Kelly, what's the problem withozempic?
Drugs like ozempic andozempic,struggle,ozempic.
The topicozempic. What exactly isozempic?
Ozempic actually represents tome, biggest issue in thecountry, which is that we're basically being poisoned and then drugged forprofit.
Can you explain how ozempic actuallyworks?
Essentially, it is liquefiedanorexia.
And the problem with recommending it for a long term is that doctors even have to go to a nutritionclass.
First day at Stanford MedSchool, my sister brought up that somebody with migraines might need to have a dietary intervention for attending surgeons and stopping apussy.
We didn't go to nutritionschool.
Is this going to be the most lucrative drug evermade?
It's the 12th most valuable company in theworld.
This Danishcompany, they are the largest funder of politicians five times more than the oilindustry.
They're50% of TV newsspending.
So they're not only able to influenceus.
They're actually able to buy the newsitself.
When I hear Stanford Med School professor or the dean of Harvard MedSchool, are those people that youtrust?
Absolutelynot. The problem is that we're listening toexperts.
Remember the foodpyramid?
Let's eat ourcereals. It's thebase.
It's the foundation of yourfood.
At myhouse, I think GoGur would like to think as part of thepyramid.
If you don't eat yourGoGur, you're not going to get to goplay.
The food pyramid was propped by the Sugar Research Council still owned by a Sugarcompany.
We don't even realize this craft is still owned by PhilipMorris.
If you're poisoning ourpopulation, I just want to do like the80-20.
So I feel good and my family is safe and feelsgood.
It'slike, what can Ido?
The biggest lie in healthcare is that the reasons we're getting sick arecomplicated.
And the second biggest lie is that these things can't be changedcompletely.
Theycan. I feel like I could rule theworld.
I know I could be what I wantto.
I put my all in it like a day'sold.
I'm on aroad. Let'stravel.
Allright, those areon.
Kelly, what's the problem withthose?
Epic. Start nowfiring.
I likeit. I came on to talk to Sam aboutthis.
I've got some bows to pick with some of his takeshere.
There'sreally, I think there's a huge problem with thoseEpic, which is that there's ashortage.
And they're not picking enough ofit.
Allright,well, I'm glad we're getting right out of the gateshere,guys.
So here's the fundamentalpoint.
I'm not concerned with the 350-pound obese diabeticperson.
Like that's between them and theirdoctor.
Ozympic actually represents to me the biggest issue in thecountry, which is that we're basically being poisoned and then drugged forprofit, the largest and fastest growing industry in thecountry.
Andagain, largest and fastest growing is the healthcareindustry.
And95% of those dollars are around drugging and managing disease of people that are alreadysick.
So we've had this explosion of chronic disease kind of siloedtreatments.
And every single one of them relates to more of thedisease.
So stands more heartdisease,metformin, which30% of people over 40 areon.
Imean, it's one of the most widely prescribeddrugs.
Right? Diabetes goesup.
SSRIs, now25% of women are inSSRIs.
Did Prussian and Suicide skyrocketing as more SSRIs areprescribed?
Literally, every single drug you go on the list of every chronicaddition, the more it'sprescribed, the more it goesup.
So the biggest of them allobesity, and you can't even wrap your head aroundthis.
It's a unique problem inAmerica, but50% of teens overweight areobese.
Imean, that's a moral stain on ourcountry.
The childhood obesity rate in Japan is3%.
So we have something unique going on where50% of teens are overweight are obese and then80% of American adults are overweight areobese.
Allright, let's take a quickbreak.
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What's the definition ofobese?
Is there like a celebrity that you could name thatlike, it'slike, that's like thethreshold.
Do I like to stand up and take my shirt off and then wejust, we'd like to establish some sort of benchmarkhere.
Like is Andy Dwyer in Parks andRec?
Is that consideredobese?
Sometimes, it's actually based on a lot ofyour, what my sister and I talk a lotabout.
It's based on your personalizedbiomarkers.
Imean, oftentimes you can be obese and not particularly look thatfat.
Well, a lot of us have brewing metabolicdysfunction,94% ofus.
The actual definition of obesity isn't even entirely tied to how welook.
A general definitionof, which goes into metabolic dysfunction of something you should be worried about is 35 inch waist for women and 40 inch waist for menthough.
Allright. So theono-zimpic.
Fundamentally, we've got this dirty fishtank.
We've got80% of Americanadults,right?
You look at those pictures for the 1960s and look at the picturesday, go to a publicspace.
There's clearly something happening and it's uniquely happening inAmerica.
So my bone to pick withthose, is in the midst of thiscatastrophe,right?
And this is missed clearly something happening with ourfood.
And I think it really relates to the fact that70% of our diet is ultra-processed food in Europe and Japan and othercountries.
That's not thecase. We're clearly doingsomething.
And then this system is telling us that the answer to that instead of fixing the root cause is a weekly jab for a wife and the instructions for a zimpic is a lifetimedrug.
And the most alarming part about it is the American Academy of Pediatrics recentlysaid, this is a fully funded subsidiary ofPharma.
They said that a12-year-old, if you're12-year-old, is not only obese but a little bitoverweight, that a zimpic should be the first linedefense.
So this is just a representation of I think the biggest issue in thecountry, which is that we have this explosion of chronic conditions all basically tied to the samething, which issimple,diet, and lifestylethings.
But we keep lunging for aninjection, keep lunging for apill.
And my point justsocietally, and I actually think it's a big economicopportunity, islike, we are on an unsustainabletrajectory.
Like, it's going to be40% of a GDP health care costs in the next 20years, where becoming truly like a fat andfertile,sick, depressedpopulation, we're destroying our humancapital.
So if we're not going to take the obesitycrisis, the fact that you go into aclassroom, I've got almostthree-year-old, you go into a daycare and most kids are clearly having bigissues.
If we're not going to take this moment with obesity and actually ask what's the rootcause, that's a hugeproblem.
And I think the economicopportunity, and I think one thing investors and entrepreneurs don't quitesee, is that if this is an unsustainablesituation, we're going to have to shift more that $4.5 trillionto, we can fix our foodsystem.
We can incentivizepay, lowering people toexercise.
We can actually do things that incentivize the rightthings.
I don't think American people are trying to befat.
They're not trying to bedepressed.
They're not trying to beunhealthy.
They actually incentivize them to be and can change those incentives instead of jabbing them with thoseseptic.
So that's why I thinkthis...
Have you triedit?No, I have not triedit.
So let's unpackthat. You basically gave us a gift basket of hot takesthere.
And I just want to open up the ribbon andsay,oh, chocolate cover pretzel iswonderful.
Okay, so let's unpack those one byone.
You said something justnow, you said the fishtank.
My understanding is you have this analogy where you have a fish tank and the fish are gettingsick.
But you can see that the water isdirty.
The fish tank is notclean.
And I think your point is we should clean thetank, not drug thefish.
Is that the core analogy that you like to use withthis?
Yeah, Imean, let's just go over the stats of thattank,right?
And I go to kids because I'ma, youknow, person responsibilityguy.
I'm really resonant with those arguments that it's people'schoice.
But it's not personal responsibility forkids.
It's not something'shappening.
And33% of young adults have pre-dye beast rightnow.
20% of young adults have fatty liverdisease,right?
40% of high schoolers qualify as having them mentalhealth.
