In recent discussions surrounding mental health and the rising incidence of school shootings, controversial narratives have surfaced linking selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) to increased violence and societal discontent. Notably, Tucker Carlson’s commentary on this topic has ignited a heated debate, particularly around the claim that SSRIs contribute significantly to these troubling events and lead to widespread unhappiness among those who take them. As approximately one in five Americans are prescribed these medications, it becomes essential to scrutinize the validity of such assertions. In this blog post, we will delve into the complex relationship between SSRIs, mental health, and real-world consequences, aided by insights from psychiatrist Josef Witt-Doerring. Our aim is to unpack the claims surrounding FDA corruption, the use of antidepressants, and their implications on mental well-being, providing a fact-based perspective that challenges the sensational narratives often amplified in public discourse.

Find a fact check of this transcript on CheckForFacts

Transcript:

[00:00:00,000]: I think this is one of those topics that if people understood the scale of the problem the severity that we would be talking about this every day along with immigration and foreign policy this is in my view one of the most important things going on right now

[00:00:18,200]: Give us a sense of how widespread the use so let’s just start with SSRIs antidepressants

[00:00:23,760]: How widespread is their use in the United States

[00:00:27,000]: About 14 of the population

[00:00:29,899]: Total population

[00:00:30,399]: Of the total population is currently taking an antidepressant medication

[00:00:35,040]: Currently

[00:00:35,840]: Currently yes

[00:00:36,799]: Yeah

[00:00:37,159]: And that’s actually as of 2014 the numbers have gone up since COVID

[00:00:42,279]: So I would say it’s probably between 15 to 20 of the population

[00:00:47,919]: Is currently on those drugs

[00:00:49,520]: Are taking antidepressants on a daily basis

[00:01:12,379]: So that’s I mean compared to my childhood or even 25 years ago that’s a massive increase

[00:01:18,839]: It’s an enormous increase

[00:01:21,220]: It’s likely you know last statistics I looked at I think it’s about a 500 increase from where things were in the 90s in the early 90s

[00:01:30,720]: Has America’s collective mental health improved

[00:01:33,879]: No there’s actually more suicides there’s more disability from mental health problems and teen suicide is higher as well

[00:01:41,339]: So if there’s been a 500 thereabouts increase in the use of these drugs but more people are killing themselves and the drugs are prescribed in order to make you not kill yourself then that suggests that we’re getting the opposite of the intended effect

[00:02:00,860]: Yeah yeah yeah big time

[00:02:03,300]: There’s more psychiatric prescribers now there’s more drug prescribing and the outcomes are actually getting worse

[00:02:10,759]: What we’re doing is not working on a national level

[00:02:14,839]: I’m just going to skip ahead to my opinion then I’m going to pull back but that suggests that we should ban the drugs and imprison the people selling them

[00:02:20,619]: That’s my personal view

[00:02:23,580]: But you know you’re the psychiatrist

[00:02:26,360]: So what effect and I will try to reduce my emotional outburst just to that but it’s so shocking when you know the details

[00:02:39,320]: Um where do these drugs come from

[00:02:42,139]: What are they exactly

[00:02:42,979]: What is an SSRI

[00:02:44,139]: Who invented them

[00:02:45,539]: What do they do

[00:02:47,580]: So I mean SSRIs are kind of the latest iteration of antidepressants

[00:02:55,699]: They’ve been out since the 50s but Prozac really changed history when it came out in 1987

[00:03:02,259]: So this was a drug that was designed to modulate the serotonin system

[00:03:08,320]: This is by blocking serotonin reuptake

[00:03:11,679]: And so what that does is it increases the amount of serotonin between the neurons and it actually has a drug effect

[00:03:18,899]: It will make people numb or emotionally constricted

[00:03:23,080]: And so that’s how those drugs are working

[00:03:27,160]: I was I remember when the rollout for Prozac I think it was on the cover of Time or Newsweek or one of the then popular news weeklies in the United States and it was hailed as a wonder drug that was going to fix America’s psychiatric problems

[00:03:44,220]: And it didn’t

[00:03:45,820]: But it was also described as a drug that helped as I recall that helped regulate and I’m quoting chemical imbalances in the brain

[00:03:53,979]: It was not described as something that would numb you

[00:03:56,320]: Hmm

[00:03:59,059]: Yeah it’s essentially just a story that was sold

[00:04:04,139]: The chemical imbalance myth was a story that was sold to doctors and patients to make them feel better about taking drugs for their mood

[00:04:11,919]: Because I think intuitively many people when you say hey I’m unhappy I’m anxious I’m depressed

[00:04:19,239]: If you went to that person and said hey do you want to take a drug that’s going to mask those symptoms

[00:04:24,440]: Intuitively people would say no I’d rather get to the root cause of that

[00:04:30,079]: Sweeping things under the rug usually doesn’t work that well

[00:04:33,380]: Yes

[00:04:34,040]: But when you craft a narrative about these drugs fixing a chemical imbalance say like a type one diabetic who doesn’t have enough insulin you give them insulin and it kind of sort of like a magic bullet kind of injects itself like right into that pathological process and fixes it

[00:04:55,000]: That’s kind of a different message

[00:04:56,559]: The message to the person is that your brain is defective there’s something wrong with it

[00:05:00,500]: And we’re going to give you this chemical to bring things up to normal

[00:05:04,220]: Yes

[00:05:04,619]: That’s a lot easier for someone to say well actually I need my medicine because I’m broken

[00:05:11,899]: But that was essentially a lie

[00:05:14,339]: The idea that these drugs fixed a chemical imbalance simply came from observations that when you give people serotonergic drugs they can become calmer they can look less depressed

[00:05:28,040]: And so rather than the obvious explanation being okay this is a drug effect that we’re seeing they are drugged and that’s what we’re looking at

[00:05:35,559]: People said well maybe they just had low serotonin and now they’re looking better because we’ve fixed this chemical imbalance

[00:05:42,399]: And so that message has just been grabbed by pharmaceutical industry and psychiatrists to essentially lull people into this state where they feel more comfortable taking them

[00:05:57,100]: It changed among other things the practice of psychiatry completely

[00:06:01,820]: And I remember this just because I grew up in an affluent area where people use psychiatrists not in my family but everyone else’s family

[00:06:08,700]: And the idea it was Freudian psychiatry and the idea was we are going to treat the root causes

[00:06:15,760]: Now whatever you think of Freudian psychiatry or Freud or whatever but you need to sit on the couch and talk about your childhood

[00:06:22,760]: By addressing the root cause of your problems you would make it better

[00:06:27,600]: That was the promise of it whether it worked or not

[00:06:29,920]: And then it felt like in one day right around the time Prozac came out Freud was being denounced everywhere as a sexist

[00:06:37,160]: Mm hmm

[00:06:38,779]: And Freudian psychiatry became not just sort of passe but like affirmatively unpopular

[00:06:44,839]: Mm hmm

[00:06:45,739]: And the role of psychiatrists was to dispense these drugs

[00:06:49,640]: From an outsider’s perspective that’s what I noticed at the time

[00:06:52,880]: That is what happened

[00:06:54,380]: And I think what was going on was all of a sudden you had a billion dollar war chest of marketing spend that was trying to seize control of the narrative about medications

[00:07:07,160]: And so I mean Prozac was like a blockbuster

[00:07:11,600]: Some people may not remember this but that was the drug that made Eli Lilly a billion dollar company

[00:07:16,880]: I mean it was a small company before then

[00:07:19,299]: And so at every single level there was an incentive to change how people thought about distress

[00:07:26,779]: No longer was depression and anxiety a complex thing where there could be relationship issues and problems at work and problems in your childhood

[00:07:38,040]: All of that stuff was

[00:07:41,119]: Now it was almost bigoted in a way to talk about depression and anxiety as if it had these intuitive social and societal causes

[00:07:51,399]: It was now a medical condition

[00:07:53,320]: And if you were gonna say that it wasn’t a medical condition you weren’t taking it seriously and you were stigmatizing people

[00:07:59,420]: So drug companies they would platform I guess through their influence with the universities and the media they were able to push out this narrative

[00:08:11,119]: And so they could shoot down Freudian analysis and therapy

[00:08:14,760]: And so the message essentially came out that was this is a chemical imbalance

[00:08:19,660]: These are medical conditions

[00:08:21,019]: And if you say anything otherwise you’re stigmatizing the mentally ill

[00:08:26,059]: But couldn’t

[00:08:27,260]: I mean it doesn’t

[00:08:28,700]: That’s obviously what happened

[00:08:30,359]: I saw it happen

[00:08:31,339]: But it doesn’t really make internal sense

[00:08:34,179]: Like you could say I think you’re depressed because all your relationships are dysfunctional or your parents are horrible or whatever you’re failing at work

[00:08:44,520]: Those are all common causes of sadness for sure

[00:08:49,340]: Without dismissing or stigmatizing the person or his problems like you are taking it seriously you’re just trying to find the actual cause of the problems right

[00:08:58,539]: I mean absolutely

[00:09:00,440]: I mean I think to logical people that makes sense

[00:09:03,460]: But the way that played out in public spaces and in medical schools was that that was actually a very backwards and dismissive thing

[00:09:14,799]: People would say things like depression just isn’t normal sadness

[00:09:19,200]: It’s a serious biological problem

[00:09:21,559]: And so to suggest that this is just some life issues going on relationship issues you were kind of branded as someone who really

[00:09:30,979]: You just didn’t get it

[00:09:31,760]: You didn’t understand the medical underpinnings of this new disease that was gripping the country and kind of evolving and making people suffer

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[00:10:52,780]: Did the people making these claims understand the medical basis of this illness they were describing

[00:10:59,539]: No I mean that’s the irony right

[00:11:03,219]: So for example they say it’s a chemical imbalance

[00:11:06,280]: Did anyone ever describe what balance is

[00:11:10,039]: So I mean the thing this is like a white lie that people sort of rationalize to themselves

[00:11:17,760]: Because people have looked at the chemical imbalance and there is a clear way to do it

[00:11:23,400]: You can look at the brains of depressed people on autopsy and you can actually look at receptor levels and say is there any changes in the receptors

[00:11:33,059]: You can stick needles into people’s spine and you can draw out a fluid and you can look at the metabolites of things like serotonin and you can get depressed people and undepressed people and say is there any difference in the actual amount of serotonin floating around in the brain

[00:11:49,200]: Every time they’ve done this they have not found that there is any difference between depressed and undepressed people

[00:11:56,679]: But there’s no difference

[00:11:57,760]: There is no difference

[00:11:59,099]: Because that’s why we don’t use any biological markers in the diagnosis of any psychiatric conditions no brain scans no blood tests

[00:12:08,380]: We can do all of those things

[00:12:09,840]: They are not useful because there are no ways like actual biological ways to differentiate depressed people from undepressed people

[00:12:18,739]: Are you serious

[00:12:19,700]: Absolutely

[00:12:21,179]: Yeah

[00:12:22,080]: Okay

[00:12:22,299]: So well that’s not a white lie then

[00:12:25,599]: That’s like a massive whopper

[00:12:27,400]: If you’re telling me there’s a biological basis for anything but you can’t show it then you’re lying

[00:12:35,729]: Yeah

[00:12:36,190]: We’re guessing at best

[00:12:38,010]: And the way they justify it was well okay so we haven’t found it yet but it must be a medical problem and we’re eventually going to find it

[00:12:46,849]: And rather than admitting that in the meantime we’ll just tell people it’s a chemical imbalance because it’s an easy kind of like metaphor for them to understand

[00:12:56,330]: And it helps us dish out the drugs without people asking too many questions

[00:13:01,229]: But it’s untrue

[00:13:02,109]: It’s untrue

[00:13:02,549]: Therefore physicians should not say that or they should lose their medical license

[00:13:07,210]: They shouldn’t have been saying it

[00:13:10,010]: But I thought I mean like strict adherence to reality honesty I thought that was like a prerequisite for practicing medicine getting a license

[00:13:19,369]: Yeah

[00:13:20,590]: Well what’s happened in the space of psychiatry is almost like

[00:13:28,950]: Our field has become so overrun with pharmaceutical propaganda that it’s not really an issue of truth in a lot of places

[00:13:40,330]: It’s like a moral issue

[00:13:42,130]: Doctors feel the need to almost encourage people to take these medications and cheerlead them onto it

[00:13:48,390]: It has been sort of cast as a issue where it’s like you know people these medications are heavily stigmatized

[00:13:56,369]: There’s a bunch of like rednecks running around telling people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps

[00:14:02,109]: That’s like the boogeyman that’s cast out there

[00:14:05,510]: Yeah yeah

[00:14:06,049]: And so yeah that people are like you know there’s a lot

[00:14:09,570]: There are rednecks out there

[00:14:10,429]: Yeah there are rednecks out there stigmatizing the mentally ill saying your suffering isn’t real

[00:14:15,950]: And so we need to kind of peddle this narrative about there being a chemical imbalance and encourage people to take these medications because mean society out there is telling people to just sit there and suffer in silence and to not take the drugs

[00:14:31,609]: And so doctors see it as like almost a

[00:14:35,669]: This is what medical school was like for me in residency

[00:14:38,630]: It’s like don’t question the drugs don’t question the side effects

[00:14:42,169]: You need to encourage people to take them

[00:14:46,409]: So it’s hinged away from truth and it has become more of this moral issue

