Brigham Buhler
Appearances
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Never once have you heard an insurance company brought up in all of the opioid crisis. 30% of the profits generated during the opioid crisis went to the insurance companies.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
A hundred percent. Yeah, no, a hundred percent. And I know people are looking for an answer, but that's where you've covered this a lot is the food system. I mean, front to back, like my main message in front of the Senate and I, and I stand behind this is we talk about Eisenhower speech and the corporate capture of of our institutions.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And the main thing that people focus on is his speech on the military industrial complex. But the second half of that speech, he warned, if we allow the capture of our scientific industrial complex, and that has happened, what he described and portrayed at that time is what we're living.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
The day we allow private interests and special interest groups to control our science and innovation, the garage tinkers, the innovators, the solutions will all disappear and it'll be controlled by corporate capture. And so from our food... to our medical establishments, to our checks and balances, the NIH, the FDA, every check and balance we have has been eliminated.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And I can show you that step by step through the opioid crisis, since you said that's one of the things that brought, it's what brought me into this too.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
You know, yeah, I was a medical device rep at the time and I was looking at building a pharmacy to provide non-abusive, non-addictive pain creams to get away from opioids. Because this opioid crisis was wrecking America. And during all of that, my brother died of opioid abuse. He had gotten addicted in high school and none of us knew how bad it was.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And he was one of, you know, millions and millions of victims that fell prey to what big pharma pumped into the marketplace.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
He was injured, started out with an ACL. What a lot of people don't understand is before Oxy, they had hydrocodone. Before hydrocodone, they had Valium. And so the Sackler family was running out of their patent on hydrocodone. And they had a patent on the delivery mechanism, the cotton system, which is a time release. And so their pitch was, we can just plug in a different opioid.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And we can grandfather in a lot of what we already went through with hydrocodone. We're just going to trade out the opioid and reapply for the patent. But the problem is that the opioid they chose was Oxy. And Oxy is eight to 10 times more addictive than hydrocodone. And they knew it. And they knew it. And they put it into the marketplace.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And, you know, if you're a kid in high school and you blow your ACL, guess what? Your doctor is going to put you on this highly addictive compound coming out the other end of surgery. And it wreaked havoc. It's wreaking havoc to this day. To this day, the equivalent to a 747 jet worth of Americans die every day of opioid related abuse. It's still happening.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
This happened, no, this was, man, was it 10 years ago? So more recently. And that spurred my idea of like, we've got to bring alternatives.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Oh, yeah. Off and on. And we didn't know. None of us knew that he had gotten addicted. This whole time? All these years? And addicts are good at hiding it. You'll never... Like, that's what's terrifying. And it wasn't that he OD'd. It was that when they cut off the ability and accessibility to opioids, everybody turned to black market.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
It shouldn't be. That's the point. They're getting money on every drug that you're prescribed. Imagine the amount of revenue being generated by these insurance companies by screwing me and you and families on these medications.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And the problem with black market is a lot of that stuff's coming from China. There's a whole other play there that we could get into. But China's intentionally shipping... fentanyl into Mexico to get it into the United States to disrupt the youth of America. Like our government knows this. So most of the fentanyl coming in from Mexico is indirectly coming from China.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And it's an effort to create a crisis for the youth of America. And it worked. You know, these individuals are now still seeking opioids that they can't get from the traditional medical system anymore. And they've turned to black market. And the problem with black market is there's no checks and balances. And if you are off by literally a pin size head of fentanyl, it kills you.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
I can tell you what the solution's not. It's not letting the Sacklers sell. They literally are selling the solution.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
I don't know if you know that. Like, yeah, their new treatment is the leading market leader right now in America. So the Sacklers are printing money off of treating the crisis they created. And the problem with that treatment is it's also addictive. You're just trading an addiction. You're trading an opioid addiction for a less addictive alternative. What's the new thing?
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
I don't even remember the name of it, but I'll tell you this. What's crazy is Ibogaine and these treatments that they're doing in Mexico and that Stanford University is doing has such a higher success rate. And again, it's one weekend and you're done. And that's why the Department of Defense, the US government, all of these governing bodies are looking at it.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And there's a big movement with the FDA. And hopefully, you know, we'll see what happens with RFK and the Maha movement, but a leadership change at the FDA could open up the world to life-changing, life-saving treatment modalities that are non-addictive, non-abusive. And that's what I was trying to do when I started my first healthcare startup, MediSmart. We would go out and educate.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
This is where insurance and pharma and all of it, Alex, is so mind-bending. So I would go out and educate clinicians and I would say, first off, try not to write opioids. They're addictive, they're abusive, they wreck the endocrine system. If you're doing an orthopedic procedure, I understand that patient's gonna come out in pain.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
We have a non-addictive, non-abusive pain cream that insurance will cover. You can use this pain cream and never put this person on an opioid. If you want to put them on an opioid, we have checks and balances. I didn't create these checks and balances. It was actually the head of opioid abuse for the Obama administration, Dr. Bill Massey.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And I rolled these protocols out to clinics throughout the state of Texas. And the reason I'm telling you all this is when I say corporate capture, We would say, first off, don't prescribe an opioid. If you have to, and insurance will not cover a pain cream, you should toxicology screen this patient. This will tell you, does this patient abuse drugs?
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Is there any other sort of abusive behavior in this patient's medical history? Is this patient potentially diverting or selling the medicine? All of that can be identified if we toxicology screen. It's a basic urine sample or blood sample. Secondly, we could pharmacogenetic test. The wild part about a pharmacogenetic test is it's a simple cheek swab.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Through that cheek swab, Alex, I could tell you, are you a slow, fast, or moderate metabolizer of an opioid? Are you at risk of becoming addicted to the opioid? If you're a slow or moderate metabolizer, I can adjust your dosage to prevent an overdose.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
It will also tell me if you're diverting the medicine because if you're calling me saying it's not working, 20% of people are outliers and opioids don't work at all. Like for Hawaiian and Polynesian descent, opioids are ineffective. But yet we pumped opioids into those communities. They still had the risk of getting addicted. They just didn't get any pain relief.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
So those are the three checks and balances. An alternative, toxicology screen, pharmacogenetic test. Okay, within a year, the big five insurance company said, you, we're not covering any alternative to opioids. They can go back on an opioid. So there goes that safety net, corporate capture. Safety net number two. Now I have to put you on an opioid. I'm a pain practice. I need to talk screen you.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
I mean, it definitely seems to be a common problem. Like, if we look at what the U.S. spends in healthcare, you know, we're number one in healthcare costs, but I think 60th overall in our overall health. You know, I mean, it's pretty bad. And the most recent statistics are, you know, 70 percent, 67 percent of adults are overweight. I mean, which is staggering. Yeah.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
The federal government's telling me I should talk screen you. Within a year, insurance said we're not going to cover your toxicology screen. So now you took away my safety net to verify this patient's taking the medicine I'm prescribing, verify that this patient's not abusing the medicine.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And last but not least, you took away my only compass and map, my ability to pharmacogenetic test and make sure that I keep this patient in a safe place, gone. Insurance said we're not going to cover it.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
That's where the plot thickens. What a lot of people don't realize because we focus so much on big pharma, The Senate House did a internal investigation into pharmacy benefit managers, okay?
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And I don't want to get too deep in the weeds with your listenership, but PBMs were established in the 80s to be advocates for us, the American people, to help negotiate and drive down the cost of prescription drug care for me and you, for families, so we can afford these medications.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Well, they did work for us, but they got acquired in the 80s by the big five insurance companies. So United, Cigna, Aetna own these middlemen that Trump and Bobby keep talking about. They aren't middlemen at all. They're shell companies owned by the big insurance companies. Here's why that is important. Never once have you heard an insurance company brought up in all of the opioid crisis.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
30% of the profits generated during the opioid crisis went to the insurance companies. They had kickbacks negotiated at their pharmacy benefit manager holding companies. So when I'm out there trying to get, let's say you have a child, they tear their ACL like my brother. I'm educating your doctor on, we should do these tests to make sure this kid doesn't abuse anything.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And we should write them a non-abusive drug. This is a 17 year old kid. Don't put them on an opioid. Insurance says, no, we're not covering that. Why? Because they're getting a kickback on your kid being on an opioid.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
It shouldn't be. That's the point. It's insane. And they structured a deal where there was a gag clause where the U.S. government doesn't even have line of sight into how much money the insurance companies are making off of these PBMs. And so like why that's important. The insurance industry last year cleared a trillion dollars. Over a trillion dollars in revenue. That's how much they made.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Yes, in revenue. UnitedHealthcare alone, let's break that down, $373 billion was generated in revenue by UnitedHealthcare. 60% of that came from kickbacks at their pharmacy benefit manager. They're getting money on every drug that you're prescribed.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
That's what I'm trying to ring the bell on.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
You're correct. So what happened is these insurance companies that were supposed to drive down the cost of prescription drug care went to Big Pharma and sat at the table and instead of driving down our costs said, we have an idea. Why don't you mark up the cost? And Big Pharma's like, mark up the cost? Yeah, charge us 30% more.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
We'll pass that bill on to the consumer, the employer and the taxpayer. And then we will hold that money at our PBM as a profit center. And so the reason Ozempic and these weight loss drugs are so expensive is roughly again, this isn't me saying it. This is a Senate House Finance Committee.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
They uncovered about 30 percent of the profitability of most drugs is being held by the pharmacy benefit managers.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Because the insurance company controls what drugs go on formulary. So we, like even with children's medications, moms really fill the drugs that the insurance will cover. So then the insurance company doesn't cover the best drug, the most efficacious drug, the least side effect drug. That's what I was wondering. They cover the tier drug, tier one, two, three, or four.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
13 to 19 age demographic, though our children are over 30 percent are on the cusp of prediabetes. Like it's I mean, we're just chronically ill as a society. The system's definitely letting individuals, families, all of us down.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
How do they decide which drug gets tier one preferential treatment based off the rebate? Not based off what's best for you. So if I'm an opioid manufacturer, aka the Sacklers, and I agree to give 30% of the money to your holding company, you're going to put me on a tier one. And what does that mean? It means overnight, I get Medicare, Medicaid, governmental contracts.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Overnight, any mother, father, anybody who comes into a pharmacy to fill a drug is going to get steered towards my drug. And so I can make money. It's a pay to play system. But we're the ones fitting the bill. We fit the bill. The insurance company never pays that. And that's where it gets even more condolented. People go, well, if I'm an insurance company, why would I want to pay 30% more?
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Because you don't. So let's just use simple math. Let's use a GLP-1. Let's say the weight loss drugs, $1,000 a month is on average what they're charging in the United States. We compound that drug for a couple hundred dollars mailed to your doorstep with a consult, with a nutritionist and a doctor. And that's how we'll do it if we prescribe it.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Because prescribing a weight loss drug without talking about diet, lifestyle, nutrition is like brushing your teeth while eating Oreos. It makes zero sense. And so we'll do all of that and mail it to your doorstep. Why are they charging $1,000? Well, if you base that 30% number from the Senate Finance Committee, that's about $300 a month potentially could be held at a PBM as a profit.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
But they never paid the 1,000, right? They paid $700. Then at the end of the year, most people are insured by their employer. So like me, I insure over 300 people. At the end of the year, United comes to me and they go, hey, Brigham, Joe Bob cost us $1,000 a month. He's on Ozempic. That's $12,000. We've got to raise your rate by 20%. You've got to pay us $15,000 to insure Joe Bob next year.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
But they never paid the 15%. They paid a fraction of that. And then they do that on every drug. And then how many drugs is the average American on? Four or more. So imagine the amount of revenue being generated by these insurance companies by screwing me and you and families on these medications. They're literally printing money off of our chronic disease and illness.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Every incentive they have is to keep us sick and ill and on the merry-go-round. What Callie and Casey are ringing the bell on is 100% true. And I just know the insurance model enough to expose where the money and where the bodies are buried.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
The reason I know is because I owned labs, pharmacies, blood labs, all of it. And so I was in the model attempting to work within the insurance framework. And even when I talk about obstruction of care, when I left being a drug rep, I was a medical device rep.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And then when I left being a medical device rep, I became essentially a healthcare entrepreneur and I owned genetic labs and I owned blood labs and I owned compounding pharmacies. And I attempted to work within the insurance framework and I would go out and educate clinicians meet with primary cares, OBs. Like most women in America, their OB is their primary.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
You know, that's who they go to for everything. And so I would go meet with these OBs and explain the importance of running comprehensive blood work on women. Like you don't just run a lipid panel. A lipid panel tells me nothing. I mean, it is very minute.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
A full comprehensive panel on over 70 biomarkers allows me to deep dive into you at the biological level. Like I say, if you want to prevent the five chronic diseases that are killing humanity, why not just not let them start in the first place? And you can do that through getting proactive and predictive.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
No, you're spot on. Like the difference between somebody who lives to be a centenarian, 100 years old, and somebody who dies at the average American life expectancy, which I think is 72. It's moved backwards, unfortunately, over the last two years. We're digressing in longevity and health span. The difference is the onset of chronic disease. And so it's not a silver bullet. It's no f***ing secret.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Yeah, the average American's on four or more medications, four or more prescription medications.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
How do we help you live a longer, healthier life? We stop the progression of chronic disease. The diabetes you develop in your 40s started in your 30s. The depression you have in your 50s started in your 40s. Like all of these things are cascade effects. We can prevent by getting proactive and predictive.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Like I said earlier, it's crazy that the age demographic of 13 to 19 right now in America, over 30% of kids are pre-diabetes. We can prevent that.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
The time to treat cancer is before you get cancer. If we can catch cancer at stage one, you have a 99% success rate. If we can stop you from progressing from pre-diabetes to diabetes, we drive down the risk of all chronic disease, all cause mortality, metabolic disease, cancer, every major killer of man.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
It's way higher than the rest of the world. And we also fit the bill for most of the innovation of healthcare, which is a problem in itself because so many people go, well, meds are expensive in America because we fund the innovation. Most of the innovation is funded through taxpayer dollars via the NIH. A lot of people don't understand that. So we're fitting the bill
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
It's a cascade effect.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And that's where I say it is crucial to get proactive and predictive. And I would go out and educate clinicians and OBs and primary cares on the importance of comprehensive blood work. The reason I want to tell you this is then all my doctors in Texas said, I believe you. I think you're right. I think we need to pull comprehensive blood panels. So many people go, well, I have a doctor.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
They pull a blood panel. They don't. They are pulling a minimal lipid panel. Why? Because as soon as my clinician started pulling comprehensive panels, guess who got letters? The insurance companies literally will send threatening letters to your clinician, your OB, your primary care, and they will tell them, I don't like that you're pulling comprehensive blood work on Alex. Why?
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
We don't think you should be doing this. We don't think you have medical necessity. If you continue to pull comprehensive blood work, we will consider revoking your contract. This happened to thousands of doctors in Texas. They had to call me and go, hey, Brigham, I believe in what we're doing, but I'm not going to do this.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
I can't risk my license in losing an insurance contract like UnitedHealthcare. It'll put me out of business.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Well, and that's where we go to deny and delay. Like the kid Luigi, you know, he made the comment, delay, deny, depose. And I explained this on Jillian, like, what do you mean by delay? Insurance companies are incentivized to delay and obstruct your ability to care. Now they're profiteering off of prescription medicines.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
So they're okay with you going on a prescription drug because they're getting kickbacks on prescription drugs. But a surgical procedure costs them money. Something preventative is getting proactive and predictive to them. That's a budgetary issue.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
If I'm an executive at UnitedHealthcare and I know that Alex is going to uncover that she has cancer, but I also know that Alex is going to be a different person's problem in 36 months because the average American switches jobs every two to three years. I am incentivized as an executive at an insurance company to not look under the hood.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
I want you to be out of my system before something chronic develops that requires surgery or some big out of pocket expense. I'm okay covering your prescription drugs because I'm getting rebates and kickbacks on all those things. So if you're on four or more drugs, you're a cash cow for me. But if you go and have a big surgical procedure, you just cost me money. And so I put obstructions.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Well, they want to keep you, they don't want to spend money and they want to make money where they can and minimize expenses where they can. And there's money in you being chronically ill. There's money in selling you band-aids rather than healing wounds.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Again, what he did, crazy, zero justification for it. I'm not supporting or condoning it in any way. It's tragic and it's terrible. Anytime somebody, the loss of human life.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Right now, more Americans are dying every year of chronic disease than every war America's fought combined. In every war America's ever fought, we've lost around 1.2 million lives. We lose 1.7 million Americans a year to chronic disease. It's at an all-time high. Like we said earlier, chronically ill, chronically depressed, chronically obese.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
to identify compounds that are promising for driving health span and preventing chronic disease and all these things is where the money should be applied. But instead, our money is getting applied towards treating symptomology. And so the NIH is looking at studies that are driven by who? Big Pharma. And Big Pharma asked the NIH, look at these compounds.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Everyone is being profiteered off of their death and destruction and diseases. And all the while, UnitedHealthcare doubled their stock price, $373 billion in revenue last year, printing money off the backs of Americans. And even Luigi's an example. Let's look at that, a spine injury. This spine injury is debilitating. The exact injury you had can cause like shooting pain into the extremities.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
It feels like your hands are on fire. In men, it can shoot into the genitals and cause sexual dysfunction where you literally feel like your genitals are on fire. On average, it takes three months to get in with the primary care. And so if I walk you through a typical patient with that injury, I'm begging the insurance. I'm trying to get into a primary.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Well, I have to go to the primary that's approved by my insurance and that's on the plan. Now I get in with the primary. The primary says, oh, sorry, I don't do, you know, orthopedics. I'm going to have to refer you to a specialist. Takes you another three months to get in with a specialist. Now you get in with a specialist. They go, I can't really do anything without the insurance's approval.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And I don't really know what to do without an MRI. So now you battle to get an MRI. Typically, you're going to have a huge out-of-pocket expense on that.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Correct. And so it's six to nine months on average before you ever get an answer if you're even going to be able to get into the surgery. And now you go into the surgery and you're finally going to get your day of relief. And the insurance company goes, no, you're not allowed to go to that surgeon. They're not on our plan. We want you to go to this surgeon.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And so then they tell you what surgeon to go to. And then you're left with another huge out-of-pocket expense of a mega co-payer deductible, oftentimes north of $10,000 that you, the patient, are left on the hook with. And then you don't even get to choose your clinician.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And then if that surgeon botches the surgery, which is apparently what happened in his instance, it can cause lifelong erectile dysfunction. It can cause lifelong phantom pain into the limbs, a cascade of issues. So you're miserable, you're angry, you're suffering, and you've been jacked around by the insurance company for a year.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And that's unfortunately the story of so many Americans that people are frustrated and they're angry and rightfully so. Again, all-time profits for big insurance, but at the same time, all-time fatalities in the United States of chronic disease. You know, people dying of chronic disease, 1.7 trillion Americans died.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Well, what I tell people is you have to change. You have to paradigm shift. And I hate to say this, but you've got to look at the insurance company like you look at your car insurance. It's there if you wreck the car.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
It's there in the event of something catastrophic. But if you're expecting your car insurance to rotate your tires, change the oil, look under the hood, and maintain the vehicle, you're going to be sorely disappointed when you blow the motor out. And this system is not built to prevent chronic disease and to drive healthspan and longevity.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And when a compound gets close enough to a point where they think they can patent it and monetize it, the NIH just hands the molecule over for pennies on the dollar to Big Pharma, where they then put it through a double blind placebo controlled trial, if we're lucky, and push it into the marketplace and patent it.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
I can't go to that doctor.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And the challenge with that is you're putting, I try to say this as politely as possible. If you put yourself in the hands of the average insurance company and you go to the average primary care, don't be surprised when you die of the average chronic American disease. Because the system is built to fail you. And you can wish in one hand and s*** in the other and see what fills up first.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
But I promise you, you're going to get screwed. The system is not built to prevent chronic disease to drive health span. But the beauty is... It doesn't cost that much. It really doesn't. In the grand scheme of life, if you could even get a comprehensive blood test like you did once a year, ideally quarterly in a dream world, but everyone's budget's different. How much do you spend on a car?