Is thattrue? Like a doctor 40 yearsago,would,would, would kids have pre-dye beasties and fattyliver?
A doctor would not see one case of a child having diabetes 40 yearsago.
Itis, it is order of magnitudeincrease.
This is anabsolute, unprecedented step function increase in metabolic health disorders amongchildren.
A hundred yearsago, my sister receivedthat.
It's a hundred yearsago.
If you wereobese, if you were visibly veryfat, you're in thecircus.
Then there's literally in atextbook.
It was so rare for anAmerican.
Okay. They're not that bigeither.
Yeah. Like thefat, the fat man inthe, in the freeshows, they'renot, they're not that fat compared to whatI, what yousee, like on a regularbasis.
Right. So literally it was so rare for an adult to do obese a hundred yearsago.
Theyliterally, their job didn't was to be in thecircus.
Theexplosion,Dr. RobertLustig, who's one of my heroes who led hormone issuesand, and diabetes research atUCSF, he said early in hiscareer, youknow,30, 40 yearsago, didn't see onechild, one child walk in withdiabetes.
Again, right now it's33% of young adults have freediabetes.
Sowe've, we've done something toourselves,right?
And what's happened there is my sister graduating from Sanford MedSchool, you choose between 42 specialties like everydoctor.
She did head and neck and then you do afellowship, focus even more in thatspace.
Youknow, there'scardiology,neurology, we segmented thebody.
That's very profitable because inkid,right?
A kid withprediabetes, when we segmentit, when wesay,oh, that's ametformin,right?
Then they inevitably have highcholesterol.
It's a separatedoctor, thecardiologist.
That's astatin, they inevitably have some mental healthissues,SSRI, they have high bloodpressure, ACEinhibitor, they have fertility issuesinevitably, shove them into IVF and invasiveprocedures,infertility,skyrocketing, which is highly related tothis.
So they go in this treadmill and they've been lied to that everythingsegmented.
The biggest mistake we've made since World War II is that we've segmented these chronic livestock additions when they're really the samething.
Didn't that segmentation come fromRockefeller?
Yeah. Isn't that one of your researchpoints?
Yeah. So in thiscase, to the kind of the businessangle, is that all of these things were in this game when it comes to ourhealth, which is highlymeditated.
The way medicine existstoday, the guiding law in Congress is called the FlexnerReport, which actually mandates that we can't look at diseaseholistically.
We have to look at things insilos,evidence-based.
We need to name a condition and then treat it with either a surgery or apill.
This isn't stride inlaw.
What wasthere? Imean, maybe there was a good reason why they didthat.
If you had to make the argument for why that was a goodreason, if youcould, what was theirreason?
Flexner wrote that report in1909.
So it's still the guiding law today was a paid lawyer of Rockefeller who invented the pharmaceuticalindustry.
As byproducts of oilproduction, he figured he could make them a discernfarm.
He's a pharmaceuticalcure.
He is the father of the modern pharmaceutical industry and the funder of our top med schools like JohnsHopkins.
He did see economic opportunity in basically professionalizingmedicine, siloingconditions, and making money bytreating.
I think there's a way you could spend that in a positiveway.
It was the Wild West in a lot of witch doctors outthere.
I think in theirminds, they were trying to make it moreprofessionalized.
There was a clear economic opportunity to name and silo conditions and then profit from theintervention, not from making peoplehealthy.
There was a veryclear, you look at JohnsHopkins, the guy that started thatschool, William PaulStead.
He denigratednutrition, denigrated any type of holisticthinking.
To this day in medicaleducation, my sister brought up that somebody with migraines might need to have a dietary intervention or attending surgeons at stopping apussy.
We didn't go to nutritionschool.
This idea of de-legitimizing anyexploration, first day of Stanford medschool, Casey was told by her professors that the American patients are not going to stop eating their bigmax.
They're going to be sedentary and that the best thing we can do is stand with serious medicine with the prescriptionpad, with the scalpel and treat these conditions as they popup.
That is so viscerally ingrained into the medical system and that's alie.
Do doctors even have to go to a nutritionclass?
They studied that veryminimally.
90% of doctors graduate without taking one nutrition class to thisday.
I waspre-med, four years ofpre-med, zeronutrition, zero inexercise.
I remember asking byteacher, because I waslike, this is a littlestrange.
We took an anatomyclass.
You take a ton ofchemistry, organicchemistry, all thisstuff, but you never take anything on nutrition orexercise.
I remember asking about that and I waslike, does this happenlater?
Did I missit? What's going onhere?
They werelike,no, it's just not part of thecurriculum.
Your teacher was alsolike, don't be apussy,Sean.
Yeah, that's justlike, let melook.
He'slike, this is a reason you're pre-med and notmed.
Allright, so I just want to read some of thesestories.
I pulled from your bloghere.
It said that in1909, this is what you're talkingabout.
Medicine was the wild wildwest.
At thetime, the fourth most prescribed drug in the country was probablyheroin,right?
Orcocaine? Orheroin,heroin, it was made bybuyer, abear, I don'tknow, you saythem.
It was a cure for fiticky behavior andinfants.
That'sgood. Then it says that Rockefeller helped start the modern pharmaceutical industry by using oilbyproducts.
John, theRockefeller,obviously,oil,magnet, he then needed a byproduct for his oil andsaid,okay, how are we going to sellpharmaceuticals?
If we fund modern educationalsystems, I didn't realize that John Hopkins is named afterhim.
He used a father of modern medicineeducation,yeah.
He also founded University ofChicago.
That'sright. It was a radical concept at the time to silo different diseases into different categories that the doctors could prescribe drugs for each of thosediseases.
Is it true that seed oils were also fromRockefeller?
Yeah, Imean, these systems is bydesign.
The other thing he did is he had this basically oillubricant, youknow, cheaply made from byproducts ofseeds.
And he saw that he could actually lobby the USDA and get those approved for humanconsumption.
They're much cheaper than the natural fats that we're geneticallybiologic.
He made toeat. And now by basically rigging the regulatorysystem, having his lawyers literally on the regulatorypanels, it's the top source of Americancalories.
It'sliterally, it's just as a statement offact, a byproduct of oilproduction, these seedoils.
And we're wondering what's going on in ourhealth.
The three key pillars of the American diet were foods that didn't exist 120 yearsago.
Processedsugar, refined sugar wasn't really a thing that really came out of the scene about 100 yearsago.
We now eat 100 times more sugar than we did 100 yearsago.
It's truly weaponized in ourfood, seedoils, the top source of American calories were a byproduct of JohnDeRocquefeller, newinvention.
And then processedgrains.
The processing really took off after World War II to make the grain shelfstable.
But theprocessing, taking that fiber off makes most of the grains weeat,right?
It's basically a hiddensugar.
It's very little nutritionalvalue, which the fiberhas.
And actually turns into sugar in our bloodsugar, it makes it moreaddictive.
Those are the pillars of the American diet that were just fundamentally aren't biologic you made toeat.
And one thing to add to theconspiracy, he had to thestory, but it's true is cigarette companies invented the processed foodindustry.
So you have John DeRocquefeller kind of startingit.
But then in the1980s, the cigarette smoking started goingdown.
PhilipMorrison, RJ Reynolds became the two largest food companies in the UnitedStates.
At in1990, two of the three largest M&A deals in American history were cigarette companies buying foodcompanies.
So every single processed food companies we can actually pointto, he's either still owned by a cigarettecompany.
