of the types of
(28:29):
food allergies that you see across the world.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
And last thing, what are the two or three rules
of thumb you would give people as advice if they
believe they're developing a food allergy or sensitivity.
Speaker 4 (28:42):
Please come to our website for the latest education and
we have all the great clinical network sites on our website.
Please go and see one of our food allergies specialized doctors.
They need to be properly diagnosed and make certain that
(29:06):
you are ready to act with epinephrine because you want
to be prepared. You want to make certain you have
epinephrin at all times because if you have an anaphylactic reaction,
you're going to want to have the one drug that
can save your life.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
And the website is.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
Food allergy dot org.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Foodalergy dot org, foodalergy dot org. Doctor Sung Publicy, CEO
of Food Allergy Research and Education Fair, thank you very
much for the time the wonderful information.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
I appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
And that'll do it for another edition of Iheartradios Communities.
I'm Manny Muno's until next time.
Welcome to iHeartRadio Communities, a public affairs special focusing on
the biggest issues in facting you this week.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Here's Many Munos.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
And welcome to another edition of Iheartradios Communities. As you heard,
I am Manny Munyo's We've all heard the cliche about movies, right,
It'll make you laugh, it'll make you cry, It's a
heartwarming story.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
You know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Well, if you're a dog person, or even if you're
not a dog lover, all of those that are can relate.
I want to tell you about a movie. It's titled
Abbey's List, a documentary. It is streaming now everywhere, and
I want to bring on Mark Sutherland. He's director and
the human in the movie Abbey's List, a Documentary. You
can also follow it on Instagram at Abby's List.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Mark. I appreciate the time, Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Thanks many. What can I say? It'll make you laugh,
it'll make you cry.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Well, even I remember when I had first seen just
the trailer alone. I knew where the movie was headed,
I knew what the movie was about, and so I
had tears in my eyes watching the trailer as I'm laughing,
as I'm crying. So it's one of those special movies.
Tell us about it first. The film again, Abby's List,
a documentary, is about your whippet, Abby and the journey
(01:20):
you decided to go on with her when you realize
that your time as her dog dad was probably pretty
soon going to be coming to an end.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Yeah, and I should mention too that, you know, I
think one of the reasons the film is working, and
you know, it was picked up by AMC Theaters for
a national release in like twenty three cities and the
rest of it, and it's going to be and it's
streaming now too. I think one of the reasons it's
working is because we didn't set out to make a film.
(01:50):
I just wanted an excuse to spend some time with
my dog because I thought that that she was probably
nearing the end of her life at fourteen, and I
lost two other whippets at thirteen, and so we started.
We went sailing, and I put a camera in front
of her, and I put her behind the wheel of
the yacht, this big, beautiful wooden sailing ship, and I
(02:13):
let her steer it. And I was pretty sure she
was enjoying herself, but I really didn't realize how much
she was enjoying until we got home and looked at
the footage, and I've never seen her so happy, And
I was just like, you know what, it gives me
chills still to think about it, Like, you know what,
we need to do more of this sort of thing.
Let's just have some fun. And I'm an old radio guy,
(02:34):
so when I think of having fun, I think of
ridiculous stuff. Like first thing we did was we drove
to Sequoia National Forest so she could tea on the
world's color trees. You know, this is the way my
warped mind thinks. But we were just going to make
some fun Facebook videos and share them with friends and
maybe do a short, you know, documentary, and then call
(02:56):
it quit. We figured it would take us three weeks
to cross the country. And what happened was we noticed
almost immediately that Abby started aging in reverse, and then
we went crazy viral to the tune of like five
million views all across the world, and we went, you know,
what's something magical is happening here, And so we just
(03:19):
kept on going and kept on doing things together, and
ultimately three weeks became three years, and we made a
film out of it.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
How did you decide on some of the places that
you were going to go on with Abby? You call
it her bucket list. You went, you went to the
Disney World and SeaWorld. You took her to Vegas. Uh,
she went to the Columbus Zoo, got to meet Jack
Hannah Tag.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Jack was her pet sitter.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
How did you come up with some of these things?
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Well, I'm pretty sure there was alcohol involved, But you know,
I sat down with a friend or two, some some
creative friends, and we, you know, we had a laugh
and had a drink or two and talked about the
fun stuff that a dog might like to do. I'm
using air quotes when I say dog, because you know,
the guise of a dog, but also kind of fun
stuff that people would like to do too. And what's
(04:13):
interesting is so we started out doing some of that
over the top stuff because the humor is in the
absurdity of it all. You can't just go to Vegas.