[00:14:52,229]: At least that’s how

[00:14:53,349]: Sounds like a religion

[00:14:54,049]: Yeah I mean that’s what decades of drug company propaganda has done to kind of shape the narrative about how doctors and patients in the media view this issue

[00:15:03,950]: So you go to med school you decide to become a psychiatrist you spent you know good residency all stuff

[00:15:11,549]: Did anybody during the whole course of that program note that as the prescription rate for these drugs has risen so is the suicide rate

[00:15:22,890]: No no not at all

[00:15:24,789]: Yeah they don’t notice that

[00:15:26,809]: They don’t bring that up at all

[00:15:29,349]: Isn’t the whole like point of medicine noticing the connection between behavior and outcome

[00:15:36,169]: Yeah yeah

[00:15:37,049]: People who smoke a ton of unfiltered cigarettes get a higher rate of lung cancer than those who don’t

[00:15:40,750]: So that’s like that’s why we know smoking is bad

[00:15:42,869]: Yeah you know you just get a version where it’s like yes you know mental health is getting worse but instead of them saying well it’s because our treatments don’t work what they will say is that you know the depression is rising this is a serious medical condition you know it’s occurring more and more

[00:16:02,909]: And us and our drugs we are stemming the tide

[00:16:06,150]: If not for us doing this this would be overflowing and getting out of control

[00:16:10,830]: And so rather than actually reflecting on the fact that things aren’t getting better they are just saying that you know this depression you know which didn’t really happen that much before it’s just happening more and more and more

[00:16:23,030]: And so that’s how they justify the worst outcome

[00:16:25,650]: I get it

[00:16:26,210]: I mean they’re children obviously it’s just you’re freaking me out here because these are like just kind of basic logical questions

[00:16:32,929]: And the first one is if depression is rising and it sounds like it is why

[00:16:37,929]: Why is this happening

[00:16:39,210]: Yeah

[00:16:39,729]: Does anyone ever ask that

[00:16:43,429]: Did you hear anyone ask that

[00:16:45,710]: You know and people do ask this question

[00:16:49,289]: And I think it’s you know it’s multifactorial

[00:16:55,609]: Like you know from my vantage point depression is rising because our treatments don’t work and they may actually make people worse

[00:17:03,530]: But then there’s also very legitimate things going on in society that makes depression rise

[00:17:09,790]: You know housing is unaffordable

[00:17:11,849]: There are real things going on that are also making people unhappy

[00:17:15,010]: Society is getting crappier and more dysfunctional

[00:17:17,369]: That makes people sad

[00:17:18,430]: I get it

[00:17:21,310]: But it just seems like if you’re treating an illness the first question you would ask is like where did this illness come from

[00:17:29,849]: Yeah

[00:17:31,270]: Yeah

[00:17:32,329]: No

[00:17:33,770]: You would be shocked if you could be a fly on the wall in what happens during like psychiatric interviews

[00:17:41,270]: Because this is what happened

[00:17:43,890]: This is what I observed

[00:17:45,089]: So I came out of medical school really excited to do psychiatry

[00:17:49,869]: You know I was like I’m gonna help people with depression and anxiety

[00:17:52,469]: I’ve always been someone who’s been really interested in self help and you know philosophy

[00:17:57,609]: Yes

[00:17:58,050]: And then I get started

[00:18:00,750]: And during my internship what I see is that we spend hardly any time actually understanding our patients

[00:18:09,449]: The interaction is extremely transactional

[00:18:12,329]: You might spend 40 minutes during an intake with someone but you’re hardly gonna understand their relationships

[00:18:19,310]: You’re hardly gonna understand their work life

[00:18:21,670]: There’s very limited time to know what’s going on with them health wise and whether they’re using any substances

[00:18:28,270]: The visit it’s almost like a checklist

[00:18:31,949]: And what I was witnessing is we weren’t spending any time really trying to actually understand the people and their lives

[00:18:40,969]: And we would just default to using medications because it was really quick

[00:18:45,729]: And the way we justify doing this is that we have this book it’s called the DSM

[00:18:50,010]: And you can diagnose people essentially off a checklist

[00:18:53,410]: You know if you have five out of nine symptoms you can say that person is depressed

[00:18:58,109]: And so you just ask them what symptoms they have

[00:19:00,010]: You don’t have to understand the complexity of their life

[00:19:02,449]: And then you say okay you’ve got major depressive disorder

[00:19:05,229]: And we’ve got this FDA approved treatment over here

[00:19:08,489]: We have this drug that’s safe and effective

[00:19:10,829]: And it allows you to be kind of like medically justified and having these very transactional visits and just like putting people on meds and it just turns them through the system

[00:19:22,410]: And so

[00:19:23,609]: It doesn’t sound like there’s a lot of concern for the patient

[00:19:28,869]: Well the way doctors are trained nowadays is to view these issues as medical issues

[00:19:39,930]: So why be concerned about their life if the person is just suffering from a brain illness and you’ve just diagnosed it with this checklist of symptoms and there’s an FDA approved treatment

[00:19:49,829]: You think that you are caring for the person and doing the justified thing

[00:19:54,010]: But what does it say about the way these physicians feel about human beings if they sincerely believe that something as complex as a human emotion has a purely organic origin that they can’t define by the way

[00:20:08,770]: I mean none of this makes any sense at all

[00:20:10,810]: If there’s no difference between the brain of a depressed person and a happy person then you can’t really say there’s a known biological cause for depression

[00:20:21,770]: Like you just can’t say that because you can’t show it

[00:20:24,250]: But even bigger picture like just being a human being you know that all of this is just wildly complex and there are libraries full of novels written about it

[00:20:34,930]: Human emotions human experience relationships

[00:20:37,930]: It’s like if you’ve gotten to a place where you’re just like well you need an adjustment of your serotonin levels you’re not treating people like human beings right

[00:20:47,910]: No yeah

[00:20:48,530]: I mean you have a very reductionalistic view of people

[00:20:53,390]: Of people

[00:20:53,989]: Yeah

[00:20:56,689]: And I think it’s very sad

[00:21:00,069]: And scary

[00:21:00,890]: And scary that the people you know the experts who lead the mental health teams the psychiatrists and that they have such little care and appreciation for those issues

[00:21:11,010]: It’s very scary

[00:21:12,209]: It feels sad to me

[00:21:13,810]: Yeah

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[00:22:35,569]: So tell us like okay so you’re excited to become a shrink a psychiatrist

[00:22:41,069]: Sounds like for all the right reasons

[00:22:42,849]: You want to make people better happier more fulfilled add purpose all the good things

[00:22:48,969]: And then you wind up on this podcast with a totally different view of how your profession is helping or not

[00:22:57,750]: How did you get there

[00:23:00,689]: Well what I started to notice in my intern year was that it just it does not work

[00:23:11,089]: And I mean this is the heart of it

[00:23:13,089]: You put people on these medications without understanding why they’re unhappy and so firstly it’s like how could you expect to fix someone if you don’t understand why they’re unhappy

[00:23:23,910]: And then so putting that issue aside maybe we’re just okay with drugging people

[00:23:29,130]: They have unhappy they’re unhappy and we put them on medications

[00:23:33,310]: Maybe that’s okay although I don’t agree with that

[00:23:37,209]: The drugs they just wear off over time

[00:23:39,969]: You put someone on five of Lexapro a starting dose

[00:23:44,869]: Six months later the effect has usually worn off and they need a higher dose

[00:23:49,469]: 12 months after that they need a higher dose

[00:23:51,410]: And eventually they’re maxed out on it and the person will say to you I don’t even know what this drug is doing anymore

[00:23:58,569]: Or it’s hardly doing anything

[00:24:00,890]: And so at that point they ended up getting put on more and more medications and eventually you have people on five meds and the drugs aren’t really working

[00:24:10,229]: And so I would see this pattern where you put someone on a drug you get this honeymoon period where and they work

[00:24:18,829]: This isn’t a placebo thing

[00:24:20,469]: Like these drugs they turn down your emotional range

[00:24:25,250]: They are numbing

[00:24:26,030]: And if you’re someone who’s seriously anxious you will experience that as therapeutic maybe even life saving

[00:24:32,489]: Instant relief

[00:24:33,250]: Yeah

[00:24:33,449]: Well sometimes a couple of weeks but practically instant

[00:24:36,150]: Well for benzodiazepines it’s like instant relief

[00:24:39,150]: Yeah for benzos instant

[00:24:40,770]: For SSRIs usually a couple of weeks

[00:24:43,530]: And so people they’ll get this experience where they’ll say this drug has saved my life

[00:24:48,849]: I’m more functional

[00:24:50,770]: Yeah during the honeymoon period where your body hasn’t adapted to it because our bodies they just adapt to the drugs over time

[00:24:58,910]: And so I would just see them wear off and the people would start accumulating more and more drugs and then they would get slowly sicker

[00:25:07,510]: And I’m thinking to myself Sicker by which you mean what

[00:25:10,790]: Like mentally sicker

[00:25:11,969]: They’re more fatigued more brain fog more depression and anxiety over time

[00:25:15,949]: And I saw that a lot

[00:25:17,729]: Lots of my patients were not getting better on these regimens

[00:25:22,209]: And so I would talk to my attendings and I would say this doesn’t really seem like a sustainable way to help people putting them on drugs that essentially wear off over time and they end up sort of stuck on and then they look worse

[00:25:36,750]: And they would tell me don’t worry Joseph these drugs are safe and effective

[00:25:41,829]: They’re approved by the FDA

[00:25:44,430]: Do they actually use the phrase safe and effective

[00:25:46,209]: Yeah yeah

[00:25:46,890]: They actually use that phrase

[00:25:47,949]: They use that phrase exactly

[00:25:49,589]: These are safe and effective

[00:25:51,189]: They are approved by the FDA

[00:25:54,069]: Nothing to see here

[00:25:54,790]: Don’t worry about it

[00:25:55,530]: Why would you be concerned about this

[00:25:57,750]: The authorities have spoken

[00:26:00,709]: These actual doctors

[00:26:02,329]: Yeah these are professors

[00:26:03,750]: They look at you in the face and say don’t worry Joseph they’re safe and effective

[00:26:07,569]: Yeah yeah

[00:26:09,209]: You’re freaking me out

[00:26:10,849]: Yeah yeah

[00:26:11,810]: And so I think I’m 26 at the time but this does not sit right with me

[00:26:16,650]: And so I decide that who am I

[00:26:20,709]: I don’t understand this research

[00:26:22,449]: I’m going to become an expert in it

[00:26:24,930]: And so after residency I go and I work for Janssen which is the pharmaceutical arm of Johnson Johnson

[00:26:32,109]: And I get involved in clinical development there doing a fellowship so I could see how the pharmaceutical companies develop the drugs

[00:26:39,329]: I stay there for a year and then eventually I go to the FDA and I become a medical officer in the division of psychiatry who are overseeing the safety of the drugs on the US market

[00:26:49,699]: And it was by going through that experience and actually seeing how these drugs were developed over time that I realized that we are practicing so far outside of what the evidence shows like in an insane way

[00:27:04,790]: Like outside of science

[00:27:06,290]: Outside of science yeah

[00:27:07,650]: Like the whole idea that it makes sense to put someone on an SSRI for years at a time is not supported by the clinical research at all

[00:27:18,069]: It’s a complete like guinea pig

[00:27:23,050]: It’s an experiment

[00:27:24,709]: It’s an experiment happening on a mass scale

[00:27:27,630]: Millions and millions of people

[00:27:29,030]: Millions and millions of people yeah

[00:27:30,849]: So I said before about probably between I mean let’s just call it 20 15 to 20 of people are on these medications

[00:27:38,589]: Half of the people that use antidepressants are on them for over five years

[00:27:42,630]: And so maybe 7 to 10 of Americans are essentially on an experiment where there’s no clinical trial evidence that says that these drugs are safe

[00:27:55,969]: The scary thing is when my doctors used to say to me these medications are safe and effective

[00:28:03,709]: The thing that they would leave out was for the 12 weeks that they were studied in the clinical trial that’s like and then when you look at the research there has never been a randomized control trial that has gone that has looked at this over 12 months

[00:28:23,689]: 12 months

[00:28:24,229]: But you said there are millions tens of millions of people on this for years

[00:28:27,369]: Yeah taking them for years

[00:28:29,089]: And it is and then this is just insane because anyone who has their eyes open will see that these drugs clearly wear off over time

[00:28:37,482]: I mean that’s why you have to keep on going up on the dose

[00:28:40,262]: And so it would be really important to actually see how effective these drugs are over time

[00:28:46,522]: Well why wouldn’t they

[00:28:47,202]: They have the sample

[00:28:48,522]: It’s right here

[00:28:48,942]: It’s in America

[00:28:49,542]: There’s a lot of people to choose from

[00:28:51,422]: Yeah they don’t do it

[00:28:54,202]: And a lot of this happens just because of precedent and there’s a complete lack of What was it like

[00:29:06,062]: You spent a year at the FDA

[00:29:07,222]: Yeah

[00:29:07,502]: What was that like

[00:29:08,682]: Yeah it was really concerning to be honest

[00:29:10,962]: Yeah

[00:29:11,542]: When was that

[00:29:13,482]: 2020 2019 to 2020

[00:29:16,042]: Yeah

[00:29:16,562]: Why was it concerning

[00:29:19,022]: So FDA receives a lot of funding from the pharmaceutical industry