We don't even realize this craft is still owned by PhilipMorris.
So these cigarette companies actually still owned or has been sput off once the doctors and the scientists from the cigarette companies went to the food companies and actually used theseingredients, used the rig system to actually make our food moreaddictive.
So this isn't just an accent that we're getting sick andSam, youknow, maybe we're talking different levels because on the microlevel, youknow,ozempic, there's good stories and badstories.
But on the highlevel, and we'rereally, youknow, kind of the purpose of my life is to argue this is we have $1,800 per month that taxpayers are going to pay for ozempic for an80% of US adult targetmarket.
What if we actually just took the issue obesity and just from first principlesasked, how do we actually solve thatproblem?
You'd never say wait for people to get sick and then jab80% Americanpeople.
We're so in this box of just asan, it's a inevitability that we're going to getsick, even though we get much sicker than other countries and then drugpeople.
We're so in thatbox, it's like here is even question that we're going to dothat.
And we should give the listener and Seanbackground.
Basically, we had a discussion onTwitter, Cali and I aboutozempic.
I actually don't remember what Isaid, but Ithink.
How could be anant?Well, it was something I was like proozempic, but for people who were incrediblyobese, because I think that likeI,I, I just think that when people say that something is alwaysbad, I'mlike,well, that's nottrue.
Like it could be good in somecases.
Now, I think that drugs are mostly not theanswer, but occasionallyare.
I tested ozempic because I'm a guinea pig and I love testing weirdthings.
I think that like some of the things that for morbidly obese people isinteresting.
I think it's particularly interesting foralcoholics, but for the averageJoe,no, I think it'ssilly.
AndI, I imagine you and I are in huge agreement onthat.
How long did you take it forSam?
I tookit, I tested it for three months when it waslike, like when I saw that it was like thecoolest, or when I saw that I read an article saying like everyone in the Hamptons or the Richard Famous are takingthis.
I think I told you aboutit, Sean in2021.
And I waslike, what is thisdrug?
It limits like your blood glucosestuff.
Like that'sinteresting.
So I triedit. And itwas, it kind of makes you sick atfirst, but it's a spectaculardrug.
But if you don't needit, it's definitely not something that you should take and diet and exercise is waybetter.
Can youexplain? I don't know how much youknow, but can you explain how ozempic actuallyworks?
What does it do that lets you that that causes the weightloss?
What does thefunction?
What is like the pathway that ituses?
Yeah, Imean, so the truth is we don't fully actually know all themechanisms, but GLP1 isa, our body actually produces it and it gives us the feeling ofsatiety.
So it actually is basically just a supplement that's jamming our body with more of thispeptide.
It's like taking a bunch of vitamin D or taking anothersupplement.
You're basically taking a supplement of a peptide that our body naturally produces to trick our body into feelingfull.
So, youknow,again, that's not really solving the rootcause.
A couple quick points to what Samsays.
I think we're in fullagreement.
I think the drug should beavailable.
I think people should be able to hack withit.
But Scott Galloway was recently talking to youguys.
I think you mentionedthis.
Hesaid, this is thebiggest, a bigger economic opportunity for the country thanAI.
He said that the vast majority of the American people should be onthis.
That's the stance of the medicalcommunity.
The stance of the various medical associations and the FDA is that this drug should be prescribed to the medianAmerican.
Basically, that it's so hopeless that we're so addicted to ultra-process food that we need to simulate ourselves with the peptide in order to trick ourselves into feelingfull.
Essentially, it is liquefiedanorexia.
Imean,truly, truly that's what itis.
It's making you not want toeat.
It's a crashdiet. And the problem with recommending it for a long term is that if you could prove perfectly that this thing works the rest of your life with zero side effects is totally okay for every American to take for the rest of theirlives.
Maybe there'd be aconversation, but that's actually nottrue.
People are getting off this at high rates because of the sideeffects.
There's very little long-terminformation.
There's a 68-week study to approve it for kids forlife,actually, but we don't know the long-termeffects.
You mentioned not wanting todrink.
Sam, Imean, there's increasing information comingout.
This is a key point writ large with the healthcare system isthat, youknow, why is it not making people want to do anything they enjoydoing?
They say it's actually making people not want to havesex, not want togamble, not want todrink.
Obviously, this drug affects your dopamine and serotoninpathways.
And it's actually increasingly showing that it's highly tied to suicidal aviation anddepression.
One of the problems with the siloing ofhealthcare,this,again, I want to be reallyclear, is that it's a very seriousproblem.
It's a very seriousproblem.
It's a very seriousproblem.
It's a very seriousproblem.
It's a very seriousproblem.
It's a very seriousproblem.
It's a very seriousproblem.
It's a very seriousproblem.
It's a very seriousproblem.
It's a very seriousproblem.
It's a very seriousproblem.
It's a very seriousproblem.
It's a very seriousproblem.
It's a very seriousproblem.
It's a very seriousproblem.
It's a very seriousproblem.
It's a very seriousproblem.
It's a very seriousproblem.
It's a very seriousproblem.
It's a very seriousproblem.
It's a very seriousproblem.
It's a very seriousproblem.
It's a very seriousproblem.
It's a very seriousproblem.
This hamptook a lot of my friends were takingit, but the problem is it's going to be $1800 of government funding per person permonth.
That's rigged to the Asian-erdadollars.
It's 15 times cheaper inEurope.
The drug is 15 times cheaper in its home country and throughout Europe through totally dysfunctional rigged policies were actually literally paying 15 times more as taxpayers for thatdrug.
That's why I think it's the result of Stone understanding why we're losing ourway.
Sam, have you ever done the napkin math on thisdrug?
I was doing this this morning about this $8,200 amonth.
Do you know how much itcost,Sean?
When I bought it just forfun, I did it forfun.
It was $800 amonth, Ithink.
Just real quick onthat, they give rebates toindividuals, but the system is so rigged that the sticker priceis $16,800, which Medicare Medicaid will pay so that governments actually get to pay a lot more tax payers or actually pay a lot more and then they give rebates to individuals paying out ofpocket.
If you just use 20,000 a year as the cost to take thisthing, because it's a long-termdrug, you're supposed to take itcontinuously.
Then it's80% I believe of adults are in this sort ofqualified, that's theterm,basically, forthis.
You take the US population times80%, times20% ayear, and then you'relike,well, you're supposed to continue to take thisthing.
Even if youdo, so just that alone is something like $2 or $3 trillion ayear.
That's thesame. Then yousay,great, and then they're going to take this for20, 30years.
Oh,interesting. So this is a $50 trilliondrug.
ACali, is this going to be the most lucrative drug evermade?
Well, right now that's priced into thestock.
So I think it's the 12th most valuable company in theworld, and Nova Nordic's the company that makes it just pastLVMH, the iconic fashiondesigner, as the most valuable company inEurope.
You know how Safeway or Kroger has a CVS where you can get your drugs in the grocerystore?
That's kind of what Louis Vuitton doesnow, Ithink.
At the frontdesk, they upsell you on my go-toshop.
Did you dothat,Sam?Exactly.
They're tiedtogether.
Butyeah,Sean, it's certainly priced in with thestock.
Imean, this thing is aphenomenon.
It's one of the most valuable companies in theworld.
What's interesting when you look intothe, I've actually dug into the JP Morgan analyst reports that actually underlie the assumptions for why the stock is sovaluable.