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
How much do you spend on a mattress? How much do you spend on your house? You are only in those things a few hours a day. This is it. You get one body your whole life. This is our one chance to live our dreams, you know, retire healthy, go on adventures. Like, let's protect this.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And I'm sure you've had clinicians on your show that will talk about, you know, we have genetics and we have epigenetics. Yes. Epigenetics are the gun. Your diet, lifestyle, and choices are the bullets. You don't have to put the bullets in the gun. And if we run a workup on you and look at your biomarkers, we can guide you to avoid putting the bullets in the gun because we know your epigenetics.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
We know your family history. We know your genetics. We know your biomarkers and your trends. We know where you're headed and we can get truly proactive and predictive. Like I'm an example, brother's diabetic, sister's diabetic, dad's diabetic, mom's diabetic. Everyone in my family is chronically ill and obese.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And so we, the American people, are paying the bill for these innovations multiple times. We funded the original legwork to get this molecule to a point it could be patented. Then the NIH turns it over to Big Pharma. Then Big Pharma patents it and we got to pay for it again.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Yeah.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
My dad just says, I'm going to die fat and happy. Yes. And I hate to say it, like, my dad, now he's, what, 67? And he's not fat and happy. He's fat and miserable. He's in and out of the hospital, kidney failure, chronic disease. You know, you always think it's not going to happen to you, but it is. It's coming. death is coming for all of us.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
But if we stay healthy and we stay active, we can prevent it. We can live to be healthy, happy centenarians. We really can with AI algorithms and large language models. Like the vision of the future for me is we're monitoring you 24 seven. Like at Ways to Well, we tie into wearables. We monitor your REM sleep, your deep sleep.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
If I have your VO2 max and a DEXA combined with your blood work, I can literally algorithm out the risk of all major chronic diseases and where you fall on that scale. And we can get strategic. Think of it like a report card. I need to assess your overall health because I know where you're going to trend, Alex.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
I know after the age of 60, as a petite woman, you're going to have a bone mineral density decline. That's just common fact, but I can slow that BMD decline. Why is that important? One of the biggest risk factors for petite women over the age of 65 is a bone fracture. If you get a bone fracture like a hip or a vertebrae, it limits your ability to work out, stay active and stay healthy.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Step by step, we can methodically eliminate each of these risk factors, indirectly driving healthspan and then buying time as we innovate and create, you know, in 20 years, imagine how different healthcare will be. In my mind, you will never go to a doctor again. Everything will be from the comfort of your own home.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Exactly what I said. I tell them view it as car insurance. It's there if something catastrophic happens, like you need insurance. If you get if you have a heart attack, if you like, there's big expenditures that come up where you need that catastrophic care. But I personally don't use insurance at all for preventative because they don't do prevent it.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
I would tell people choose a plan that's there for catastrophic care, but budget allowing, you should at least try to take yourself out of the matrix once a year, like at minimal. Go somewhere where you can pay a cash pay clinic and it should be under $500.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And then Big Pharma says, well, we got to charge you more because you're fitting the bill for the rest of the world's innovation. But yet we're one of the most chronically ill societies for a first world country, which is crazy.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
You know, for a comprehensive blood panel, an hour on the phone with a clinician, deep diving into everything at the biological level, it'll blow your mind. how much more data and information you will get when you're not at a regular primary. And it's not your primary care's fault. They are in a system that restricts their ability to do anything.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
On average, a primary care in America has six minutes with you. Six minutes. They can't do anything in six minutes.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Yes.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
They prescribe you a drug and they push you out the door because that's what they were taught to do.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Well, what's tough is they're all not good. Right. Because they're all for profit.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
But they're unfortunately like a necessity because of something catastrophic, right? The average person can't afford a million dollar spine surgery. Like there's an event that could happen where you need these insurance companies. And that's where they obstruct and try and prevent your accessibility to care. I don't know what the future holds for that. It's pretty terrifying.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
If you look at how much money is being made off the federal government, like Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE, what a lot of people don't understand is those aren't governmental payer programs anymore. The government outsourced those to who? The big five insurance companies. So even the governmental institutions are getting price gouged.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Yeah, it's the National Institute for Health, and they are a taxpayer dollar funded entity that is trying to help drive chronic disease and create cures. But it's really less about cures and more about creating compounds that treat symptomology. And that's because it's guided by big insurance and big pharma. And I know you and I met through our Senate testimonies.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And how they negotiate those rates and show the government they're saving them money is they just, so they set the drug price of every drug in America. People don't understand that. UnitedHealthcare, Cigna, Aetna set the drug price. So when people go, why in the hell are these weight loss drugs so expensive? Your insurance company set the price.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
They negotiated the average wholesale price. Then they show the federal government, hey, federal government, this drug's costing the average employer a thousand a month. But because you're the federal government, we'll sell it to you for $900 a month.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
I do think those are better approaches. And I do think that it's nuanced and, you know, the devil's in the details. And that's why I'm not trying to dodge your question. But like even Blue Cross literally has thousands of plans.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
So I could tell you Blue Cross has got a good plan, but you got to look at it's unique to you, your family, how old are your kids, how old are you, what chronic diseases are in your family, what kind of catastrophic events could be in your future, you know, and then does that plan have big out of, like if I'm a 20 year old kid, I may be a lot more comfortable with a big out of pocket expense because I'm not planning on a surgery.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Right. But if I'm a 55 year old woman, you know, with osteoporosis, you know, osteopenia in the early phases, I may want to have better surgical protection because I'm probably headed towards that, unfortunately. But my main thing is don't trust any of these guys.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Like, you know how you know where you're at health wise is you pay cash with a clinician that is not tied to an insurance company that can guide you and have honesty and integrity with no conflicts that can take the time to sit down and dive deep into your unique genetic makeup, epigenetics, blood work, all of these variables and truly develop a game plan to get predictive and proactive.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Yeah. The main thing is, well, we're in Arizona. So for your listener base here, there's a lot of great clinics throughout Arizona. This is one of the states that does practice a lot of preventative medicine. So does California. So does Colorado. Um, ways to well, our practice is, uh, I think in 37 States, we're working diligently to go nationwide.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Um, but any cash pay clinic, I hate to say functional medicine, but like, if you, if you go to get work done on your house or your car, like I'll interview three or four people before I decide it's wild to me that with healthcare, we just sign up with the first person we find.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Well, it's become like a catchphrase and it's, you know, a lot of people.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Yeah, and then it's almost become like a four-letter word in academia. They go, oh, these functional medicine doctors. But the truth is, you know, academia is captured. If somebody works at a teaching institute and they're part of an insurance program, it's all dictated by the insurance company what they can or can't do. They're not going to do a full workup.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Well, we're here too. So mainly like us, but for men's health, there's like Merrick health. There's Tony Robbins. I think life, it's not life force. Tony Robbins has a facility here, but some of those are more expensive and it's all about budget timing. What can you afford? But in a dream world, If you had a clinic that said, I'm recommending you do comprehensive biomarkers at least twice a year.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
If you had a clinic that somebody is going to sit down and spend at least 30 minutes with you to deep dive and explain to you what those biomarkers mean so you can understand it. Like the goal is to educate and empower patients. I don't believe that a clinician should operate from a position of authority dictating down to a patient.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And I and the gist of it is in my main point that I try to make as coming from a background of a little bit about me is like I started out as a drug rep right out of college. And so I got the experience of being a drug rep and I only did it for a few years. But I learned so much about how that system works.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Like the ways to well model is we are here to embolden, empower and educate you to take sovereignty and accountability over your health. Because if if we just prescribe you a weight loss pill and push you out the door, that's no different than what the broken health care system is doing. Are you guys doing peptides? We do. Yeah.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
I think that they're phenomenal, a great tool in the tool belt. I think they're probably over-prescribed like everything. I think they're probably overutilized like everything. And I think there's no substitute for diet, lifestyle, and nutrition. And that's why we hammer home diet, lifestyle, nutrition, like be, make better choices.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
But that being said, even when you try, I'm sure you've seen like everything has, I mean, even though it's, I know it's not healthy, but even what came out about Girl Scout cookies yesterday.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
I don't know if you, oh my God.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
They all have metal content. Literally 100% of Girl Scout cookies tested had metal particulates, including lead. Oh my gosh. Lead at a poisonous, toxic level. It had everything you can, every little negative thing that we've talked about is in it.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
It's such a bummer.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
But even Thin Mints, and I love Thin Mints, and I don't eat them all the time, but it's like, that was like nostalgia for me. My sister was a Girl Scout. I remember like every year, once a year, you get your Girl Scout cookies, which isn't healthy, but now it's not only not healthy, it's apparently like poisonous.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
It's really bad.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Yeah, lead poisoning, the level of whatchamacallit's higher than in the highest levels allowed in water. I mean, like there's like 10 different things in there. I can't remember all of them, but it's all bad news, all really bad news.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
It's rapidly happening. There's actually a precipitous decline in the amount of primary cares in America, which is a problem because we have an aging population that needs primary cares and primary cares are the first line of defense.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
But Harvard did an interview study where they interviewed primaries across America and they're projecting a 30% decline in the amount of people in clinicians who practice primary care, which is going to be catastrophic. And the life raft is going to be large language models, AI, proactive, predictive, like where I was going, like at Wastewell, our clinic.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Like I was saying, if we get a DEXA and a VO2 max, so a DEXA scan scans your body. Have you ever heard of this?
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Oh yeah, that's awesome.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
It's different. That does a full body MRI, which is phenomenal.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
But you're on the right path. It is scary. It's intimidating.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Well, so all the folks that trained and taught me were on the payroll for the pharmaceutical company, right? And so when we launch a compound into a marketplace, I had every doctor in a geographic region, what they were prescribing, where I was supposed to go for the day. They tailored my schedule to focus on heavy prescribers, people who prescribed a certain demographic of medication.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
But you'll know.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Right? And now if you know, you're ahead of the curve. And so again, like we were saying with cancer, if we catch it at stage... One, you have a huge success rate versus stage three or four. We should be getting proactive and predictive on all chronic diseases.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
We can prevent most of these chronic diseases, not treat the symptoms, but prevent the escalation and the evolution of these diseases in our body by getting proactive.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
So when we talk about insurance, you're spot on because insurance won't cover that.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And so I try and explain this when people are like, why don't you take insurance? Okay, well, let me methodically walk you through. You come into the practice, and let's just say you said, budget's no problem. I want the full workup. I want to know everything. Okay. We would do a AI guided brain scan.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
I would be able to assess how your neurons are firing from the posterior to the prefrontal cortex. It's going to tell me if you have anxiety, depression, or stress, is it neuron related? Because as our neurons misfire, they create beta waves. Those beta waves create a cascade effect, which create anxiety, depression, all of these different things, sleep issues.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Why would I ever prescribe you an antidepressant without first doing a full brain workup? right? So we would do that brain workup. We would do a DEXA. A DEXA is going to tell me your bone mineral density, your lean muscle mass, how much lean muscle you have on your right quad versus your left quad, your scapula, your back, your shoulders, everything.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
It's just a full body scan and it tells me everything. But the beauty of that is now that I have that, I know exactly how many grams of protein your body needs to maintain. I know exactly what your bone mineral density is, and I can forecast out a plan to help slow the reduction of BMD and get proactive and predictive to prevent you from reaching a fracture in your older age.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Then your biomarkers tell me all of your blood work and where you're headed. Now I combine that with your heart rate variability, your deep sleep, your REM sleep, your sleep patterns, your wearables, and I can begin to calculate out and prevent chronic disease. Any practice could do this. None of that is covered by insurance.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Yeah.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
I mean, it varies. So like the blood work is like $500, but that's a 45 minute with a consult with a clinician and a deep dive into your blood work. A DEXA is literally like 70 bucks. You know, it's just a scan of your body that tells us your lean muscle. Then a VO2 max is, you know, same thing, like 70 something dollars. The most expensive thing we do is the cancer screening.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And it's because it's a genetic screening and it is expensive. Um, and I want to say that's like 2000, uh, something dollars. And it is the most expensive thing we do at waste. Well, but again, it's, it will tell us at stage zero, like we can identify cancer at stage zero, over 200 types of cancer up to a decade before they manifest.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Well, I mean, budget's tough for people and a lot of people are living month to month and that's where I'm like, that's why if you think being healthy is expensive, try being sick. Like the number one reason for bankruptcy in America is healthcare costs.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
You fish where the big fish are.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
It's the number one reason because people get saddled with these bills from these big insurance companies and it screws them and it destroys their, you know, so many people have to declare bankruptcy because of catastrophic health expenses. And if we get proactive and predictive, we can prevent that.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
The big five insurance companies are juggernauts. But regardless of which one you look at, most of them are owned by BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street. So all of them.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
There's a lot of money in it. And then guess who owns a lot of the hospital systems? And then guess who owns a lot of the big pharmaceutical companies? And then guess who owns... a lot of our food industry, right? All of it comes back to these same juggernauts.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And I'm not going as far to say they're intentionally creating chronic disease through our food, and then they're intentionally obstructing care through the insurance, and then they're intentionally profiteering off the drugs. But it's a lot of bad facts that fall in line.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Correct. And I would know what they prescribed the day before. And so let's just say, as an example, you're selling an ADHD medication. You would prioritize your schedule to go call on the clinicians that prescribe the most Adderall. And then your job is to go convert them or grow the patient population.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And if we can control the food system and maybe that food system creates a funnel of business that then leads to other funnels of business that then leads to other funnels of business, it's a conflict at minimal. And it's a conflict that should be exposed. And it's a conflict that should be fought and protected for the American people by our federal government.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
but then who lobbies the most with our federal government? It's big pharma, it's big insurance, and at the end of the day, it's BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street. And so the question is, will our congressmen and congresswomen, will our senators fight for this?
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Thankfully, we had people like Senator Johnson who were willing to take a stand, but it'll be interesting to see how the next four years plays out. Hopefully, we start heading the right direction.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
So when we talk about obstruction, right, there's money being made off the prescription drugs. So the insurance companies are okay with you being on prescription drugs. They intentionally put obstacles between you and surgery because they don't make money off surgery. There is no backroom arrangement. There's no kickback. There's no money being paid to them. So that's an out-of-pocket expense.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
So insurance companies have structured their plans in a way to intimidate, bully, and stress people out of getting surgery. So like I said, if you're a 20-something-year-old kid and let's just say you said, I'm going to go with the highest out-of-pocket copay or deductible because I'm never going to need surgery. And then you get in a motorcycle wreck and you injure your spine.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Well, now you're on the hook, most likely for north of $10,000 worth of your copay or deductible to have that surgery. Where this gets even shadier is the insurance contract with a MRI center, a lab, a hospital, whatever it may be, screws those entities and leaves you holding almost what I would call a subprime mortgage. You don't have a financial record on this person.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
You are required to accept them as a patient. Then you're required to make them pay you the $10,000 copay or deductible. Your contract with United says, I have to go after Alex for $10,000 of her spine surgery. I have to chase you down. I have to make a reasonable effort to collect. That's what the contract says.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
So at the end of the year, if I haven't got the money from you, oftentimes I'll settle for a couple thousand bucks. Whatever I can get from you, the patient, just so I can put it in a folder so United can't sue me. And it ends up being a lie agreed upon because that's why hospitals and all these companies are so terrified of the insurance companies. Because let's say I did that a thousand times.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Now United says, Brigham, we don't think you collected your co-pays and deductibles. Well, I did. I did the best I could. The contract says a reasonable effort. They could argue that because I only collected 20% of the money, they don't owe me anything. And they may win in a court of law and never have to pay me. And that would bankrupt me as a hospital or bankrupt me as a surgery center.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And the conversion's one thing, because that's trying to sell and place your product in a way and argue the medical necessity and benefits of that compound. But to grow a market is a whole nother thing, because think about it. This is where it gets really gray and jaded with these pharmaceutical companies.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And so hospitals, surgery centers, doctors, they're terrified of these insurance companies. They do not want to fight the insurance companies because the insurance companies have them bent over a barrel. They control the flow of patients. They can control the reimbursement rates. It takes 60 to 90 days to get paid on a surgery.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
So you're arguing with United for literally three months after I've already done the surgery on you to try and get paid. And then if the dispute gets big enough, they go, show me where you collected Alex's copay or we'll sue you. And it's like, well, it says a reasonable effort. And you and I both know Alex didn't have the $10,000 to pay. I'm chasing her down. Like, it's just not good.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Does that make sense?
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Well, I think we have to take away some of the incentives. And one of those would be break up the PBMs, get rid of the middlemen, do not allow them to profiteer off chronic disease and prescription medications.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Okay. And they're saying they're going to go after the pharmacy benefit managers.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Like, yeah. And I've had multiple congressmen and congresswomen and senators reach out that want to understand the insurance companies better. And if they were to just remove those incentives, then they're not at least making these billions of dollars in profit off of our prescription drugs.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Yes, yes. And I think that there's, there is a, it is known now, like the roof has been blown off this thing. It's not a little secret anymore. They know that these PBMs are profiteering big time off of chronic disease. And they say they're going to take it on. It's going to be an uphill battle and it'll be a bear battle.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
I hope not. I hope not. There's, you know, part of politics is horse trading, right? And if they're going to implement things that hurt big pharma, which, you know, is what supposedly is being said, like some of these safety nets and protocols and vaccine protocols and, you know, taking off some of these protective covenants.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
These are all things that would be bad for big pharma's pocketbook, candidly. But if we were to dissolve PBMs and shut down middlemen, Big Pharma wouldn't have to negotiate rebates and inflate their price. And so in a way, they could keep more profits. And so it is it would benefit Big Pharma.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
It would hurt the insurance companies, but it would most likely benefit humanity because now they're not making money off of selling us prescription drugs, which is a huge conflict for the insurance companies.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
I think you escape it through being educated through the consumer voice. Uh, I think it may have been you at the Senate that said like, we have the ability to fight back through our choices in our pocketbooks. You know, we know that mothers control most of a family's healthcare.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
They'll have you sign these contracts as a 20-year-old kid saying, I'm not going to off-label promote. I agree. I've been trained that I'm not going to talk about something that this drug isn't indicated for. Then they send you to dinners with thought leaders in your field that tell you all the areas they're using these drugs that aren't on the label. which would be off-label promotion.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Most of the time it's the moms making the decision on what doctor they go to, what pediatrician you go to, you know, the best thing you could do for you and your family is is to find a cash pay clinic and try and go at least once a year. Get a second opinion. That's where I was going earlier. How quick do we... You take time if you're going to remodel your house. You interview contractors.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
You look at their work. You understand them and their character. Why would you not do that with somebody who's controlling your health? Like this is your one time, your one shot at living a healthy life is right now the bodies we have. We never get another one.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
So take the time to find a great clinician that cares, that's passionate, that wants to help you, that will do the deep dive, that will have the conversation. And if a clinician doesn't like that you're Googling and researching things yourself, to me, that's a red flag. Like there's clinicians out there that get offended if a patient's Googled. But you should. You have to be your own advocate.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
There is no other advocate out there but you. So be an advocate for you and your family. Question everything. Trust no one. I hate to say that, but trust is earned, not given. And clinicians in America have let down people. And so we can't blindly trust them anymore. They have to earn the trust of you and your family before you just give it to them.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Yeah. And what's wild is when we started Ways to Well, we were the majority female clients. We were like 60% women, 40% men. But after going on Rogan and Tucker and some of these more, I guess, male focused podcasts, it's pivoted where we're like 70% men now.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
I would say all the time, though, it's totally unfair to women because you can throw a rock and hit a testosterone clinic for men. I mean, it's crazy how many men centric health practices have sprung up that are cash pay. And women, for the most part, are still depending on their OB as their primary line of defense. And OBs are phenomenal.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
But the problem is if they're in the insurance system, they're still kind of hand-tied. It's not that – and you could even probably – if you have an OB or a primary that you love – I would ask them, hey, what tests do you think I should run? Like I'm interested in my health span and my longevity. I'm willing to pay cash.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
You know, I don't wanna rely on the insurance because they'll tell me what I can and can't do. Like, and I'll give you me as an example. Even when I was 37, I was training CrossFit every day. I was waking up at 4 a.m. as a surgical rep. I would go to CrossFit at 5 a.m. I would be in the operating room all day and I was 25% body fat on the cusp of obesity.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Yes. What? And I was chronically ill, sick all the time, immune system run down. I was seeing a nutritionist. I was working out with a personal trainer. I was in what I call the pit of despair. Like I literally was just like, I guess this is who I am. I guess it's just genetics. I guess I'm f***ed.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
candidly I literally was depressed and just like I don't I guess this is it and finally I had a nutritionist go hey do you get your blood work done by a primary care this is before I knew all this this is how I learned everything I'm doing I found out my primary care was just running a basic lipid panel Never had looked at any real deep dive. You know, again, this was a decade ago almost.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And then you're tasked with growing a market share and immense pressures put on you to grow market share. And you're out at a dinner with one of your doctors and you go, well, man, do I bring up what that doctor told me about using this? And let me give you an example. Like there was a antipsychotic, a very niche drug, right? Antipsychotics are not meant to just be handed out like candy, right?