[00:29:24,062]: And I’ll talk about a few things here

[00:29:30,222]: So I’ve always been interested in drug safety

[00:29:34,562]: That’s actually what I do now

[00:29:35,902]: I help people come off meds after they’ve had side effects

[00:29:38,622]: So that’s always been my interest

[00:29:41,482]: One of the issues is because the agency is funded by the pharmaceutical industry through PDUFA

[00:29:46,742]: This is a congressional law

[00:29:49,622]: I think they have 70 funding

[00:29:52,302]: What it does is it tilts the agency towards certain activities

[00:29:56,002]: So when pharma hands over money to the agency they say we’re going to give you this money

[00:30:01,962]: But every time we give you an application for a drug you need to review it within nine months because our patents are going to expire

[00:30:10,602]: And so you need to get it done in nine months

[00:30:12,882]: Every time there’s a protocol that comes in you need to look at it within 30 days

[00:30:16,222]: There’s nothing I think on face that bad about it

[00:30:20,962]: Hey it makes sense

[00:30:22,022]: There’s commercial interest here and they want to get something

[00:30:24,542]: But what it actually does at the reviewer level is that all of our resources go towards drug development activities

[00:30:32,102]: And so we’re reviewing protocols for the drug companies rather than following up on safety issues

[00:30:37,862]: So there could be something like PSSD which I’d like to talk about later on

[00:30:42,682]: It’s a serious sexual dysfunction problem or all these different side effects going on that need reports and that need attention from medical reviewers

[00:30:51,702]: Those were all just put on the back burner

[00:30:54,102]: They were neglected because the way success in our division was measured was whether it was that we were just getting these things these activities done on time

[00:31:05,082]: And so there was much more of an about being at the FDA

[00:31:17,642]: It’s not so much the agency but it speaks to academic psychiatry as a whole

[00:31:25,502]: Now as I mentioned before I think we’re almost brainwashed when we go through our training to internalize these beliefs that these psychiatric conditions they morph and they evolve and they can get worse

[00:31:41,662]: You know to criticize the medications is to be morally bad and to be stigmatizing the mentally ill and scaring people away from medications

[00:31:50,982]: Lots of academics they end up working at the FDA

[00:31:53,982]: That’s just a natural progression for them

[00:31:56,562]: And many of the people there had those beliefs

[00:31:58,882]: And so I didn’t actually when I looked at a lot of the colleagues that I was working with there they were so hesitant to call out problems with medications

[00:32:11,442]: I think the really cynical side of me says maybe there was like a laziness component because if you identify a problem you kind of have to deal with it and you have to do a report

[00:32:22,222]: But I actually think it was more that they had been so kind of sucked into this narrative that they almost they needed to protect the drugs and they needed to be kind of advocates for them

[00:32:35,742]: So rather than actually doing good science and really having a critical look at all of the problems that were happening with them like the withdrawal problems like PSSD really clear issues they were so hesitant to call it out

[00:32:51,642]: So I feel like it had been captured by industry just through all of that messaging

[00:32:58,962]: We did an interview with a woman called Casey Means

[00:33:02,742]: She’s a Stanford educated surgeon and really one of the most remarkable people I have ever met

[00:33:09,242]: In the interview she explained how the food that we eat produced by huge food companies Big Food in conjunction with pharma is destroying our health making this a weak and sick country

[00:33:22,462]: The levels of chronic disease are beyond belief

[00:33:26,082]: Well Casey Means who we’ve not stopped thinking about ever since is the co founder of a healthcare technology company called Levels

[00:33:34,302]: And we are proud to announce today that we are partnering with Levels

[00:33:37,782]: And by proud I mean sincerely proud

[00:33:40,982]: Levels is a really interesting company and a great product

[00:33:43,862]: It gives you insight into what’s going on inside your body your metabolic health

[00:33:48,562]: It helps you understand how the food that you’re eating the things that you’re doing every single day are affecting your body in real time

[00:33:55,162]: And you don’t think about it

[00:33:56,322]: You have no idea what you’re putting in your mouth and you have no idea what it’s doing to your body

[00:33:59,262]: But over time you feel weak and tired and spacey

[00:34:04,342]: And over an even longer period of time you can get really sick

[00:34:07,062]: So it’s worth knowing what the food you eat is doing to you

[00:34:11,642]: The Levels app works with something called a continuous glucose monitor a CGM

[00:34:16,622]: You can get one as part of the plan or you can bring your own

[00:34:19,142]: It doesn’t matter

[00:34:20,122]: But the bottom line is big tech big pharma and big food combine together to form an incredibly malevolent force pumping you full of garbage unhealthy food with artificial sugars and hurting you and hurting the entire country

[00:34:35,982]: So with Levels you’ll be able to see immediately what all this is doing to you

[00:34:39,922]: You get access to real time personalized data and it’s a critical step to changing your This isn’t talking to your doctor in an annual physical looking backwards about things you did in the past

[00:34:53,942]: This is up to the second information on how your body is responding to different foods and activities the things that give you stress your sleep et cetera et cetera

[00:35:03,802]: It’s easy to use

[00:35:05,502]: It gives you powerful personalized health data and you can make much better choices about how you feel

[00:35:10,662]: And over time it’ll have a huge effect

[00:35:12,762]: Right now you can get an That’s levels link slash Tucker

[00:35:21,222]: This is the beginning of what we hope will be a long and happy partnership with Levels and Dr Casey Means

[00:35:27,962]: Okay

[00:35:28,522]: I’m not surprised by that

[00:35:30,042]: That’s known as you well know as regulatory capture and regulators are cut off from the effects of the drugs that they’re regulating because they’re not treating patients

[00:35:39,862]: So I’m not making excuses but I’m not surprised

[00:35:42,662]: What I am surprised by is the behavior of clinicians of physicians prescribing these drugs to individual people with whom they’re in regular contact and they somehow don’t notice that these people are not getting better and then killing themselves or going through all these other problems that are the results of side effects

[00:36:01,182]: Why don’t the doctors notice this

[00:36:04,962]: Where are the decent doctors

[00:36:10,062]: There are decent doctors out there and people are waking up to this but a lot of the rank and file physicians again they have been marinating in a soup of just marketing messages

[00:36:24,722]: When you see someone who is getting worse you put them on an SSRI and they have a manic type reaction to it

[00:36:34,402]: Does that happen

[00:36:35,442]: Yeah it does happen

[00:36:36,182]: This is a side effect

[00:36:37,902]: Rather than saying oh we made you manic because we put you on this SSRI you can just say we have bipolar disorder

[00:36:44,842]: You were depressed before but now because you’re manic you have bipolar disorder

[00:36:49,842]: There was always this tilt towards viewing worsening as the underlying condition and so many people are trained in that way

[00:37:01,322]: Is there evidence to support that

[00:37:03,322]: No there’s no evidence to support it

[00:37:05,862]: The whole diagnostic criteria in Do you have these symptoms

[00:37:15,082]: Okay maybe you have bipolar disorder and there’s a very limited education about the side effects

[00:37:21,502]: It’s also easier for doctors to look at worsening as the development of a new condition because what that means is one I’m not at fault because I put this person on the drug and they’re worse but two if I just diagnose them as having a new condition I can just say okay well now you have bipolar disorder don’t worry we got a drug for that

[00:37:47,642]: And it allows you to treat them in a very quick way rather than going through the mess of saying hey this was a drug side effect now we have to get you off of it

[00:37:58,262]: That’s a lot of a much more involved process

[00:38:01,942]: It sounds like the culture of medicine in this country is really anti human

[00:38:08,402]: What about the people

[00:38:11,922]: I’m sorry I didn’t mean but I

[00:38:14,122]: No it is

[00:38:16,502]: It’s a practice that has been really destroyed by a whole range of bad influences

[00:38:23,482]: One we can’t trust our academics because so many of the academics that teach doctors are actually on the payroll of pharmaceutical companies

[00:38:34,582]: They are in positions of power because of assistance from the drug companies

[00:38:40,742]: We also have a health insurance system that incentivizes people doctors to see patients in the shortest period of time

[00:38:50,742]: You don’t get incentivized to make someone well you get incentivized to just kind of churn through them

[00:38:57,122]: And so you make nearly like if you were to see one patient for 45 minutes to an hour you essentially make half as much as if you were to just churn through four patients within that period of time

[00:39:09,522]: So even doctors have this incentive just to default to the fastest thing which is to diagnose someone off a checklist and give them a drug because that’s a hell of a lot easier than understanding their life and their relationships and their work and their What are the side effects of SSRIs

[00:39:36,742]: So there are a couple but I want to start with one which really doesn’t get a lot of airtime and that is actually the effect that everyone has

[00:39:46,702]: And so these drugs they work through emotional constriction and there’s an opportunity

[00:39:53,282]: What’s emotional constriction

[00:39:54,862]: Numbing

[00:39:55,602]: Numbing

[00:39:55,642]: So if you’re having like a lot of anxiety negative emotions it kind of just sucks it in but it’ll also take out the positive things

[00:40:03,302]: So many people will experience that as therapeutic

[00:40:07,542]: But I mean the risk of this is that you miss an opportunity to actually address the real reasons that you’re unhappy

[00:40:17,922]: Many doctors they will not talk to patients about this

[00:40:21,262]: And most people have very clear issues why they’re unhappy

[00:40:25,022]: They’re having problems with drugs

[00:40:27,762]: They have relationship issues

[00:40:30,182]: They have work issues

[00:40:32,442]: They’re eating terrible foods

[00:40:34,382]: They have like massive insulin resistance or diabetes that has completely disrupted the energy system of their body and their neurons are just starving for energy

[00:40:43,942]: If you’re having these legitimate problems you just throw a drug on top of it to mask that anxiety that is really like the smoke detector saying problem problem those issues they just fester

[00:40:55,482]: They just kind of sit there and they just get worse over time

[00:41:01,102]: To me that is the number one problem with these medications is that you miss an opportunity to actually address the problem that is causing the That seems now that you’re saying it out loud so obvious

[00:41:17,162]: People have anxiety for a reason

[00:41:20,162]: They feel sad for a reason

[00:41:22,402]: I mean most of the time anyway correct

[00:41:25,042]: Yeah

[00:41:25,222]: I mean it is correct

[00:41:26,502]: But to say that some people would say Tucker that is a really insensitive thing to say

[00:41:32,782]: These people have medical problems

[00:41:35,182]: And that is what you can say

[00:41:37,962]: Sure

[00:41:38,262]: It’s a depression

[00:41:39,122]: It’s a medical

[00:41:39,582]: I’m happy to acknowledge it’s a medical problem with dire consequences

[00:41:44,222]: You kill yourself

[00:41:45,082]: It’s very serious

[00:41:46,662]: It’s not reducing the seriousness of it or dismissing it as fake

[00:41:53,182]: It’s acknowledging just how real it is

[00:41:55,602]: It’s more real than a serotonin imbalance

[00:41:57,842]: It has to do with like your life

[00:42:03,662]: I just can’t believe there are people that stupid and shallow practicing medicine

[00:42:09,202]: Yeah they’ve done a number on us

[00:42:12,662]: Yeah because I mean they’re not a lot of dumb doctors

[00:42:15,522]: They’re all pretty smart right

[00:42:16,822]: The screening it’s for intelligence to some extent

[00:42:19,702]: But like that’s just so shallow

[00:42:21,762]: I guess that’s what I

[00:42:22,642]: You mentioned religion

[00:42:23,662]: I mean I think we’re ideologues in there

[00:42:26,002]: We’ve been pushed into thinking about mental illness essentially in a way that benefits drug companies and a profession because psychiatry as a profession is also really into pushing this narrative because it gives us a primacy amongst their healthcare professionals to say we are the doctors and we have the drugs

[00:42:48,822]: And because of that we need to protect the reputation of the drugs because to do so is to elevate us

[00:42:54,062]: So that is really deep and smart

[00:42:56,522]: No that’s right

[00:42:56,982]: Because psychiatrists in this country anyway are unique among mental health professionals in that they can prescribe the drugs

[00:43:03,382]: That’s what makes you fundamentally different right

[00:43:05,922]: Yeah

[00:43:06,262]: Yep

[00:43:07,222]: Yeah

[00:43:07,782]: And so yeah there’s guild interests at play as well

[00:43:11,882]: Guild interests

[00:43:12,402]: I’m sure

[00:43:13,522]: Yeah

[00:43:13,722]: Right

[00:43:14,002]: Because the marriage counselor can’t give you SSRIs

[00:43:16,002]: Yeah

[00:43:16,362]: But you can

[00:43:17,102]: Yep

[00:43:17,422]: And that’s why we’re special

[00:43:18,982]: And that’s why don’t question the drugs

[00:43:22,582]: Wow

[00:43:23,782]: That’s so plausible

[00:43:25,302]: Yeah

[00:43:25,722]: So the first what you describe as the first side effect is effectively ignoring the cause of the illness in the first place

[00:43:32,802]: And that has costs

[00:43:34,242]: Yeah

[00:43:34,762]: And you know I’m going to mention a whole bunch of other things that are important

[00:43:38,722]: We’ve got PSSD

[00:43:40,222]: We have brain damage during withdrawal

[00:43:42,242]: We have homicidal behavior

[00:43:44,102]: Okay

[00:43:44,102]: So let’s just let’s go in order

[00:43:45,562]: Yeah

[00:43:46,002]: Yeah

[00:43:46,762]: PSSD

[00:43:47,762]: Yeah

[00:43:47,962]: So this is what does that stand for

[00:43:49,522]: It stands for post SSRI sexual dysfunction

[00:43:53,182]: And from my perspective this is the biggest scandal in psychiatry going on at the moment that has been not discussed