About 80 to90% of the profits expected are not from its homecontinent,Europe.
It's almost all from the UnitedStates.
So this is not the standard of care inEurope.
If you're pre-iabetic in Denmark where this drug ismade, they actually prescribe a ketodiet.
They actually pay you toexercise, which makessense.
This isn't just gold out like candy from the medical system inEurope.
People can pay out apocket.
So all the profit expectations are coming from the UnitedStates.
This Danish company is one of the 10 largest lobbyists of US politicians and one of the 10 largest spenders on TVnews.
So literally what you have is pharma companies just as a statement offact, notconspiratorial.
They're the largest funder ofpoliticians.
They fund politicians directly five times more than the oilindustry.
They're50% of TV newsspending.
So they're not only able to influenceus.
They're actually able to buy the newsitself.
They're actually able to dictate what we hear on thenews, which is why 60minutes.
Literally ran a segment saying ABC's a genetic condition that it's not tied to eating or not tied toexercise.
And that it's an urgent priority to jab a bunch ofkids.
That's literally what 60 minutes said relatively onquestion.
Then the largest funder of med school is an academicresearch.
Imean, getting back to the nutrition point in med school is Casey kind of unwound why thatwas.
Stanford medschool,50% of our budget touchespharma.
It's pharma is the number one funder ofresearch.
Pharma is the number one funder of the actual regulatory agencies 50 excuse me75% of the FDA is actually not funded bytaxpayers.
It's funded by pharma itself and bureaucracies are built togrow.
It's a revolvingdoor. When I hear Stanford med school professor or the dean of Harvard medschool, that just feels like trustworthy tome.
Just me as a laymanperson, I feellike,well, who else am I going totrust?
If not the dean of Harvard med or this Stanfordprofessor, are those people that youtrust?
Absolutelynot. I think around the country and various levels were all losing trust or institutions in variousways.
The militaryeducation, healthcare, I think is numberone.
And I think this is a really positive thing because the we're the only animals with experts telling us what to eat and how to manage chronic conditions of where the only animals that have rampant levels of metabolicdysfunction,obesity,diabetes.
You don't have those amongdrafts.
The problem is that we're listening to theexperts.
Let me just take it really specific on Stanford med schooldean.
You'reright. Nobody more trusted the country and working for the pharmaceutical industry in2009,2010, we knewthat.
Can you just explainthat?
You were aconsultant,right?
You went toStanford, then you became a consultant and you consulted fourcompanies.
Can you just explain thatbackground?
I went toStanford. My sister was my bestfriend.
She was muchsmarter. She waspre-mad.
At the top of her Stanford med schoolclass, I did economics and gone topolitics.
And then right after doing somecampaigns, realized everyone that after the campaign works for the two largest spenders inDC, the food industry and the farmindustry, worked for them and did consulting for a couple ofyears, didn't likeit, went to business school and then starting companies for the past 10years.
Did youknow, getting into it where youlike, this isslimy?
So I grew up inWashington, see Good YoungConservative, youknow, Internet the WhiteHouse, Internet the HeritageFoundation.
I was the knowing conservative guy in class atStanford, pissing over it offand, youknow, really consider myself ideological and I considered being conservative supporting Americanindustry.
So I worked on some campaigns and then I was very proud to be working for the pharmaceutical industry and working for the foodindustry.
These industries leading thecountry.
And the issue in front of us was which ties the Stanford med school dean wasopioids.
So you get in aroom, I'm a junior employee and it'slike, there's unnecessary regulation onopioids.
These incredible innovations that are solving this scourge of the American people which ispain.
And we have to fight back againstthis.
What are we going todo? And I had a list of doctors in front ofme.
And we'relike, how do we get these doctorsmoney?
Let's get them some researchgrants.
So we reached out to the dean of Stanford med school who is a painspecialist.
And we funded him directly with consulting payments and then made a donation to Stanford to his lab for $4 million from opioid companies to study ethics and painmanagement.
Then we worked with our allies at the NIH which is totally just a swamp with pharmaceuticalinterests.
It's funded byfar, it's a total rovingdoor.
And we helped set up apanel.
So the NIH in 2011 did a panel to make recommendations onopioids.
Who's the most trusted person you could possibly have on a panel to make a medicalrecommendation?
The dean of Stanford medschool.
So the dean of Stanford med school who just took a bunch of money from opioid companies was appointed in 2011 to the Blue Ribbon panel on opioidrecommendations.
He shows 19 other eliteacademics.
15 of the 19 had direct payments from opioid companies that we very strategically steer tothem.
And that panel in 2011 recommended basically that this was overblown about theaddiction.
They basically said you have stayed acourse, pain is a hugeproblem.
And then opioid prescriptions continued to goup.
That's how itworks. And I could just tell you that I think this is something people are waking upto.
I think you see this in the political climate right now wherethere's, I think the defining issue of our time is distrust of ourinstitutions.
Theselobbyists, theseconsultants, they know how to rig thedebate.
They know people trust to study fromStanford.
They know peopletrust, you knowwhat, civil rights groups say that if you call someone racist that's going to shut down thedebate.
So that's why corporations that are basically poisoning the America people are the biggest funder of civil rightsorganizations.
It's just look who people trust and funnel the moneyto.
So let me askyou, whenyou, when you funded the research for let's say that Stanford professor or Dean or whatever itwas.
And thenthey, and you funded 15 of the 19 people that are on thatpanel.
Now, I want to get reallyspecific.
Do you think what do youbelieve?
Do you believe that they genuinely believed theopioid, likethat, that was theirconc, there were genuine conclusion after doing the research in the study was that the opioid thing isoverblown.
Hey, more opioids forAmericans,right?
Do you believe that they felt like little conflictedlike,hey, my gravy train shuts off if this goesdown.
So let's find some middleground.
Do you feel like they are intentionally misleading or that that's genuinely what theybelieve?
Very, very goodquestion.
I think the reason maybe a lot of listeners and I used to have trouble believing this is because how can this be soevil?
So let me break thisdown.
The genius of the healthcare system is that it takes very good people and puts them into a system with plausibledeniability.
So the problem is that nobody actually has full responsibility for why the outcome that the healthcare system should be solvingfor, which is people gettingsick, why that's exploding as everyone's makingmoney.
Youknow, the doctors can say it's the food companiesfault, the food companies can say it's personalresponsibility, the med schools can say we can't control what Americansdo.
We're just going to keep growing and makingmoney, the pharmacompanies, youknow, rallyabout, youknow, making stads and curing the sick patients in front ofthem.
Soeveryone, the systemic design of the healthcare industry is actually genius because it can allow people actually almost a virtue signal about doing the right thing whileproducing.
Well, not necessarilyevil, it'sevil, but it's producing what the system's desire todo, which isgrowth.
So that's one dynamic with the healthcaresystem.
If you go down to yourquestion,Sean, and I've really Casey's been exploringthis, we talked about this in ourbook.
I have to put some culpability on people in thesystem, and I think it's breakingthrough.
One statistic that'salarming, doctors have the highest suicide rate and highest rate of burnout of any profession inAmerica.
I think what's happening is you get a lot of well-meaningpeople.
There's easier ways to make abuck, youknow, than the nine years of training you have todo.