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
I go to a specialist. I pay cash to go to a urologist. Urologist does a full workup on me, comes back, tells me 10 different things that are wrong. We make adjustments and I'll be candid. It wasn't like, you know how you say you're scared of getting the MRI and it's nerve wracking. God, it's a relief to get answers and go, I knew something wasn't right.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
We dialed in my hormones. I had, I literally, my testosterone for whatever reason was 110. Which is supposed to be. Oh, well, this is a whole nother diatribe. In my prime, it was probably 1200. And men today have testosterone that's 50% of what it was in the 80s. And we tell men anything below 350 is clinically low. But 350 is low.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Women's testosterone is more than their estrogen, which a lot of women don't realize. But you're on a different measuring. It's nanograms per deciliter. Okay. But you want women's testosterone to be high too, because if it's not, you'll lose sex drive. You have a hard time maintaining bone mineral density. You have a hard time maintaining your lean muscle mass.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
All of these are like crucial as we age to preventing the onset of metabolic disease, diabetes, weight gain, all of it.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
I had restlessness, irritability, low energy. I would be tired all the time. I would have a hard time keeping lean muscle mass. I had a hard time losing body fat. I thought I was okay because as a guy, you still have sex drive, but what's crazy is the urologist broke down. He's like, think about it from a nature standpoint, the very last thing to go for a man is typically sex drive.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And so, so many men that are obese or overweight or struggling, they don't think they have low T because they have a sex drive. But in nature, if you can procreate and keep the species alive, that's like the last, last, last thing to go.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Oh, totally. Literally in a six-month time frame, I went from 25% to 6% body fat at the time. I had like... a six pack, got shredded up, energy through the roof, put on lean muscle mass. My drive, my motivation was back. And then it leads to a cascade effect. Now I'm getting results from my workout. So now I work out every day.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Well, I can a hundred percent because when, even though I thought my sex drive was normal, when your testosterone is optimized, it's, You're like chasing your significant other around the house, which to her is flattering and like fun for her again, you know, because she got to be pursued all the time. And I'm like in that stage all the time because my levels are normal again.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And it's like being a 20 year old guy again.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Yeah, that's probably true though.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And women too, like women, and this is where OBs are tough. They're not comfortable with hormones. And so women think, oh my God, I'm a girl. I shouldn't be on testosterone. Look, if you're a woman over the age of 40, there is a high likelihood, or you've had multiple kids, your hormones are probably, if nobody's looking at them, are probably out of whack. Like, I mean, a
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
A lot of women are struggling with hormonal issues and they think, well, I'll just get on Trizepatide and or, you know, a Zempik and I'll lose weight. But it's like, it'll work. And I'm not telling you not to, but there are other things that are going to be healthier for you. And that if we take a look under the hood, I promise you we can dial in.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
They would literally train the sales reps to go in and instead of focusing on this very niche patient population, you would try to grow it to a more average patient population. So example would be, you've talked about the mother that comes in, she's stressed, she's anxious, she's having a hard time sleeping.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
No, no. And I've argued with Jillian and Joe and they're my friends, but I'm like, look, A GLP-1 is a tool in the tool belt. And a tool in the right hands can do amazing things for somebody. And a tool in the wrong hands can be catastrophic.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
So a lot of it is... there's a lot of chatter, but there's a lot of studies showing that it reduces your risk of cancer. Cause you know, when you look at your risk factors for cancer, okay, the number one risk factor is smoking. If you don't smoke, the second biggest risk factor is obesity.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
If we can get the weight off of these people and we can prevent metabolic disease, which leads to diabetes, which leads to cancer, which leads to Alzheimer's, which leads to all of these chronic diseases that are killing people, GLP-1s are a valuable tool in the tool belt. They're overprescribed, they're overpriced, and oftentimes they're misguided.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And I don't think clinicians are taking the time to educate the patient on the when, what, where, and how, and the pros and cons. But when utilized appropriately, it is a life-changing compound. I mean, I can't tell you how many people, like my friend's mom called me the other day and was like literally in the cusp of like tears.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
saying, you have no idea, Brigham, I've struggled with weight for 20 years. To have something where I can go to these office functions and everyone's eating cake and I don't have to eat the cake or I don't have to eat the cookie or if I eat it, I just take a bite and I don't eat the whole thing. It's life-changing for me.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
So many people judge and say, well, they're being lazy or they can show discipline. You have to get wins on the board when somebody is in the pit of despair and they've battled obesity their whole life to sit there and judge that person just because you have discipline or grew up in a different environment. It doesn't mean everyone has that same level of fortitude.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And in a lot of times, these people think it's hopeless. But I've seen it. If you get somebody on a micro dose of GLP and you begin to change the behavior and they get wins on the board and they start losing weight and they start fitting in that dress that they hadn't worn in 10 years, the amount of confidence and joy and life-changing momentum that can create for people, I'm a believer.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
I'm an absolute believer because I've seen the magic and what it can do.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
But I've also seen the devastation and what it can do when people use it inappropriately and overprescribe it and don't truly take the patient into account. Like we've got to have the conversation. We got to help people help themselves.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
That mom that maybe wakes up in the middle of the night and just starts cleaning the house because she can't sleep. Mm-hmm. that might be a manic patient. That might be a patient that this compound could help. But that is not a manic.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
The main thing I learned is it's not about being perfect. It's about being better, right? Every opportunity is a choice to make a better choice. And as a momentum breeds momentum, like we were saying with the GLP-1s,
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
If you can help someone get wins on the board and they can make slight adjustments through diet, lifestyle, exercise, pharmaceutical intervention if needed, and they start seeing results, you're so much more likely to commit. And so for me, it candidly started small. It's the same counsel we would give any patient. So let's go back to like if we were to do a DEXA.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
At the time, I did a DEXA on myself. So I knew I weighed, you know, at the time, I think 198 pounds. And I knew how much of my body was muscle. If I know how much of my body's muscle, which is a very simple DEXA scan, I now know exactly how many grams of protein I need to maintain lean muscle. And so as wild as it sounds is you can prioritize your diet to feed the muscle and starve the fat.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
If the more protein you eat, one gram of protein per pound of lean muscle mass to maintain lean muscle. So if I'm 150 pounds of lean muscle, not to get too technical, I need 150 grams of protein just to maintain muscle. So if you eat enough protein and but are at a caloric deficit, in theory, you will minimize your loss of muscle and maximize your loss of fat.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
This is what the drug companies would try to teach a clinician and get a clinician to essentially over-prescribe a drug and prescribe it in patient demographics that don't make sense. We talk often about the opioid crisis. The opioid crisis was preceded by the Valium crisis, which was the same family, the Sacklers. And this is what's wild.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And so we took a very methodical approach, but it doesn't have to be that discipline. I started out like, I'm gonna try and eat more protein and I'm gonna try not to eat junk food and I'm gonna cut out soft drinks and I'm gonna cut out alcohol. And just doing those things and dialing in my hormones changed my life. Then as I started getting to like 10% body fat, I'm like, oh man,
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Can I get down to like, can I get shredded? I'm going to like get really strict. And so then I got really strict at the time and began to really prioritize protein and get really methodical. But, you know, to me, I tell people just make better choices. Like there's always an opportunity for a better choice. And just because you make a mistake,
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
you know, when you eat that burger for lunch or whatever, have a milkshake, it doesn't mean you have to throw out the whole week as the other mistake people make. Once they've made a mistake, they go, well, already messed up. I'll just eat. I'll eat fajitas and a margarita tonight. You know, like just choose your battles and when and where, but just those small tweaks and dialing in your hormones.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
So many people do not understand, like you can be eating perfect. And if your hormones are totally out of whack, you're literally hiking up a mountain carrying a backpack full of bricks.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Almost every single person that we do blood work on is deficient on vitamin D. I knew you were going to say that. Yeah. Almost everyone. Almost everybody is deficient on magnesium. Almost everybody's deficient on zinc. And then creatine is phenomenal for brain health, for lean muscle mass, for longevity.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Yeah, you want to just find a solid source that's independently third-party lab verified because the supplements, Momentum is who I use, and I don't have any relationship with them other than I know they third-party verify their stuff. I know it's what they say it is. The supplement world's a racket.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
So even earlier when you were asking me about peptides, as an owner of a compounding pharmacy, every single treatment modality or medication we compound, all the ingredients are FDA approved. Yeah. from FDA sourced suppliers. Every batch is independently third-party verified to be what we say it is by a lab unaffiliated with us that we then turn into the FDA.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
So we know if we tell you you're getting BPC-157 peptide, that you're getting the dosage, the efficacy, the quality and no contaminants because we are required by law to verify all of that.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
The challenge I have with supplements, it's the wild west.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
There is no regulatory or oversight. So oftentimes it's not what people present it to be and it's not as efficacious or the dosage they say it is. Momentum and several of these other companies do a great job. Just find one that's third party verified.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
The Sacklers in the 60s, I think, and 70s began to promote Valium for women who had headaches. And they tried to target housewives.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Creatine helps your body maintain lean muscle mass. There's all sorts of studies on its benefit for brain health, cognition, memory, reduction in Alzheimer risk. But it's just something that is found in meat sources. And most of us don't eat enough protein. Most of it, even if we do eat protein, it's stripped of all the nutrients because it's not grass fed and all the things it used to be.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And so it's just a supplement that is a tool in your tool belt that I think
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
can help and there's no studies that are negative almost every study is positive so it's become one of those supplements that is pretty much universally accepted as there's no downside to taking this consistently and there's a lot of upside same thing with vitamin d same thing with zinc same thing with magnesium so many people who are struggling with sleep and anxiety and all of these things it's because they're deficient in zinc and magnesium
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Well, that's where it's good to know your blood work, right? Because if we're monitoring you, now we're using science. And now we know how are you metabolizing it. And yes, you don't want excessive levels of any of this because all of these things can create different issues. Like some of them create tremors. Zinc and magnesium, if you're ODing on it or taking too much, you'll get tremors.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
You'll get shaky blood.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Same thing. I just use Momentum on almost all the stuff just because I know it's verified. But there's a lot of great supplement companies out there. I just, I'm easy and I know I can get it from Amazon and I know it's third-party verified, but we're launching all of our own supplements that'll be third-party verified.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
So because I don't trust any of these people and I'm over it, we're literally going to post on our website. Here's third, we're going to do what we do in pharmaceuticals but for supplements. Love that. And so I'm going to say this was third party verified by an independent lab. Here's our results. Here are the three biggest competitors and here are their results.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Oh, it's an opioid. So it's addictive. It's abusive. You become dependent on it. Mood swings.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Yeah.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Well, I geek out on this because it's literally, so mind boggling, the lowest risk of all chronic diseases for a woman is when she's pregnant. And a lot of people don't understand the methodology or the mechanism of action of why. As much as the mom is keeping the fetus alive, the fetus is keeping the mom alive.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
The fetus is sending signaling cells that tell the mother's heart to increase by 30% in the third trimester that create that pregnancy glow where your skin looks great and everything's glowing and exuberant. It's literally because your body is getting all of these goodies of life that are in the placenta, in the umbilical cord, in that embryo coming back up into the mother as well.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And there's a synergistic effect of pregnancy. And so the medical term is a heterochronic parabiosis. And all it means is if we take an old mouse and we take a young mouse and we suture their organs together, which they did at Harvard, The young mouse gets older and the old mouse gets younger, which is wild to think.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And so once the mother delivers that baby, in America, we can take the leftover afterbirth. So many people think stem cells are illegal or you can't do them. No, you can't clone a human. We cannot abort a fetus and take that and turn it into stem cells.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
I think that was one that they called mom. I can't remember. They were saying, don't just take a martini, pop a Valium. And I think it's the one that they called mama's little helper.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
You can take a healthy mother, healthy birth, pre-planned C-section, and take all of that afterbirth, these cellular goodies that kept the baby and the mom alive and delivered all this sustenance, and extrapolate out all of the goodies that God, nature, whatever you want to call it, gives us.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
You can get it other ways, but in America, it's typically done through a pre-planned C-section where we take the afterbirth, the umbilical cord, all the cord tissue, the amnion, the placenta, and we take it to a lab where they extrapolate out all of the good stuff.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
So there's two different things. Yeah, the answer is yes. But they're doing pre-planned C-sections. So from my seat, it's like if we can buy the discarded afterbirth to create these cells to give people accessibility to these life-changing compounds, absolutely. Okay, so you're saying it doesn't have to be from your own. No, it doesn't.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
But the future, and this is what I'm talking to the Department of Defense about, is all of our soldiers and military personnel, they have... You know, they're having children and the U.S. government is spending buku dollars on trying to prevent injuries and heal wounded soldiers and burns and wounds and cuts and injuries and phantom pain and all these things. Stem cells can help with all of that.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Yeah, it was marketed towards housewives that were stressed and anxious and overwhelmed, you know, and then they marketed to husbands about and this is the 60s and 70s. But it's like if your wife's on edge, tell her to pop a volume. And they created and perpetuated a crisis where Congress had to step in and go after the Sackler family to shut down this volume crisis.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And if we got strategic and worked within the confines of what we should be doing rather than the insurance bull****, we would be having these mothers set aside these umbilical cords and these birth tissues for themselves, for their own families. And we could help these soldiers. It's in-joint shots, intravenous, it's a mixture. It just depends on the injury and what's going on.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
So at Ways to Well, we use it a lot to treat orthopedic injuries, knees, shoulders, elbows, spine injuries, back injuries, neck injuries. But we're also using it for aesthetics. Like when applied topically on your face with a skin pen, people talk about vampire facials. I've done it on me. I'm 44. It literally took like 10 years off my skin.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
It's like crazy how different. And I can show you before pictures. It's literally just stem cells. It is so mind-boggling. But it's there. It's nature. So when people go, well, what is it? And I don't know. It's like... This is literally the goodies that mothers have that God or nature gave us. And when utilized for healing, this is what we healed Aaron Rodgers with.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
This is what we healed Joe Rogan with. Yeah, we did. We helped him heal his Achilles through using these birth derived treatments. And it is crazy how well it works. Like over 80 something percent success rate. It's mind boggling. I try to never overhype it, but you can see it in aesthetics. If you look at it, It is not like a Botox or whatever is a chemical that's just freezing muscles.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
When we use these cellular treatments, we are literally rejuvenating your cells. We are making your skin young again. It's not this fake bandaid. So how does it work? Like if you're going to build a building, you need the blueprint. You need all the instructions of how to build it, but you need the building blocks. You need the brick, the mortar, the concrete.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
A mother's afterbirth has all of that. You are getting mRNA messenger cells that are telling your cells and signaling to your cells. Like for me, I'm 44. As I've aged, there's a precipitous drop off in the amount of live MSCs in my body. It's literally like 10% of what it was when I was a kid.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
by putting these cells back in my body temporarily, they signal and they go to the site of injury or damage. And when my older weary cells show up, they literally transfer their mitochondria, making my cells young again for four to six weeks.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And then we give you all the goodies, the cytokines, the exosomes, the extracellular vesicles, the scaffolding, all that's just medical jargon for like a bunch of really good stuff for your cells that you had in a plethora as in your youth. that you lose as we age. And we're giving you the instructions and the ingredients to heal yourself.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
I mean, I don't think there's really, I think in the future, we're going to use it more and more. And I think that you won't have surgeries in your 20s. I think that they would treat most of these injuries orthopedic wise with cellular treatments. And I think that we're going to see more and more cellular treatments come up because it reduces the need for surgery.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And it reduces the need for prescription medicines. And it reduces the need for all the things that I'm telling you these entities are profiteering off of. So they have no incentive in allowing these things into the marketplace because it disrupts revenue.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
I'm bigger passionate about psychedelics. I'm not against medical marijuana, but marijuana in certain patient populations, like people who have anxiety or schizophrenia or these different mental health issues, it can exasperate. There are outliers. But I mean, I think there's a lot of benefit too. You know, I honestly, my view is a lot like what Rogan says it all the time.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Like if somebody's a piece of, they're going to look for an excuse as to why. Right. I've had friends that blame marijuana for being potheads and lazy, but you were lazy before you ever smoked marijuana. I don't think it's going to derail someone's life, but there are outliers in every sense. There's no such thing as a free lunch.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
So even with psychedelics, I'm a proponent of decriminalizing and allowing psychedelics to help treat some of these mental health issues, because honestly, the efficacy is better than anything in the marketplace. But it's still a medicine and there's still going to be outliers and we still need to tread lightly. And there is no such thing as a silver bullet that has no risk factor.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Yeah, yeah. They had created a crisis already once.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And so what are the risk factors and who's involved? The bigger fear I have is, and I think we were talking off air before this, is how captured psychedelics already are and how it's become a billionaire's arms race.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
To see who's going to bring something to market first and profiteer off it, which just kind of sucks because baby steps like let's get the general public's buy in and let's bring this to the masses and let's help our wounded soldiers and military personnel that are suffering from anxiety and depression and need these treatments more than anything.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And then on the back end, you billionaires can worry about how you're going to profiteer off it.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Yeah, ketamine's a sword that cuts both ways too. I think that ketamine, well, so the way we were using it is as a topical. When applied topically, there is no physiological high. And so as a topical to treat orthopedic pain, it's phenomenal. It has a really, really high success rate. It has no chance of abuse or diversion. You can't get addicted to it because it's topical.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
You're not getting a high. Now, it's being used for anxiety and depression now more and more. And the challenge with that is we perpetuate this problem. Anywhere there's money, there will be bad players. And so candidly, like ketamine has kind of swung towards almost the wild west right now where you've got clinics everywhere administering ketamine.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Some of them may not be good, you know, and there's so much money in it.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
that they're flying in the gray and so i do worry about that it's the issue isn't the arrow it's the archer i do believe that ketamine is a valuable tool in the tool belt to help people but there are a lot of clinics abusing it and probably over utilizing it and using it just to generate revenue which is unfortunate but this is the same problem we see time and time again with anything it's what we see with the glp-1s it's what we see with antidepressants it's what we see with anything that can generate a lot of revenue
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
it becomes overprescribed, overutilized, and abused.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
I think the biggest is that they are going to go after the PBMs. Supposedly Bobby is digging into the pharmacy benefit managers and Trump and a lot of the conservatives and the left are on board to go after the PBMs. I think it's something they universally agree on is to fix that.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
There is a movement at the Department of Defense separate from the FDA to try to work to implement psychedelics and potentially stem cells, which are more investigatory medicine right now by the FDA. They're not FDA approved, but there is an opportunity to do something big with the Department of Defense. That would be the biggest opportunity.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
If the DOD got behind psychedelics and stem cells, it changes the landscape of health care for Americans. Because they're so big, they can fight back at the FDA. And then we've both gotten to know Marty, who's now Marty Makary. He's going to be over the FDA, which I'm pumped about.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
I hope that they get rid of some of the collusion and the corruption. I really do. I know it's going to be a long process. There's just so many bad things happening at the FDA. We could talk for another two hours. So there's a lot of cleanup to do. But just getting rid of the incentives and the conflicts would be game changer.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Well, at this point, I think a lot of people probably know that out of the last 40 years, only two heads of the FDA did not go to work for industry. So even the individual who approved opioids into the marketplace spent two weeks with the Sackler family in a hold up in a private hotel room, pushed that medicine into the market, Oxycontin into the market.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And guess who they went to work for 18 months later? The Sackler family. making $800,000 a year or something like that like literally 18 months later and there's so much spit being swapped and so much collusion You can't make decisions that are for the betterment of humanity and the American people when you're conflicted by your own income, future career choices. It's just too dangerous.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
We've got to stop the ability of these individuals to go work one day as the head of the FDA and then the next day be working for the people you were regulating.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
That's crazy to me.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
The hard part is as simple as it sounds. It's like everything starts with metabolic disease. If we can make metabolic disease the focus and prevent metabolic disease, we indirectly fix the five chronic diseases that are killing humanity.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
If I could wave a wand and we could give people, you know, preventative care as part of a governmental program where you had $5,000 a year in tax incentives to use however you want, whether through massages, workout routines, trainers, nutritionists. Testing. Testing, lab work. I think that would change the landscape of America and America's health.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And I think it would take a lot of cost out of the system. I really think. We're spending all this money treating and putting band-aids on things that we could be preventing. We just don't do it.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Yeah. Ways to Well is our patient forward entity. We're essentially a preventative care practice focused on driving healthspan and preventing chronic disease. And we do that through comprehensive lab testing, diagnostic workups, and just doing a deep dive with you, the patient, to assess your overall health and wellness and where you're headed.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Um, and then separate from that, the, the sister company is revive, uh, revive is a compounding pharmacy that can compound unique compounds to you. Typically we compound treatments that we try to make more cost effective for the public.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
So it started out with non-abusive, non-addictive pain creams, and then it's evolved into essentially anything and everything insurance doesn't cover or is price gouging the American people on. So like a GLP-1 weight loss drug, they're charging a thousand, something between a thousand to $1,600. We're charging a couple hundred dollars with a consult mailed to your doorstep. And true healthcare.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
That's Revive is our pharmacy. But we do a lot of different treatment modalities from hormones to peptides to, again, anything insurance companies aren't covering or they're price gouging you on, we are trying to provide a life raft. mailed to your doorstep. So think like medication meets Amazon, like mail it to your doorstep, pennies on the dollar and try and take the cost out of your care.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Mine is now brigham.buehler. Oh, you changed it. I was getting all this feedback that nobody could ever find me. And then our company's weighs the number two well, weighs two well.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Thank you for having me.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Yeah.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
So. Again, and I try to portray it. It's not that reps are all good or bad. Humanity's a duality, right? We all have good or bad. But show me the incentives and I'll show you the outcomes. If everything becomes about quarterly earnings, quarterly profits, commission plans, hitting your incentives, hitting your milestones, you create this ultra competitive environment.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And then you hire a bunch of type A, young, hungry kids. You train them up, you put them into a marketplace and you say, go produce results. And then all of their incentives are not based on patient outcomes. It's based on pushing more drug and product into the marketplace. And so the company's based off that. The quarterly earnings are based off that. The hospital system's based off that.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
The medical practice is based off that. Every touchpoint throughout the system has been corrupted and colluded to maximize profits and get patients in and out the door and get them on prescription drugs. And I learned that in my 20s. That was the most jarring thing that I learned. There were times I would go in and meet with doctors and they would go, no, I've got to deal with Pfizer.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Or no, I've got to deal with so-and-so. Or no, that guy just took me on a ski trip. I'm going to use their stuff. And... I was a young, dumb kid. And when I started, I sold Cialis. So the Viagra competitor. So walking in and selling that, you're like Elvis Presley. Seriously, like as a drug rep, it was like a big deal. It was a brand new drug. It had no mega side effects. Everyone loved it.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
That means 70% of people on an antidepressant are not getting the results they hoped for.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Oh, it's insane. And for the last 20 years, it's been one of the fastest growing medications prescribed. But yet our deaths of despair are at an all-time high. Depression, anxiety, all-time high. We are chronically mentally ill as a society in addition to physically ill. And treatments that work way better than antidepressants are blocked from the marketplace.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Treatments like, you know, you and I talked about before we started the podcast, like psychedelics, Ibogaine, you know, a product like Ibogaine has an 80 plus percent success rate. One time use.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
It's a psychedelic that's been used for over 8,000 years by indigenous cultures. It started on the plains of Africa and now Stanford University is researching it heavily for antidepressant, PTSD, anxiety, sleep, all of it. One time use. Over 80 percent right now. Right now it's at a clinic in Mexico or outside of the United States because it's not legalized yet in the U.S.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
But I'm actually working with several different branches of the government and several different thought leaders. Governor Rick Perry is pushing for it. Former governor of Texas.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
On MDMA. Okay. Yeah, MDMA. For veterans, right? Even this gets shady because what happens is a bunch of freaking billionaires have gone out and gobbled up these molecules. And so it's an arms race.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Again, even though I'm a big proponent of psychedelics, if we really look at what's going on with the FDA, you got a bunch of billionaires in pissing matches, sabotaging each other's clinical trials and trying to be first to market. They want to be the first to bring MDMA or the first to bring psilocybin or whatever it is because you're talking about a multi-billion dollar industry.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
And so if you're first to market, you're going to print cash. And so it's sad because even really promising compounds are falling victim to the same old rhetoric of let's capture it. Let's corporate capture it. Let's monetize it. Let's limit accessibility so we can maximize our profits and control the flow.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
I did it for about three years, right out of college.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
I was a 21-year-old kid. I had a company car. I got paid $100,000 a year plus bonuses and commissions. I got president's council trips where they flew me to like, well, I'm here in Arizona with you. They, I literally was stated, uh, the Phoenician resort. Yeah. And like, this is like 20 years ago though. So it was like the bomb back then we stayed there and Britney Spears was at the pool.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Like it was wild. And it was always these crazy extravagant trips. If you were a top producer, but candidly, like, You don't see the dark side until you see the dark. Does that make sense?
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
So I came out and I was selling Cialis and I'm like, this is amazing. All these guys love it. My doctors love me. They're my friends. And I was a top rep in the country going on all these trips, selling a drug that I believed in, a product that people candidly loved and I was getting minimal negative feedback on. And I did so well that they relocated me to Houston, Texas.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
where they put me in the Texas Medical Center and they moved me to antipsychotics and antidepressants. And I only did that for about eight months. And the day I started, I'm like, I can't do this.
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Dismantling The Health Insurance Ponzi Scheme | Brigham Buhler
Because it's products I don't believe in. It's them trying to grow a niche and expand the use of antidepressants and SSRIs. And I'm just looking at the efficacy rate and I'm like, it's trash. Like diet and exercise has way more efficacy for treating depression than any of the SSRIs.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
When utilized in the right patient, it can be life-saving. But if you utilize this in the wrong patient, you're going to kill somebody. And so why not take the proper steps? There is a non-abusive, non-addictive alternative to opioids, and that is a ketamine-based pain cream. And it can't be abused. You can't separate out the ketamine. You have no way of abusing it.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
It's a topical, but for orthopedic injuries, knees, shoulders, elbows, joints, backs. They were prescribing opioids for two months at a time, you know, right in like 60 day prescriptions. You're perpetuating this problem and then those get diverted. And so here were the safety nets. Don't prescribe it. Prescribe a non-abusive, non-addictive pain cream. That's option one.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
Option two, you think this patient needs it. Okay. Toxicology screen this patient to make sure that they're not abusing other drugs. and or diverting this drug. Option three, you should have minimal pharmacogenetic test, which was a simple cheek swab that tells me if you have a propensity to become addicted, it tells me, can you even metabolize this drug?
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
Keep coming back. And the insurance companies had negotiated rebates because that was a compounded drug. So insurance companies hate compounding pharmacies.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
Yeah, this is this is actually crucial, especially current events. Hims and hers did a Super Bowl ad. Set the world on fire. People were pissed because what they did was they kind of captured the Maha message and made it look like it's about being healthy. But the real message was, oh, and by the way, we'll sell you GLP ones. Call us today. The weight loss drugs.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And so that upset, you know, the health advocates and rightfully so. But then it upset Big Pharma because Big Pharma said, look, this is the problem. You know, you make us follow these rules and we have to give disclaimers and side effects. But these guys didn't.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And the problem with that is it went from a conversation about a telemedicine company potentially acting in a way that some people think was unethical to a full blown attack on compounding pharmacies. And the reason that attack was perpetuated is Big Pharma is attempting to every day discredit and scare people away from compounding pharmacies.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
So a compounding pharmacy compounds medications unique to the patient. They also are utilized anytime there is a shortage in the marketplace. And so do not be fooled. I own one of the biggest compounding pharmacies in the country. And every single product we make is FDA improved ingredients that come from the same exact suppliers as Big Pharma.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
Every single batch we make is independently third-party verified by an independent lab. Every single dosage we ship out the door, we then retest to make sure that it's exactly what we thought it was, said it was, and it is. Okay? There are dozens of checks and balances. And the FDA has been in my building three times in 18 months. There are over...
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
5,000 big pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities that the FDA has not inspected in five or more fucking years. Why? Because they've moved their facilities overseas. They're in India. They're in these third world countries that are hard to get to. The FDA has to file for a visa and then go over there and stay in a hotel with sometimes no running water. They don't want to do that.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
Yeah. And health care is definitely one of those. And so throughout the system, the checks, the balances are. All of that has been ripped out, even with the collusion of our three-letter alphabet organizations. Whether we're talking about the FDA, the NIH, the CDC, all of these various entities have also been corporately captured.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
So they just don't go look. And the reason we're on a GLP-1 shortage here in America is because Eli Lilly's American facility got shut down because of a whistleblower. And so big pharmas out there trying to scare people away from companies like, you know, all of these telemedicine companies, all these compounding pharmacies and tell people these are dangerous. These are unsafe. No.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
It is no more dangerous than what you're doing. And in fact, I would argue what Big Pharma's doing is astronomically more dangerous because they don't have the checks and balances and they have the lobbying power. What happened with the Eli Lilly thing? Eli Lilly ended up getting hammered at one of their facilities. They came in and there were barefoot people in the sterile rooms.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
They literally had destroyed records. Their efficacy data wasn't correct. I mean, there's a book called Bottle of Lies where this investigative journalist goes over to India with the FDA just to follow them. And they're literally burning records. Not Lilly, but a big pharmaceutical company was literally burning records. And we can go back in history to the long sordid, jaded history of big pharma.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
A lot of people talk about Monsanto when we were talking about food. You know, Bayer Monsanto are the same company, right? They're owned by the same holding company. So Bayer that produces drugs, and Monsanto are sister corporations, and Monsanto produces chemicals that create cancer, Bayer sells cancer drugs.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
But before that, Bayer sold hemophilia drugs, and they knowingly infected people with HIV in the late 80s, early 90s when it was a death sentence. So they cross-contaminated a hemophilia drug with HIV. They could destroy the batch and lose revenue for that quarter, or they could ship it into the marketplace and risk infecting patients with HIV. What do you think they did?
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
they shipped it to third world countries at a time when hiv was a death sentence and then back to compounding versus big pharma compounding pharmacies came out and said we can make hiv treatments for literally 12 a month at a time when big pharma was charging 12 000 a month
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And they got sued by all the big pharmaceutical companies for trying to provide life-saving treatments to third world countries. Finally, there was enough of a voice, overwhelming swell of angry Americans and Europeans that they had to back down. But it was two years of an obstruction mentality. How many people died?