[00:44:01,642]: Now there are people who get put on these medications that well firstly one of the big side effects of these medications is sexual dysfunction

[00:44:11,722]: It happens in I think it’s like 70 of people

[00:44:15,082]: 70

[00:44:15,302]: Yeah

[00:44:16,702]: Yeah

[00:44:17,142]: And when you say sexual dysfunction since you’re a doctor we can just be totally blunt

[00:44:21,582]: What specifically are you talking about

[00:44:23,282]: Yeah

[00:44:23,522]: So it would be like loss of interest in sex loss of arousal difficulty to reach climax and erectile dysfunction

[00:44:34,922]: Wow

[00:44:35,402]: Yeah

[00:44:35,842]: 70

[00:44:36,182]: 70

[00:44:37,422]: It’s a really normal side effect

[00:44:40,502]: And but the issue is we tell people that this goes away when they come off the medications

[00:44:46,082]: And this is just a temporary trade off you know to feel less depressed you’re going to deal with the sexual dysfunction

[00:44:52,702]: But what we’ve been seeing is that these drugs are causing permanent sexual dysfunction in people even when they come off of them they develop you know on top of all of those things I mentioned they will develop genital anesthesia

[00:45:07,902]: And so this is a real like neurological issue

[00:45:10,002]: Like those areas down there they lose erogenous sensation

[00:45:15,282]: People will say that when they touch down there it feels like the back of their hand or the back of their arm

[00:45:19,502]: And so there’s sensory changes

[00:45:21,662]: Are you serious

[00:45:22,762]: Yeah

[00:45:23,822]: And and so so it’s totally frightening

[00:45:27,922]: For how long

[00:45:29,382]: It can be permanent for some people

[00:45:31,262]: Come on

[00:45:31,522]: Yeah

[00:45:31,842]: And so um the prognosis is actually really it’s not good for that

[00:45:36,422]: I I you know some people will recover and you know three years or so but there are case reports out there where this has gone on for decades

[00:45:43,622]: What

[00:45:44,282]: Yeah

[00:45:44,622]: But it’s not just that

[00:45:46,182]: And here is the

[00:45:46,902]: Basically you’re castrating people

[00:45:48,022]: You’re essentially castrating people but it’s worse than that because

[00:45:51,902]: How could anything be worse than that

[00:45:53,362]: Because along with the sexual dysfunction um and this is where the condition is is misunderstood

[00:45:59,062]: People think it’s just a sexual problem which is already horrific as is

[00:46:03,402]: It causes um it causes cognitive damage as well

[00:46:08,922]: People will will along with that they’ll have difficulty severe difficulty concentrating focusing paying attention

[00:46:15,802]: And there’s also severe emotional blunting

[00:46:19,162]: And so people will talk about being completely dissociated as well uh from their emotions

[00:46:24,922]: Like if you were to hug a child you know your child or your wife you just don’t feel anything warm

[00:46:30,482]: If you were to hear a favorite song from your childhood that you know used to make like the back of your neck kind of a prickle uh from nostalgia all of that gets like nuked and and and taken out

[00:46:42,922]: And so you have people who are essentially lobotomized with cognitive impairment who actually who also have severe sexual dysfunction

[00:46:51,822]: So you’re basically destroying someone’s soul

[00:46:54,222]: I mean the things that make you distinctly human your your love your emotional response your sexual response which is very deep

[00:47:01,742]: It’s not just I’m horny today

[00:47:02,942]: It’s like it’s your life force

[00:47:04,622]: It’s your procreative force

[00:47:05,682]: It’s what keeps the species alive

[00:47:09,762]: That’s gone

[00:47:11,522]: It’s it’s wiped out and people become highly suicidal because when you don’t feel anything you don’t feel any connection to life

[00:47:18,802]: It’s it’s like there’s nothing to live for anymore

[00:47:21,762]: And so the suicide rate in this population is through the roof

[00:47:25,282]: And and I want to say something

[00:47:27,082]: Just a second

[00:47:27,502]: And this is all confirmed

[00:47:29,502]: Yeah

[00:47:29,722]: So so that’s what I want to say

[00:47:31,182]: Some people hearing this would be like this is so crazy

[00:47:34,842]: There’s no way this could be true

[00:47:36,582]: Yes

[00:47:36,802]: That that’s my response

[00:47:38,262]: Yeah

[00:47:38,742]: PSSD is a listed side effect in the European Union

[00:47:42,542]: So the European Union has already acted on this

[00:47:44,922]: They’ve put it in the warnings and precautions of all of the SSRIs and SNRI antidepressants over there

[00:47:51,602]: So they have recognized it

[00:47:53,302]: Canada has recognized it

[00:47:54,822]: Australia has recognized it

[00:47:56,382]: Hong Kong has recognized it

[00:47:57,602]: The New York Times has run pieces on this

[00:48:00,942]: It’s this is being reviewed by the FDA right now

[00:48:04,242]: This this is like this is not a fringe issue

[00:48:08,262]: This is something that several regulatory agencies like the biggest ones in the world like the European Union the second biggest regulatory agency in the world they have acknowledged this and they put this in the drug labels to warn doctors so they can talk to their patients about this

[00:48:23,722]: This this isn’t fringe

[00:48:25,402]: This is completely acknowledged by major health regulators but doctors do not tell patients about it

[00:48:33,942]: Do doctors know

[00:48:35,742]: Most of the doctors don’t know

[00:48:37,142]: And that’s because well there is no incentive to get this message out there

[00:48:44,102]: Now when this came on so when the European Union

[00:48:49,182]: Wait so there there’s a huge population of SSRI eunuchs many of whom kill themselves out of despair caused by SSRIs

[00:48:57,682]: And yet for some reason nobody knows this is happening

[00:49:01,042]: I’m confused

[00:49:02,682]: Like why don’t people talk about this

[00:49:05,362]: Again it’s it’s this issue where I think media doesn’t want to touch it because to do so would be to scare people away from life saving drugs

[00:49:15,382]: You should be experiencing comfort every single day of the year and it should not be something that happens every so often when you get home from work

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[00:50:29,102]: If you get a post purchase survey tell them you’ve heard about Cozy Earth right here on this How are they life saving if they hike the suicide rate

[00:50:41,682]: They’re clearly implicated in mass shootings

[00:50:43,842]: Let me say that again

[00:50:44,662]: They’re clearly implicated in mass shootings

[00:50:46,742]: Yeah

[00:50:47,382]: And they castrate people and make them want to kill themselves

[00:50:50,742]: How is that life saving

[00:50:52,722]: I mean it’s just a slogan because they’re not life saving at all

[00:50:55,922]: Because when you look at actually the clinical trial data it’s clear evidence that people who are under age 25 it actually makes them they engage in more suicidal activity than the people on placebo

[00:51:10,462]: It’s absolutely insane

[00:51:13,042]: And then when reanalyses have been done looking at the adult populations they also find higher rates of suicide in the clinical trials

[00:51:21,022]: But I want to have some nuance here

[00:51:23,062]: They can be experienced as life saving for some people

[00:51:27,242]: Like if you have a lot of anxiety and you get put on this medication and it blunts it you will experience that as feeling life saving in that moment

[00:51:36,062]: But in general on a population level they’re actually contributing to more suicidal attempts

[00:51:41,882]: I used to feel that way about vodka

[00:51:43,622]: Yeah

[00:51:44,082]: Really strongly

[00:51:45,182]: I’m being serious

[00:51:46,582]: Any heavy drinker can tell you

[00:51:48,162]: You wake up and you feel completely out of control

[00:51:50,962]: Completely out of control

[00:51:52,022]: You just feel like your head’s going to explode

[00:51:54,282]: You’ve got pins and needles anxiety

[00:51:56,282]: You’re so sensitive you can’t even like live in this world

[00:52:00,122]: And you have I was a double screwdriver in the morning guy

[00:52:04,122]: Solves the problem like right away

[00:52:06,482]: By the time you get to the bottom of the glass you’re under control

[00:52:11,022]: So I would call that in fact at the time did call that life saving

[00:52:15,482]: Yeah

[00:52:16,342]: And then of course the progression of alcohol and alcoholism is well known to most people

[00:52:21,002]: So it’s like people laugh at you and you say it’s life saving

[00:52:23,202]: How is vodka in the morning life saving

[00:52:25,882]: Well if you’ve experienced it you know why someone could say that

[00:52:29,242]: Yeah

[00:52:29,882]: But big picture that’s insane

[00:52:33,202]: So SSRIs sound like exactly the same phenomenon

[00:52:37,562]: It is

[00:52:38,482]: I mean on multiple levels I think one they make you ignore the real problems which fester and get worse and could actually push you eventually towards becoming suicidal

[00:52:48,362]: And two I think they disrupt your brain chemistry over time and actually make you more likely to be depressed and develop other issues

[00:52:56,322]: I just can’t believe the basically the entire weight of the American medical establishment the regulatory bodies some of the biggest publicly traded companies in the world they’re all basically prescribing vodka to desperate people

[00:53:11,542]: It sounds crazy

[00:53:14,522]: And it does

[00:53:15,522]: It honestly does sound crazy

[00:53:16,562]: And people are going to listen to this and they’re going to say you know this is crazy

[00:53:20,542]: But the beauty of it and the reason I feel so good about having this conversation is that it’s provable

[00:53:26,202]: We don’t have to guess because we have the outcomes

[00:53:29,462]: Right

[00:53:30,042]: So the two numbers as a layman that seem relevant to me doses prescribed suicide rate

[00:53:37,922]: Like that just seems like a pretty big picture way to measure success

[00:53:42,942]: If more people are killing themselves as you got more prescriptions for this garbage it’s at very least not working

[00:53:48,442]: Can we say that

[00:53:50,022]: I mean that seems logical

[00:53:51,062]: I think it makes sense when you look at that on the population level but I also think it makes sense intuitively for a lot of people

[00:53:58,682]: I mean with nearly 15 to 20 of people being on these medications everyone knows someone who’s on these drugs in their family in their social circle

[00:54:10,182]: Just look how are they doing

[00:54:11,742]: Are these people thriving

[00:54:15,002]: A lot of the times I mean the stories that I hear is that person’s not doing that great

[00:54:20,722]: They’ve slowly gotten worse over time

[00:54:23,102]: I mean you can look at it at a population level but this issue is so common

[00:54:26,522]: People actually see this in their real life in the people that they know

[00:54:30,522]: Have you ever spoken to someone who had numb genitals or no sex drive

[00:54:36,982]: Yeah I’ve spoken to probably 20 to 30 of them

[00:54:39,462]: What do they say

[00:54:41,122]: What’s that like

[00:54:42,662]: It’s like they wake up in a horror movie

[00:54:46,282]: I think about a woman named Rosie and I interviewed her and from my recollection I mean so she got on one of these medications beautiful young woman and she ended up developing PSSD

[00:54:59,782]: She told the doctor that it had happened to her and she became incredibly distressed

[00:55:03,942]: You know what is happening to me

[00:55:06,542]: Her sex drive just gone

[00:55:07,542]: Sex drive gone cognitive damage emotional blunting completely disassociated from her family from her emotions and disconnected from her life

[00:55:16,982]: The doctor involuntarily hospitalized her saying that she was delusional and that she had a health anxiety and tried to pressure her onto anti psychotic medication because they simply did not they could not accept that this had happened

[00:55:32,882]: They managed to briefly turn her family against her and just say you know she’s wrong she’s delusional she has another psychiatric condition

[00:55:40,842]: And so she ends up in a psychiatric hospital

[00:55:43,702]: Talk about a horror show

[00:55:45,042]: You get put on a medication that’s meant to help you

[00:55:48,002]: It destroys your nervous system and then a doctor involuntarily hospitalizes you and turns your family against you

[00:55:54,882]: These people literally wake up in a horror show

[00:55:57,102]: I spoke to another person in India

[00:55:59,202]: Is the doctor still practicing

[00:56:00,882]: Oh yeah they didn’t yeah they’re still practicing

[00:56:03,822]: And this is not isolated

[00:56:04,982]: I spoke to How did you end up in jail

[00:56:10,922]: You know it’s That’s so cruel

[00:56:14,002]: That’s criminal in my opinion

[00:56:16,082]: Yeah

[00:56:17,962]: Sorry I’m interrupting

[00:56:19,422]: I’m getting mad again

[00:56:21,542]: You spoke to someone in India

[00:56:22,982]: The same thing happened yeah

[00:56:25,482]: Because you know doctors they’ve never heard of this seems like you know too crazy to be true

[00:56:35,542]: How could these life saving drugs you know do something like this

[00:56:40,642]: And the same thing happened you know he ended up being involuntarily hospitalized this young man for months and his family was turned against him

[00:56:49,882]: He kept on trying to tell them that this had happened to him

[00:56:52,182]: And it took them months to let him out

[00:56:55,082]: And And so yeah it’s about the worst thing that I could ever imagine happening to someone

[00:57:02,732]: And they lose people all the time

[00:57:04,412]: The suicide rate’s out of control in this population

[00:57:09,292]: So a doctor who refuses to see the obvious and is committed knowingly or not to a lie it seems to me it would be likely in a case like this to prescribe a drug on top of the drug that had clearly caused the symptoms he’s trying to treat right