Youknow,people, we actually are a magnet for the best and brightest end of the medicalsystem, and then they eventuallyrealize, and if they'renot, they don't realizethis, they're just not payingattention, yet there are complicit in a system that is profiting from people being sick and they're not making peoplebetter.
So you actually have a dynamic where a lot of people feeltrapped.
Mysister, after leaving a kind of bravely leaving the medical system after a decade oftraining, got people senior atStanford, senior atHarvard, see your medical leaders kind of talking to her off the recordsaying, you are much braver thanme.
Everyone knows the system is going to run the country off acliff.
So there is aknowledge.
And I think what leads thisdepression,suicide, burnout among doctors is they don't quite know what todo.
They feel really trapped in this system with really perverseincentives.
But we all know people that work at Pharma that aredoctors.
Youknow, a lot of my friends from Harvard BusinessSchool, like they go into work atPepsi, work atPharma, work at thesecompanies.
It takes goodpeople. But more and more I do think we need to cut out Elon Muskenergy.
Hesaid, fuckit, I don't care if I losemoney, I'm going to do what'sright.
We need more of that leadership from the healthcare system because we're truly creatinga, and I'm not evenjoking,right?
Afat,depressed, infertilepopulation.
Imean, infertility is skyrocketing rightnow.
There's our bodies are screaming out forhelp.
Right.Well, before we go toinfertility, I want to just tie back to the historything.
So you had said something I think I'm one of your blog posts that the first chronic addition that pharmaceutical ever that became a pharmaceutical product was birthcontrol.
I think this is in the1950s.
And you said this is the first pill in American history that people just didn't stoptaking.
And youknow, if you're a company and you see this is a beautiful businessmodel.
Here's a pill they're going to take every singlemonth.
Youknow, on an ongoing basis and it'snot, youknow, it's not acure.
It's atreatment. It's a chronic thing that you're going to continue todo.
And I think there's some documentaries now in the Sackler family and allthis, but youknow, basically they worked forPfizer.
They startedthinking, youknow, how can we create more chronicissues?
And is it true that they also owned the medical journals at thetime?
Yes. So letme,yeah, let me try to take that to today and what kind of the business problem and the business opportunityis.
So you'reright. The medical system was at its height of trust after World WarII.
The invention of antibiotics was credited as a cheap reason we won thewar.
Youknow, but the antibiotics were foundedby, youknow, basically somebody digging in dirt and doing some like very rudimentaryexperiments, it costs nomoney,right?
It's like this wasn't actually a hugeindustry.
And literally the Sacklerfamily, theysaid,okay, this is verystrategic.
Let's take the trust engendered post World WarII.
Let's learn the lesson from the birth controlpill.
Let's get Americans onmore, morepills.
So they actually with owning the medicaljournals, they actually created new diagnosis codes and created this idea of anxiety and created new mental health codecategories.
And their first bigblockbuster, one of them was avalium, abenzos, veryaddictive, veryharmful.
And the time magazinecover, youknow, late 1960s early 1970s was valiumnation, a30% of women were on thisdrug, veryaddictive.
They were calledmom,mom, he's a littlehelper.
And that was theiradvertising.
And then you just go down thelist.
The entire thrust of medicine has then been to take that flexorreport, take what Rockefeller set up and put onhyperdrive, segment thebody, segment medical specialtiesdeeper,deeper,deeper.
And then create pills just forbiomarkers,right?
Stand forcholesterol,right?
The metformin for bloodsugar.
We'vebeen, we've been pilling ourselves on all these little biomarkers that we can kind of manipulate with onepill, completely ignoring the bloodsugar.
And then we've been completely ignoring that everyone's getting sicker at the sametime.
That is by thedesign,right?
It's veryprofitable. Andwe, youknow,we, I think we talked about this onTwitter, just as a statement of economicfact, there's nothing more profitable than a child that gets sick early and gets on these drugs and doesn't learn metabolic healthyhabits.
And the basics of why their blood sugar ishigh, why their cholesterol ishigh, they're told to save you as a pill and they're inevitably going to get more and more and more and more and morecomorbidities.
The genius of chronicdisease, which the sacroseunderstood, is that those patientssuffer, those kidssuffer,right?
You're, you're four times more likely to be suicidal or depressed if you have diabetes as akid,right?
You're, you're going to have a lot more issues likeinfertility, but you don't die rightaway.
You're, you're a patient who goes into system often paid for bytaxpayer.
So this wasunderstood.
This is directly understood when the saculars and another ally saw the birth controlpill.
And that takes us to today where I'll callout, youknow, even the entrepreneur committee and venturecapitalist,right?
Investment and and and good business opportunities in the system still are predicated on this existingmodel.
Youknow, I talked to a lot of esteemed healthcare VCs and they think innovation is putting a millennial pink package on Viagra and shipping it to people moreconveniently.
They think that innovation is like better UX on medicalrecords.
Youknow,you, you look down the list on these thought leaders of visual capital talkingabout, youknow, medicalinnovation.
It's all just better wrappers on the same existingsystem.
There's very littledisruption.
Now that's a moralproblem, but I actually think it's an economic problem because I don't think people fullyunderstand.
I've talked to a lot of a lot of the wise people in the healthspace.
If we have an unsusatablesituation, if we truly do believethat, if we truly do believe we're on a bad path with our mentalhealth, with our physicalhealth, with our obesityrates, we're not going to drug our way out of thatproblem.
Like we're not going to be doing more and more the same to solve thatproblem.
I think that's selfevident.
And I think there's an economic opportunity there for people who realize it because we're going to have to to shift the incentives of thesystem.
Hey, so Idon't, I don't want to change the world when it comes tofood.
That's up to you guys likeyou.
I just want to do like the 80 20 where I mostly do thingsgreat.
So I feel good and I look good and my family is safe and feels good aswell.
Can you tell me what you eat and where you get your food on a daily basis and just what that 80 20 is like what can Ido?
What can our listenersdo?
What can Sean do to just be mostlygreat?
Yeah, the core thesis of this book I wrote with my sister is that things are more complicated bydesign.
The biggest lie in health care is that the reasons we're getting sick arecomplicated.
And the second biggest lie is that these things can't be changedquickly.
Theycan. So when it comes tofood, I believe we should fire every single person in the government and academia who works innutrition.
We should replace it with this onerule, which is which answers your question and oneprinciple, reduce ultra processed foodconsumption.
We are70% if you look at what your kids are eating or what we'reeating, it's ultra processedfood.
So what what didyou, what did you eat for breakfast and what are you going to eat forlunch?
No matter what dietary philosophyare, I try to eat wholefoods.
I hadeggs,right? Past your race to look into thequality.
So the first step is to reduce ultra foodconsumption.
That's the thing I'd say first andforemost.
That is what most people are notdoing.
Even if you don't get into the type of types of food you'reeating, that's the firststep.
I guaranteeyou, if you are on the hunt to read your fridge of ultra processedfood, being on the hunt for thosethree, those unholy 20 of threeingredients, addedsugar, processed grains and seedoils, you're going to get to the next level of the quality of thefood.
The first thing to do is ultra processedfood.
Which basically just means mostly plants and animals that are not processed aton.
If we simply made that our nutritionpolicy, we'd be a transformed humancapital.
The second thing is as you alluded to is if you get there and most people are notthere, is to get into the quality of food to really understand and be curious and being in that path of what's being done to ourfood.
The genetic makeup of a grass fed cow versus a grain fed cow is entirelydifferent.