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
A lot of their funding, a lot of their goals and initiatives are based off of helping these giant institutions that are monetizing these things.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
So it's a duality that's a challenge. It's the drugs and the treatments that big pharma suppresses coming to the market. So one example would be peptides, right? GLP-1s are peptides. Why were they not on the bulks list that got banned by the FDA? Because they've been patented and monetized by big pharma. Why did BPC and these other drugs go on the naughty list? Not because they were dangerous.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
That's an absolute bullshit lie. They went on the naughty list because Merck has over 200 patents in process for peptides. They are attempting. So they in one breath, they say, oh, no, no, no, no. You got to get rid of these things. These are dangerous FDA. You've got to shut these guys down. But then what they do is they come and capture those molecules, patent them.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
them and sell the exact same thing that compounding pharmacies were already providing to the public for a fraction of the dollar amount. So like a GLP-1 is $1,600 through the insurance big pharma model. Most compounding pharmacies are providing that compound for under $300 a month mailed to your doorstep. And depending on your dosage, it may be like $100 a month. which is just mind boggling.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
The big ones that are, that are worrisome for me and have been forever. And this is partially why I left being a drug rep all these years ago. When you look, and this is one of the things Bobby Kennedy's kicked a hornet's nest over is these SSRIs, these antidepressants. Literally, if you look at the data of over 75 studies in a meta analysis, literally,
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
85% of the efficacy of an SSRI was related to placebo. These are their own studies. These are Big Pharma's own studies. 85% was related to placebo. It has a 50% failure rate or relapse rate. It causes increased suicidal ideation, violent thoughts. You know, when we talk about the gun crisis in America, look at how many of these mass shootings involved antidepressants.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
These are dangerous compounds and they don't have the efficacy that the American people have been sold on. In fact, even in the studies on a 52 point scale, a depression scale, it differentiates from placebo by one to two points. One to two points. We could give you sugar pills with none of the side effects, but then we don't even talk about diet, exercise, lifestyle.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
You know what's wild is I was telling Joe this stuff like five years ago. And one day, Rogan's like, come on the podcast. And when I went on there... Nobody was talking about some of these things, like especially the insurance part. The insurance is one of these hidden monsters that people just don't know. And even to this day, they don't know.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
If I don't work out, I'm an anxious wreck, man. I mean, it's just the way my mind is. I have to go work out. I don't want to. I'm like everyone else. Like once you get in it, you enjoy it. But I think it's just a matter of like reframing things for the American people and helping them see the answer is not at the bottom of a pill bottle, man. It never has been. It never will be.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
That's fascinating. I haven't seen that.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
I think we, as much as we're connected, we're also isolated. Think about it. Like think about how much we're on our phones. Think about the reward system. And I've heard you have podcasts where you've talked about it. it all elevates our cortisol levels. It all devalues our self-worth. It all creates and perpetuates this problem of mental health. And it starts now at a very young age.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And our diets, our lifestyles, our ability to exercise and get fresh air and build community, you know, as woo-woo as that sounds, those are real answers to these problems. And the other part is There were answers and have been answers for thousands of years. Like products like Ibogaine, like it's not a product. This is a plant-based medicine that was used on the plains of Africa 8,000 years ago.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
Why have these things been suppressed and hidden and villainized? Well, we know why. The same old narrative, right? The establishment wants to suppress and prevent things from coming into the marketplace. I'm very optimistic about a treatment like Ibogaine or psilocybin. And even at Ways to Well right now, we're doing a project called the Minds Project affiliated with Dell Medical School.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
where we're diving into using psilocybin for problem solving and complex problem skills. Because one of the lead scientists, Dr. Bruce Danner, worked at NASA and had an experience on psychedelics where he solved an equation that NASA had been working on for like seven years. No way.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
There's so much to the human brain and the complexities, even products like, and so much is controlled by the insurance. I hate to keep going back to that, but like one of the treatments we do that I learned about less than two years ago, you know, there's a brain scan, an EEG brain scan that has over an 85% success rate on depression, anxiety, and insomnia. It's mind-blowing.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
The numbers are overwhelming. And what they do is they assess your brain with an EEG. It's called wave neuroscience. Assess your brain with a simple EEG loaded into an AI algorithm. The AI tells us where neurons are misfiring. It could have been from chemical abuse. It could have been from head trauma.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
It could have been from an extended period of depression and anxiety where your brain has now been rewired and these neurons are becoming beta waves in different aspects of the brain. The future's bright is where I'm going with this. It's not that there's one solution. It's that we've been looking in the wrong place, in my mind.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And even after doing some of these bigger platforms like yourself, you know, now the message is getting out. And I've had people like Bobby Kennedy reach out and I went and sat down and even a guy said, who's been in the trenches, who's battled big pharma, who's battled these big corporate captured institutions. When I brought up PBMs, he said, I don't, what are you talking about a PBM?
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And we've been looking in the wrong place because insurance and big pharma is telling our government where to look. And the people historically, until COVID-19, I feel like the veil came off and now we all are going, hold on a second. I don't know if I believe you anymore. At least I am. That was an eye opener for me.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
So if you're the average American and you're trying to get in to a primary care, for instance, through the insurance mall, let's use Luigi as an example, the assassin of the UnitedHealthcare CEO. Why would this guy do such a terrible thing? What happened to this kid? If you look at the average spine patient in this country, you have a spine injury.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
Okay, this particular spine injury causes your extremities to feel like they're burning and on fire, right? Neuropathic pain in your fingers, your feet, but also neuropathic pain in your genitals is a common side effect of this spine injury that Luigi was suffering from. And you now have to go first, if you're in the insurance model, you got to go to a primary care.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
It takes you three months to get in with a primary care because there's a wait list and they have to see a patient every six minutes. They see 40 patients a day on average. You're in and out of there, right? So they get you in and that doctor says, well, out of my wheelhouse, I'm going to prescribe you a pain med and push you out the door and we'll get you scheduled with a specialist for spine.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
You go see that spine specialist. They go, I can't do anything. How long was the wait to get the spine specialist? Months, usually three to six months. Now you get in with that guy. You've been taking opioids this whole time. Now they tell you we need to get an MRI in order for me to be able to give you a thorough answer to what's going on here. So that takes time.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
Now, a lot of times the insurance companies denies the MRI. You have to fight the insurance company. So they delayed your care, delayed your ability to go from person to person. They deny the coverage of the care, okay? And now the last shoe to drop is you finally get the MRI. You finally get the surgery approved. You go out, you interview clinicians.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
You find the best and brightest surgeon in your geographic region. This is a spine surgery. It's not something you take lightly. You find the surgeon you want. You set your date for surgery and the insurance company says, no, you're not allowed to use that surgeon. That surgeon is not on our preferred plan. You've got to use this surgeon over here. So you're not getting the best surgeon for you.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
You're getting the best surgeon for the insurance company's pocketbook and what they could negotiate the rate down to the cheapest reimbursement rate. And then where insult comes to injury, after you've paid all that insurance in all these years, You typically on a surgery have a $10,000 copay or deductible to scare you out of doing the surgery. So imagine being a 26 year old kid.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
I don't have a PBM, I have insurance. And that's the feedback most people give me. I don't know, I don't have a PBM. And so I have to like methodically walk them through what a PBM is, how it's hurting America's health. So if we look back to this whole profits first model, We talk so much about big pharma, big pharma, big pharma.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
You're miserable. You've been on opioids. Your genitals are on fire. Now you finally get a surgery done by a doctor. You didn't want to do it. And you pay $10,000 out of your pocket that you're on the hook for. That's why the number one reason for bankruptcy in America is health care.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
They've essentially made the hospitals, the MRI centers, the surgery centers, any of the touch points in the ecosystem, subprime mortgage lenders. You don't have a choice as a hospital. You're taking UnitedHealthcare. What are you going to do? Turn around, turn away thousands of patients a month. That's your lifeline to keep your doors open.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
So you eat the bill of the $10,000 and do your best to get the patient to pay. And so for that patient, now you get your surgery. And in this particular instance, the guy supposedly botched the surgery. He had bad outcomes. And those bad outcomes can lead to permanent erectile dysfunction. It can lead to permanent neuropathic pain.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
Not to mention, you know, anywhere from 40 to 50% of patients who have a spine surgery will go back under the knife within 18 months for another spine surgery. Yep. And so you are caught in this feedback loop system where you're perpetually in pain, perpetually prescribed drugs and hoping that you can just get an answer and you can't ever get an answer.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And this is the loop that these American people are trapped in. And this is why people are so angry and so frustrated, you know, when their cancer treatments are denied or whatever, whatever it is, is denied. And that's a whole racket, too, even in oncology. What people don't realize is anywhere from 60 to 70% of an oncologist's income comes from marking up your chemotherapy drugs.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
So every part of the system has incentivized people to make money off you being sick. And so then we're sitting here shocked. I heard Russell Brand go, oh yeah, it's shocking, America. Like you're all in awe over the fact that you're perpetually sick and that profits are at an all-time high, but you've built a system to have all-time high profits and make yourselves perpetually sick.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
As crazy as that sounds, it's the truth.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
The big five insurance companies made four times the revenue of the biggest five pharmaceutical companies last year. Four X the revenue. They control every surgery, every drug, every treatment, when, where and how you can access health care and treatments and preventative care.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
What's crazy is you're also describing the American health care system. That's that's where we've gone to because because it's all insurance based, the average clinician has six minutes with a patient even. And so another example is I owned blood labs and I went out and I educated clinicians across the country on the importance of getting proactive and predictive. What do I mean by that?
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
The diabetes you develop in your 30s started in your 20s, right? The atherosclerosis that manifests in your 40s started in your 30s. The cancer you get in your 50s started in your 40s.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
If we get proactive and predictive, if we start by taking a look under the hood, if we truly do a deep dive into you at the biological level and create checks and balances like you would in a business, like you would in any other aspect of life, you like to go, hey, am I headed towards my goal? And Peter Atiyah talks about this.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
If your goal is to live to be a happy, healthy centenarian, which I think is a great goal for most people, if you could be physically healthy and lift your grandkids and enjoy life and go on hikes, we have to assess you periodically and gauge, are we trending the right way or the wrong way? And the system's not built to do that.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
So it's a lot to unpack, but it starts with our food, our diet, our lifestyle, our nutrition, our food sources. What you and I were talking about right before we went on the air is all the contaminants in our food, all the ingredients in our food.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
The system is built to push you in, push you out, monetize your chronic disease and profiteer off of the drugs. And doctors are nothing more than an unwitting patsy in the process.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
So, I mean, I can tell you real world, the doctors care. They're exhausted. There's a massive shortage in primary cares. A study done by Harvard said there's going to be 30% less primary cares in the next five years. Most primary cares, when interviewed, said they are not happy with their job and they don't want to be doing it in three to five years. It is an exhausting beat down of a job.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And it's because of this pace. They're not. It's the pace. It's that you don't allow them to solve problems. It's that it's been corporately captured. Most primary cares in America are now part of big conglomerates. So even let's go back to big insurance. Blue Cross Blue Shield went out and bought Kelsey Siebel. Kelsey Siebel is one of the biggest primary care practices in the country.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
It is owned by the insurance companies. Okay, when I owned a blood lab and I went out and educated clinicians on the importance of running that comprehensive blood work annually, and my clinicians started running that, thousands of clinicians around the country, within months, they all got letters from the insurance carriers saying, what are you doing? We don't want you running this blood work.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
It costs us money. Go back to running a basic lipid panel, knock on the knee, look in the ear, test their eyes and look at a basic lipid panel of triglyceride cholesterol, which tells us minimally nothing, right? Because you don't have the full range of what's going on. And that's the challenge. We can't get proactive and predictive and preventative if we aren't able to look at
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And the existing insurance ecosystem in America will not allow the clinician to look.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
I think it's a multitude of things. I hate to go that far, but one, an easy low-hanging fruit that we could all agree on is... The insurance companies look at that and go, why do I want them to run a $500 blood test when I can pressure them into running a $50 blood test, right? And now, why would I want to uncover something that could lead to a surgery that costs me more money?
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
I think it's well, I never condone violence. And obviously what happened is terrible and tragic. But so are the 1.7 million people dying every year of chronic disease in this country. We spend more on health care than any other nation. But we're one of the fattest, sickest and most chronically ill societies in the history of the world. More people are dying every year.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
Because they're not monetizing the surgery, but they are monetizing the drugs. And so there's an incentive system to keep you on drugs. And then people go, well, eventually they're going to need surgery. So wouldn't that be catastrophic for the insurance? No, because I go back to my previous statement. Most people's insurance comes from their employer. And guess what happens in America?
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
The average American switches jobs every two and a half years. So if I'm an executive at, let's just say Cigna, so I don't keep picking on United. If I'm an executive at Cigna and I've got Joe Bob and he's pre-diabetic and he's Bubba's headed towards being morbidly obese and losing a foot. I know that he's got two years before we reach that chronic crisis. And by then he's somebody else's problem.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
Obese bag. But where the sad part is, most of the time, that these huge healthcare expenses happen are when they become the taxpayer's problem. Once you're over the age of 65 and you're Medicare or Medicaid and you're no longer on an employer's plan is when the years and years and years of chronic abuse, overprescription, all of that, the bill gets passed to who? Us, the taxpayers. Right.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And so the insurance companies play this whack-a-mole, kick the can down the road, delay, delay, delay, deny, depose. Like, let's stay away from it. We'll just let somebody else deal with it because it's all about hitting the quarterly number. And even at the hospital systems. I would be at the hospital, and they're like, we've got to get our surgical volumes up.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
We've got to hit our number this quarter. We're down 25%. You need to see more patients today. You need to find knee surgeries. You need to find spine surgeries. It is all about generating revenue. The entire ecosystem, the checks and balances, all of it's been thrown out the fucking window, man. It is all crank, crank, crank. Print money.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
Yeah. So one of the challenges is let's let's go to like let's go to even let's go back to just red dye. Right. This is really easy. Even when we got together, that first Maha group and we testified in front of the Senate, I think in September of last year, there was an article that came out.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
Days after we testified, called us the woo-woo caucus, talked about how none of us have clinical experience and don't know what we're talking about. Let's be real. I was the only one not qualified to be in that room. We had, you know, Marty Makary, who's now the head of the FDA. So I'm very optimistic. I know I've been very disgruntled about the FDA.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
I'm very optimistic about Marty at the helm of the FDA team. hopefully fixing the chronic problem there. We had Chris Palmer, a Harvard professor, you name it. I mean, this was a lot of very intelligent people. I was, again, the least qualified to be in that room. And I was there as an industry insider, just explaining what I had seen. The day, two days after, a Hatchet Job article comes out.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
You brought up SSRIs in the very beginning. More people are dying every year. of deaths of despair in the United States than ever before in the history of the world. We have more people dying now than during the Great Depression of suicide and deaths of despair. Why? What we're doing is not working. People have a hard time. Even what that guy Luigi did is terrible and it's tragic.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
When you go and look who funds that article, it was funded by Bayer Monsanto. The Bayer Monsanto funded this article. Why? Why would they have funded this hatchet job article? Because Bayer is a drug company and Monsanto is a chemical company. And those chemicals are part of what's causing and perpetuating disease states in this nation. And then we go to the red food dye.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
Like everyone laughed about red food dye. Well, why did the FDA decide now that RFK is coming into power right at the tail end of Biden's administration to remove red food dye? Again, I'm not out here saying that it's like going to save the world, but it is tied to ADHD and in children and red food diet can perpetuate ADHD in children and hyperactivity.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And yet we're prescribing ADHD and hyperactivity drugs at an all time high. And. Those are chemical straitjackets that then perpetuate the depression and anxiety that children have in high school and into their adult lives. And so there is no such thing as a free lunch. And I don't think it hurts to begin to question the narrative. And I'm not saying it's some big, bad conspiracy to do it.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
What I'm saying is we have siloed our industries and our accessibility and our knowledge in such a way that you look like a crazy person for questioning it.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
Terrible way to deliver the message, right? Nobody's condoning that. But it's also equally terrible and tragic to delay, deny, and depose people's ability to get the care they so desperately need. When people pay their hard-earned paycheck every month, and all they expect is to have you there when you need it, and then you don't allow them to access care. And I can explain why.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
But historically, I would have said it's compartmentalized, it's siloed, much like the human body, right? We have built an entire health ecosystem of siloed experts. The body is one organism. The gut biome impacts your body.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
chemical levels in your brain it's what it's the second brain to the body you know and that has a direct impact on your serotonin your dopamine all of that so to silo off these different areas and we are so niche and specialized that in a way we're missing the big picture it's interesting how the approach to health is similar to the structural approach to health care
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
Who's driving the car?
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
Well, it comes down to I mean, people would say the NIH and the FDA, you know, and HHS, you know, human health services. But then we go back to corporate capture. So I'll just systematically go, OK, let's look at the FDA.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
OK, out of the FDA, almost every single one of the heads of the FDA for the last 20 something years have gone to work for the exact institutions they were supposed to be protecting the American people from. So the FDA has been captured, corrupted and colluded with industry.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
OK, then we go to HHS, you know, HHS directly during Obamacare helped create what are now all these big insurance companies and PBMs and their unilateral control of our health care system. They created carve outs and safety nets that allow for nondisclosure on how much money is being held at a PBM. Again, corporate capture, collusion, corruption. What was the NIH? OK, OK.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
80 to 90% of the NIH funding comes from the American taxpayer. Okay. And out of 356 blockbuster drugs over the last 15 years, how many of those do you think started at the NIH funded by us? I don't know. 100 fucking percent. Yeah. 100% of these drugs came from American taxpayer dollars. Then what happens is Big Pharma goes, we innovate, we innovate, do you?
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
No, you offered a deal to the NIH because there's so much collusion. They basically come in and offer a program where they get a royalty. The NIH gets a royalty off of Big Pharma's blockbuster drug. But we, the people, funded that drug.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
Then we, the people, don't get access to that drug because Big Pharma says we have a patent on it and you're not allowed- The insurance company won't pay for it even if you do get access to it. Yes.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
Now I fully understand. And so all of our checks and balances have been corrupted. And this is wild. One of the things I said in my Senate speech was- I hear so often the healthcare system is broken. The healthcare system is broken. I want to be clear. our healthcare system's not broken. It's rigged. And we're the ones fitting the fucking bill. It's not paid in tax dollars.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
It's paid in human lives and human capital. It's brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers. We are losing people at a breakneck speed to chronic disease. More people are dying of chronic disease every year than every fucking goddamn war we've ever fought as a country. That's how big this is.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And I broke this down before. These insurance companies, right? They've made four times the revenue of the big pharmaceutical companies. Ask yourself how? How? They don't have a product. Their product is to be there in a time of need and provide you with care. And insurances were started right in Texas, at Baylor in Houston, Texas, where I was a device rep for literally 15 years.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
If we were killing more people than the Holocaust and all of these catastrophic events in human history every year, why is somebody not ringing the bell? Yeah.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
There's so many environmental toxins, the food. A friend of mine, he's British, Ben Woolis. I don't know if you ever heard of him. Amazing kickboxer. And he was here to get some treatments. And we hung out and he's like, mate, can I not get fucking like, I just tried to buy like a basic croissant at the store. And I saw the list of ingredients compared to like back home. And he was like mind blown.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
Butter, flour, sugar. It's just insane. And I go to Europe and I eat whatever I want and lose weight.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And Baylor College of Medicine realized we need to be able to help people finance essentially preventative care and protect their bodies. Let's build in a monthly fee and then we'll allow them accessibility to stay healthy. But that eventually became a profit center.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And I know to me, it's so disheartening. What you're saying is spot on. And I and I said this to the Senate. This is not a Republican issue or a Democrat issue. This is a humanity issue. Chronic disease doesn't see your political leanings. Like this is hurting all of us. And it's unfortunate that we're trying to now make it politicized left versus right. But this is humanity versus corruption.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
Don't get fooled. Don't let the deep state, whatever you want to call it, the corporate powers that be. Of course, they want us to fight each other. But we're in this together. And it's not. Republican versus Democrat. It's humanity versus corporate capture. Humanity versus corruption and collusion. Like, the facts are going to speak for themselves.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
I don't even understand with the vaccine stuff, the up in arms over RFK asking questions. Like... People aren't saying correlation is causation, but people are saying correlation is justification to investigate. Should we not look at is there something more going on here? We do know the history of big pharma. We do know like fool me nine out of ten times.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
Shouldn't we take a look at the one time we didn't think we were being fooled? Yeah. I mean, because the history and the track record does not look good.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
I think a tremendous amount. I really do, because a lot of it would be, let's just say we get rid of direct-to-consumer advertising for pharmaceutical drugs. That's a big win. Let's just say we get rid of the corruption and all of the collusion at the FDA. I mean, it's not going to change tomorrow, but that is a big win.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
Well, I mean, definitely those two. We've got to get rid of the cross-pollination and the collusion of these big pharmaceutical conglomerates with our regulatory bodies. So that's if you work for one of the bodies, you can't go to the pharma company. Correct. We've got to limit the ability or prevent you from being able to swap spit with somebody you're supposed to be regulating.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
That's a mega problem. And it blinds your judgment.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
That's a tough question because you do want them to have expertise, but then there's those ties there.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And as these big insurance companies came in and acquired all the middlemen and all the checks and balances, 60% of the revenue of UnitedHealthcare last year, which was $361 billion with a B, 60% of it came from prescription drugs via an entity called a pharmacy benefit manager. Here's why this is a problem. You have now incentivized the insurance companies to put you on drugs.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
Right, because then they take a job on a board and they're a consultant, even though they're just setting themselves up for a future career. And every angle is another workaround. Where's a fucking biochemist going to... No. Molecular biology. Every solution does create a new challenge. But there's certain things like, okay, direct-to-consumer advertising.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
That's just, to me, that is insanity, and I understand why. It's here in Australia? Here in Australia are the only two places in the world. Which I don't even know how that works because they have to give all the examples of how, and at the end of that, I've never gone, well, those people look happy, but I want to use that and risk... Heart attack, stroke, diabetes.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
They just start rattling off all this stuff.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
But even separate from that, one of the other challenges is the ability for big corporations to influence and drive legislative and governing body decisions. What do I mean by that? Psychedelics. how hard they are to get in this country, why they're so obstructed. But separate from psychedelics, let's look at products like stem cells. Why? Why is it so hard?
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
Because you've got big pharma, big medical, big surgical breathing down the neck of the FDA, influencing them. And like we have an AI algorithm that we utilize at WasteWell. And one of the things I talk about is Data in, data out. If you put bad data into AI and large language models, you're going to get bad decisions from large language models.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
You know, a good friend of mine, Bonnie Hari, has been beating the drum on all these media outlets lately, exposing like in the United States in the 80s, we had 700 approved ingredients in our food. Now we have 10,000. In Europe, it's still close to 700. Why in America do we have 10,000? One set of ingredients for Americans in the same factory and a different set of ingredients for Canadians.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
If we give our governing bodies a skewed lens, a biased viewpoint, bad information, bad facts, bad data, you're going to get bad legislative and governing decisions. And we see it. Why? Like the peptides. Why would you come in and ban these peptides? What is the real agenda? The real agenda is big pharma put pressure on the FDA had nothing to do with safety. It did not have anything to.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
It was an overwhelming amount of pressure and it was an easy layup. And they even do it with as soon as, let's say, Joe Bob Compounding Pharmacy has a recall in Nebraska, right? Why in the hell is that on national news? Like if somebody recalls eight vials of trizepatide, the weight loss drug, How did that get on national news?