[00:57:25,072]: Yeah

[00:57:25,572]: What happens when you do that

[00:57:27,112]: A lot of these patients seem like they’re on all kinds of different drugs

[00:57:30,112]: How do they interact with each other

[00:57:31,432]: What’s the effect of that

[00:57:33,052]: Yeah I mean it’s awful right

[00:57:37,392]: You have someone who’s highly distressed for legitimate reasons with a totally messed up nervous system and you’ve just thrown them on an antipsychotic

[00:57:45,572]: So now they’re kind of like blunted and even more dulled dealing with the same problem

[00:57:51,492]: So if these drugs can eliminate your sexual response numb your genitals for life drive you to suicide is it possible that they have other sexual side effects

[00:58:03,932]: Well having spoken to some of these PSSD sufferers I’ve had two men heterosexual men tell me that they started to question their sexuality because of all of the blunting that was going on

[00:58:21,332]: These were men who were having encounters with women that they were just saying I would find this person very arousing and attractive and that’s not happening anymore and they start wondering whether they’re gay

[00:58:32,412]: And so I think on that level it can make people feel asexual it can make people start to question their sexuality which I’ve directly seen

[00:58:41,592]: And then the whole other issue which is even more frightening is the data that’s coming out in some of the animal studies about what happens to mice who are exposed in utero to antidepressants

[00:58:58,712]: Because this has always been a question that people have been curious about

[00:59:03,272]: What are the effects of exposing a developing nervous system during this period of life where it goes from being like a speck to a fully formed brain in nine months

[00:59:12,852]: You know these drugs freely cross placenta

[00:59:15,372]: What is the effect on the development of that

[00:59:17,452]: They do

[00:59:17,832]: They do

[00:59:18,272]: All of them do

[00:59:19,192]: Yeah

[00:59:19,672]: All psychiatric drugs freely cross

[00:59:21,412]: So mothers taking these drugs the drugs are in the developing child

[00:59:24,592]: Yes

[00:59:25,072]: Yes

[00:59:25,552]: We know that

[00:59:26,312]: Yeah

[00:59:26,752]: Fact

[00:59:27,452]: Yeah

[00:59:27,872]: But no study has been done on what that means

[00:59:31,412]: Well there have been some studies

[00:59:32,832]: And so firstly there’s the studies in rats and mice

[00:59:39,772]: And what they find is that the mice who are exposed in utero they grow up with a higher rate of autistic like behaviors and also decreased sexual interest

[00:59:49,972]: So they mate less than the other mice

[00:59:52,452]: Now you might be saying hey well that’s just mice

[00:59:54,672]: Who knows if that happens in humans

[00:59:56,412]: I tell you what I’m concerned enough about that already to worry about humans

[01:00:00,072]: I don’t need to see that human study

[01:00:02,292]: But we do have some studies in humans

[01:00:06,172]: And what they’ve found is we have 12 MRI studies that have controlled for depression which is essentially just a fancy way of making sure that depression isn’t a factor

[01:00:18,072]: And they’ve looked at the brains and they find that there’s structural changes and functional changes in the brains of kids who are exposed versus those who are not exposed

[01:00:29,432]: They’ve then gone again and looked at this when the kids have become adolescents and they’ve looked at their sensory processing

[01:00:37,772]: And the kids who were exposed growing up had altered sensory processing when they looked at the amygdala

[01:00:44,052]: It’s a part of the brain that’s responsible for high emotions

[01:00:49,492]: And those changes they have correlated with worse mental health outcomes

[01:00:55,792]: So that’s like a whole other topic that I was recently at the FDA talking about this with some of my colleagues that many women are not actually being told that there are real risks to your child if you take these medications when their nervous system is developing

[01:01:16,972]: Are they prescribed to pregnant women

[01:01:19,192]: 10 are pregnant

[01:01:20,632]: I think 9 or 10 of pregnant women are taking antidepressants

[01:01:25,752]: There’s been a massive increase in sexual changes of all kinds in the way that people couple literally in the way they have sex in the outcome that our children who were born and in self identified sexual orientation

[01:01:44,672]: A massive increase in homosexuality massive increase like mind boggling increase in transgenderism

[01:01:52,012]: No one seems interested in why

[01:01:54,732]: Is it possible that if you’ve got 10 of the population on these drugs that there’s a connection there

[01:02:03,352]: I mean I think that’s something to be explored because yes you could make an argument okay the world is more accepting these days and maybe people are coming out

[01:02:13,352]: That’s bullshit

[01:02:14,152]: The numbers are so high that that’s not it

[01:02:16,232]: But I’m looking at these animal data

[01:02:19,552]: I’m seeing changes in sexual interest in the mice who are exposed growing up

[01:02:24,492]: I mean we’re putting kids who are 6 7 8 who go through sexual maturity with their sex drive essentially blunted from these medications

[01:02:35,092]: I’m having people come to me and tell me that they’re questioning their sexuality because they’re not feeling attraction and arousal

[01:02:43,512]: Right

[01:02:44,112]: You can connect the dots

[01:02:46,292]: I mean it has to be playing a role

[01:02:49,872]: Is there currently an NIH study of this underway

[01:02:53,352]: Or is anyone saying hey wait a second you could change the future of humanity with this kind of stuff

[01:03:00,252]: There’s big consequences

[01:03:03,812]: No I mean the NIMH has essentially been useless

[01:03:07,852]: I mean all they do from what I see is they’re essentially just looking for drug targets in the brain

[01:03:16,092]: They’re not doing any research into side effects

[01:03:18,312]: They’re not doing any studies comparing non drug alternatives to drugs for the treatment of anxiety and depression

[01:03:24,612]: They are so captured and just obsessed with finding the next target to throw a drug at

[01:03:30,232]: I think the American public has been betrayed by the NIMH

[01:03:33,612]: I really do

[01:03:35,612]: Well it sounds like a lot of people have been killed

[01:03:37,472]: What about going back to the question of side effects I don’t think every time you raise the question like hey it seems like a lot of the school shooters that we know about to the extent we know anything about a lot of them they seem to be on these drugs

[01:03:57,792]: Has there been research into that

[01:03:59,372]: I know you’re not allowed to say that

[01:04:00,432]: YouTube shuts you down if you say that

[01:04:02,132]: I don’t know why

[01:04:03,572]: Yeah we’re throttled for sure

[01:04:06,512]: For asking that question

[01:04:08,352]: Yeah for asking that question

[01:04:10,792]: There weren’t school shootings

[01:04:13,572]: I mean the biggest school shooting of American history took place at the University of Texas

[01:04:18,192]: Chuck Whitman who turns out he had a brain tumor so there was a reason that that happened

[01:04:23,312]: Went up in the bell tower killed all these people

[01:04:25,832]: Then there was a lull and then Columbine happens and then there’s probably many reasons for this but the increase in school shootings coincides with almost precisely coincides with almost precisely coincides with this massive increase in the prescription of these drugs

[01:04:41,932]: So is anyone studying this

[01:04:46,832]: Well it’s actually really hard to study is the issue

[01:04:52,532]: I want to say this because this is a topic I don’t think drugs are involved in all the school shootings

[01:04:58,152]: I do think there is a social contagion element to it

[01:05:01,452]: But I do think if you look at the side effects of all of these medications it’s already in the label

[01:05:10,952]: If you look at stimulants right there it says it can cause aggression and hostility

[01:05:16,032]: If you look at antipsychotics like Abilify in the label it says it can cause aggression

[01:05:20,932]: If you look at the antidepressants it also says it can cause mania and aggression and agitation

[01:05:28,372]: That’s kind of the opposite of the intended effect now

[01:05:31,272]: Well what these things are are paradoxical side effects

[01:05:35,152]: And so and maybe an easy way to think about it is if there were 10 people in a room and they were smoking cannabis you might have nine people giggling and you have one person becoming paranoid

[01:05:45,912]: There’s something just about that person’s genetics and the way they respond to it that they have the opposite reaction

[01:05:51,972]: Yes

[01:05:52,432]: And so that can happen with psychiatric medications

[01:05:54,612]: And so these are rare side effects

[01:05:56,212]: You know and but if you’re putting like you know 15 of the population on these drugs rare side effects are going to happen

[01:06:08,212]: And you know so the next thing is so we know these drugs can do this

[01:06:13,472]: Well has this ever actually happened

[01:06:16,032]: And it has because you know there have been lawsuits

[01:06:20,772]: For instance there was one in the early 90s

[01:06:24,072]: It was the Tobin case

[01:06:25,812]: There was a gentleman called Don Schell who had had a bad reaction to Paxil

[01:06:30,672]: He had a bad reaction I think to Prozac and then he was put on Paxil many years later

[01:06:36,392]: And shortly thereafter he became incredibly homicidal and he killed his wife his daughter and his granddaughter and then shot himself

[01:06:47,032]: Now the surviving son in law the husband of the daughter who he killed ended up bringing suit against I think it was Smith Klein at the time it wasn’t GSK they go to a jury trial and they win

[01:07:03,212]: It gets appealed and the appeal isn’t successful and he ends up getting paid out

[01:07:08,172]: And so we even have I mean we have legal cases where jurors have listened to the evidence of these cases and said if not for this drug you know this awful murder suicide wouldn’t have happened

[01:07:21,612]: And so we know this happens from court cases and there have been many other cases like this

[01:07:27,152]: You just never hear about them because you’re not allowed to talk about this

[01:07:31,992]: Why would this video be throttled for broaching this topic

[01:07:36,532]: I’m confused

[01:07:38,772]: Well because I mean the dominant narrative is essentially that school shootings are caused by guns

[01:07:45,512]: I have a lot of guns it’s never occurred to me

[01:07:49,352]: And so that I mean this is meant to be stigmatizing this is meant to be something that scares people away from medications and it doesn’t fit the mold

[01:08:00,332]: I mean because to if you were to accept that this can happen you know even if this is a one in two million type side effect that’s still happening a couple times a year that people are becoming homicidal on these medications

[01:08:16,352]: And so I think people they don’t you just can’t say it

[01:08:22,272]: It’s taboo

[01:08:27,292]: It shouldn’t be if you care about the murdered kids at you know the schools

[01:08:33,672]: It’s changing though

[01:08:34,852]: And this is like a silver lining here that will make people like me seem a lot less crazy because through bipartisan support the governor of Tennessee just instituted a new law mandating that following school shootings there needs to be an investigation into the use of psychiatric medications

[01:08:53,712]: This is the first state to actually try and get that data to look into it because oftentimes it’s you know it’s redacted the FBI has it they don’t give it to anyone it’s kind of like shoved away in a box

[01:09:05,892]: But in the state of Tennessee with bipartisan support they will now look at this for any school shootings

[01:09:13,752]: Good good

[01:09:14,872]: So what okay you are you know middle aged person going through the litany of middle aged drama and you find yourself sad maybe even depressed you go to the shrink and you are prescribed drugs

[01:09:32,312]: What are the most commonly prescribed drugs

[01:09:34,932]: Which are the drugs you should be the most afraid of assuming there’s a difference

[01:09:39,952]: I mean I think the SSRIs we’ve talked a lot about them but the other class are benzodiazepines

[01:09:46,452]: Those are awful drugs

[01:09:48,372]: They’re usually used for anxiety and insomnia

[01:09:51,732]: And what are the brand names on those

[01:09:54,232]: Xanax Klonopin Valium Tamazepam

[01:10:01,592]: Yeah

[01:10:02,532]: Very common drugs in this country

[01:10:04,532]: Really yeah

[01:10:05,532]: Their use is declining but they’re still quite common

[01:10:10,512]: The main issue with them is that they we’ve talked about this before and you had mentioned taking one before

[01:10:19,212]: I mean I’ve taken them

[01:10:20,692]: It’s almost like immediate

[01:10:22,152]: I took one in high school

[01:10:23,272]: I never took another one because it was the most profound

[01:10:26,272]: I mean they solve all your problems in like four minutes

[01:10:29,892]: So super addictive right

[01:10:31,812]: To have something like that on hand

[01:10:35,712]: But the real problem with the benzos is when it comes What does that mean

[01:10:48,852]: Difficult to stop

[01:10:51,472]: So because they have such a potent sort of anxiety reducing and insomnia and sorry it’s sleep inducing effect

[01:10:58,732]: When you come off of them your anxiety goes through the roof and you develop severe insomnia

[01:11:04,452]: Some people even die from coming off benzodiazepines

[01:11:07,332]: It’s so jarring to the brain

[01:11:09,892]: And because of that people can get trapped on the drug

[01:11:13,272]: Every time they try and come off of it it’s so uncomfortable that they have to go back on

[01:11:18,292]: And they can also develop another condition called protracted withdrawal

[01:11:24,072]: And so some people when they’ve been on this medication for years and they try and come off they develop a kind of a brain injury

[01:11:31,332]: And so they taper themselves off the medication too quickly and they go into a severe withdrawal and the symptoms never stop

[01:11:41,092]: They end up with ringing in their ears light sensitivity cognitive impairment severe anxiety burning in their hands and feet

[01:11:48,932]: Oh come on

[01:11:49,472]: Yeah

[01:11:50,272]: And then they say to themselves they go I’m just in withdrawal

[01:11:53,512]: I’ve been white knuckling through this for the last couple of months