You had to get a three thousand dollars night sweet
and let her do room service, you know, and play
lots and all the rest of the stuff that dogs
wouldn't normally do. You have to go to Disneyland or
(04:34):
Disney World and she has to ride it's a small world,
so you can watch her face and see if she
looks like, you know, like a childhood when you're seeing
that for the first time. And so we made a
list of a couple of these sort of things, and
then we just figured it out as we went. We
found stuff that we thought we'd be entertained by, and
(04:57):
then we also found stuff that we knew she'd love.
And the funny thing was that she even loved the
ridiculous stuff that, you know, like ping on the world's
tallest tree. You could tell she knew that she was
doing something rather impressive, and you know, so it's that
sort of stuff, you know. That's how we came up
(05:21):
with the stuff and how it all came together, and
we were basically for a lot of it, we were
just flying by the seat of our pants.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
How did you manage to actually do some of the things.
You did get the celebs to be part of the
film or was it easy? Because dog lovers, those of
us that loved dogs were kind of our own community,
So you managed to get approval to do some of
these things just because of.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
That little bit of both. I knew Bill farmer. Bill's
been the voice of Goofy for Disney for the last
thirty eight years now, and I thought it would be
funny if Abby met the world's most famous dog. And
the great part about the scene with Bill is she's
(06:03):
literally meeting the most famous dog in the world and
she could care less you know her, He does the
voice and her eyes just roll, and to me, that's
just hilarious. So like in that instance, Bill said, yeah, sure,
I'll do it, and he trusted me with this bizarre
idea that might have really flopped but actually ended up
(06:25):
really good. With the Jack Hannah thing. I actually tried
to get in touch with him a couple of times
because I'd known him years ago, and I couldn't get
through his wall of people. And then I just randomly
ran into him doing voiceover at a production company in Columbus, Ohio,
and he said, how are you What have you been
up to? I'm so like, are you kidding me? I've
been trying to get in touch with you. And I
(06:46):
told him about what I'd been shooting and he said,
how can I help? And so again there are other
forces at work here. We planned stuff as well as
we could, bumped into people like I ran into Scott Simpson,
PGA pro and asked him if you'd let Abby caddy
for him on the golf course for a day. And
I didn't know him from Adam, but he said yes
(07:09):
because he loves dogs and thought it sounded fun. And
so back to what you said, there were some people
that just bought in just because they're just such fan
of dogs and this sounded a little ridiculous and a
little fun, and so they trusted me, and I'm just
so grateful that it's turned out so well.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
We're speaking with Mark Sutherland. He is the director and
the human in the movie Abbey's List, a documentary. It
is streaming everywhere right now. You can also check the
film out on Instagram at Abby's List. You've mentioned a
couple of times that you spent years in radio broadcasting.
You actually even helped launch radio Disney did. How did
(07:50):
that history, that experience help you into putting your experience
with Abby on film and telling her story.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
So when I I did local radio for years Ohio
and Orlando and and Houston Morning Radio, and I learned
local radio there, and of course I learned how to
do bits, which is really just storytelling just in a
you know, shorter segment. When I moved out to Los
(08:20):
Angeles and helped build Radio Disney, I did the afternoon
show there for the first five years of the network,
and I learned how the big machine works, you know,
the Hollywood machine, the because you know, there's a level
or two above the local stuff, and in local we
interact with it, but we don't necessarily know how it works.
And I learned better how that works. The other thing
(08:43):
was I just really learned a little more about stories.
It's like everything that you do, you're telling stories. Every
single day, you're telling stories, and so when you're in radio,
you're in the trenches and you know how to tell
a story. They maybe three minutes in lenk, maybe five minutes,
maybe thirty seconds, but every one of them has a beginning,
(09:03):
a middle, and an end, and then the challenge is
to try to figure out how that translates to an
overall story arc of the film. And so I just
sort of had to toy with that. And what I
did with the film was I shot these little segments
that were again take We drove four hours north, and
(09:23):
the challenge was to get Abby to pee on one
of the tallest trees in the world. And so we
had a beginning, we had a middle, and we knew
what we were striving for. The end was if she
actually did it. And we built this fund and this
trauma up in between, you know, the beginning and the end,
and that was a little story in itself. And so
(09:44):
I had about by the time the film was done,
I had about fifteen of those little stories. And then
I had to work the story arc, which I knew
what had happened, but you still have to figure out
a way to pressage stuff in. Like we went to Canada,
but we actually I took her to ca Hannada three
separate times, to camp on this private island three separate
(10:04):
times that summer, noticed just an unbelievable change in her
up there out in the wilderness. But for story purposes,
I melded all of that into one week for the film,
just because it was too complicated bouncing back and forth.