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
When Eli Lilly recalls thousands of vials and it never makes the news or Pfizer or whoever, they'd have recalls every day that never make the news. The reason being they deploy their PR arm, they push an agenda, they scare the hell out of people, they document it, then they send all that new shit onto the FDA and go, look at this, man. You guys are just going to let this happen? We got to step up.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
We got to get these guys out of the marketplace. And the FDA has an incentive to do so because... In 12 months, they're going to be interviewing for a job going to work for those guys.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
I think they're terrified. I 100% think they're terrified. And I know, but I don't think to your question earlier, is there an opportunity for change? And is the opportunity better than ever? It is. But they are not going to go silently into the night. These are some of the biggest, most powerful institutions in the world.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And don't think for a second that politicians aren't scared of those people. This is a dance, and they've got to find where they can put wins on the board. Another easy win on the board would be the PBMs. Nobody's defending the PBMs, and the PBMs have been so silent behind the scenes that they really haven't lobbied like Big Pharma.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
The average American's on four or more fucking prescription drugs. Why? We're not lazier than we've ever been. I don't buy that. Do we have some lazy people? Yeah, we do. But there's no way. What came first, the chicken or the egg? Did we get chronically ill and chronically obese and then became lazy? Or did we become lazy because we were chronically ill and chronically obese? I don't know.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And you're not going to find anybody going, yeah, protect those PBMs because everyone, the cat's out of the bag now. Anyone who knows what they are go, wait a second, we're letting these guys make a bunch of money off of our prescription drug care? So I think that's an easy fix. Like you should not allow insurance companies to own middlemen that profiteer off of chronic disease.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
Yeah. And then there's all sorts of things like in medical, in surgical, you know, people make the assumption that if something came through the FDA, that it's safe. Even bigger than pharmaceutical, 92% of the products in the operating room never had a human safety study. In the operating room.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
So any implant, any knee, any shoulder, any joint, scopes that go into your body, anything, pacemakers, all of it, most of that has never had a human safety study, which sounds mind-boggling. The FDA couldn't get to all these things, so they created an exemption in the 80s called the 510K approval process, which says if you can find a like product in the market today, we'll give you a daisy chain.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
So like take a ring rotary phone at your house as a kid, like in the early 80s, you know, probably before even your time. But like that was a phone. If that phone had an FDA approval and you grandfather in a cell phone and then you grandfather in an iPhone and now you got an iPhone 17 or whatever we're at with AI. The study was done in 1982 and now we're 30 generations away with a product.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
What are the...
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
elements of that are in the operating room that are the highest concern for you uh i mean obviously anything that's implanted in the body because there's some implants that are better than others oh for sure there always are and then there's like there there were in like i can give you example in women's health they had a device that was put into the uterus to stop pregnancy and that device what they didn't ever do was a study on how to take it out and it was absorbing into the uterine lining so
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
So when a woman... Copper IUD? Yeah, not a copper IUD. This preceded all that. An e-sure procedure, and when women were deciding to take these various things out, it absorbed into their uterus, and they had to take out the whole uterus. People were having all sorts of side effects. There's a big class action lawsuit. There were... literally like surgical procedures.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
I'm in at crucial points in heart surgeries, even where they're using high def cameras. And when they would hit the ablation device, they never taste tested it with all the other equipment that's in the OR. So you're at a crucial part of a heart surgery. You go hit an ablation device to burn or cauterize a piece of a heart tissue or whatever and piece of anatomy you're working on.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
The fucking camera would turn off. So imagine it's like a video game. You're doing the surgery, looking at the camera because it blows it up in high res. And when you go to do a crucial part of the surgery, blackout screen. Because they had never tested the camera to work with these pieces of equipment. I mean, there was a device that literally like a suction device.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And they didn't realize that it didn't have a disclaimer not to use it to suck like blood out of anatomy when you're in the middle of surgery. And it literally sucked out like pieces of an organ and killed people. I mean, there's so many examples. And then even more Wild West, I'll tell you the most crazy fucking story ever. I told this on Rogan and people, I swear, hand to God, this is true.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
I was in a surgery at the Houston Zoo on an animal, on a tiger or leopard, I don't remember, on a big cat. And I noticed the shaver, it's a piece of equipment they use to go in and clean up tissue in a joint. And it had green tape on it. It was labeled with green or red. I don't remember. It was labeled with tape. And so I noticed it was a loaner.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
But we do know we're chronically ill, chronically obese, and probably a little lazy. I thought there was supposed to be caps on insurance company profits. Is that not the case? I'm unaware of any caps. The way that this is structured is, so PBMs were established in the 80s, and the premise was this.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
So I look at the serial number just because I'm like, oh, it's a loaner. It's wild. The Houston Zoo has this freaking loaner handpiece. And like a month later, I'm in a human surgery at a hospital. And I see the guy shaving with this shaver with a green piece of tape on it. And so at the end of the surgery, I wait for it to all be done.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And I put on some gloves and I look and it's the same freaking piece of equipment, the same exact handpiece that was in a veterinary surgical procedure. Okay, reps carry what are called trunk stock, right? When I was a surgical rep, I have, like, a million dollars in surgical equipment in my fucking trunk.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And, like, you have restrictions, like, it's supposed to be kept at climate-controlled temperatures, 85 degrees. You know, we can't guarantee there's not bacteria if you're the hospital... How in the hell is a rep supposed to drive an hour across town, carry that equipment in their trunk, put it into a surgical procedure, wash it, clean it, take it off, drive it to another hospital.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And the whole time it's sitting in a trunk that's literally 150 fucking degrees. There's so many. People are just unaware that it's not what it is portrayed to be. The environment is not as safe as it's portrayed to be. Trust but verify. Do your research. Do your homework. Don't take surgery lightly. Know that everything is a calculated risk.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And that's why I'm such an advocate for like preventative proactive care, getting predictive, prevent chronic disease. If you want to stop the five chronic diseases that are killing people and running up health care and causing bankruptcy, let's start with not letting them fucking develop in the first place. What are those five?
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
You got atherosclerosis, heart disease, all of it stems from metabolic disease, cancer rates, all of every single one of the big five killers of mankind go back to metabolic health.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And so when we were talking about how do we fix the healthcare system, even a neurocognitive decline, second to age, your biggest in smoking, your biggest risk, if you don't, if other than age and smoking, the third biggest risk factor on any of the big five is metabolic disease and metabolic health. So one of the things Callie says is it's very easy to fix our healthcare system overnight.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
We incentivize metabolic health. We drive metabolic health. If we really want to fix the root cause of all of these chronic diseases that are cascading and self-fulfilling prophecies, let's just fix metabolic health. And make that the focus of primary cares and make that the focus of our health care institutions and incentivize humanity or Americans to have great metabolic health.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
I don't remember where it's terrible. I think we're like 60th or something on like I don't remember that. I don't want to misquote that one, but it's not good. Like the age of men in Japan, their life expectancy is higher. Women all over the world, their life expectancy is higher. Our cancer rates are at all time high. All the things are deaths of despair at an all time high.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
The federal government here in the United States, as capitalistic as we are, realized we had a problem. And they said, look, these pharmaceutical companies are out of control. Their profit margins are through the roof. We've got to make medications affordable for the average American consumer and patient.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
It's the worst of almost all developed countries. But we spend more than almost every other nation on our health care. I mean, it's just mind boggling. But.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
it's it's but it's not as dire it's not as impossible to fix as people are making it out to be it really all comes down to incentives like i said earlier like show me the incentives i'll show you the outcomes if we incentivize the average american and the average clinician in america to get proactive and predictive if we had a paradigm shift where people realize that their health insurance
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
is more like car insurance. It's there if you total the car. It's there if something catastrophic happens. But you should not be putting your... They're not going to rotate the tires, change the oil, and maintain the vehicle. It's your job to... to take sovereignty and accountability over your health. It's your job to identify these things.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And I think the way of the future is large language models, algorithm-based medicine, you know, like the app we're launching at Wastewell monitors you 24-7, ties into your wearables. We've got a chat bot, Alan, that's an AI bot that literally answers any question, pulls from your medical records, and gets it right better than most clinicians.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
annotates all of your calls, loads all your questions in for whenever you get on a call with a doctor, and it's all documented. But that's not unique to us. I think the world is headed that way. And with algorithm-based medicine, I don't think in five years people will even go to a primary care. I really don't.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
I think you're going to have an app in your pocket that monitors your blood sugar, your glucose, all of your blood levels daily. And it's not just a snapshot of you in time every six months or whenever you get time to go get your blood work done fasted. It's literally swallow this pill in the morning, five minutes before you eat.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
That pill tells the iPhone or the app everything that's going on in your body. And we can begin to project all-cause mortality risk. And through that, we can drive down chronic disease risk.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And so if we know, like, let's say we have your epigenetics and we know that epigenetics are the gun and then your lifestyle choices and decisions are the bullets that you load the gun with and pull the trigger.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
Now we can track not only your epigenetics, but also your active biomarkers, but also your behaviors, your exercise, how many hours of sleep you're getting, your deep sleep, your REM sleep, your heart rate variability. And we can begin to project out all cause mortality risk. And the beauty of that is we can now begin to drive down those risk factors. That's the future of medicine.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
That's where this is headed.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
We're going to establish these pharmacy benefit managers that will go out and negotiate on behalf of companies, corporations, and the little man. And they will fight for us to drive down the cost of health care. And so they did.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
I think in the next 24 months, like I think in the next 24 months, a lot of this will be executed in the next 24 months and it won't just be waged. Well, I think there'll be dozens, if not hundreds of companies and there's a billionaire's arms race into this sector. Now there's so many billionaires getting into the space and putting money into the space and trying to figure it out.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And there's that component. Then there's the large language models and AI's ability to, you know, uh, hack the genome down to different levels. And so like one of my friends and mentors, Dr. Ian White, he's brilliant, like you would love him, but he's actually a Brit too. Very good, I like him already. He's from Harvard and 22 years at the bench. His theory is we share a common ancestor
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
with the eternal jellyfish, which lives over 5,000 years. We share a common ancestor with the Galapagos tortoise, which lives over 200 years. We share a common ancestor with the Greenland shark, which has no cancer and lives over 600 years. All of those black boxes are within our genetics.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
With AI and large language models and quantum computing, how quickly is a scientist going to crack that code? Somebody's going to do it. And so my pitch is like, you've got, you know, the Gary Brekkas and the people saying, we think you're going to live to be 150. I'm not that optimistic of that. I think we can drive hell span like what Peter says.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And by driving hell span, we can indirectly potentially drive lifespan and buy you enough time for somebody who's way smarter than me and you to crack that code and find that black box. And then you,
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
I can totally see that. I believe in that because, I mean, when Peter breaks it down and he talks about what's the difference between somebody who lives to be a centenarian and somebody who dies at the average human life expectancy in America, which I think is like 72 for men now or something, it's the onset of chronic disease.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And so if we get proactive and predictive in your 20s, if we begin to use algorithm based medicine and all the analytics and tool sets we have and we're monitoring you 24 seven. Look, I'm not going to get up in the morning and take 400 pills and do three hours of red light a day and live in a hyperbaric chamber like that's not sustainable for the average person.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
For a period of time, they went out and they negotiated with big pharma and they got big corporations and companies together to lobby and put together our buying power to drive down the cost of a prescription drug, making it affordable, you know, for grandma and grandpa. Those were captured in the late 80s by the insurance companies.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
But if we can give you small wins on the board, slight adjustments in lifestyle that allow you to delay the onset of chronic disease, what if I could quantify for somebody like my dad? When I talk to my dad about ways to, well, he's like, do I have to change my diet? Do I have to quit drinking? Well, then fuck that. I'm not doing it. Right? That's the mentality.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
So I've got to give a guy like that little wins and I got to give them tangible results. Measuring sticks.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
Statistically, if I can just get 12 pounds of body fat off you, quantifiably, I can buy you five more years. Can we do that? Right. But you got to give them the carrot. And we haven't done a good job in health care of showing the carrot. True. Right. We bully and intimidate. Gamification is the key to pretty much everything.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And you're like, oh my God, I can see, I can almost envision. You're nailing it. You're getting me so pumped because this is, it's so true. We have to make healthcare fun. We have to make it approachable. We have to make it digestible. It's gotta be something that the layman can understand. And it can't be some scientist in a white lab coat dictating to you from a pulpit
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
Why you're fat and chronically ill. It's got to be wins on the board. And I talk about the faster we can get you a win on the board, the better. And I'll give you an example even with me. I'm not a huge drinker, but I'll drink wine or I'll go out and drink margaritas with friends. And now that I track my sleep with the sleep eight or eight sleep, whatever it is, like
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
Dude, when I see the difference in my sleep, it makes me not want to. And then now I take it a step further. Now I don't drink as much because I really enjoy seeing the results on my sleep. But now I supplement and now I add the magnesium and the zinc and I try different supplements. And I hate the term biohack, but you try to like hack the system and go, oh, man, now I found something.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And so what you saw, and one prime example I use all the time is insulin. Why does Eli Lilly make the same exact profit margin on insulin almost 30 years later, but the price of insulin has forexed? Where's the money going? It's like, where's the money, Lebowski? Where's the money? And when you peel back the layers to the onion and you look, the money is going to the insurance companies.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
Now my sleep's at 98 and I got an hour and 45 minutes of deep sleep. And then I realize my data, my recall, my cognition, my retention rate, all of it goes up.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And that's why it's crucial to quantify it quickly. And that's where I go to like, so at the new Waste Well Clinic, we have a DEXA, a VO2 max, right? If I have your DEXA, your VO2 max and your blood work, I can, within a very high statistical probability, begin to build out an algorithm that will allow me to assess your overall health and your risk factor of chronic disease.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
But it also allows me to gamify it and make it comparative to your linear age to your biological age. And I can combine all those. People get jazzed up when they go, man, I'm 44, but my biological age is coming in at 34. And they go tell their buddies and they print screen it and they send it to their friends and then their friends. But it's also reward systems. Chris, congratulations.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
We saw on this date you started peptide therapy. Here's the improvement we've seen in your HRV, your REM sleep, your D, whatever that quantifiable win on the board is, it's about creating that dopamine response and that reward system and that community. Even me, like knowing all this, it hijacks my brain. Like I wear the, I used to have Whoop. I love Whoop, but I also have a MyZone.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And I started wearing that when I trained Muay Thai because I was competing with Tim. And to Tim Kennedy, he's not even paying attention to me, but I'm looking at what he's doing. And I'm like, I got to beat Tim's workout today. I want to get, I want to outscore him in caloric burn, in time in the red zone, the green zone, all the different zones, whatever it is, whatever the goal is of that week.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And it's this own game I've made in my own head. Does that make sense?
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
I had, that is insane. I had no, I mean, I know a PlayStation is going to be like $700 the next one that comes out, but I guess computer gaming, all the. It literally, they. When you look at the production level too, though, it's crazy now.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
But as you said, unfortunately with health, it's not as exciting. Even when you intervene, like that's where I go with peptides, with testosterone, with whatever it may be. The faster I can get you feedback on your trajectory, the better, right? Or course correct, the better, right? Maybe I pick up something's not going right. That kicks back to the AI. The AI algorithm makes a recommendation.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
The clinician reviews that. You get a text message. We make an adaption. In real time. Not this, come in in six months, we'll see you down the road, hear a bunch of meds.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And so it's a little tricky to explain. So I'll walk you through it as seamlessly as I can. Insurance companies say, hey, there's these middlemen. Let's go buy them. They bought the middlemen. At that point, they controlled the negotiations with the pharmaceutical companies. And rather than negotiating down the price of the drugs,
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
But how do you choose a good doctor? How do you advocate? I think the main thing is, you know, find a cash pay clinic in your area because I don't, I'm, I don't know of a lot of insurance based plans that will allow you accessibility to true preventative care. And it also limits the tools you have in your tool belt.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And so for a nominal amount of money, you know, anywhere in it, I don't want to say nominal for, if you look at what you spend on a mattress, if you look at what you spend on a car, on a house, you know, You're not in that 24-7 for your entire life. You've got one body. 200 trillion to one are the chances you and I are here alive right now. We won the lottery, man. This is our one shot.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
Don't put your body and your family's health in the hands of these insurance juggernauts and big pharma. Take sovereignty and accountability over your health. Do a basic blood panel with somebody out there. You mentioned Function, Merrick, Ways to Well. There's dozens of companies. It doesn't have to be my company. There are dozens of companies, if not hundreds. interview them.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
I tell people to don't just go sign up with some random clinic. Think about how much you bid out a kitchen remodel. That's your kitchen. This is your body. Like don't blindly follow the first Yahoo that wants to put you on some hormone or peptide like or at least do the research and understand for yourself and the pathway to me that makes the most logical sense.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And this is future proofing your life. You don't want these insurance companies to be digging through your underwear drawer because they're going to use the data and the data they capture to eliminate you, deny, delay, and obstruct your ability to get care down the road or drop your coverage. So in a way, build your own life raft. And my goal is to make this affordable for everybody.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And I think the way we do that is through technology and large language models and algorithm-based medicine. But the vision would be get proactive, get predictive, do a basic blood panel, a comprehensive blood panel at least once a year. Use that to drive your health. If you could afford, you know, $75 to get a DEXA and a VO2 max and combine that with your blood work,
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
They said, aha, what if we negotiate up the price of the drugs via rebates and what we would call kickbacks in any other industry? So they negotiated rebates on almost every major pharmaceutical product. And if you want to be on UnitedHealthcare's plan, you got to pay to play. If you want to be on Medicare, Medicaid, that is all an illusion. Medicare and Medicaid are outsourced to who?
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
you have done more than 99.99% of society. And in the right hands of a solid clinician or algorithm, it can help guide you on the best path forward to prevent chronic disease and drive your health span. And if you capture your health span, like we said, and delay the onset of chronic disease, one of these brilliant people are going to come up with something. Somebody's going to solve the code.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
What are you doing for VO2max? Uh, VO two max is just the test. And so what are you doing to improve yours? Oh, I train Muay Thai, but I train Muay Thai and I try to, uh, maintain like, I don't go into the red too often on my, my zone. And so I track all my heart rate, but I try to keep at minimal, uh, an active cardio schedule. Cause it's so easy.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
The reason I started training Muay Thai is before I just lifted and I got all the way up to like one 90, you know, I'm short like one night I had dense muscle mass, but I was bulky and, And I was tired when I'd go on a freaking one mile jog. My cardio was trash. And I'm like, well, this isn't necessarily healthy, right?
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
Cardiovascular health is just as important, but lean muscle mass is important too, right? We know one of the biggest risk factors as we age is lean muscle mass and bone mineral density. And so we've got to protect that. And so I just try to pitch people on what Matthew McConaughey says, like be active, break a sweat every day. It's about being better, not perfect. And knowledge is power.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
The more data you have, you don't have to be Brian Johnson and take 40 pills and track every single aspect of your life. I don't think that's sustainable for most people. Not that what he's doing isn't working for him and that that may not be if you can do it, go for it. But for a lot of people, it's about just being better.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
You know, making slightly better choices, slightly better improvements, and then showing the reward system that you and I were discussing and quantifying what that means for them in their trajectory of long-term health. Fuck yeah. Brigham, let's bring this one home. Where should people go? They want to keep up to date with all your stuff. Waze, the number two well.
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#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And then my personal is just Brigham.Buehler, B-U-H-L-E-R. Dude, I appreciate the hell out of you. Yeah, thank you for having me.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
the big five insurance companies. And so throughout the chain of checks and balances and the system, they are now monetizing chronic disease. They're incentivized for you to be on more and more medications because it's a profit center for them. And so to explain how that works, people go, wait a second, why would an insurance company mark it up? Because they're the ones paying for it. Bullshit.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
They don't pay for it. Insurance companies pass that bill on at the end of the year to your employer. And 92% of people's insurance are from their employer. So most people never realize. And then they also have what's called gap pricing. So the only reason I know all this, just to take people to walk through history on me, is I had the touch points. I was a drug rep and I went from that.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
I launched Cialis in North America, the Viagra competitor, which was a blast. It was fun. Everyone loved it. Nobody was complaining about Cialis. But then I got pivoted to antidepressants and antipsychotics, and I saw the dark side of big pharma.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And within eight months, I was out of there, and I was left to go be a device rep where I stood in surgeries with the best and brightest surgeons in the world, and I saw those problems. And then from there, I became a serial entrepreneur in healthcare where I attempted to work within the insurance framework. And what I saw was so eye-opening it made it all finally make sense.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
whether it's Froot Loops or whatever it is, but that's one component of the issue. Then we go to the checks and balances. Like if we have a primary care in America that only has six minutes with a patient and they're controlled by what the insurance companies do, the main message that I have for people is it comes down to corporate capture.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
I was like, oh my God, this is what they're doing. And once you know the magic trick, you can see it over and over and over again. And so the magic trick is we push people to medications and prescription drugs. A real world example would be the opioid crisis. What nobody realized, and an article came out maybe two months ago, I think in the New York Times,
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
Why? How did we end up there? It's a long, twisted road. One of the things I've talked about a lot is, you know, in medicine, if you're going to understand or treat a disease state, you have to find the root cause. And if we go to find the root cause of the broken health care system in America, it runs deep and it's insidious and it's widespread.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
30% of the money and revenue generated from opioid abuse in this country went to the big insurance companies. Never did they get indicted. Never did they get questioned. Never did they get sued. They skated scot-free, but they had negotiated rebates on opioids. Why that's important is I owned pharmacies that offered alternatives to opioids.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
I would go out and educate clinicians on the importance of not prescribing opioids because I lost my brother to opioids. They pushed it into the market. They let Big Pharma ramrod it via a deal with the FDA. The head of the FDA then went to go work for Purdue Pharma, who brought that drug to market. for a big, huge, fat salary three years later.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
Purdue Pharma, who created the volume crisis in the 70s, then perpetuated the opioid crisis in the 2000s, in the 90s. And then all of that was profiteered by big pharma and big insurance.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
So opioids are very hard to get at this point. However... the equivalent to a 747 jet worth of people are dying every day to opioid related deaths because now that they cannot get opioids via clinicians, they've turned to black market. You've already created and perpetuated the problem. Now you've cut off the source and these people are turning to, you know, uh,
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
products from Mexico that are indirectly coming from China that are cut with fentanyl. And that's candidly what killed my brother. And so it's tragic. And then the most frustrating of all is Purdue Pharma's new blockbuster drug for opioid abuse.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
They are now selling the cure to opioid abuse, which is a new product that does help reduce opioids and has way less side effects, but it is also addictive. So you're giving a new addictive product to an addict and now monetizing and perpetuating the problem you created.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And then they're also trying to obstruct the ability to products like Ibogaine in the United States, which is a one-time treatment and has over an 85% success rate. Getting people off. Yes, getting people off these drugs.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
So what happened with opioids? How have they been pulled? So opioids, they put a lot of restrictions in place to make it harder. It's called triplicate. Clinicians have to document, document, document, and then prove they can justify and their license is at risk. And people went to prison because they were over... Protecting against overprescription. Correct. Because what happened is...
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
Like if you show me the incentives, I'll show you the outcomes. And our entire incentive systems in this country are based off monetizing and capitalizing off chronic disease. It's all about quarterly earnings, quarterly profits. Nowhere in anyone's business school or any of these executives is their priority to drive healthspan or to cure chronic disease.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
Like any boom, unfortunately, where there's a lot of money, there becomes a lot of bad actors. And that's what you're seeing today with even GLP-1s and weight loss drugs. You know, I mean, it's popped up on every corner. Every single freaking telemedicine company is candidly prescribing GLP-1s. And I'm not against them because we prescribe those at our company as well at Ways to Well, but...
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
Are they being overutilized, overprescribed and inappropriately utilized? For sure.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
And it's a good tool in the tool belt if you're chronically obese, diabetic and sick and headed towards chronic disease. Of course, I'm never here to judge. We've got to put wins on the board and we've got to get the weight off. But I say this all the time. Prescribing a GLP-1 without talking about diet, lifestyle, and nutrition is like brushing your teeth while eating fucking Oreos.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
It's very counterintuitive. It's just you've got to address the root cause.