[01:11:56,292]: I’m just going to start the drug again

[01:11:58,072]: I don’t want to deal with this anymore

[01:11:59,972]: I’ll find another way to come off

[01:12:01,772]: They start the drug again

[01:12:03,312]: It doesn’t go away

[01:12:06,892]: Wait the symptoms don’t go away

[01:12:08,112]: The symptoms don’t go away

[01:12:09,012]: And these are the patients that I actually treat in my practice

[01:12:11,792]: I’d say probably 70 of the people I work with now have neurological damage from coming off benzodiazepines and SSRI medications too quickly

[01:12:24,572]: Thankfully it actually has I mean it’s awful

[01:12:27,052]: It has a decent prognosis

[01:12:29,412]: Most people recover from it within two years

[01:12:32,172]: But for many people it can be two years of severe disability

[01:12:38,352]: And these are the people you treat

[01:12:40,032]: These are the people I treat

[01:12:40,892]: So you see this

[01:12:41,852]: So I see this on a daily basis

[01:12:43,472]: I see this multiple days a week

[01:12:46,112]: People who have brain damage from coming off these medications too quickly

[01:12:51,212]: Now again I know most people haven’t heard about this before

[01:12:54,572]: So they’re going to be listening to this and saying this is crazy

[01:12:58,592]: How could I have never heard that coming off these medications could induce brain damage

[01:13:02,652]: Read the drug labels in the US

[01:13:06,512]: Every single benzodiazepine has a section in there that talks about the risk of protracted withdrawal

[01:13:13,052]: So what does that look like

[01:13:14,212]: So describe obviously anonymously but like the experience of one of your patients

[01:13:20,452]: So the experience of one of my patients is man I mean it’s so bad

[01:13:32,652]: You are living your life one day

[01:13:36,292]: You decide to come off a medication

[01:13:38,592]: And then before you know it your whole life is turned upside down

[01:13:43,632]: Your brain you are gripped with severe anxiety and obsessive dark thoughts that just torment you all the time

[01:13:54,152]: You never have a moment of rest or relaxation

[01:13:58,092]: You simply cannot relax

[01:14:00,532]: Some people feel so keyed up that they pace incessantly in circles

[01:14:05,232]: It’s a condition called akathisia

[01:14:08,612]: And they cannot stop moving

[01:14:12,512]: They become social recluses because they cannot go out in public because it’s too bright

[01:14:19,412]: It’s too noisy

[01:14:20,832]: The nervous system is like a snail without a shell

[01:14:24,412]: Even interacting with people in the shopping center can cause surges in adrenaline people have severe neuropathic pain their feet burn and it destroys families

[01:14:41,052]: I mean people become disabled

[01:14:43,772]: People take their lives frequently

[01:14:48,032]: And this is I know I mentioned before about PSSD being like the biggest story going on but this would be just as big honestly

[01:14:56,572]: There are probably millions of people who are suffering from protracted withdrawal from benzos or SSRIs

[01:15:05,572]: Thankfully this has actually been picked up a lot by major news outlets recently but this condition has and it does kill people

[01:15:18,572]: How long do you have to be on benzos or SSRIs to develop physical dependency and to get these kind of withdrawal symptoms

[01:15:25,832]: So for most people it’s several years

[01:15:27,752]: And then it’s triggered by coming off the medication

[01:15:31,172]: Several years

[01:15:32,272]: Yeah

[01:15:33,372]: Is there any evidence it’s a good idea to put someone on SSRIs or benzos for years

[01:15:38,672]: No no there isn’t

[01:15:40,692]: But I do want to say I have had some people develop this much quicker than several years like within taking the medication for a few months things like that

[01:15:49,192]: That’s much less common

[01:15:50,852]: Usually the way it happens is you’re on it for several years five years decades you come off too quickly

[01:15:57,532]: Yeah that’s really common

[01:15:58,932]: You’ve seen that

[01:16:00,572]: Yeah yeah

[01:16:02,072]: Decades

[01:16:03,492]: What is the doctor thinking

[01:16:07,572]: Well when they put them on these drugs for decades

[01:16:10,352]: Well I mean if someone’s coming back to get a script filled you know after 15 20 years of taking one of these drugs like does no one pause to say what does it do to something

[01:16:19,772]: The brain’s not designed for that right

[01:16:22,592]: Yeah well they’re helping the person

[01:16:27,492]: At the risk of getting a little technical I want to go here because I think it’s important

[01:16:32,192]: So when a drug comes onto the market there’s a study called a relapse prevention study

[01:16:38,012]: This is essentially the rationale for leaving people on these drugs indefinitely

[01:16:44,752]: And so I think it’s important to talk a bit about the design of these studies because it’s so telling

[01:16:52,012]: Essentially a drug company will get a group of people and they’ll put them on the drug for like say six months

[01:16:58,552]: And so you have 500 people on the drug for six months

[01:17:03,592]: 250 you then this is actually how the studies are designed

[01:17:08,012]: 250 people at a certain point they continue the drug and the other 250 they rapidly stop it

[01:17:15,152]: And so they pull them off the drug either immediately or at the longest about two weeks

[01:17:20,792]: And then they watch what happens to those two groups over time

[01:17:24,792]: And they’re looking for how many people become depressed in the two groups with the thinking being well if the patients who continued the drug become less depressed then that means it works

[01:17:37,572]: But the issue with these studies is that it completely ignores the fact that people develop withdrawal

[01:17:45,912]: And so if you stick a bunch of people on this drug for six months and then you stop it immediately or within two weeks they are going to develop withdrawal symptoms

[01:17:53,912]: That will look like a depression

[01:17:58,592]: And so the study is flawed essentially

[01:18:00,912]: It’s majorly flawed

[01:18:02,232]: It’s embarrassing that the FDA even allows this and that doctors even believe this is a rationale for keeping people on these medications

[01:18:12,292]: And that’s it

[01:18:13,752]: That is the study that lets doctors feel good about filling these drugs up again and again and again because they say oh we’re preventing relapse this poorly designed study that makes no sense that is honestly just embarrassing even to believe in showed that when you rapidly pulled people off the medication there was more depressive relapse which really it wasn’t

[01:18:36,592]: It was just withdrawal

[01:18:38,152]: And so just even at the heart of it is just bad science and faulty studies

[01:18:45,072]: I mean even I as a non scientist can understand the gaps in the logic there

[01:18:49,972]: It seems pretty obvious

[01:18:51,072]: That doesn’t make a lot of sense

[01:18:53,912]: It depends on the worldview that allows this to persist

[01:18:56,912]: Like how would you have to feel about other people to allow this kind of stuff to happen

[01:19:02,132]: And I just want to ask when you were doing your training as a doctor for whatever six or eight ten years however long it took did you get a sense that other doctors considered like the human soul ever

[01:19:17,312]: Or is there a sense that people are just like a more evolved animal

[01:19:20,732]: Is there something special about people

[01:19:23,912]: Is there a spiritual component to a person

[01:19:26,952]: Did anyone ever acknowledge that

[01:19:28,112]: No

[01:19:29,212]: That’s not part of the training

[01:19:32,612]: So if you think people are just clever cattle you can treat them like this

[01:19:39,472]: Yeah

[01:19:40,172]: With biological systems where you can sort of just tinker with it with the right chemical

[01:19:45,032]: That’s what we are

[01:19:47,112]: That’s the belief

[01:19:48,772]: That’s the way biological psychiatry is taught

[01:19:51,252]: Right

[01:19:52,472]: So it’s kind of inevitable you’re going to wind up in a place like this isn’t it

[01:19:56,472]: Because that’s not true

[01:19:58,592]: People are not just machines

[01:20:01,552]: Right

[01:20:02,212]: And no other civilizations ever thought that they were

[01:20:05,192]: Yeah

[01:20:08,972]: Sorry I don’t mean to bum you out

[01:20:11,372]: No no I’m just I’m thinking about I mean the only reason that happens is because there is such a massive incentive to recast the human experience in that way

[01:20:23,092]: Yeah

[01:20:24,552]: But that’s not reality

[01:20:26,532]: No

[01:20:26,932]: At all no

[01:20:30,052]: Yeah

[01:20:30,872]: So what about amphetamines and their ADHD and the fact that like every third kid on your street is taking this stuff

[01:20:43,292]: Like what is ADHD

[01:20:46,672]: Are amphetamines an effective way to treat it

[01:20:48,992]: What are the long term effects of those drugs

[01:20:52,792]: I mean ADHD I mean I want to start here

[01:20:56,972]: So there was an awesome piece in New York Magazine recently that summarized a lot of this research

[01:21:03,632]: But it really the thing that most parents care about is usually academic improvement

[01:21:08,712]: That’s why they want their kids on these medications

[01:21:11,332]: When you look at the results long term they do not improve academics

[01:21:15,952]: What they find is that the medications are mostly effective for controlling behavior

[01:21:22,112]: So when you have kids who are fidgety who are having to pay attention to things that are boring putting them on medications makes them easier to control

[01:21:31,732]: So if you’re like a bad teacher

[01:21:34,052]: Yeah

[01:21:34,352]: They’re good

[01:21:35,072]: They’re good

[01:21:35,552]: They’re great

[01:21:37,912]: Now I mean there is some I mean ADHD is interesting because it kind of hits at the it’s like societal expectations

[01:21:47,392]: Like in the US and a lot of developed countries academic success is synonymous with your value as a person

[01:21:55,752]: If you have to be successful at school to be worthy and a lot of parents believe that

[01:22:03,592]: And so they will push their kids into subjects and even university courses because they want to help them

[01:22:13,392]: They think they’re helping them by pushing them into these things

[01:22:15,912]: And the kids are really struggling and they’re not interested in it

[01:22:18,852]: And you can put someone on a stimulant and it will make something that’s boring more interesting

[01:22:25,052]: Yeah

[01:22:25,552]: And so there’s also

[01:22:27,372]: You have the world’s most boring conversations on cocaine but you have no idea they’re boring

[01:22:30,972]: Yeah

[01:22:31,652]: Yeah

[01:22:32,612]: And so that’s the same with your studies

[01:22:37,112]: And then I think another thing that I believe is going on that really doesn’t get enough airtime is that actually a lot of lifestyle problems are leading to ADHD especially in adults

[01:22:52,352]: And the main one being poor diet and insulin resistance

[01:22:57,632]: As people become insulin resistant they end up with more anxiety more depression and more brain fog

[01:23:04,492]: And essentially they’ve broken their body because they’ve been eating too many refined carbohydrates added sugars all of that

[01:23:12,632]: And it makes it very hard for neurons to work when the system is disrupted there’s too much insulin they can’t pull energy

[01:23:22,332]: And so I think a lot of people out there have very legitimate real problems focusing and feeling foggy but they’re not really looking at lifestyle issues that are really clear

[01:23:34,992]: And oftentimes people if they do things like they try ketogenic diets this is a really big thing in the mental health space

[01:23:42,992]: And they work for a lot of mental health conditions because they reverse insulin resistance and they improve energy the way your cells work

[01:23:55,332]: And so I think the biggest thing that I worry about

[01:23:58,052]: So it does work the low carb diet

[01:24:01,152]: Yes

[01:24:02,392]: affects your mental health

[01:24:04,492]: In a major way some people even call Alzheimer’s type 3 diabetes because the correlation between the worsening of diabetes type 2 and your blood sugar levels correlates with cognitive decline

[01:24:19,412]: I mean the insulin resistance diabetes all has very strong links to cognitive decline

[01:24:26,632]: And so when it comes to ADHD I think the thing that bothers me the most is there’s actually a lot of reversible things that you can do there

[01:24:34,992]: If you have brain fog it’s not that you’re weak and you’re not trying hard enough or you’re lazy or something like that

[01:24:43,952]: I mean if you can look at your diet and there’s things you can optimize there if you can get moving if you can stop smoking cannabis there’s a lot of

[01:24:54,292]: And obviously if you can actually try and do work that you genuinely find energizing and that you enjoy you probably won’t need to be on stimulants

[01:25:04,292]: Stop smoking cannabis

[01:25:06,412]: I thought cannabis was good for you

[01:25:07,752]: It’s medicine

[01:25:08,392]: It’s a medicine

[01:25:09,072]: It’s a herb

[01:25:10,352]: Cannabis is actually

[01:25:12,092]: You’re going to get me on something that I’m really bothered about

[01:25:16,992]: Cannabis is a massive gateway drug into the psychiatric industry

[01:25:22,852]: It is a huge trigger for mania and schizophrenia

[01:25:27,758]: It is completely downplayed by big cannabis because we’ve decided to legalize it in so many states now

[01:25:37,738]: And many people they’ll end up they’ll think it’s harmless it’s this herb not realizing that the potency has increased like 40 times since what it used to be and it triggers mania and psychosis

[01:25:53,858]: And then the doctors will see them and the doctors will downplay the role of cannabis and they’ll say oh you have schizophrenia or you have bipolar and then they put them on an antipsychotic and then this person just ends up on antipsychotics for a really long period of time when really the issue was that they had a psychotic reaction

[01:26:12,758]: So you believe that cannabis use can lead to schizophrenia

[01:26:19,318]: I wouldn’t say schizophrenia

[01:26:21,138]: I would say I believe that cannabis use can cause psychosis and that psychosis can endure sometimes for like a year or two after they have the psychotic break

[01:26:31,458]: Because to say something is schizophrenia makes it sound like they just had a broken brain

[01:26:38,758]: Their brain was broken and it was just inevitable to happen

[01:26:42,298]: I’ve worked with patients who have smoked cannabis they’ve had psychotic reactions and even after they’ve come off the cannabis for a period of like a year or two they’ve still experienced periodic episodes of psychosis before it fizzled out