So there was a lot of that too. I'm probably
getting in the weeds fars the whole thing, but anyway,
(10:26):
that's part of what the whole Disney thing taught me
as well.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
So there's telling stories and stories are meant to touch
different emotions.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Right.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
You talked about some of the funny stuff in the film,
there's also some incredibly touching stuff. There's there's Abby meeting Trooper,
who was a three legged deer. There's Abby going to
SeaWorld and how all the dolphins there seemed entranced by
her just staring at her there across the glass. Just
(10:56):
briefly touch on the different emotions and those two scenes
in the movie.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Yeah, Well the dolphin scene just had us all amazed
even and in fact, when we left, we were just
praying that we'd be able to capture what we saw
and what we captured on film that would be able
to translate that in the edit, because it was so
amazing that these dolphins all ignored all the people over
there to our left, and all of them went right
(11:23):
to abbey and just stayed there for five ten minutes.
It was just it made me cry when we were
watching it, and really gave me sort of hope for
animals and for life, and you know what I mean,
for people and animals are good. And Trooper was a
We found out about this three legged deer that had
been injured when it was young, and and so it
(11:45):
had been raised by people, and so it was still tame.
So I took Abby to meet Trooper, and while we
were with Trooper, we realized that Trooper needed help because
Tripper was having troubles with the local authorities, or at
least had, and the deer in Ohio we're really, you know,
(12:08):
having some problems with the state not letting injured ones
be rehabbed, and we found out about that. And the
cool thing about that segment was not only hurt getting
able to beat this deer, but realizing that most of
these segments other people are doing something for us or
(12:29):
that sort of thing, but in this segment we were
able to give back. Abby was able to do something
for Trooper, to raise awareness for the whole Trooper thing.
So once again you just get this just an amazing
scene and a warm and fuzzy and something that the
film can do for somebody else, which gives it a
(12:50):
little bit of depth and of course makes us feel
good as human beings to be able to do that.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Going back to the fact that again those of us
that are dog lovers are our own community. If you know,
you know, if you will right, you've said, the journey
prolonged Abby's life that she started reverse aging in reverse.
The journey also did something for you. What did it
help you learn about yourself, about life, about humanity?
Speaker 3 (13:19):
Uh, simplify. You know, I'd lived out in Los Angeles
for twenty years. I'm living in Ohio now. I moved
back here to care for my mom, who had Alzheimer's,
and she actually just passed away a few months ago.
So I cared for Abby in her old age and
then cared for mom. But it taught me to simplify
(13:40):
and focus and how important friends are, and also to
get off the couch and live life now.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Not to ruin the movie, This isn't a spoiler, Abby,
Abby is no longer with us.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
How how long ago did she pass? How was that?
Speaker 1 (13:57):
And for those of us that have lived, how did
you deal with it? Especially after you know this incredible
experience that you had with her during the journey.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
It was tough, I mean, to say the least. I
think one of the reasons the film was so powerful
is because for months I was editing the film, and
she'd come to work with me every day and she'd
lay on the couch there while I was editing. So
I'd be editing, but sometimes through tears because I could
watch her really go downhill because we didn't do much,
(14:29):
you know, for the last six months of her life.
She died at almost seventeen.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
That was back in great life for any dog.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
Yeah, And we started, we started when she was fourteen
years old, and again we thought maybe she'd be around
a couple of months, and she ended up living almost
three more years, which again is just almost unheard of.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Mark Sutherland, director and the human in the movie titled
Abbey's List, a documentary.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
It is streaming everywhere right now.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Follow it on Instagram at Abby's List. Whether you're a
dog lover or not, I guarantee you this movie will
touch you.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Mark.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
I appreciate the time, thank you for doing this film
and continued success to.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
You and the movie.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Manny, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
It's amazing to think about, but roughly one in ten
Americans are living with life threatening food allergies. Doctors call
it a silent public health epidemic. Tens of millions of
others live with food allergies I imagine, which are more
of a major inconvenience or annoyance than deadly. To bring
in an expert to discuss it, doctor Sung publicly is
(15:38):
CEO of Food Allergy Research and Education.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Doctor. I appreciate you joining.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
Us, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
I know the FDA just issued some new guidance on
food allergies things like that. I want to get to
that in a moment, but let me start off with this.