Modern Wisdom
#912 - Brigham Buhler - Ex-Pharma Rep: Why American Healthcare Is So Broken
So... Take a step back, I guess at this point, almost 14 years ago, as an entrepreneur, I had steps and protocols and procedures in place. So I would go meet with clinicians around the country and I would educate them on the importance of not prescribing opioids lightly. And the message was this. These can be very valuable to treat chronic pain.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I mean, we could go through all the statistics, and I know that Casey and Callie will when they're on here, so I don't wanna steal their thunder, but it's staggering. I mean, close to anywhere between 1.7 to 1.9 million people are dying a year of chronic disease. We talk a lot about war.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Back to the show. And that's what people do with everything, though. They want to think that it's the most eye-opening thing having got behind the scenes and met you and then met Cam and met Aaron Rodgers and met all the... Every person that you have introduced me to works their ass off. The level of dedication and commitment... And their schedules are crazy. And the pressure is crazy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And the stress is crazy. And they have kids and families. And they find a way. Cam's up at, what, 3 in the morning to go run 30 miles? He doesn't have to do that anymore because he doesn't have a regular job anymore.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
It took forever. It's just inspiring to see because you can sit on the outside and think, oh, that guy who's on top of the mountain, he's lucky. They got lucky. What you don't realize is you didn't see all the steps that it took for that guy to get a girl to get to the top of the mountain.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Absolutely. And this is what I've seen before owning a compounding pharmacy. When I went on Jillian Michaels podcast, she was she is very opinionated and passionate about this. And it took me 10 minutes to explain to her that compounding pharmacies aren't bad guys. And because she had only heard. the corporate media narrative of compounding pharmacies are dangerous.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
It's motivating. Like Phillip Rowe, I know we've become really good friends. Philly Fresh from UFC. Love that dude. Dude. Working as a UPS guy, raising two kids, training MMA in his spare time, and trying to get all his work in, makes it into the UFC.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
The reason I'm saying this is there is hope, people. If those guys can do it, we can do it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
What you see is people, momentum creates momentum. And even individuals I know that have taken Ozempic. A lot of those people are – they just needed wins on the board and they needed to create momentum.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And these really obese individuals, when they start seeing there's hope and the weight starts coming off, as crazy as it is, the diet, the lifestyle, the nutrition, all that starts to fall in line more and more. And then they get a win on the board and now they're the guy who's going to the gym three days a week.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
People are getting drugs from these compounding pharmacies that are in garages and they're just willy nilly making compounds and shipping them into the marketplace. And I had to methodically walk her through compounding pharmacies fall under the FDA's jurisdiction. My pharmacy's been inspected three times in 18 months. Every single ingredient we buy is an FDA-approved ingredient.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I can tell you, I mean, running businesses, of course, everyone has stress and anxiety. If I didn't do an ice bath or go do Muay Thai... For if I take a week off, my anxiety is terrible. Oh, yeah, I would have almost crippling anxiety, but doing physical activity and doing hard things and doing the ice bath and doing the sauna and going through that method in that process.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
You don't get that in the day. And you feel so much better. After it's over.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Yeah. Just even conquering going there. Like there's so many days I'm driving and I go, why the fuck am I doing this? Why don't I just go to Starbucks, get one of those frappuccinos again, go back to my old ways. Life was fun being fat. It was easy. This is not, I don't want to go get the shit beat out of me and work my ass off for an hour.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
But every time you leave, even no matter what, I'm like, oh, thank God I did that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
That one's one I still to this day, I do it. I hate it every time. I hate it every time. I still have not. There's never a day where I'm like, this is going to be easy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Human beings are subject to that. It's a nailing it. This is, this is my point with the AI. I want to gamify it and I want healthcare to be fun. Yes. I want people to know that they're challenging their friends. We're rising together. Joe, you're a pussy. You only worked out 30 minutes today. Your deck says that this, my all overall mortality risk is improving.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Yours isn't like, how do we make it fun? And you can choose what to share. Kind of like what whoop does.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I watch his MyZone, and I watch what Tim does every day, and I'm like, if I can just get close to what Tim did, I will feel great about myself. So I try to beat his workouts, or Juan from On It Gym has his on there, too, and I'll just try and beat those guys' workouts on those days.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Every single compound we compound, we send off to an independent third-party lab to verify, okay? And I say all this just to lay the groundwork. We've treated over a million patient lives at our pharmacy, over a million patient lives nationwide, and
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Well, how many... I think with addicts, they have them... One is finding religion and a higher calling and giving up to a higher power. But the other thing I've seen is... Candidly a lot of times they trade addiction. Yeah, they get really big into CrossFit or jiu-jitsu.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
When I owned a toxicology – I was in the toxicology lab and the non-abusive stuff after my brother passed from opioids and I was trying to educate clinicians on that. One of the things I did was hire an expert, Dr. Bill Massey, and he came in and he sat on Obama's opioid abuse campaign committee and was – He was helping guide me on what makes sense and how do we do this.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
What they do in that environment is the media will list any recall, any mistake a compounding pharmacy makes, but sweep under the rug that big pharmaceutical companies like Eli Lilly and Pfizer have moved most of their manufacturing overseas where the FDA has to submit before they can come do an inspection and has to give them two months notice because they're coming into a foreign country and they've got to get visas and approvals and all these things to come inspect those facilities.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
But one of the things he shared with me that was wild was this study that he did for Obama with rhesus monkeys, where they gave one set of rhesus monkeys basically a cage with metal and no warmth, no interaction with other monkeys. They got water and food, but at erratic times, there was no consistency in that monkey's life.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Then they took another subset of rhesus monkeys where they gave them warmth, shelter, let them stay with their family for the right amount of time until they reached maturity. And what they found is when they introduced drug, heroin and cocaine to these monkeys, disproportionately the monkeys that were deprived died and OD'd.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Whereas the monkeys that had that love and affection and warmth and comfort and essential needs met died at a much lower rate. Most of them actually survived. And he was breaking down that if you grow up in an environment with minimal dopamine response, when you light up that dopamine, maybe it's a boxing match, right?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
You're a kid who's been poor and you get in that boxing match, you knock a guy out and you're hooked. This is it. This is the best I've felt. Everyone's cheering me on. Yeah. For some people, unfortunately, what they find first is a drug or an alcohol or a substance. But that same person could be the future Albert Einstein, the future Muhammad Ali, the future, you know, whatever it may be.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Insert here. They have that ability. It's just can we give them a shot? Can we buy them the time and get them out of this? Because I've seen a lot of people beat drug addiction, but I've unfortunately lost a lot of people to it too. They did it with rats too.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And he used to go on the elk hunts with us and everything. He was a coach. They had him loaded up on pain meds and everything was starting to fail. He had been in the hospital for months. They were about to move him to hospice. And my buddy said, we're done. I don't want any more pain meds. And he talked to his dad and he said, Dad. Can you survive without the pain meds?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
They can't just walk in like they walk into my facility. And so Lilly, Eli Lilly in particular, one of the reasons they're struggling with back orders right now is their facilities have been popped for egregious action by the FDA. But none of that is in the public eye. You have to scour. I think Reuters is the only one that wrote an article.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And he didn't think he could. And he battled like feeling terrible, everything. Long story short, he went from they were going to put him in hospice because his kidneys and organs and all this were failing to he drove a car last week. Right? He's out of the hospital. He's in his 80s. He's driving his truck again. I don't know if I want to be on the road with that guy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Yeah, but it's all those pain meds were poisoning his brain, his body. Of course. His organs were shutting down because they were just pushing more and more and more. And I don't want to be too sinister, but there's a lot of money involved. And keeping somebody in a hospital and billing that insurance company during those time frames and then moving them over.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
You know, I stood in surgeries where I watched them do neurosurgeries on people they knew were going to die, but they could bill them $800,000 and collect the insurance payment. And so the hospital is going to do the surgery.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
It's just because our incentive systems are flawed, like what you were talking about earlier. Dopamine wins reward systems. If we build a reward system based off... money and numbers and finances, we shouldn't be shocked when we have killer earnings and really bad health outcomes.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Thank you for giving me a voice and thank you for having me on here. And also thank you to the U.S. Senate for being brave enough to let us sit there and hammer the U.S. government and critique them for their choices and power to them for at least having the honesty and integrity to let us have an open forum.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Little Compounding Pharmacy in Texas recalls 28 vials proactively for a mislabel. And the New York Post makes it national news. But you didn't cover Eli Lilly's nationwide issues on all these products or the fact that over 2000 manufacturing facilities owned by Big Pharma haven't been inspected in five or more years. It's just not good journalism. It doesn't have integrity.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Since the dawn of this country, roughly estimated between 1.3 to 1.5 million people total have died in war, American lives. So in a year, we're losing more people to chronic disease than all the wars combined. And we're not talking about it. So to me, I was excited when they said, hey, the Senate's willing to hear. And that's the beauty of a democracy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Well, she gave us that she sent us and said it was very vague. I get a voicemail. We want to write an article on your pharmacy. I find out at three o'clock I'm in meetings.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
We draft a response explaining all the things we do to go above and beyond and how our vision is to bring, you know, cost effective prescription drugs to the American people for pennies on the dollar, typically less than your copay or deductible. What part of that?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And in this article at the end, I shit you not, the girl puts... And by the way, Eli Lilly slicing prices by 50% on their weight loss drug. That's how the article ends. And I'm like, how is this not an advertisement? And so I looked, and now that I've... I've seen it when I was a drug rep. I saw it when I owned pharmacies and labs. I saw it as a device rep.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
But I went and looked and said, OK, who owns the New York Post? And when you peel back the layers to that onion, the New York Post majority holders of stock are Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street. Now, let's go look at who are the majority owners into Eli Lilly, Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
So the same folks who own the pharmaceutical companies who have the most to gain by keeping the narrative the same and driving America towards the chronic disease crisis and monetizing your chronic disease with all the things you and I have discussed before, whether pharmacy benefit managers, insurance companies, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, front to back, top to bottom,
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
We've lost our way. We really have lost our way, Joe. It's all about quarterly earnings and quarterly profits. And I'm not saying that they're intentionally poisoning the American people to set them up so that they can knock them down.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I just think it's so siloed and so compartmentalized and everybody's fighting for that extra dollar that quarter, that day, that month, that they're just blocking and tackling and preventing the narrative from rising in their siloed bucket. But you have to, like in humans, we have to take a look out and go, hey, I'm not just treating your knee or your brain health or your heart health.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
The body is an organism that works together. We have to do a deeper dive to assess where the disease started, what caused it, and can we uncover the root cause and fix the root cause? We have to do the same thing in our systems and our protocols and our procedures. We know that corporate capture is real.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
We know that corporate capture has somewhat happened with the FDA, somewhat happened with Congress and the Senate. You know, everyone's scared to fight these guys and they can wreck your lives. It's scary and it's hard to fight when they control the media. They control all the funding to the advertising on the news networks. I mean, good luck getting a story out there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Yeah, and to even further highlight the level of corruption and corporate capture, I sent you and Jamie an article. I don't even remember the news outlet. But when you look, who owns that news outlet? Okay, well, it says most of its funding comes from this PR firm. Then when we go to look at who owns the PR firm, it's Monsanto that owns the PR firm that got this other – and it's always layered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
It's never abundantly clear. Like it's hard – the other one we talked about was –
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
the atlantic you know and as i peel the layers back to the atlantic it was owned by bradley who made his money uh being a consultant for big pharma and pharmacy benefit managers he sold a big chunk of his company off to optum which is one of the dirtiest pharmacy benefit managers out there and we broke that down on your previous podcast the pharmacy benefit managers for those listeners that don't know were established in the 70s and 80s with the goal of driving down the cost of prescription drug care for america
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
They did let us come in there and candidly take a dump on the Senate floor on what's going on with this health care system and really dig into the weeds.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
But it got captured by the insurance companies. So Cigna, Aetna, CVS Health, all of those companies now own these middlemen that are negotiating rebates. So it's important to understand because those rebate dollars are held at that company and they're making billions off of chronic disease. Billions.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
So if you're on a GLP-1 weight loss drug for the rest of your life and they've negotiated rebates to the pharmacy benefit plans that they own, they're oftentimes holding 40 to 50 percent of their profitability in a shell company that's not disclosed to the American public or the U.S. government.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And when they establish a Medicare price point on a drug, they base it off of the average wholesale price in America. And that's important because they artificially inflated the fucking average wholesale price. And they're giving themselves a rebate on the back end. But the government doesn't have line of sight into that. And they know it's happening now. It's been exposed.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
We talked about this again on your last five. But it's like I think it's the state of Idaho uncovered 230 million in fraud in one year. from the PBMs, one year. Now multiply that times all the states in the United States. And think about how much money is being made off of keeping people on prescription drugs.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
It's crazy. It's scary. The only thing that protects us. And I say this. I feel like I woke up and became my grandpa. I remember him always bitching about politics, and I'm not political.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And I'm an idealist. I want to believe that, like— I want to believe that people are looking for the truth. How cute. How sweet. When your data sets are corrupt and the only info you're receiving is from bad sources that are pushing agendas, but those sources also are your future employment when you come out of government service, it just becomes a dangerous, dangerous, slippery slope. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
So prior you do a debrief. So we did do a roundtable prior to going into the communal roundtable in front of the public eye, which they had no idea what was coming. The Senate didn't expect it. We had assembled a grassroots effort to get the word out there. And over 2000 people took off from work. These are. This is a Senate hearing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
there are often times where enforcement changes legislation through enforcement. Like right now, the DEA is reviewing if they're going to allow telemedicine companies to continue to prescribe testosterone. And that's crazy to me because it's like all these issues we have, all the chronic disease, there is not a testosterone crisis. This is not like the opioid crisis.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I mean, the amount of people that are having side effects of that in comparison to the testosterone thing. And that's where, you know, you and I disagree somewhat on the GLP-1s. Jillian and I disagree. Callie and Casey and I disagree. It's okay to disagree. There's nothing wrong with having differing lenses.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
You need someone to help you. That's where I'm like, if I was pushing an agenda, I have a ton to gain by GLP-1s going gangbusters. I'm not on that bandwagon. I literally sat there with the Senate meeting and said, this is crazy if we government fund prescribing GLP-1s to children. Wow. That's insanity. We need to fix our food products in schools.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
We need to limit soft drinks and advertising to children. There's a million things we could do that are way more logical and reasonable than starting to stick a kid with an injectable that they're going to take the rest of their life.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Yeah. Another example of that is that, you know, we were a foster family growing up. So we had up to seven foster kids at a time in my house. And I remember that the hep V vaccines that all those little kids had to get were And I didn't think about it at the time.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
But again, hearing some of my friends like Callie and Casey talk about it, the vaccine schedule is crazy because you're giving a child a brand new baby, essentially a hep B vaccine. The only two ways to contract hepatitis B is a vaccine. Basically, you're injecting drugs or sexual activity. An infant's not going to have that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
So why expose them to the risk factor of a potential adverse event when we know autism rates are through the roof? All of these different health issues for children are climbing. And at some point we have to assess what we're doing and say, isn't there a better way? But I know enough about how that system works and how things are negotiated on the back end and the lobby.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Over 2,000 hardworking Americans took time from their busy day, flew to D.C., had to sit in an overflow room to listen to these testimonies. And the level of feedback from people, from like real humans, real world people, was staggering.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And now it's established and now it's hammered home. And then you assemble and you go have a meet with all the pediatricians nationwide. And you have people as spokesperson that push that agenda and get senators and congressmen and women on the hook to go, yes, we need these vaccines incorporated as part of our policy to protect these children. And I don't think...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
it's not that it was there i don't think everyone's in on it i think people are being duped and it's so siloed that's one of the other things you and i have talked about historically with medicine medicine's so siloed they don't look at the full human body they look at i'm a knee guy and i'm going to look at the knee or i'm a mental health specialist and i'm going to talk to this patient about their mental health but your mental health is intertwined with your physical health your mental health and this is what dr palmer from harvard talks about
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
If we have metabolic disease and all these metabolic crises, it's going to lead to mental health issues.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Well, and what scares me... At the most. And again, not to shit on the GLP-1s, because we prescribe GLP-1s, we utilize GLP-1s. They are a tool in the tool belt, and when utilized appropriately, they can help people. But a hammer can kill someone if used inappropriately. Right. And so if we make it our frontline defense...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And again, we go back to the chronic disease crisis in America and we say, OK, the food systems broke. Then the people end up chronically ill. Then we don't really assess people until in our in our our assessment tools in a primary care market are based off a sick patient population. If we base the demographic off the average American population.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
that is dying of chronic diseases, and that is our measuring stick, then why are we shocked when we continue to have a boom in people dying of chronic diseases and being diagnosed with chronic diseases? Cancer, all-time high. I think there's going to be 2 million new cases of cancer diagnosed this year. Every single chronic disease is through the roof. The system is not working.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Man, it was pretty wild. It all transpired so fast. I got a call from Cali Means. We've become pretty good buddies. I know you're having him and his sister Casey on the podcast. Brilliant folks that are just patient advocates. I mean, at the end of the day. They had the same experience as I had. Callie, a little bit different walk of life. He was a lobbyist.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I mean, people afterwards came up in tears sharing their story of how the system had let them down or a loved one down, misdiagnoses, like all the different issues that they've dealt with. trying to navigate this system.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I was, what was I, 29, 30 years old, early 30s. And I was 25% body fat, pre-diabetic, headed towards all the same chronic diseases that we're talking about. What was your diet like? My diet, I had, well, originally my diet was terrible. It was a traditional American diet, right? So I was a surgical rep and I had to be in the OR by 7 a.m. And so I would go do CrossFit every morning.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Then I'd go to the OR. I'd be in cases all day. I would eat whatever I could. I would drink a Starbucks Frappuccino, not realizing there's 1,800 calories of sugar and chemicals and no nutrients. I just didn't know. And I grew up in a family, again, a foster family where... We were middle-class America, but maybe it was the 80s. Eating healthy was like eating wheat bread instead of white bread.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
It was eating low-fat Lay's potato chips and a Diet Coke. That's literally what my family thought was healthy. And that's a lot of Americans. They don't know. And you just you just stay with what you're indoctrinated into. So I started seeing a nutritionist in my 30s and I did lean down and I lost weight and I was getting healthier and I was headed the right direction and I was still training.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
But he was like, if you're doing everything I'm saying, let me take a step back. I would go to a primary care and it would take three months to get in with a primary care. Then they would just pull a basic lipid panel. And then I would say, well, can we look at my hormones? No, no, we don't need to look at hormones. We're going to look at your lipid panel. We're going to do a wellness check.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Well, that doesn't include hormones in this country. It's not a deep dive because they're scared to do that because the insurance companies control what they'll reimburse and not reimburse. And so clinicians in this country are terrified to do the deep dive and they only have six minutes with you. So they got to get you in and out of there. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Long story short, six months later, still fat, still trying to lose weight, working out every day, seeing a nutritionist. Nutritionist said, I want to refer you to a urology buddy, Dr. Larry Lipschultz, who's one of the godfathers of urology and hormone optimization in the United States. And when I went and met with Larry, he was shocked after he pulled my blood work.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And to the Senator's credit, you know, behind closed doors, they did say, you probably don't want to go ultra hard after the food industry or ultra hard after the pharmaceutical industry, because it may limit our ability to get things done. But they did. How do they phrase that? They just said you catch more flies with honey than you do vinegar.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
We actually did it twice because he just didn't believe my readings. And my testosterone level after seeing him was 98%.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
It's it's insane. And he's like a woman. But I know it was terrible. And so he's like, of course, you're he's like, I don't know if you're if you're fat because I told this story before. I don't know if you're fat because you have low testosterone or if you have low testosterone because you're fat, but you are fat with low testosterone. And so that was my baseline.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And through just what were you eating then? By then I was using the nutritionist, but then it was a question of, did I dig too big of a hole? And then the question is, are you overtraining and you're crashing what little hormones you have left and your body's trying to get ramped up? So we ended up treating at the time with HCG and clomiphene.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
What did the nutritionist tell you to do? Oh, we prioritize protein, one gram of protein per pound of lean muscle mass. We cleaned up my diet. If you make protein the basis of your diet because you need a gram of protein per pound of lean muscle mass to maintain. If you're trying to gain lean muscle mass, you have to up that protein intake. And then based off diet or lifestyle and activity level.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And so we would prioritize my carbs through certain times of the day. We would keep me at a caloric deficit and we'd prioritize protein in that caloric deficit. And what you'll find is mind blowing. You aren't as hungry if I don't eat a diet.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
muffin and a starbucks coffee loaded with sugar i don't have that insulin response that causes the hunger cravings a few hours later where i'm back to eating another unhealthy meal choice right if you eat protein first eggs hearty heavy foods dense nutrient packed foods your appetite is suppressed it's a natural appetite you can't overeat it's really hard to overeat meat it is
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And so we prioritize proteins, healthy proteins like chickens, fish, all of those sources, and then healthy carbs. Get away from sugars, whites, starches. Prioritize healthy carbohydrate sources that are slower burning, that allow you to metabolize the protein that you're absorbing. Fruits and vegetables. So how much weight did you lose that way?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I literally went, well, starting on diet, I probably lost about half of the weight that I was trying to get off. Um, so I know body fat percentage, he got me from 25 down to about 15. And then when we added hormone optimization, um, not testosterone at the time, it was HCG and clomiphene, which boost your natural testosterone levels being monitored by a clinician within physiological norms, right?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
To try and make sure that we're optimizing my health, not trying to get jacked and tan. Yeah. Literally helped me go from 15 to, at the time, I think I dropped down to around 7%. And I did not change anything. I was working out the same way, eating the same way. 7% is very lean. Yeah. And now I walk around 12 to 15. That's sustainable. And I think in my 40s, that's a level that makes sense to me.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
But... I think the way to do that is you don't wait for people to get chronically ill. I should have never been at 25% body fat. If we were getting proactive and predictive and we were truly doing deep dives into individuals and taking the time for our clinicians in this country to sit down and assess you at the biological level. then we can prevent these chronic diseases.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And I'm not talking about through pharmaceutical intervention. We can prevent these through diet, lifestyle, nutrition, and helping teach the patient that there's a better way. And if we need to involve pharmaceutical intervention, it's there. There's options out there that can help patients kickstart their health and wellness, especially people in their 40s.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And, you know, me, Callie and the other folks that sat on this panel, you know, our goal was to just share our stories and share what we saw. And so my testimony in particular was really more about the human side. You know, there's so many staggering datas and statistics and numbers. But behind all that is a person. That's all I wanted people to understand. These are human lives.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
It took about a year. And that's where it gets crazy with the insurance model. So a lot of people don't know this. Most insurance carriers in the U.S. don't practice preventative. So testosterone would be considered a lifestyle drug.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
The challenge with an issue like the DEA, if they really do over-regulate testosterone and shut telemedicine companies down from prescribing it, it's going to limit accessibility for these patients because primary carers don't want to prescribe it, right? And so they're going to punt them off to a urologist.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Typically, for an insurance company to cover it, you've got to have two or more fasted blood tests of a testosterone below 250 nanograms per deciliter. So that's a chronically ill man. I mean, that's... To come back twice, I mean, that's going to take you six months to get in with that urology. That's in the dream world. So just to get the insurance coverage, you're talking six months to a year.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And by then, that patient has been chronically ill, headed towards metabolic disease, diabetes. We know that testosterone is important to insulating us from certain types of cancer. It's important to our metabolic health, our bone mineral density, our lean muscle mass. All of these tie into... health and longevity and healthspan in preventing chronic disease.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I think somewhat, yes. But I also think the insurance model is an obstructionist model. And so I can give you a different example with the opioid crisis. There were non-addictive, non-abusive pain creams. If somebody is going to be put on – they have an ACL surgery. They're in pain. I'm not here to say there's no need to ever have a pain pill. But in those instances, there were alternatives.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
That are non-abusive, non-addictive. What are the alternatives? There were ketamine-based pain creams that were topicals that could not be diverted or you couldn't extrapolate the ketamine out of it and abuse it. So nobody ever got high or stimulated from it because it's a cream that you can't extrapolate the ketamine out of. So you could not abuse it. You couldn't divert it if you wanted to.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