[01:26:59,098]: The only way I can understand that is that that drug when they had that psychotic episode it actually damaged their brain

[01:27:05,958]: It was like a big hit and it took them a couple of years afterwards to fully recover from that

[01:27:11,978]: And I’ve looked into this with many other people who actually work in this space and they see that

[01:27:17,398]: When you have a psychotic reaction to cannabis it can sometimes take months or even a year or two to fully go away

[01:27:24,238]: I think doctors misdiagnose that and tell someone this is a sign you have a broken brain you have schizophrenia time to put you on the drug

[01:27:32,258]: So you’re saying that the drug companies wouldn’t necessarily be opposed to marijuana legalization

[01:27:37,938]: No no it’s creating customers

[01:27:41,478]: You really think that

[01:27:43,278]: I mean I don’t know

[01:27:44,418]: That’s really dark

[01:27:46,008]: I don’t know if there’s a drug company lobbyist out there just being like hey we really want to kind of push this knowingly but it sure helps them that big cannabis is out there and it is sowing a message that essentially these drugs are safe herbs these drugs are medicine when they’re I mean they’re Frankenstein drugs now

[01:28:07,378]: I mean they’re 40 times more potent than how they used to be

[01:28:13,018]: So just to bottom line it as a practicing licensed psychiatrist would you ever prescribe cannabis to a patient for mental illness

[01:28:19,918]: No it doesn’t make any sense at all

[01:28:23,378]: Would you prescribe SSRIs

[01:28:26,038]: So this is where there’s a bit more nuance here

[01:28:31,678]: I think we have to use every tool that we have

[01:28:36,158]: And I mean there are a lot of people out there who will say I mean the fact is these drugs have saved people’s lives

[01:28:43,438]: I can say that even with a lot of the concern that the drug effect wears off but imagine someone who they come in and they’re unhappy and this is rare

[01:28:59,838]: You talk to them about their life there’s no relationship issues going on it looks really good work’s fine you’ve tried to optimize their health you’ve done everything that you could and they’re still unhappy

[01:29:12,798]: Something is still going on maybe they have really severe OCD or something like that

[01:29:18,358]: I’m not going to sit there and just say I’m not going to give you any treatment

[01:29:22,278]: If I’ve tried all of the non drug strategies to help you and you’re still suffering I will give you informed consent about the medication I will put you on it and I’ll monitor you and I’ll do my best to make sure that you’re functioning

[01:29:35,298]: If there’s side effects that come up I’ll catch them early

[01:29:39,178]: My issue with the medications is that they’re used first up without anyone trying with minimal with lip service really to helping people with non drug means first

[01:29:52,198]: But if you’ve done all of that and it’s still not working I think it makes sense to use a drug to make someone more functional

[01:29:59,798]: So if someone goes to your practice you said your current practice is helping people get off these drugs

[01:30:10,038]: What does that look like

[01:30:11,778]: Just give us the kind of typical patient who approaches you

[01:30:15,038]: How long has this person been on the drugs

[01:30:18,098]: Why does this person want to get off the drugs

[01:30:19,838]: And how does this person get off the drugs

[01:30:22,758]: So a typical person might be a middle aged woman who was put on a medication during a She’s been on it maybe 15 years or so and she’s starting to notice that whatever she does with the medications it’s not working

[01:30:42,258]: She’s gone up on the dose she’s maxed out she started a new one and she just feels terrible

[01:30:48,178]: She has brain fog she has low energy and she feels numb

[01:30:56,378]: And she’s realized essentially that psychiatry has kind of failed her that the answer to her solutions aren’t really drugs anymore

[01:31:08,378]: And so she’ll come to us in this state and what we do is we look at the drugs she’s on usually she’s on several and then we’ll just start to identify which drug is most likely to be causing a problem the most amount of your problems

[01:31:22,498]: And we start there and we slowly taper that off

[01:31:25,358]: Some drugs you can taper quite quickly others can take years to come off like things like benzos and SSRIs they’re much harder

[01:31:32,518]: And so we’ll work with patients for several years slowly untangling the medication regimen meeting with them very frequently until we ease them off

[01:31:42,278]: At the same time we introduce them to non drug approaches to managing their mental health if they need to do dietary modifications lifestyle changes if they need to learn some sleep if we need to look at some of the substances that they’re using we’ll use all of our non drug tools while we’re bringing them off the medications

[01:32:04,758]: How long does it take to taper off the drug itself

[01:32:11,018]: So if you’ve been on these medications for several years most people are coming off at around 18 to 24 months

[01:32:20,958]: Wow

[01:32:21,478]: Yeah

[01:32:21,858]: So this is what I see and I wanna give a bit of nuance here there’s

[01:32:27,758]: It’s hard to know why it’s so hard for some people to come off

[01:32:31,818]: I mean there are some people and for reasons I don’t understand their brains are really elastic they might be able to come off a drug that they’ve been on for a long time for years really quickly

[01:32:39,858]: They have awful withdrawal for a couple of months and then they come back together

[01:32:45,038]: But then there’s another group of people that when they try that the suffering doesn’t end and it’s brutal and the withdrawal doesn’t go away and then they have to come back on

[01:32:54,438]: And for them it can take them years to come off

[01:32:57,538]: Currently I have no real way of predicting who is gonna have an easy withdrawal and who’s gonna have a difficult withdrawal

[01:33:03,918]: It’s not related to age sex health

[01:33:07,298]: Not in a way that fully accounts for the variability

[01:33:11,438]: In general young people have an easier go

[01:33:13,798]: In general people who have been on the drug for a shorter period of time

[01:33:18,918]: It skews things but I’ve also seen young people who’ve been on the drug for not that long have a hell of a time coming off as well

[01:33:27,358]: And so it’s hard for me to predict

[01:33:31,018]: But because I’ve worked with so many people who have developed this essentially this injury called protracted withdrawal the way I’ve come to think about this is everyone needs to come off the medications gradually in a way that doesn’t trigger severe withdrawal

[01:33:46,758]: That’s kind of the measure

[01:33:48,578]: You do like a 10 reduction you see how they go okay you’re fine we do another one

[01:33:53,298]: But once they start to develop severe withdrawal I then slow it down and I do smaller and smaller reductions to get them completely off

[01:34:03,978]: So without severe withdrawal so they’re not at risk of this neurological injury called protracted withdrawal and they’re able to work and they’re able to fulfill their household duties and all of that

[01:34:15,318]: That’s the way it should be done

[01:34:17,838]: So someone remains functional while the taper is going on

[01:34:22,378]: How do they feel when they’re off when they’re finally done

[01:34:25,918]: A lot of them feel great especially if they’ve

[01:34:30,318]: Because people come to me because they’re dealing with side effects

[01:34:33,018]: The drugs are actively harming them

[01:34:35,798]: They feel foggy and fatigued

[01:34:37,718]: And then to have that monkey off their back they’re not dealing with the side effects

[01:34:41,838]: But then they also have the self esteem issues

[01:34:47,278]: Some people they just go I’m not broken

[01:34:51,838]: I don’t want to be on a drug

[01:34:53,098]: I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with me

[01:34:54,758]: So they love that

[01:34:55,918]: They love that they can go and travel and they don’t need to worry about losing a prescription or the prescription being stolen from them

[01:35:03,758]: And they love not having to line up at the pharmacy

[01:35:08,358]: They love not having to worry about the long term side effects of these medications on their brain

[01:35:15,998]: And so many people are really happy

[01:35:18,198]: How does being on SSRIs affect people’s relationships

[01:35:25,498]: So the question yeah I mean it’s a question really about how does emotional blunting affect your ability to connect with one another

[01:35:39,218]: I guess you just answered the question

[01:35:41,338]: And so there is a Facebook group out there called Marriages Destroyed by SSRIs that I think has nearly 5 000 people in there

[01:35:51,778]: And the stories you hear there are that we were in a relationship

[01:35:56,918]: My spouse was depressed

[01:35:58,858]: They got put on a medication

[01:36:01,158]: And so in some instances they’ll say that the person became emotionally distant

[01:36:07,218]: They stopped being intuitive about their partner

[01:36:10,118]: They stopped recognizing that there were issues going on and they became harsh and neglectful

[01:36:20,038]: And so I think it can get in the way of empathy

[01:36:25,678]: And this was I mean this is a funny story actually because my wife and I we both tried Zoloft

[01:36:30,858]: We got it from a friend of ours when we were in our residency because I wanted to see what it was like these medications

[01:36:39,798]: I was prescribing them to people

[01:36:41,198]: That’s a benzodiazepine

[01:36:41,958]: No this is an SSRI

[01:36:43,338]: Oh okay

[01:36:43,798]: And so I took an SSRI because I just wanted to see what it was like

[01:36:48,978]: And she hated me when I was on Zoloft

[01:36:52,998]: She did

[01:36:53,398]: Why

[01:36:54,358]: Well she felt like I didn’t really care about her anymore

[01:37:01,358]: We’d be having

[01:37:03,798]: I mean she’d be upset about something

[01:37:05,518]: I don’t know

[01:37:05,818]: The kitchen was dirty and I’d left a mess and she’d be talking to me

[01:37:09,238]: And I’d just be so zoned out not caring about her emotions emotionless not aware not being able to intuit things

[01:37:17,138]: Because in the past if I walked into the house and I could pick up that she was upset and walk over to her and say hey what’s going on

[01:37:24,158]: I sense something is wrong

[01:37:26,378]: Let’s talk about it

[01:37:27,358]: That went away

[01:37:28,798]: That ability to detect subtle emotional changes in her went away

[01:37:34,258]: And she hated that

[01:37:36,138]: How long were you on it

[01:37:38,778]: I think two to three weeks

[01:37:40,078]: And then I mean that was enough of an experience to kind of feel what that was like

[01:37:48,818]: So you took it because you’re going to be prescribing it and you wanted to know what it was

[01:37:52,818]: Yeah

[01:37:53,918]: And my professors made me feel like this was like the biggest lunatic idea ever

[01:37:59,538]: Yeah

[01:37:59,918]: Yeah

[01:38:00,618]: They were just like these are serious medications

[01:38:02,298]: You shouldn’t be taking them

[01:38:03,438]: But I was just like I need to know what this experience is like if I’m going to prescribe

[01:38:08,238]: It’s called empathy

[01:38:09,238]: Yeah

[01:38:11,438]: So I’ve taken several psychiatric medications because I think it’s really important that I know what they feel like

[01:38:16,898]: Yes I agree

[01:38:17,518]: What else have you taken

[01:38:19,138]: I’ve taken like metazapine

[01:38:21,358]: I’ve taken trazodone

[01:38:22,498]: What are those

[01:38:23,258]: These are antidepressants and sedatives

[01:38:25,578]: And I’ve taken benzodiazepines

[01:38:27,898]: What’d you think of those

[01:38:29,458]: They made me worse to be honest

[01:38:31,518]: The benzos were actually prescribed to me because after and this is crazy because I’m a drug side effect guy that this happened to me after my

[01:38:39,398]: Life is wild

[01:38:40,598]: So after my daughter was born I just started working at the FDA

[01:38:44,778]: And I was a clinician

[01:38:46,598]: That’s what I was used to

[01:38:49,038]: And all of a sudden I was a drug regulator doing reports every day

[01:38:52,118]: And that was really stressful to have a new kid and have a new job

[01:38:56,418]: And I was also totally overdoing it on stimulants

[01:38:59,958]: Like I was drinking a large cup of coffee in the morning two Diet Cokes during the day

[01:39:04,098]: I was probably packing like five zins in my mouth throughout the day

[01:39:08,478]: First of all zins are only for rectal use

[01:39:11,058]: I don’t know if you knew that

[01:39:12,618]: You should be using Alp

[01:39:13,958]: Should be using the Alp

[01:39:14,938]: Sorry excuse me

[01:39:16,198]: Yeah

[01:39:16,758]: And so my sleep deteriorated

[01:39:18,898]: I was having a really hard time sleeping just with all of the pressure and my daughter waking up in the middle of the night

[01:39:23,858]: So I got a script for Xanax from a nurse practitioner and I would just take it once a night

[01:39:28,978]: And then very soon it became every other night

[01:39:31,938]: And then very soon it became every night

[01:39:34,158]: And it slowly wore off and I started to become more anxious over time

[01:39:40,358]: And this is what happens with benzos

[01:39:42,638]: I would be sitting there trying to concentrate on my reports and I’d be getting obsessive thoughts about embarrassing things that had happened in the past

[01:39:52,358]: I mean it was like torturous like just like they would just spring into my mind

[01:39:56,838]: And thankfully I had the foresight to realize that the drug was actually making me more anxious

[01:40:02,918]: Yes

[01:40:03,298]: And I see this with a lot of my patients

[01:40:05,618]: I was able to come off fairly quickly

[01:40:07,978]: Not many people aren’t

[01:40:10,278]: But that experience really taught me about how easy it is for these drugs to make you worse

[01:40:19,458]: And I mean if I didn’t know what I was doing and I wasn’t interested in drug side effects I could have gone in to see a doctor and they would have said oh you’ve developed an anxiety disorder

[01:40:28,938]: Here’s some Zoloft

[01:40:30,058]: And then you get on this prescribing cascade where you got started on one drug you had a side effect and then you get started on another one