Explain who FAIR is Food Allergy Research and Education and
what the organization does.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
Food Allergy Research and Education is the largest nonprofit organization
here in the United States, focusing on research, education, and advocacy.
In other words, we are curing food allergies for the
more than thirty three million Americans.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
I don't want to age myself, but when I was
growing up in the seventies and eighties, I don't think
I knew anybody who had a peanut allergy, or milk
or wheat allergy. Nobody had ever heard of gluten or
celliac disease, any of these things. How did all of
this become so prominent in our society?
Speaker 4 (16:36):
You know, it's really about eating early and eating often.
Our doctors had given some advice to parents stating that
you should avoid giving us certain foods until later in life,
(16:57):
and more than recently we've kind of reversed that and said, okay,
we should give certain food proteins now earlier during four
to six months, and introduce these proteins early and often. So,
for instance, penuts, if you introduce it during the ages
(17:21):
of four to six months, you will decrease the chance
that this infant will not develop peanut allergies. So yeah,
by eighty percent. So we've had these studies now showcasing
that if you introduced proteins early and often, you can
(17:46):
prevent these types of allergies. So we've sort of like
you know, told parents not to introduce.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Them to figure out how to solve it, I.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
Know exactly. And of course there's also the germ theory, right.
You know, back when we were growing up, we were
making mud pies. Yeah, we were producing ourselves lots of germs,
and so our immune system, you know, recognize germs and
our immune system was able to fight that.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
I almost feel like that's what this is what happens
when we try to wrap our kids in bubble wrap
to protect them, we create these problems that we don't
necessarily anticipate.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
Absolutely, and so you know, when our immune system doesn't
recognize a food protein as a food protein. Instead, it
sees it as a ford invader, and our immune system
just goes haywire and attack it as a foreign invader,
(18:53):
and you have this anaphylactic reaction. And that's what's going
on within our bodies and our immune system.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Is there a difference between a food allergy and a
food intolerance or just sensitivities.
Speaker 4 (19:07):
For example, Absolutely, because when you have an intolerance, you're not,
you know, developing the worst case scenario, a anaphylaxis, because
anaphylaxis can kill you if you do not intervene with
an epinephrine. And epinephrine now, thank goodness, doesn't only come
(19:34):
in an injection. There's also a nasal spray. And uh,
thank you for individuals that are afraid of needles like myself,
I'm happy to give an injection to anyone except for myself.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
I've known people who have had absolute nightmares and being
diagnosed with food allergies. They've gone to doctor after doctor
after doctor.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Is that a big challenge diagnosing specific food allergies? And
why do some people seem to go undiagnosed for years?
Speaker 4 (20:06):
Well, I think that is a great question. There's more
than one hundred and sixty food proteins that can cause
life threatening food allergies. So that's one hundred and sixty
proteins that you have to be tested for. It's top
nine allergiens. And I think that's really easy. But if
(20:30):
it's something very very unique, it could be challenging because
you have to confirm it with an oral food challenge,
meaning you have to test for that exact protein food
protein and you have to test it meaning you have
(20:51):
to have an oral food challenge that leads to anaphylaxis.
The misconception is that food allergy is a diet, or
it's a preference, or it is a choice. But we
all know that food allergy is a disease. It's a
(21:11):
disease of the immune system.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
We're speaking doctor, some publicly CEO of Food Allergy Research
and Education.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
You have food allergies.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
I am. I do have food allergies. I developed food
allergy as an adult. But you know, I have what
we call the typical atopic march. When I was born,
I was born with eggzema, so that is the you know,
skinien and then I developed asthma and I thought, wow,
(21:48):
at least I don't have food allergies. And then as
a young adult I developed food allergies. And you know,
when you talk about a triple threat like Jennifer Lopez,
sure you know you think about not, you know, a
topic march so unlucky me I suffer from, Uh this
(22:11):
a topic march of egma, allergies. You know, food allergies
and asthma.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
I do.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
I don't imagine that most people would associate those three
things kind of going hand in hand. Exema a skin condition,
asthma a longer breathing issue, and then food allergies.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Are they connected?