It's a reversed ratio of omega three or omegasix.
The grainfed, which cows are not me toeat, which is totally a newphenomenon, are predominantly omega six fattyacids, which areinflammatory, which causes inflammation in ourbody, a grass fedcow, which is how they've been raisedforever, which is now aluxury, is omega threeanti-inflammatory.
If you just hunt foranimals, hunt for vegetables that were made in the way were biologically made to eatthem, that's the secondpart.
I'mhungry. Do you go to a chain grocery store ever or do you only go to what you'redoing?
Where do you shop forgroceries?
I go toSprouts. I go to WholeFoods.
I look for deliveries of meat that's pasture raised of farmers that Itrust.
Buttruly, just going to your supermarket and not getting older processed food and looking with theeggs, pastureraised, with themeat, ideally grassfed, pastureraised, with thevegetables,organic, not spray with a bunch of glyphosate andpesticides.
It'ssimple. It's things we all talkabout.
But if you truly just follow that and we incentivize that as a countrymore, we'll be on a much betterpath.
What are yourvices? When's the last time you had aDorito?
Yeah, or just like do you have a bowl of ice cream once aweek?
I am like everyone that knowsme.
I've been on a journeyhere,guys.
Two yearsago, I was running a wedding dress company with mywife, adraconess, who were a wedding dress company duringCOVID.
We raised venturemoney.
We had a large team that struggled a bit duringCOVID.
It's calledanomaly. We made customdresses.
We had a really innovative supplychain.
But I've been runningstartups, direct consumer companies for the pastdecade.
I wasn't the earliestperson.
DuringCOVID, a couple of thingshappen.
What is mysister,Casey, who I wrote the bookwith, as I mentioned abunch, she started levelshealth.
She left the medicalsystem.
She's become a bigadvocate.
I thought she was an idiot when she left medical school or leftresidency.
As Isaid, grew up trusting the medicalsystem, thinking it was just crazy that she would leave this past season of all thesecredentials.
That's how we wereraised.
It's like get the bestschools, go up the traditionalsystems.
So I thought she wascrazy.
But she really radicalized me with these ideas that the answers are much simpler than theyseem.
In2021, as we were selling our direct consumercompany, my mom had a pain in her stomach and went into get a scan at StanfordHospital.
She was perfectlyhealthy, wethought.
But they told her it was stage4, paycredit,cancer.
She calledus, said she's going to diet a coupleweeks, and we rushed to herside.
What that experience forme, so this is relativelynew, this is2021, what that experience to me showed is really a microcosm of how the system'sbroken.
Because my mom was on five medications over 40years.
She, youknow, 30 yearsago, had highcholesterol, stand that'snormal, high bloodsugar, metform and that'snormal.
So she was the typical Americanpatient.
She was 70 and actually told by our doctor a couple weeks before that she was actually healthy because she was on less medications than an average 70 yearold.
Because those issues that most Americans deal with weren't identified as acore, youknow, metabolicissue, just take apill.
She wasn't set on that path of exploring herfood, of understanding how sedentary lifecan, can eventually give you cancer down theroad.
That led to her gettingcancer.
This year cancer rates are at an all timehigh.
They're particularly at an all time higher aroundkids.
Every single chronic disease you can name is at an all time high thisyear.
It's because we're ignoring the warningsigns.
We ignored those with mymom.
So she abruptly died and that kind of radicalized me to my previous experience working for the food and farmindustry.
Right around that time I took a blood test and the doctorsaid,oh, your blood isfine.
Youknow, you'refine. I showed mysister, she'slike, this represents metabolicdysfunction.
I asked the doctoragain, whathappened?
They'relike, then you're not treatableyet.
You're not quite at the standrate.
Butyeah,yeah,that's, it's notgood.
But youknow, we don't have anything to do for youyet.
So that's that kind of theseexperiences.
It doesn't come from a passion fornutrition.
It comes from a passion really for Americancompetitors.
We are poisoning our population and the average American is on a path like bymom.
Kind of the system hand waving these small things and then they eventually do a bigthing.
So that ledme. Imean, I'm not a model in anyway.
Andfrankly, I don't have any interest in lecturing anyonelistening.
I think we a lot of people listening are on probably a path rightnow.
My main passion and what Justin and I are really workingon, Justinmayors, my partner at TrueMab is I think I think a lot of your listeners are on thispath.
I think they're like looking at past racebeef.
I think they're trying what I'msaying.
And where my experience comes in from working for these industries is that we can't lie to ourselvesthough.
We are not going to get out of this if the largest industry in the country is instead of us for us to besick.
And I think startups companies very other people we need to actually talk about the top down incentives toso.
Youknow, I'm absolutely on apath.
We've written about tactical tips on ourbook, but where I'm spinning most my time islike, how do we change theincentives?
Because I don't think the Japanese kids are just much less lazy and less suicidal than Americans at a3% youknow, they have a3% obesityrate.
We have a child at obesity rate like25%.
There's something happening with theincentives.
What is the answerthere?
What is the leading theory on why in Japan they're at you look at thischart.
We're at40%.Yeah,America.
We're number one40% obesityrate.
And then Japan's at the bottom4%.
What are they doingdifferently?
What isit? Youknow, genetic might be ahypothesis.
What are the realhypothesis?
No, did anyone that said genetics they say or beastly crisis is genetics when it's just exploded in the past 40 years and was not an issue atall.
They say they say the diabetes is genetics when you didn't have kids as diabetic 40 yearsago.
Sean, it is sosimple. It is follow themoney.
It is thatsimple. I'm just going to say thisagain.
Our most prominent industry makes money when we're sick and loses money when we'rehealthy.
What does Japando?Yeah, so they spend three times less per capita on healthcare and double the amount mostly onfood.
So percapita. So they actually put food into their healthcarebudget.
So I'll say itagain, they spend two times worker capital onfood.
We spend almost like on all of the health countries percapita.
We spend the least amount on food and three times more than theaverage.
Are you saying the government spends two times more on thecountry?
As a country and a lot of the healthcare budget actually goes to instead of icing the food system and foodinterventions.
Nine out of 10 killers of Americans are foodborneillnesses.
Imean, we can dance aroundit.
It's just thatsimple. Like you would wipe out heartdisease,diabetes, kidneydisease, respiratoryillness, COVID deaths even if you got our country metabolically morehealthy, which is many factors but food is the numberone.
Other countries understand that and they dramatically reign in the incentives that pay doctors more when you get sicker for a longer period oftime.
Fundamentallydestruction.
A lot of these countries I don't even have systems we fully agree with that you know socialism would I would ever have you in the US we have much worse than socialism we have a kleptocracy where the system's just totally been rigged at every single impulse is for people to get sick be fed into the system and then stay sick to be treated that's every single impulse in thesystem.
I have you have you ever you you I don't think you've been to Europe recently but when you go to Europe it's pretty crazy I you like I went down this little path where I remember going to Europe and I felt like I ate poorly like I was on vacation and I pretty bad but I was walking a lot but I feltawesome.
I went to the store and I bought a pack of Skittles just I wanted to look at the ingredients and then when you compare the amount of ingredients that are in a Skittle or Kit Kat or like normal junk food compared to American food it's like the list of ingredients it's like two or three times as long I've seen it to it right same brand a bread or whatever it is same brand of cracker but then in Europe there's three ingredients and in the US there's 17 ingredients that you don't recognize the names that's just talkingabout.