[01:40:37,778]: And before you know it you’re taking multiple meds

[01:40:41,998]: So you say you would go into a doctor and tell him this but now post COVID there’s something called telehealth

[01:40:50,598]: And my impression is that the bar has dropped maybe

[01:40:54,778]: What is telehealth and how has it affected this business

[01:40:59,318]: I mean telehealth is essentially being able to get medicines virtually sometimes without even seeing a clinician

[01:41:06,338]: And it has essentially just exacerbated all the worst parts about the American healthcare system

[01:41:12,698]: I recently did an investigation on a company I think it’s called HIMS the female version is 4HERS

[01:41:20,538]: These are essentially online telehealth companies that sell lifestyle drugs things like finasteride for male patent baldness but they also sell antidepressants

[01:41:32,338]: And when I went through their But they’re drug sellers

[01:41:35,518]: They don’t do orthopedic surgery or anything like that

[01:41:38,078]: They’re drug sellers yeah

[01:41:39,458]: They are like a Silicon Valley startup to essentially just make it really easy to get certain drugs

[01:41:48,918]: And I was obviously horrified about this because I think psychiatric drugs are massively overprescribed

[01:41:55,358]: And so I wanted to investigate what the oversight was like

[01:42:00,438]: And I essentially I ended up signing up to make an account

[01:42:04,678]: I filled out a questionnaire

[01:42:06,578]: I supposedly spoke with a nurse practitioner on a chat which could have just been boilerplate AI generated text

[01:42:14,218]: They diagnosed me with depression and then they sent me Lexapro in the mail three days later and I never even saw anyone

[01:42:20,758]: And then there was just like a little hyperlink that said click here to learn about the side effects

[01:42:26,538]: I videotaped the whole thing and I put it on my YouTube channel

[01:42:29,738]: But that is awful

[01:42:32,958]: I mean that is not the kind of care that you would ever want for someone that you love

[01:42:38,278]: I mean That’s not care

[01:42:39,618]: No it’s not care

[01:42:40,198]: It’s drug dispensing

[01:42:41,478]: Yeah

[01:42:41,958]: It’s drug dispensing and just milking insurance because you can just

[01:42:46,078]: You can just

[01:42:48,108]: The person pays you 150 bucks a month or whatever it is and you just keep on sending them SSRIs without really trying to help them at all

[01:42:59,668]: And remember these are the drugs that cause PSSD and can cause homicide homicidal behavior and can cause brain injury when people try and come off of them and no one is even sitting with them to say hey I really need to make sure that you understand what you’re getting into

[01:43:13,888]: I really need to make sure that you understand that there are alternatives for this that are safer

[01:43:20,168]: These companies have just like you know there’s like a PDF that you could read on the way to like the checkout page and they’re just like okay our job is done here

[01:43:29,488]: But what’s wild is after you know an hour and a half of telling me and I think making an airtight case that these drugs are really dangerous and are grossly overprescribed you’re describing changes to the system that make it easier that guarantee their use is more widespread and less regulated and less oversight and less actual care

[01:43:54,088]: I mean it’s kind of weird that the evidence is in it sounds like

[01:43:57,628]: This is very serious

[01:44:00,508]: But not only are we not clamping down we’re making it easier for people to get it

[01:44:05,248]: Yeah yeah we are

[01:44:09,808]: Something just happened I don’t fully understand it in the state of Illinois Governor JB Pritzker who wants to run for president Democrat signed a bill that brings some of this into the schools

[01:44:21,668]: Tell us what that is

[01:44:24,068]: So it was a bill mandating mental health screening for children as young as third grade in the state of Illinois

[01:44:33,328]: And so this was in response to statistics showing that mental health is worsening in the state which are true

[01:44:40,268]: Of course

[01:44:40,768]: And so their response was well we need to get into the classroom and we need to make these kids fill out mental health screeners to see if they have anxiety or to see if they have depression with the goal that that is going to improve mental health outcomes

[01:44:58,368]: Because if you detect it you can treat it

[01:45:03,328]: Why I think this is the dumbest law ever and it’s going to lead to more problems is our mental health care system is so dysfunctional

[01:45:13,408]: Screening is not a bad thing

[01:45:16,108]: Knowing that someone is depressed or anxious that’s not inherently bad

[01:45:20,148]: I mean we want to help people

[01:45:22,128]: Yes

[01:45:22,628]: But what is going to happen with a law like this is it’s going to end up just scaring parents

[01:45:26,868]: They’re going to be saying oh your kid has anxiety and depression

[01:45:29,028]: You should get that taken care of before they start becoming suicidal

[01:45:32,728]: They will go into a mental health care system which is already broken highly transactional where doctors will have limited face time and will lean on prescribing medications

[01:45:46,328]: I’m all for screening but not when the mental health care system is dysfunctional funneling people into a broken system

[01:45:54,188]: But why

[01:45:55,108]: So they’re targeting kids for this

[01:45:57,468]: Yeah

[01:45:58,388]: Did anyone say anything about it

[01:46:02,608]: No

[01:46:05,648]: This just seems to be going ahead as if it’s the greatest thing ever

[01:46:09,928]: But the irony is that the people who I mean there are all kinds of people grandstanding about quote mental health and they’re all the same people who are pushing drugs that degrade mental health and hurt people

[01:46:20,568]: Have you noticed this

[01:46:22,028]: Yes

[01:46:22,508]: People say we have a mental health crisis in this country

[01:46:25,148]: Yes I couldn’t agree more

[01:46:27,828]: But those people seem totally uninterested in fixing it

[01:46:31,288]: They seem to be intent on making it worse

[01:46:35,308]: I mean it’s grandstanding

[01:46:37,448]: I mean that is what it is

[01:46:38,908]: It is you know talking about mental health and being an advocate for mental health is one of the you know it’s this you know this morally righteous thing to do

[01:46:50,928]: And people want to jump on that bandwagon

[01:46:53,248]: And this seems like oh this is like you know this is a good thing for me to be doing

[01:46:56,408]: I’m such a good person not understanding that the downstream effects could be really harmful

[01:47:02,148]: It’s like advocates for the homeless

[01:47:04,428]: More of those we have the more homeless we have

[01:47:06,248]: Yeah

[01:47:07,288]: Yeah

[01:47:07,748]: Okay so last question

[01:47:10,648]: You do this for a living

[01:47:12,848]: And I think unusually for a psychiatrist you seem to really care about the outcome and whether people are thriving or not which is supposed to be the goal of the business is to help people thrive

[01:47:24,148]: So what advice would you give to people who are anxious or depressed or sad or are struggling with what we call mental health

[01:47:33,128]: Like what are the ways to restore happiness and vigor to a human life

[01:47:41,188]: I would say I think a lot of mental health comes down to three things

[01:47:47,848]: I think it comes down to your relationships

[01:47:49,808]: I think it comes down to your purpose and what you do

[01:47:52,248]: I think it comes down to your physical health

[01:47:54,708]: And so I would want the person to audit their life

[01:47:58,328]: How am I doing in these three areas

[01:48:01,288]: And to treat the root causes don’t let someone tell you you have a chemical imbalance

[01:48:07,048]: If you look at your life and you’re using drugs that can mess with your chemistry address that

[01:48:14,308]: You’re eating foods that if you have like pre diabetes or because your diet is off fix your diet get moving get in the sun do the things that our bodies are naturally designed to do

[01:48:27,908]: So work on your health and then just think about the next thing that needs to be addressed

[01:48:32,928]: Are you having problems with loneliness and relationships

[01:48:36,608]: You can find people that can help you with that problem

[01:48:39,628]: Not like a bullshit therapist but someone that actually has a track record of helping with your relationships or helping with connections

[01:48:46,928]: If you’re having difficulty at work you can find coaches that actually have a track record of helping you find more meaning in your work as well

[01:48:55,608]: And so what I tell people is that there’s no

[01:48:58,868]: Don’t believe the story that there’s this magic pill that is gonna fix pretty much the most complicated issues in your life

[01:49:05,348]: Your ability to connect your ability to find meaning and purpose

[01:49:08,928]: Your health

[01:49:10,388]: There’s no magic pill for that

[01:49:13,008]: These things are cultivated over decades with attention and effort

[01:49:17,448]: They’re the most important things in your life

[01:49:19,948]: Just start somewhere

[01:49:22,628]: Are you confident that AI therapy will help people’s mental health

[01:49:28,988]: Why are you laughing

[01:49:30,208]: This is the new frontier

[01:49:31,468]: I believe it’s very well funded

[01:49:33,908]: Yeah

[01:49:34,908]: Um that is so disturbing because I feel like AI therapy is like the most

[01:49:42,808]: It just

[01:49:43,528]: It doesn’t give you like

[01:49:45,408]: It just affirms what you put into it as well

[01:49:48,108]: It’s just like oh yeah that’s so hard

[01:49:49,828]: That’s so rough

[01:49:50,508]: That must feel so bad

[01:49:51,948]: It’s

[01:49:52,688]: I don’t know

[01:49:54,008]: It’s totally disturbing

[01:49:56,828]: And like dystopian

[01:49:58,688]: Yeah

[01:49:59,148]: Yeah

[01:49:59,668]: Talk to the machine

[01:50:01,088]: That’s worse than talk to the hand

[01:50:02,588]: Yeah

[01:50:02,988]: But it affirms what you put into it

[01:50:06,708]: Can you flesh it out a little bit

[01:50:09,408]: Well let’s say you are

[01:50:11,508]: You know you have a conflict with like your spouse

[01:50:13,908]: Oh my God I was so frustrated that you know they did this and that

[01:50:17,828]: It could just say yeah that must be

[01:50:19,668]: You know that must just be so frustrating

[01:50:21,668]: But isn’t that

[01:50:22,108]: Isn’t what we’re supposed to do is affirm people in their beliefs

[01:50:26,048]: No

[01:50:27,048]: We need to

[01:50:27,548]: No No no

[01:50:28,768]: You sound mean

[01:50:29,848]: Yeah I’m

[01:50:30,348]: I am mean but that’s what you need

[01:50:35,108]: You need you know you almost need that paternal energy in there where someone is going to hold your feet to the fire and make you you know push you make you grow kind of encourage you to get outside of your comfort zone

[01:50:47,568]: You don’t need that affirming energy

[01:50:51,388]: So it’s not helpful to say yes you are a shitty person and that’s okay

[01:50:55,068]: Not all the time

[01:50:57,688]: Yeah

[01:50:58,688]: Yeah

[01:50:59,208]: How unpopular are you among other psychiatrists

[01:51:04,628]: Yeah yeah I’m unpopular among other psychiatrists and also in the media

[01:51:08,828]: I’m a dangerous person

[01:51:11,148]: Why

[01:51:11,608]: Yeah because I’m scaring people away from life saving drugs

[01:51:15,468]: And I’m stigmatizing them because I have a message that mental illness is much more than just chemicals in the brain and that there are other non drug approaches that can be helpful

[01:51:26,648]: And that’s bad

[01:51:27,528]: That is bad

[01:51:28,168]: So anyone who says your problems are more complicated than a single pill can solve that person is dangerous

[01:51:34,808]: Yeah yeah that person is dangerous

[01:51:36,828]: The person doesn’t get it

[01:51:39,588]: And they’re making people with mental illness feel bad about themselves because gosh you should just let them accept that they have a broken brain and there’s nothing they can do about it

[01:51:49,668]: And to encourage them to look at it otherwise is just to harm them you know it’s to make them feel bad about something that they can’t change

[01:52:00,548]: Boy that’s the cruelest approach I can imagine to human suffering

[01:52:05,768]: I mean if you took that approach to cancer what would that look like

[01:52:10,148]: You’ve got cancer and here comes Dr Yosef saying actually I could help you take the tumor out

[01:52:17,708]: And then a bunch of screechy ladies are like that’s mean

[01:52:20,508]: Yeah

[01:52:21,068]: You got to affirm the person’s cancer

[01:52:23,388]: Affirm their cancer yeah yeah

[01:52:29,108]: I really I hope this interview is not throttled

[01:52:32,628]: I really appreciate your bravery and your directness and your very obvious compassion and empathy

[01:52:37,908]: I don’t think you’re a mean person obviously

[01:52:39,828]: You didn’t go into this to hurt people clearly

[01:52:43,668]: Yeah

[01:52:44,408]: So thank you

[01:52:45,968]: Thank you for having me

[01:52:50,568]: So it turns out that YouTube is suppressing this show

[01:52:54,328]: On one level it’s not surprising

[01:52:55,728]: That’s what they do

[01:52:56,668]: But on another level it’s shocking

[01:52:58,428]: With everything that’s going on in the world right now all the change taking place in our economy and our politics with the wars on the cusp of fighting right now Google has decided you should have less information rather than more

[01:53:10,948]: And that is totally wrong

[01:53:13,228]: It’s immoral

[01:53:14,608]: What can you do about it

[01:53:16,048]: Well we could whine about it

[01:53:17,608]: That’s a waste of time

[01:53:18,548]: We’re not in charge of Google

[01:53:19,728]: Or we could find a way around it a way that you could actually get information that is not intentionally deceptive

[01:53:26,148]: The way to do that on YouTube we think is to subscribe to our channel

[01:53:29,848]: Subscribe

[01:53:30,588]: Hit the little bell icon to be notified when we upload and share this video

[01:53:34,988]: That way you’ll have a much higher chance of hearing actual news and information

[01:53:39,948]: So we hope that you’ll do that

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