Speaker 4 (22:34):
Yes? They are. They are definitely connected. And uh, you
know you'll see that individuals with egma or asthma or
food allergies they will have you know, uh two out
of story.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Wow, talk to me a little bit about the difficulty,
because obviously, if you're a sufferer, you know about food labeling,
and I'm sure you're probably thinking about what you can
and can eat and whether those foods are even in
your direct vicinity, don't you.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
You know, every single bite that I take, I have
to be very very vigilant about what goes in my
mouth every every food, I have to check the label,
and even brands that I'm familiar with, I have to
(23:28):
make certain that they didn't change any of the ingredients,
and I learned that the hard way. I mean, how embarrassing.
I'm the CEO of TWOD Allergy Research and Education, and recently,
as recent as a week ago, a very very trusted
brand that I have eaten for over ten years, they
(23:50):
twitched ingredients and it wasn't really clear. They didn't make
any announcements and they had to treat us. And I
am deftly trinas and so all of a sudden, I
take a bite of one of my favorite favorite cookies
and my throat is it'sying, my tongue is flowing up,
(24:13):
and I'm like, oh my god, what is going on.
I give, you know, give myself a nasal spray, a penephyrine,
and then I'm reading the label quickly and I see
there's trinuts now at it, and you know, it's a
rookie mistake, obviously, but I'm like, oh my god.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
I imagine that's got to be a challenge if you
go out to eat, if you're traveling things like.
Speaker 4 (24:38):
That, it's very very challenging. But you know, there are
a few restaurants that I know are very very safe
to eat, like a Chipotle, is one of the favorite places.
A burger king is another. And you know, when I
(24:59):
go to restaurants as I call ahead and I make
certain that I give them my list of allergens. And
you know, people are getting to really realize that there
are a lot of us and thinking about the fact
that there are more than thirty three million Americans with
food allergies. They're realizing that we're a huge consumer group.
(25:22):
And it's not just thirty three million, right, Like one
person a food allergy, the entire group of people have
a food allergy at the table. So we're a very
powerful consumer group. I mean, if I have a food allergy,
my entire family has a food allergy. If I can't
(25:45):
go to that restaurant, my friends can't go to the
restaurant with me. My restaurants. So I think restaurants are
catching on that we've got a lot of power and
they're becoming or accommodating.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
We always hear about peanut allergies, and now you see
a lot of gluten free options in restaurants and stuff
like that. There's a whole lot of other allergies though.
I mean people I know people with adult on send
seafood you know, seafood allergies and things like that, So
it's much broader than just people think about the peanuts
or the soy or things like that.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
That's correct, That is absolutely correct. I mean, you know,
we talk about top nine allergen, but you know, the
other tense allergen that is really you know, increasing, especially
on the East Coast, is alphagou where individuals are becoming
(26:46):
allergic to mammalian meat and it's a really unusual vector
transmission through loan or tick bites.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
Well, let me let me ask you that because it
brings me to a conversation about our food here in
the United States, ultra processed foods and things like that.
Do you find in your research that there are people
just as many people rather in other countries Canada, the
European Union, or what have you, that have similar food
allergies than we do here, or is it it's much
(27:20):
more widespread here than anywhere else.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
You know, food allergies exist in other countries, but for instance,
in Israel, there aren't as many children with peanut allergies,
and it's for one reason. They have these soft ways
(27:47):
for a type of I want to say, they're like cheetos,
but they're called Bomba and there are a date of peanuts,
and so when they're infants, when they're like you know,
three to four months, they are given the Bomba treats
(28:08):
to kids and so kids are eating these often and early,
so there's no peanut allergies. So it's the diet and
the choices of how these kids are introduced to certain foods.
So I think back the variation of the types of
(28:29):
food allergies that you see across the world.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
And last thing, what are the two or three rules
of thumb you would give people as advice if they
believe they're developing a food allergy or sensitivity.
Speaker 4 (28:42):
Please come to our website for the latest education and
we have all the great clinical network sites on our website.
Please go and see one of our food allergies specialized doctors.
They need to be properly diagnosed and make certain that
(29:06):
you are ready to act with epinephrine because you want
to be prepared. You want to make certain you have
epinephrin at all times because if you have an anaphylactic reaction,
you're going to want to have the one drug that
can save your life.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
And the website is.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
Food allergy dot org.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Foodalergy dot org, foodalergy dot org. Doctor Sung Publicy, CEO
of Food Allergy Research and Education Fair, thank you very
much for the time the wonderful information.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
I appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
And that'll do it for another edition of Iheartradios Communities.
I'm Manny Muno's until next time.
Host
Manny Munoz
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