There's this other thing where if you look at McDonald's so McDonald's up until like 1985 or 1990 they used beef fat I believe it's afry.
Yeah, tall and it was I think it was just salt and a potato for a long time now if you look at the ingredients of a friend fry it's a McDonald's French fry it's got like 10 other things is there and I think that someone said said it best where they said in Europe the rules around food are it's a default to we say no to everythinghere.
The ingredients we allow you to put in whereas in America it was like here's the here's the handful of things we don't allow Cali you're rolling your eyes is that in accurate to look at it because I've noticed that when I go overseas I oftentimes I feel better but I don't think I'm eating better no no I think you're hitting it on this Ted Sam I'm just anticipating what I would be thinking a couple years ago what some people might be thinking is there's this argument when you talk about this US that it's over regulation and again I'm like a free market guy I don't like regulation and as a working for these companies whenever anyone mentioned about changing food degrees the US it's like the US system is great let's not have the nannystate.
The problem is that the nanny state is the fact that food companies have lobbied and rigged the system to have thousands we literally thousands of ingredients that aren't legal in Europe are allowed in the United States the US D nutrition guidelines committee which basically approves and recommends various foods95% of it is funded by95% of the panels are directly funded by food companies or farmer companies so this idea that we allow these ingredients isn't under regulation it's actually completely in utterly rigged you know Justin mayors and I do we have a company that is trying to change the incentives but because we've been pounding this mission we've been looped into a number of advocacy efforts one thing we're doing we're working with the guy named Jason carp and a bunch of health leaders we've done a legal action against Kellogg's you know Kellogg's is a stark example but their ingredient list they change completely for the American kids versus across the border and Canada it has addictive ingredients it has the colorings that make it really bright that are linked to ADHD and other developmental issues we're literally through a rigged system you know our free formulating ingredients for American kids that's we Europe frankly realizes more I mean what Europe and other countries are doing is it's not really even health care policy it's a let's not please in our population as much policy Kelly I want to shift gears real quick you we ask people before they come on the pod we say you know what were some of the big you know either philosophies turning points in your life things that that really shaped you and and shaped the way you think about the world you said something that the most formative experience was a HBS class so Harvard Business School class where professor said that the most depressed group of people he ever studied was HBS people 10 years after graduation what is that story and why would Harvard Business School grads 10 years later be the most depressed group of people yeah kind of made me think about the Scott Galway interview guys did where he's like you know don't chase your passions I just I really don't think that's the right advice I don't think we have an epidemic of people you know not you know that's what I've generally seen is a lot of our trauma and expectations for society you know throwing really good human capital into suboptimal roads and yeah so HBS and it's just one microcosm you know but but just something I saw everyone writes their application essay about you know transforming and disrupting the world care disrupting you know energy big industries having a big impact and then like many things you you get into that room of you know a thousand people of kind of they'll a type people and it took conformity factory so 85 to90% of people by the end of the two years end up going into traditional industries into finance and energy you know my friend person wrote a essay about transforming healthcare went to McKenzie and you know I was on the team that help prescribe more opioids on their side that the really had to settle lost it so so you have this dynamic I think this happens at many layers throughout the country where based on you know various fears that are ingrained in a lot of the world and I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I think that's why I 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So my momdies. I'm kind of at an existentialmoment.
I'm kind of thinkingabout, youknow, what I want to do our company was cranking beforeCOVID.
Youknow, I had a hundred employees was was struggling because the whole market was cutoff.
And Iagain, conservative guy never had super stigmatized view never thought about thesethings.
Yeah, can you imagine you like 12 year old you or in your Brooksbrothers, ohyeah, it's being like one day you're going to be advocating forsecond.
I still got theBrooks,no, I could have never I still got the sportscoach.
So I still got the sportscoach.
So I still got the sportscoach.
So I still got the sportscoach.
So I still got the sportscoach.
So I still got the sportscoach.
So I still got the sportscoach.
So I still got the sportscoach.
So I still got the sportscoach.
So I still got the sportscoach.
So I still got the sportscoach.
So I still got the Brooksbrothers.
I tried it where that when I talk about this because I think it's a very important thing to actually across theaisle.
Everyone needs to wake up to but and I do talk to a lot of Republicans about this who are wakingup.
Butyeah, so a friend who is a scientistsaid, let's do this therapeutic sessionblindfold, a high dose music fourhours, introspectivealone.
And I'll give a couple examples of what Isaw.
So it's really hard todescribe.
But I think I'm going to have to dothis.
I'm going to have to dothis.
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I'm going to have to do this out of the trauma and thought processes and fears that we're inevitably ingrained with and helps cement in a really solidway.
Some of these potentially new frameworks that sound right but are like have the seriousness of a long termthing.
And then the other thing I'd say I think a lot of people talk aboutthis.
Andagain,Sean, it's only I just share mystory.
It's only as you'recalled.
I think it is importanthere.
I think it's really dumb and kind of not correct to talk about as some kind of like corporate or executive hack because it's much deeper thanthat.
But forme, it's the most profound important professional thing I've everdone.
Imean, like the whole kind of growing up inDC, trying to chase up theladder, go to the goodschools, theHBS,conformity.
It definitely islike, youknow, definitely I think consistently gives you this kind oflike, youknow, idea of how these stupid games were playing just don'tmatter.
And definitely solidified in myhead, like hopefully some fearlessness on likepushing, youknow, a mission forward and letthe, letthe, what I'm doing now and I'd like to think that's ingrained in thecompany.
I know from myperspective, having a mission that's sincere at just what Ihave.
And it's been a differentiator recruiting like minded people and customers andmerchants.
It's not a fantasy foreverything.
I think a lot of people get to this place throughprayer, throughmeditation, orroute.
It's not like ashortcut, but it definitely is a way brute force to get out of your traps that are holding youback.
That's pretty damnconnoction.
Sean, or I think you like making apoint.
Yeah, I think you're going to help get busy nextweekend.
I think you're going to have to mark some timeoff.
I don'tknow,man. That'snot, when I hearthat, I think blindfolded with headphoneson.
I find that to be incrediblyintimidating.
Ifind, I wantthe, I want theresult.
I don't know if you can go to one time or have you done it more since is it like a regular thingor?
Yeah,no, it seems like giving childbirththat, youknow, it was a profoundexperience.
Isay, I want to do right awayagain.
It's areally,but, but I've done it a couple moretimes.
Imean, tobe, to be totallyhonest,Sam,it's, it's allabout, I will promise youthis.
Andfrankly, this is myperspective, but if anyone feelscalled, if you are called and you're doing it ina, in a good settingwithout, youknow, somebody ranting about politics to you before and where you feelsafe.
And you walk towardsthe, and this is what the clinical research says quitefrankly, but if you walk towards yourfears, if you go into an way to explore and walktowards, youknow, yourissues, whatever that means toyou, it's going tobe, I've never personally met someone that'sdead.
And a responsible therapeuticway, who hasn't said it's been the most impactful experience of theirlives.
I actually don't know anyone that hasn't said that it's not likea, a club oranything, but it truly is if you're called to doit.
I would say this to people if thisresonates, I would try to do it likeurgently,like,like, I think your life is reallylike, many people I know and forme, it's like kind of beforeafter.
Is thislegal?Like, can you Googlelike,like, Silasillum retreat nearme?