So it just works locally? Insurance within 12 months quit covering it because those creams cost hundreds of dollars, whereas an opioid is like I think $10 a month, right? And then the other thing you'll find is the pharmacy benefit managers who the insurance companies own have reimbursement deals on certain drugs.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
So when you get a drug, it's not because it's the best drug or the most efficacious drug. It's because the PBM, pharmacy benefit manager, has negotiated a rebate and decided to place that drug on tier one or tier two based off their financial incentive in that drug. Testosterone has been on the market so long. It's compounded a million places.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
There is no rebate for the big pharmaceutical companies or the big insurance companies on testosterone. Right. And so it's just an additional cost. And so the more they can obstruct things that cost money but don't pay dividends back to them, they'll put obstructions in the way.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
So another example is not only did they shut down alternatives to opioids during an opioid crisis, they also cut lab reimbursements on toxicology screenings at the same time that we're on an opioid bender as a nation.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
They got rid of the last safety net, which was if you come into a pain clinic asking for opioids, they're going to make you do a toxicology screen to make sure that you're not abusing other drugs, that you're not diverting the drug, that this medication is actually in your system. All of those reimbursements used to be covered by insurance companies, but they got rid of that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And so as soon as they got rid of that, there was no checks and balances. And so it is layered. It's very nuanced. It's never as simple as yes or no. And I'm just – I'm telling you what I saw. I'm just trying to tell you what I saw. I'm not saying I have all the answers.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
When Jelly Roll testified, I think he said this equivalent to a 747 jet worth of people die of opioids a day. And that's insane. And that all started with the lapses in the FDA and the drug regulatory market. And we know that – There's an argument out there. I know Cali released the number of 50 plus percent of the FDA's funding comes from Big Pharma.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Yeah. He worked at the FDA, approved that, took a job with Sacklers, which I know we beat that horse dead, too. But 13 out of the 15 last out of the last 15 heads of the FDA, 13 have gone to work for industry. And that's tough. That puts everyone in a tough position.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
If we're going to allow people to work one place one month and then go work for the bad guys the following month, how can we regulate that? It's so dirty. How is that legal? A lot of people don't know the Sacklers, that was their second time creating a crisis in America. In the 70s, they created the Valium crisis. Wow. They got all the women.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I think it was one in three housewives were addicted to Valium in the 70s. One in three? Congress went after the Sacklers then and they ended up taking a settlement and they paid their way out of it. Slap on the wrist. No criminal charges ever brought forward. And they rode off into the sunset after creating this Valium crisis of the late 70s, early 80s.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
That was one of the things I learned, too. Five percent of the human brain mass and weight is now made of, is now plastics. We learned that in the hearing, too. Five percent? Blew my mind. Never heard that statistic. Oh, my God. It's terrifying.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
But what's crazy is this is Monsanto, which is also Bayer. And we talked about that. This is the company that knowingly infected people with HIV and shipped it to third world countries because their hemophilia drug had been contaminated. And they knew they'd get busted if they shipped it in the U.S. So they shipped it to third world countries and knowingly infected thousands of people with HIV.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
When it comes to drugs alone, 75 percent of the drug funding comes from the pharmaceutical companies themselves. And so there's a big market there. And with Big Pharma spending over $8 billion a year advertising, that's more than the entire sum of the FDA's budget.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Wow. I mean, it doesn't, it's just, I think it was Jason during the testimony, he said, and this resonated with me,
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Do we need double-blind studies to know that chemicals we spray on pesticides and chemicals we spray on fields that cause disruption in mitochondria of insects and destroy them at the cellular level might possibly – can we at least say might possibly create some sort of issue in other biological beings?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
What gives me hope, though, is they were willing to talk. That does give me hope, Joe. Like, the Senate... They took a risk, man. They took a risk. They allowed us to come in. They did say, hey, we recommend you don't go too hard in the paint. And everyone said, fuck that. And they just dropped bombs like they know.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
If we look at it, if we really look at it, if it wasn't for you... I would have never met RFK. And if it wasn't for coming on your show, I would have never got my message out there. If it wasn't for Tucker's podcast, Callie would have never got his message out there. And Casey.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Yeah, it's insane. And those ads are wild. But what I saw is, the truth is, my hope is that people listen and the American people fight. We can fight with our pocketbooks. We can fight through our choices as citizens. Do I have faith that the government's going to fix these problems overnight? I don't. But at least we're having the conversation. And to their credit, they let us speak freely.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I tell people all the time, like, I love CPI. I love all these guys. All ships rise and fall with the tide. We're in this together. Our battle is not each other. Our battle is the federal government.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I'm just glad there's a voice, because we've got to get the message out there that there are alternatives. And this... It's almost like a fairy tale that they've told the American people that, hey, if it's an FDA approved product and it's in a hospital or your doctor tells you it's good as gold, it's science. And it's not. A lot of it's never been researched.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I can tell you working with primary cares, there's some of the hardest working, most patient-focused folks out there, and they're just tired. They're beat down. They're exhausted. They've got to see 40 people a day. Most of them are now employees of a hospital. And so the hospital doesn't really care about the primary market because it doesn't make money.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
The reason you have the primary care market is to control the referral network to the hospital system. And so they need those primaries referring knees, shoulders, elbows, hearts, spine, brain, neurosurgeries. That's where their money is made. That's where they can really bill insurance companies and get big reimbursements.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
We still battle that. I can tell you, GSP, he's coming in again this week, and he's talked about us, I think, on your pod. He's posted about us. He's the man. He's amazing. But when I met him, he was a skeptic, and he said, I know I'm talking to you because of Joe, but my doctor said this is bullshit.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I'm up in Canada, and he said that there's no such thing and that I have to have surgery to fix this shoulder. We fixed his shoulder. He's posted about it. He never had surgery. He went back in. The doctor's like, I don't know what you're doing, and there are
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Dozens of NFL athletes we've worked with, I don't think any of them other than Aaron Rodgers has told their doctor that they're working with us, like big name athletes, but they're scared of the team doctor.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Well, and you also go back to who funds studies and who funds. When I worked as a med device rep, I can tell you we funded studies, but those studies were going to be focused on and geared towards moving our products. Of course. And so we didn't have a stem cell or biological product because we sold hardware.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
We wanted ACL surgeries, shoulder surgeries, knee surgeries, because that's how the company made its living. And so, again, it wasn't that we were against it or trying to destroy it. It was more of if you can trivialize it and focus on what makes you your check, that's where everyone's at. And everyone's so compartmentalized, it's easy to almost have plausible deniability. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
They didn't put a censor on us. They you know, they tried to give us some coaching, you know, to say, hey, if you go this route, just understand there's going to be blowback. And, you know, we're here to get progress on these topics, not, you know, burn the house down type deal. And then I did have some and it was it was a bipartisan effort.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Somebody comes in with to a primary care and they're overweight and they're diabetic and they're anxious and they're not sleeping. The doctor is going to write them five drugs and push them out the door, not because they're a bad person, but because that is how we teach clinicians to practice medicine in this country. That is the dogma of the situation we're in.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
They're taught prescribe first, ask questions later. Rather than deep dive, understand the root cause of the disease, let's understand what is this person – like the question you asked me. What are you eating? How much sleep are you getting? Are you getting sunlight? Are you stressed?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
If you do that with your backyard. If you do that with your backyard. tumor-based cancers. Okay, well, there's a blood test that can screen for over 200 tumor-based cancers, and it can tell you when you're at level zero, right? Undistinguishable, because usually how they're diagnosing is through... imaging. And so the challenge with imaging is pixelation, right?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
The image can't capture the cellular level. Blood work can. So at the cellular level, we can tell you when you're at stage zero on a cancer up to seven years prior to you developing cancer on over 200 different types of cancer. Why would that not be implemented into our health care system? Or at minimal, what I argued with the senator about was, OK,
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
So some of the senators in the room had mentioned, well, the American people just want a pill. You know, they don't really want a solution that they're not. They're looking for an easy way out. And I pushed back. It's funny because one of the moms that was there was like, oh, my God, I can't believe you were just dropping F-bombs in that meeting. But I'm like, I think you're fucking wrong.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Let's just say we can't afford this for all Americans. Why in the hell wouldn't we at minimal be doing this for our firefighters, our military veterans? We know that over 70 percent of firefighters and military veterans will develop cancer in their lifetime. It's staggering because of dealing with ballistics and weapons and guns. And all of those are carcinogens.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Firefighters are dealing with smoke and smoke inhalation and all the different chemicals they come in contact with.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Well, all that gets in your skin and gets absorbed through the skin. So there's carcinogens in all of those things. Especially indoors, right? Mm-hmm. Like an indoor range versus an outdoor range. And it's disproportionate. Our first responders and our military personnel disproportionately have higher cancer rates. Especially firefighters.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Well, and you can even see when we talk about diet and food and environment, it's even happening. Wasn't it Biden's son?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
We tried to... That was the message I wanted people to get. Yes, we were talking to senators, but the truth is we were talking to the American people and it was guys. We don't have my thing to the public is I'm not here to tell you that I have the answers to the test. I'm here to tell you I have the questions to the test.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And I'm telling you what I saw and I'm being honest and I'm trying my best. I am not fucking political left, right, left. different wings to the same bird.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Like I will say right now the right is talking about this because of Bobby Kennedy and I know that Trump is wanting to meet next week as a health expo to dive in and try and understand from people in the industry what's going on behind the scenes and how we're headed towards this chronic disease crisis.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I mean, after being in health care since I was 20 years old, what I see is people struggling for answers.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
But what gets scarier is if we don't get this under wraps, we've got a rapidly aging patient population. We have a rapid decline in the amount of primary cares. You know, I talked about this last time. We're going to have a 30 percent shortage in primary cares, and it already takes three months to get in with a primary care. We're headed over a cliff.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
We have got to get chronic disease under control in this nation, and we've got to do it fast. And I want to say something, too.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
They try to say if we can't agree on one topic that we have to disagree on all topics. And that's the most frustrating thing to me. My neighbor is amazing. She's an amazing person. She sent me a message and was like, you know, Bobby Kennedy sold out and blah. I'm not I don't care about the Maha movement. And I'm like, this isn't about Maha or Trump or any.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
This is about because she's a hardcore liberal. Yes. But I'm like, this is about people, though. And don't let them fool you. Don't let them fool you. I agree. I don't agree with the Republicans on half the things.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
He's a way braver man than I am because I would retire on an Iowan. It's a different kind of human.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
When you watch The Godfather, the original Godfather, the ties to Italy and how intertwined all that is is wild, and that's somewhat based on reality.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Casey was a doctor, Stanford-trained surgeon. Realized that she was in a system where they didn't really heal people. They just treated symptoms and profiteered off disease states. And she said there's got to be a better way. So their voice rung so loud. after I think they did Tucker, that it led to momentum. And then because of you having me on the podcast, that's how I met RFK.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Who was saying that the American people just want a pill? I don't want to name any names, but one of the senators there was saying in his experience people are looking for the easy way out. And I don't think that's the case. I think people are looking for hope. Well, here's the thing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I've got a buddy who's a wildlife photographer for Cabela's and he – He's from somewhere over in Russia, but it literally took him years to get his citizenship. And he became friends with the girl who worked at the guy who approved his desk and would literally message her. And she'd be like, nope, not today. Nope, not today. And he waited for a day when the guy was having a great day.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And went and had his meeting and he got his citizenship. But it took him years. And now he's working here for Cabela's shooting wildlife photography and living the dream. And he grew up reading in Russia, reading these books about the Great West. And like he wanted to be a cowboy. And he tells these stories. But he is an example of somebody who believes in the American dream.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Well, I mean if you think about it, if you're a felon in the United States, you're not allowed to vote. So wouldn't it make sense that we don't accept somebody with a criminal record into the United States? Like we have – We have a lot of fights that we're already fighting and a lot of budgetary restraints as a society that we can't really dig ourselves out of the hole with right now.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
The level of hell that those people go through. This is the letter.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
But what's hard is people use those things to distract us and to divide us. And even with my neighbor, I know we agree on 80% of the things. It's like, hey, I'm not against or for anyone. I'm not against Kamala. I'm not against Trump. I'm for team humanity. I am for can we work together to solve the problem.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And whoever wins, whether Trump or Kamala, I hope that we can continue the momentum and the dialogue. And I hope that... you know, we can truly have an open conversation that gains traction. And what I love about it being public is it's forever memorialized in public record.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And that was, our hope was to break down from the start of how do we process these foods? How do we grow, harvest, and what do we do with our soil? What do we do with our pesticides? How do we bring these products to market? How do we regulate our food industry? And that's all new to me. That's not my expertise.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
It is insanity because even at a smaller level, just testifying in front of the Senate, the level of hate and just like misrepresentations of truth. I don't even want to call it lies, but to me it's lies. The level of like misrepresentation and taking things out of context and it just – It just doesn't seem genuine, and it doesn't seem like people are really fighting for truth.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
But what's insane to me, Joe, is what part of saying, hey, we need to better understand how we're growing our food, how we're processing our food, how we're preserving our food. Maybe leftover petrol chemicals aren't the best way to preserve our food products in America. You're not allowing that in other nations.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And we're looking at the data, the statistics, and the numbers, and we're saying something's not right. The point of that conversation was to say, today's the day we start the dialogue. You know, the journey of a thousand steps starts with one. And I look at it and say, my message was, how do we fix this? Well, we start by acknowledging there's a fucking problem in the first place.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
My expertise and my testimony was focused on what I saw as a drug rep, what I saw as a med device rep, what I saw billing insurance companies. And that was a part of the talk that we didn't even get to dive deep into. But the goal was to explain to the Senate that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Literally, we're there saying diet, lifestyle, nutrition, getting proactive, predictive, and personalized. That's the message. The system's waiting for you to get sick, and then they're giving you drugs. Rather than waiting to get sick and taking a drug, let's get proactive and predictive. Let's look at you at the biological level.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Let's stop the chronic disease from developing at its roots and prevent this crisis.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Absolutely. There has to be. And that's where I say – This is what's crazy. People are going to spend money. The only way I can scale this and make it better for people and more cost effective is AI and large language models, which is what I'm rapidly running towards, which even in that Hatchet Job article, she says, and he's illegally using AI to prescribe. I'm not prescribing medicine using AI.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
She doesn't. claim that? Yeah, she said something to that nature. Isn't that defamatory? I'm like, we are using AI to assess blood work, and then it is reviewed by a board-certified clinician that then reasserts the AI's homework, and the AI is just there as an additional tool. Now, the vision of the future...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
and I think this will happen, is I think AI will replace a lot of primary cares in America.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
From the food processing, growing, harvesting, chemical treatments, to the packaging, to the ingredients we add into our food, to the hospital systems, throughout the system, front to back, the American people are set up for failure. In the 1950s, the FDA had approved 700 different ingredients in our food products. That's it, 700.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Even at a great cash pay clinic, you know, like I think Ways to Well is a phenomenal clinic. I think there's hundreds, if not thousands of phenomenal cash pay clinics. Peter Attia is brilliant. In any of those practices, the clinician has to do a chart review before you come in. That's going to take them at least 20 minutes if they're doing a good job.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Then they're going to spend 45 minutes to an hour with you, walking you through everything in your chart, what they saw, family history, genetics, epigenetics, cross-reference that with blood work. That's a lot of work. AI can do it instantly. Instantly. And at your own timeline and discretion. So your blood work comes back. Joe, you're busy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
You don't have time to get on the phone for 40 minutes with a provider. No problem. You log into the app and you ask Alan. Alan, hey, remind me again, what was my blood work on testosterone? And then Alan's going to tell you and then you can ask this AI anything.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And it is backed by all the peer-reviewed journal studies, white paper studies, all the data that we've loaded in that has been cross-referenced by our clinical team. And we're guiding that. It's not an open architecture, but we're allowing it to essentially help practice medicine in a way that we believe is the appropriate approach to medicine. And how can that be bad?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I just think in the future, it's going to be the way of the future, and it'll allow us to get cost-effective.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Because you would know the AI, imagine a world where – and again, sword cuts both ways. Every tool can be good or bad. But what I'm envisioning is – AI monitoring you 24-7, tying into your wearables. We know your REM sleep, your heart rate variability. You've gone through and you've done a DEXA. I know how much lean muscle mass you have, how much visceral fat, how much subcutaneous fat.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I have your epigenetics, your genetics all loaded in. I know your family history. We've done a cancer screening. I know that you have no forms of cancerous tumors in your body at this moment. From there, now we have a clean bill of health and a starting point, but we're tracking you. I know that Joe slept five hours on Saturday. I know that Joe got one hour of sleep on Saturday.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And then we can accrue those data sets and begin to cross-reference it. Like right now we have over 60,000 patients at Ways to Well. Imagine when it's nationwide and we have millions. How are you monitoring their sleep? We're not yet. This is the app that we're launching. So what would you use? We want to be agnostic, so we want to tie into Sleep 8. We want to tie into Whoop, any of them.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
If you'll give us access to that data, we'll know what date you started prescription care. You'll be able to refill your medicine straight through the pharmacy because it's vertically integrated. Here's the challenge with traditional medicine. Every software is based on how to get paid from the fucking insurance company. That's it. Pharmacy software is 30 years old.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
It is purely based on how do I get my money from CVS? How do I get my money from United? It's not meant to be a tool that helps drive health span and health care. But if we vertically integrate pharmacy software with the medical practices software, with the AI, the wearables, the REM sleep, it then knows what date Joe started... glutathione or whatever, a peptide or whatever it is.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And we're going to see if we can track a marked improvement in heart rate, variability, REM sleep, and all those variables. And then at the end of a year, we reassess you proactively and personalized through a DEX and a VO2 max. And we say, look, Joe, You gained one pound of lean muscle mass. You didn't put on any additional body fat. Your visceral body fat is at an all-time low.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Your chronic disease score is an A+. We do not think you're headed towards a chronic disease. We are proactive, not sitting back waiting for you to get cancer. We're going to roll our sleeves up and go to fucking work. And it's not hard. This does not cost a fortune. It is totally affordable. I hear all the time like... This is your body. This is how I ended my speech to the Senate.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Today, there are over 10,000 chemicals and petrochemicals in our food products in the United States. In Europe, still 700. Jesus. And what gets crazier is when Food Babe, she's an influencer, right? And that's been, you know, crapped on by the media.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And I believe this. $400 trillion to one. $400 trillion to one are the chances you are alive in this room today. What are we going to do with it? Are we going to let these bastards at big pharma and big medical profiteer off of our family members and profiteer off chronic disease? Or are we going to take sovereignty and accountability?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Are we going to test ourselves and drive our health span and take ourselves out of their fucking shitty life raft that's going down? Like, it doesn't matter if you have a first Republican Democrat. Congratulations. You have a front row seat on the fucking Titanic. That's where we're headed if we don't get proactive is not a left or right issue. This is an American issue.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
That's all I keep trying to hammer home. And thank God the Republicans are talking about it. And I hope the Democrats will start talking about it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
It's one of the things that RFK said that I think it really did resonate with me was we have to stop. We have to start loving our kids more than we hate each other. And seeing like. I won't name it, but I know a little girl who struggles with her weight, and I look at that, and this kid is doing all she can. And it's hard to tell a little kid, like, your friends can eat that candy, but you can't.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Everyone in school is drinking their soft drinks and all these things, and it's bad for all of them. It's just some kids are metabolically showing it sooner. You know, but it isn't good for anyone who's consuming these things.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And it creates an environment. Yeah, that this is an addiction issue now. And then that leads to a mental health issue and low self-esteem. And part of the problem with the addiction of food, too, is you have to eat food.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And that's where the GLP-1s, where I do say like morbidly obese, chronically ill, diabetic, pre-diabetic, patients headed over a cliff. It has been rebranded as a lifestyle drug for any girl who's trying to lose weight for spring break. Right. That's dangerous. And it is dangerous to say that there is no risk reward to prescribe that in children. We don't know the long term ramifications.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Yeah. But she's an advocate, and she's just a voice, a mother out there saying, hey, guys, what's wrong with this picture? Let me show you what's in Froot Loops in America, and let me show you what's in Froot Loops in Canada. The same manufacturer, Kellogg's, is selling one product to the American people and a safer – less ingredient, less chemical-filled product outside the United States.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
It's a little bit different risk analysis when we're talking about a chronically ill, obese patient in their 40s headed towards chronic disease crisis that's going to kill them. Yeah. That's a different...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
risk profile and safety profile analysis then a twelve-year-old little girl who's overweight that's a totally different talk track so you know i have some differing viewpoints from the other folks on that committee but that's the beauty of a democracy we can disagree on topics but agree on the issue of we've got a lot of work to do and and some things to fix but it's very straightforward did you disagree all day long
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
He would give it all up and start from scratch. Right. You're spot on. You don't understand. I sit at dinners when I get the opportunity to be with my family and I look around the table and I really do think, Joe, ever since losing my brother, I am so present in those moments. And I just want everyone to be healthy. And I want the good memories to last.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And I want to be able to watch people live happy lives. And all the data and numbers and statistics, they're so overwhelming that people lull over. And that's why in front of the Senate, I brought it back to, I'm just going to talk about people.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I didn't even talk about statistics because there were way smarter people out there than me from Harvard, Stanford, all these academic types that are brilliant. And I'm like, but at the end of the day, guys, if the Senate doesn't understand, these are your children, your wives, your brothers, your sisters, your husbands, your wife. Like this is this is these are family members.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
This is not just a number. These are real lives. One point nine million people dying a year of chronic disease. That doesn't even include deaths of despair, suicide, opioid abuse. We are a chronically ill society. And those impacts destroy families, destroy them. The ramifications are so far beyond that. Finances in numbers, but even finances in numbers, 24% of our federal budget, healthcare.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Number one budget concern federally is healthcare. Number one concern for most states, healthcare. Number one reason for bankruptcy in the United States for an individual, healthcare. It is a huge problem. But that's the dollars and cents of it. The real cost is paid in human lives and lost loved ones. And that's that's all I wanted them to hear is don't sweep this under the rug.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
They have the ability to sell it here, but they don't because they know they can sell more addictive, more colorful, vibrant, that attract kid food sources here in the U.S. It's so dark. And so we walked through all of that. It blew my mind on the food front. And we know, you and I have talked, like in the healthcare system, my main message was,
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I think I think a tremendous amount. But the problem is then you swing that pendulum to overregulation and you've created a drug addict in the marketplace. And all those addicts turned to fentanyl and black market products. Right. Because the addiction is already there. Now we've already addicted. More people are dying of opioids today than ever before. And so the damage is prescribed less.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Yeah, the damage has been done. And that's what's hard. I don't know how you put that genie back in the bottle. The question becomes, what is the next opioid crisis? What's the next thing? It's almost like a hoarder's house.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I would even argue that the market we live in now is – A pharmaceutical insurance cartel, you know, they are glorified drug dealers monetizing people's chronic disease. And they have such a stranglehold over academia, the universities. They fund most of the studies, the NIH.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I mean, we just systematically go down from the food system to the government regulatory bodies, to the enforcement committees, to everything. They control the media. Like as soon as somebody gets, you know, get a little mouthy, anything, they come and hammer you.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
and try to discredit you and portray it also how transparent it is like who owns the companies i know that's but most people aren't going to spend the time to go like i looked because i'm like who is this attacking me i want to understand their viewpoint it wasn't oh ha ha ha gotcha i'm gonna bust these people it was more of let me try and understand the other side and try and see what we could have said that would have been so inflammatory because the message is
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Hope. It was hope. It was unity. It was working together. It was drop the part that has become healthy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