Yeah.Yeah. SoI,I, I did it ina, this legal in somecountries.
There's a phase three FDA approval in the United States to make itlegal, which we're at just now actually advocating a lot ontwo.
I think it fits into the whole root cause health thing that we're trying to pushforward.
There's so religiousexemptions, there's a state bystate, adecriminalization.
So I'm not going to give legaladvice.
Iwould, I would urge people to find a responsible legal way to do it therapeutically in a trusted safesetting.
Andyeah, inSam, it'sjust, it's just about wheneveryou, you feelcalled,but, but it's fourhours.
It's exploringyour, youknow,your, it was holding us allback,right?
There's different narratives andstuff.
Imean, I think you guys are amazing how openly you can talk about kind of your mental models andstuff.
It's just a way to like zoom out and re-explorethose.
Yeah, I think it'sawesome.
I'm totally in favor ofit.
Ijust, it'snot, I'm a little intimidatedstill.
Well, one of my favorite phrases is when the student isready, the teacherappears, and I think you're saying when you're called tosomething, I've always felt thisway, which is that things happen at the right time andyou, youknow, intuitively you'll know when the right time is for certain things or if it's foryou.
YouTubevideo, I watched of Tim Ferriss talking aboutpsychedelics.
Tim Ferriss is a big advocate forpsychedelics.
I think he has a nonprofit that he started that's fundingresearch.
But what I liked about his video was that he wasn't trying to convince you at all to doit.
Infact, he started by essentially convincing all the reasons you shouldn't doit.
And was very measured and responsible in the way that he talked aboutit.
So if anybody'scurious, if this majorcurious, I would watch that video because I thought that was very helpful in framingit.
I won't try to summarize his points because I thought he did a goodjob.
But just try to Google for YouTube for Tim Ferriss talking aboutit.
It's like a five minute clip orsomething.
I completely agree withthat.
It's not like anendorsement, but it iscriminal.
And I think one of the biggest issues in the country that we don't make this toolavailable.
Just lastweek, the FDA actually threw a wrench into the approval process forMDMA.
Again, Justin and I see Trumet as an advocacyorganization.
We're lobbying and have a relationship with 100 members ofCongress, both sides of theaisle.
We're actually working with presidential candidatestoo.
And members of Congress to brief them about thisissue.
The FDA does not like these treatments because instead of longterm, kind of numbing yoursymptoms, it actually does help you get into the cause and unpacking the trauma that we all have and the mental models that we allhave.
Soactually, this gets into what we were talking aboutearlier.
I consider this a root causetreatment.
Anything that gets to the root with mentalhealth, it's obviously the mental models holding a spack with metabolicconditions, it's food and lifestylehabits.
What's interesting is when you first start talking about thishouse, almost chuckling a little bit tomyself,like,oh, first he was kind of railing against prescribing a drug to solve theproblem.
Yeah. And then he's saying the drugs all the problem for mealready.
It was a greatintervention.
But what actually what you're saying is that in bothcases, it's the cleaning of the fishtank.
So in the first case that the cleaning of the thing that was making you sick was the food and the secondcase, the thing that was making you sick in the head was your own story and perspective onthings.
And this was a way to change the narrative in yourhead, the perspective and the story that you were telling yourself everyday.
So I think in bothcases, you're actually advocating for cleaning thetank.
Yeah, it is my wife and Justin and people that know we'll tell you Ibelong.
I'm I've a long way togo.
My biggest house room in my house is the room forimprovement.
But like forme,this, youknow, what Idid, what a bumpers would I love that what I did this a couple of times and I haven't done it a longtime.
Sean, because it just it jams for me oflike, it's thebasics.
It'slike, be a goodperson, try toexercise, eathealthy,meditate, youknow,like, like the key to life is that like that was a big thing forme.
It's just like the having the neurotic experience of what the world is with this is onething.
But like the implementation for me islike, so that that was my message fromit.
And I think it's like it was a good message forme.
It'slike, I think that's what most people that do this a therapeutic wayget.
It'slike, I need to be a betterperson.
Things areconnected. Soyeah, it's not like like you take it into its apanacea.
It's like it's like atool.
It is a like nuclear weapon like blood force instrument to like jam sometruths.
And itis, youknow, not to get tootrippy, but it is a naturalsubstance.
Youknow, the oldest living organism that we basically derived from thisfungus.
So, youknow,yeah, it's a goodquestion.
But it's not tome, it's not anti-pharmapro-pharma.
It's what is a root causecure?
What actually helpsus, youknow, get to the get to theproblem.
And I think most modalities that help us actually cure things are pushed backagainst.
And drugs that are basically help numb and are recurring areincentivized.
Do you ever take it like just have fun like recreationally or onlymedicinal.
Imean, I've taken itrecreationally.
I thought it wasawesome.
Yeah. Ididn't. Highlevel, I'd say like it's it's impossible to even like articulate and like I don't have the English words to articulate how different like taking something at a concert is versus a therapeuticexperience.
It's like it's like a differentstratosphere.
Like I truly think if people are called for doing a therapeutic high doseway, it's going to be one of those impactful experiences of theirlives.
So, it's a it's avery, very very different the set in setting anddose.
But highlevel. I think when you just compare the science on things like alcohol and other drugs that we take versus versus what these drugs do which are actually brain regenerative in many ways and very low sideeffects.
I think even how we think about recreational drug use is you know ourgovernment, youknow, we prescribe15% of high schoolers basically math youknow, Adderall which is which is literally like one molecule away frommath.
We, youknow, caffeine is prettypowerful.
Alcohol is veryharmful.
Youknow, I think we totally have it backwards on what's appropriate forrecreational.
I think it's I think it's just fine personally just from a medical perspective from a scientificperspective, even from like a spiritualperspective, it'slike, youknow, people taking low doses psychedelics and talking about theirfeelings, talking about theirlives, gettingdeep.
Imean, it's kind of like where did thislike, where did it like I was watching this thing from the 80s where they were talking about MDMA and it's like too many people are going dancing and feeling together and loving to eachother.
It's like it's like it's like it's like it's like the fearmover.
It'slike, is that a badthing?
And then there's like very little side effects of side effects of on the end you made forcommercials.
This islike, this is your brain on drugs and it's just aflower.
It'snice. There's no problem withit.
Youknow, I wanted to say thank you for comingon.
I appreciate your kind of your openness and I don't know your contrary and opinions because I'll be honest withyou.
A lot of times when you were talking I wasthinking, is this a conspiracy theory or is this afact?
At the sametime, I was thinking he soundscrazy, but my eyes verify what he'ssaying.
Meaning I look at the food we're we eat and we'resold.
I look at the people aroundme.
I look at the health conditions and you're not wrong aboutthat.
And so I thought this is one of the more interestingepisodes.
It's one of the few episodes I would say is an importantepisode.
We do a lot of funepisodes, interestingepisodes, but this is one of the few that I could say isimportant.
Andyeah, I just appreciate you comingon,man.
This is a goodtime. I appreciate you guys somuch.
And my big pitch and anyone listening thatresonates, there's a lot of economicopportunity.
If you agree with thisthesis, because it has to change and we need moreentrepreneurs, need more people thinking about changing health care service because it has to move in thatdirection.
I appreciate you guys somuch.
Listen to the podcast every episode and just awesome to talk shop with youguys.
You're theman. We appreciateyou.