We're here to talk about the boom in chronic disease. We know that food and our environment has a huge impact on that, but so does preventative care. And so does building an ecosystem that allows clinicians to troubleshoot and diagnose and prevent chronic diseases from evolving in the first place. These are all metabolically related disease states.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And that's where I go, who has the most to win by dividing us? It's not the Democrats. It's not the Republicans. It is the powers that be.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And when we peel back the layers, BlackRock, Vanguard, that own the majority shares of these pharmaceutical companies, that own the majority shares of most of the media outlets, that own the left and the right, they push agendas and they can control everything essentially except podcasts and free speech.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And that's one of the things that Jordan Peterson said in a meeting the night before we testified was – He implored us to stop trying to cater to the mainstream media because he said it's a lost cause. It's a lost hope. I hate to say that to you guys, but the world has given up on them. Why are you guys wasting your time with them?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Focus on podcasts, books, areas where you can truly, in a long-form format, expose the truth and ask and respond to hard-hitting questions. And we talked about you and your platform, and this is... You know, has been that people try to label it as misinformation at times. And I'm like, what part is me? Anytime I've come on, I've cited all my references on the Ways to Well website.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I list reference after reference, study after study.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Yeah, and I'll even say, and again, I don't know. I don't want to be too conspiratorial. I went to bed, and I was exhausted after that Senate hearing. I posted it. I'm a nobody. I didn't expect... I went to bed, and I want to say I had 1.3 million views. And I posted a rebuttal about one of the periodicals that was misrepresentative. And I just posted, hey...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Not a fair assessment of what happened today. 2,000 American people traveled from around the country to sit and hear an open dialogue that was bipartisan, backed by some of the best and brightest minds in medicine. Harvard, Stanford, Stedman Hawkins, all were present. This was not a bunch of influencers, blah, blah, blah. Shame on you. That was all I posted. Didn't get in the weeds.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
woke up the next day and all the momentum was gone like it we only we we still i think are sitting at 1.3 million i don't believe and then casey got messaged hey they'll de-platform you be careful if you start naming specific news outlets and i still believe that somehow we got de-algorithmed or deprioritized after we began to push back on the media for the stuff they were saying.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
All the chronic diseases that are killing us can be traced back to diet, lifestyle, and nutrition, but none of our clinicians are trained on diet, lifestyle, and nutrition.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Your JRE experience. I don't know if they're affiliated with you or just a fan page. JRE experience Instagram. He print screened and messaged me and it said this video is not suitable for repost or something. My video from testifying in front of the Senate. They won't let you repost things. This was a Senate hearing. What are you talking about?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
It was going crazy, and then I would see 100 new follow, 100 like whatever, and then the next morning, dead, totally dead. Like literally right after we were all trading texts about that article, and we're like – I just cannot believe they reacted with an article this fast, and it's a total misrepresentation of what occurred today. That's all they need.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And it tried to make it sound like it was a left or right-wing political movement, like a right-wing political ideology. And it's like everyone in that room – in fact, most of the people on the panel – We're Democrat backgrounds, registered Democratic voters like there were some Republicans on there, but it was a mixture is a melting pot.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And we're all free thinkers like don't take my ability to think critically away from me. I don't give a shit which party you're part of. I am here for team people. Let's talk about the issues and stop trying to make this left or right like it's not.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I feel like. I feel like, for example, the New York Post article, I honestly, the way they worded that, they tried to make it sound like I'm just a regular on your podcast and I come on here and just shit all over the FDA. And I'm like, I'm doing my best to be transparent and say they're at a disadvantage. They're underfunded. They didn't build this model. They were put in this model. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And they're doing their best to navigate, but they're underfunded, understaffed, and chronically corrupted. Right. By the environment itself. But I would tell you the same thing with academia, the same thing with hospital systems. It's not me picking on one person.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
The biggest thing I saw in health care was doctors were exhausted, whether orthopedic surgeons, neurosurgeons. I mean, I told you this. My buddy, he's a prominent sports medicine surgeon. He's a team doctor for multiple teams. He's had highest positions at hospital systems. And even he says, what am I going to do, man? What am I fucking supposed to do? You know, I got it. I need to do surgeries.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I've got to do a certain amount of surgeries to make all the all of this flow and work. And I've got to hold my team accountable for the amount of surgeries and their volumes. And you're never supposed to make it about volumes. But all of these hospital systems are incentivized off volume metrics that are based off. cranking out the most amount of surgeries.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And so there is a tremendous amount of pressure from the top down. And with insurance companies dwindling reimbursements and dwindling, like even primary care reimbursements, but also surgical reimbursements, you're not going to be able to innovate when it's a race to the bottom, right? A total joint's paying less now.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Yeah. But you and I've talked about this with some of your comedy friends that have become my friends, too, to watch the evolution. You just got to give people momentum. We just got to get some wins on the board. We got to give them hope. And we've got to start by having the conversation. And that's what I was optimistic about for the first time in my adult life.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
It's going to take an 8% haircut every year, and it has for like the last 15 years. So nobody's going to go out and buy some brand new state-of-the-art joint or even innovate a brand new state-of-the-art joint because it's all about commodity, commoditizing it and driving down the cost right now to make it affordable to even get a joint.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Growing up in Houston, I was used to hurricanes. A fire would be terrifying.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And so Bobby's team had reached out to me maybe about a year and a half ago to come up to Dallas while he was doing a campaign there and sit down with him and he was, just asking 100 questions about what's going on and what did you see on the pharmaceutical side and what did you see owning pharmacies and billing insurance companies.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
cracking in half. Are they having that many claims? Is that why?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
The Senate is willing to sit down with a group of individuals and have a deep conversation about where our food comes from, how our food is being processed, what ingredients are in our food and how that could potentially lead to chronic disease. And it got labeled by some of the. I would say hatchet job media outlets that have come out, and we can dive into that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I've only been in one earthquake, and it was in Japan when we were at Disney in Japan, and an earthquake hit. This was recently. Yeah. We were with Philip, Frank, and Lee, and Margarita, and Amanda and I were all there, and literally the earthquake hit. I get a text. And I look and all the Japanese people are looking at their phones too. And it's like, like an Amber Alert.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And I look and it says, seek shelter, nine point, whatever, eight points. That was a huge one. I don't know earthquakes. I don't want to tell you they're wrong. Whatever the giant one was that just happened. And every Japanese person just dropped to the ground and covered their heads. And we were in a cave, like a man-made cave at Disney.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
So Amanda looked at me and was like, fuck that, and just took off running. Oh, wow. And we, like, ran out of the cave. Good move. But everyone was just down on the ground. And then the tsunami warnings followed. And I was just thinking, like— I grew up with hurricanes, and you know they're coming. You have like a week. The earthquake stuff is terrifying. Terrifying. That is scary.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Japan gets some big ones. And the earth is literally throwing things and moving. That's way scarier to me than hurricanes.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
When I got back to the hotel, there was a koi pond, because it's Japan, beautiful koi pond, but it was up on, like, the 30th floor. Oh, God. All that water was just all over the lobby from the hotel swaying.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
All the birds came first flying through. Animals know.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Yeah, I even saw it. Well, they have, they have senses that I think we have too, that we just don't have anymore. You know what I'm saying? Like you and I talk about that when you go hunting and by like day two or three, you almost feel like you're more aware, more in tune to every noise, every, you feel the temperature more that everything gets enhanced. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Well, it's crazy. He's a wildlife photographer, but when you talk to him because he's been through shit, you know, living in Russia. He's worn out. No, he's amazing because he's so optimistic, and he'll say, and I agree with him, this is the greatest country in the world. We are the greatest country in the world, but we have to fight for that. No, we have to torch the Constitution.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
You have it in your stand-up bit. That part where you talk about politics, that's 100% how I feel, and that's how almost everybody I know feels. Yeah. It's a lie that we all believe the Republicans or the Democrats. We don't. We we're all individuals and free thinkers and every topic is different and nuanced and it's not that easy. It's not.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
But it's hard to find a party that represents everything you believe in. And again, I'm not political. So I focus on health care because it's what I know. And I know I can debate anyone on this on this topic. I fucking know it. You want to talk about the Ukraine? I'm a moron. I can't help you there. I don't know. But I know health care and I know how broken it is.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Go to yoga class. The example I can give you is one of the bills that they are putting in place is to cover GLP-1s for every American that wants it. That's $1,500 a month right now because of what the pharmaceutical and insurance companies have done to price gouge and market up. Shouldn't be that. It should be under a couple hundred dollars a month. But it's not, and it's not going to be.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And so I look at that and go, okay, for $1,500 a year, You could get the DEXA, the VO2 max. You could be monitored with AI 24-7. You could get at minimal blood work twice a year, comprehensive consult, one hour deep dive into your biologics, and we could treat the root cause of the issue. Because I said this on Jillian's podcast with GLP-1s. I am not against them.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I'm still a believer in them when utilized appropriately. But prescribing a GLP-1, a weight loss drug, Without talking about diet, lifestyle, and nutrition, it's like brushing your teeth while eating fucking Oreos.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Well, what gives me hope is the Democrats were in that meeting and there were Democrat senators that were interested. And I don't believe that it's the Democrats. I believe it's an agenda beyond the Democrats. And it's not – I just think people are trying to intentionally create that strife and that separation. And I don't believe it's the Democratic Party.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
What's hard is they went immediately at, like, these are all entrepreneurs that have something to sell you. And I can tell you, sitting in the room with those people, all of us were scared. All of us were scared. It's scary. I'm not going to make money off of this. If anything, I could lose money. I have businesses that are under the FDA's guidelines, are under the FDA's oversights.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I believe it's people attempting to hijack the Democratic Party and attempting to trivialize this message by portraying it as – A political agenda rather than the facts of life of where we're at as a nation. That's for sure the root cause of it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
But the insanity of it is, Joe, let's even look at COVID. If we look at the people that died of COVID, it was because of chronic disease and comorbidity. which goes back to when we talk about it, and one of the things that's built into the new Ways to Well AI algorithm app that monitors your blood work is a calculation on your all-cause mortality risk.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
The goal is to drive down all-cause mortality risk. What people don't understand is if you're like you, a physically fit, lean muscle mass, low body fat, healthy individual – It reduces your risk of everything that could kill you. Everything. A car accident, which sounds crazy, but think your body is metabolically healthy and fit. Your chances of surviving and recovering are higher. Oh, for sure.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
It's also hard even in the system when you're separate from politics. When you're in there, there's local politics, right? You're in a hospital system. You're a primary care. Man, you start writing a lot of testosterone and treating your patients, you're going to have the urology section of your hospital pissed off because they're going to go, what the hell is this primary care doing this?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
That's my spectrum. Send them over to me. Right. I could be making money off these people. And everything is siloed in a way that it makes it hard for these clinicians to practice medicine the way they would want.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I don't want to upset the apple cart, but I also want to tell the truth. And I wanted to share what I saw. And that was my message was. I'm not here to represent the left or the right. I'm here to represent humanity. This is not a Republican issue. This is not a Democrat issue. This is a humanity issue. These are people's lives.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
That should be a prerequisite. Even with food. We could overcomplicate food. Okay. Why not just say, if you don't ship it to Europe, don't ship it to Americans? Yeah. Duh. How is that hard? If we don't want to do the double-blind studies and the research, and I get it, and it's hard to do, and it's confusing, but at minimal...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
We can follow the guidance of countries who have better health standards than the U.S. has today.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Yeah, and I heard Tulsi on here talking, and I'm like, God, man, when you look at, like— there's a lot to gain by those people not being able to afford to stay. That's what's scary. They're essentially homeless, and then they still got to pay their mortgages. They still have to pay these bills. They're not going to give them long-term mortgage relief.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Well, we live in a world where things change so fast. See if you can find that. I get how people would get overwhelming because I try to follow it all. And that's why I stick to my niche of health care. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it's so much.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
What do you know about the Ukraine? One of the things – and again, I don't know enough to – I'm curious because I know you've interviewed a lot of smarter people than me. I was told that one of the leverage points for the Ukraine in order to get funding was to put up land as collateral through – like their farmland is put up as collateral on the loans that are being provided.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And those loans are essentially being provided by these big conglomerates.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Because I always look and go, well, there's no such thing as – Everything's biased. No such thing as a free lunch. So what is the real agenda and who's funding and why is always my question just from seeing other sectors and what happens. Of course. Always.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
The WooWoo article, she alludes to how we talked about nothing but metabolic disease. And what does metabolic disease have to do with cancer? Actually, I can tell you. It is the number one risk factor. Obesity and metabolic disease is the number one risk factor to all forms of cancer other than smoking. So if you take smoking and age out of the equation, it's your number one risk factor.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
That's where all of this gets so hard. It's like. I want to believe there's truth in that we have somewhere where we still have integrity and honesty and transparency. It doesn't mean you always get it right. But even redacting the articles doesn't happen.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I don't know enough about, do they do control burns and all that in California now to try and stop, like create stop gaps and all that for the fires? Or how does that, how do they even do that?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
That is so crazy. And the people on that panel, too, to their credit, I was the least qualified of anyone to be in that room. And I was there to talk about my experiences as an industry insider. I am not telling you that I am an expert on metabolic disease. I can tell you that I'm an expert on fuckery. because I've been in health care long enough to see what they're doing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Right, or months later. But it's also an island. It can't be that hard to find these people.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Well, and then I know, too. I mean, it's taken forever for people to get their insurance claims and their money. And that happens even here with hurricanes. It's a. You know, if you don't have the money to pay for stuff yourself, you're stuck battling the insurance company. If you don't have the money to battle the insurance company, then you're really in a tough spot. Right. Yeah, it's dark.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I had a – during a hurricane in Houston at our pharmacy, I had a tree damage the roof, but then it wasn't covered by flood insurance because they said it was wind-driven rain. Anyways, it was like $60,000 in damage that the insurance didn't cover because they could say it's wind-driven rain, not flood – not rising water. So water damage is very specific?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Yeah, they have different ways of loot pulling out of paying your coverage. And so for somebody who's, it's their house, you know, who maybe doesn't have the money to fight the insurance companies, they just put a tarp on the roof and live with it as long as they can until they can afford to fix it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Yeah, I had flood insurance, everything, and it doesn't cover it, so I got left holding the bag. Is there tree insurance?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Oh, God. Insurance is a racket. And then even in health care insurance, you know, like.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Is there a thing out there that's not a racket? I know. Church, religion, everything's a racket.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I think I'm paraphrasing him for sure, but I think that's accurate. As great as we are as humans, we are tribal, like you said. So we find reasons to see how we're different and where to argue and where to fight. And I think that allows corruption to creep in. Oh, yeah. It's insidious. It spreads. It's in every aspect of life.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And I know their equation. I know their offense. But other than me, you had Casey Means, Stanford-trained surgeon. You had Dr. Palmer, a psychiatrist from Harvard who was breaking down metabolic disease and how it's astronomically impacting the mental health crisis in America. One of the stats he dropped on us in his testimony was, we are at an all-time high in suicide and death of despair.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And so when they had an opportunity to put this team together to testify in front of the Senate, the goal was to create a nonpartisan group of individuals to take a new, fresh approach to what is going on with chronic disease in America. because the chronic disease crisis is at an all-time high.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
We're talking about there's no justification for letting in murderers. Mark Twain, there's lies, there's damn lies, and then there's statistics.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Yeah, in California, they don't arrest if it's under $1,300 or something. Oh, yeah. They just let them walk out with TVs, they just gotta make sure it's under like 1200 bucks.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I wonder, even with AI, as we get down to that, like you were talking about, it's a way more complex conversation than today, but what are they going to do with the massive displacements in jobs between AI and robotics and humanoid robots?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I mean, there's 10 companies out there that are launching robots, not just Elon, and those are backed by chat GPT and large language models that are rapidly approaching the level of human knowledge and intellect that...
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
We already have – everyone has Alexa in their house and what was that one? Like I told – I made a joke about the government. I laughed. Alexa laughed. So did the FBI or whatever it is. It's so entrenched in our world. I don't know. I don't know.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
greater than during the Great Depression. More Americans are dying of suicide and death of despair, more than ever. More children are being diagnosed with metabolic disease, diabetes. Girls are starting periods six years younger. I don't need a double-blind study to tell you something's wrong. Just look at the data. And that was this message. I'm hearing a lot of woo-woo from you.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
It's nuts, and it's like right out in the open. Well, with the AI and the way things are headed too, though, when we talk about displacement of jobs, so many people think it's going to be like Trade workers. And I'm like, no, this is going to replace clinicians. This is going to replace doctors, lawyers, you know, a lot of. Dude, a lot of things. A lot.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I say this, you also need a purpose. In Viktor Frankl's A Man's Search for Meaning, he survived that Nazi concentration camp because he had a purpose, a higher calling. I can tell you, when I'm just eating shit sandwiches and getting my head stomped in right now, running these companies, over 300 employees, DEA, FDA companies,
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
you know, fighting big pharma, all the things we battle, there are a lot of days I go to bed with anxiety and stress, but I go to bed feeling like I'm really on the right side of something positive. I really, truly do. When I was a device rep, I made good money, But I went to bed miserable every night, and I felt like I'm just kind of a pawn in a scheme, and we're not really making an impact.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
So I go back to I think people, humans, we need a purpose. And so that scares me the most is a lot of people's purpose, if it's not being a mother or a father or a sibling, they find purpose in their trade and their craft and their job. Yeah. Right. Their cause. So what do we do when... That's a really good question.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
You have some of the coolest art in your studio and at the club. I love art. Super cool art.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
When I see your Greg Overton stuff, it's like you're looking. It is insane, the detail. It's incredible. It's crazy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I need some data. As we get into that, in the names, they just totally breezed over and that article tried to make it sound like it's a bunch of influencers. And it's like, yes, there were some people who have social media presences, but there were also academics there. But also you can't Harvard, Stanford and Stedman Hawkins.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Yeah, you just do the European male. That's what I like.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I think they look like when you go to, you know, one of these lodges where they have like entire scenes. Like I saw one, the guy on the second story of his house, like has a kudu drinking out of water and it's literally a crocodile coming up. I mean, it's wild.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
It's nuts. These people are out of their fucking mind. And it's weird because it's the same as Tiger King in a way, like... It's the same personality quirk. You know what I'm saying? Yep. It's this weird personality quirk. When you watch it, you'll see some of the, I don't want to say mental health issues, but some of the traumas or whatever they are are the same. They're mentally ill people.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Well, and then they have that hormone dump. I think they were saying the male primates are like five or six years old, so they become really hard to domesticate or keep as a pet because they get violent. I mean, that's their way of communicating.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
The kind of musculature they have. I haven't messaged Tony about it yet, but the Vince McMahon. What do you mean? They just dropped a Vince McMahon docuseries on Netflix. Oh, it's not about chimpanzees. No, no, this is a new Netflix one about Vince McMahon and the WWE. It's pretty intense. No, I haven't seen it, man. Speaking of muscles. He was doing some wild shit.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I'm still I'm only on like the second episode, but they're getting into like there was a lot of there was some weird stuff like they even they were even bringing in little kids kind of like going down that Epstein path. Oh, my God. They talk about that, like not kids. Teenage boys, kids though, 15-, 16-year-old kids working crews and stuff that were being utilized sexually and exploited.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Oh, Jesus Christ. Yeah, there's a lot of sinister stuff in there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Yeah, it's all allegations and whistleblowers and, I mean, who knows? You never know anymore.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
But you also live in that imaginary world where you've created this character and then at what point does the character become you when you've done it for 30, 40 years, whatever it was. Right. Because he grew up. His dad founded it and he was integral into the storylines and then became... Like his character was the pompous Vince McMahon. Right. Elitist. Like that was his whole character.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
That was his shtick. So did that bleed into life? Does reality become fiction become reality?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
What did it say about that? They haven't gotten into that. By the second episode, they're talking about steroid use, and they're definitely—I didn't know that they indicted him for— Selling steroids to his athletes. I mean, a lot of crazy stuff. Oh, really? I didn't know that either. Yeah, they tried to indict him, and he fought it. I think he got off. I haven't got that far yet.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And, you know, even Bonnie is the food babe. Bonnie, her battle has helped. Remove ingredients from certain states, stop chemicals in certain food sources.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I love his coverage. He's so smart. He breaks stuff down so eloquently.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
It's such a short-term... There's so many bad things that can happen there. It is crazy to me that athletes are using that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
They are some of the most bang... Like, God, man, we've... We've had the opportunity to work with several big WWE wrestlers, and they have put their bodies through hell. I mean, I would say even more than jiu-jitsu and MMA guys and NFL guys, out of everybody we've worked with, the wrestlers are the most beat to shit. You know who's not beat to shit?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
They're actually going to march to Kellogg on the 10th of next month to hand a petition signed by over 100,000 Americans coming out the tail end of that, asking them to remove dangerous chemicals that they don't put in food products in other countries and just match it. That's all they were asking. Hey, why don't we just match what you're doing outside the U.S.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Can you imagine being back there like half starving and Brock Lesnar gets off a boat walking onto your land? You're like, oh, God.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
They were doing a lot of mushrooms. Yeah, they were doing psychedelics and human sacrifices and all sorts of stuff. Yeah, they would sacrifice people. Did you ever see that show, Vikings? Oh, loved it. Yeah, Ragnar Lothbrok and, like, Lagertha. Great fucking show.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
As you got in the late, I don't know how far you followed it through, but it went into Ivar the Boneless. But all these are historical figures. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's fictional, what is it, fictional history or whatever it is, but it is based in some truth, which is fascinating. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I watched a little bit of it. I watched the beginning of it. I don't know what happened. It was really, really good at Genghis Khan. I think you've talked about it. Isn't it one-eighth of the world's population? Ten percent.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Wasn't it? Was it you and I that were talking about if you go back to ancient Mesopotamia, it's only like 50-something humans ago if you base it off people living to be 100.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
and all these other countries where they've said these products aren't safe? Why are we allowing you a mulligan on the U.S. population when it comes to food? And they've never been studied. That's the other wild thing. The FDA doesn't have the bandwidth to study every time a new ingredient is added to a food source.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And he just did that everywhere he went. They did that in Ireland, too. The British royalty or aristocrats would impregnate the Irishmen on the night of their wedding. They would impregnate their wives. Oh, Jesus Christ. That's what Braveheart was about.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
He came back, and I'm blanking out on his name, but fought for the Irish because they were basically raping their wives and making sure that they were raising British noble-born instead of Irish people. Oh, my God.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
If you look at it, they didn't really get into it in the movie, but when we did Europe, we did a tour where they were breaking down how bad they tortured him and mutilated him in a public setting prior to killing him. William Laws? Oh my God, it's brutal.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
So you and I have gone down the rabbit hole on the FDA's attempt to try and regulate and rein in big industry like big pharma and big medical. And I know I've told your listeners for over 90 percent of the products in the operating room have never been through an FDA human safety trial. It's it was an entity built at a time to serve a purpose. And I just think they're drowning.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
I will tell you, I know you had him on, but Empire of the Summer Moon, I'm so excited for that to come out as a series. Who's directing it?
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And then he also leases the horses and the livestock and all of that to Paramount. Oh, that's smart. Yeah, and his ranch he leases to Paramount, which is brilliant because he is a real cowboy with real cowboys that he, and I also love that he casts real cowboys into the subsidiary roles or the supporting roles of the shows.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Well, if you watch him on a horse when he's doing all his crazy horse stuff, I mean, it's wild how awesome his horses are that he's trained.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
It just shows the reality of how hard life was. Yeah. I mean, it was brutal for everyone. For everyone there. Like, God, it was brutal times.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
That's why if you've ever played Oregon Trail in elementary school or that's what they had when I was in elementary school and you I would always die of syphilis or dysentery. I would never survive dysentery or what was it? Dysentery and or you get killed by Indians or whatever it is. But you look at how statistically unlikely it is that we're all here. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And I got to believe it's for a reason. We got to be here for something, right? We got to be in. And I don't want us to squander.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
plan it all out people say so often that like eating healthy working out it's expensive it takes time but being chronically ill is way more expensive way more takes way more time and you you have to choose your heart but there is no path that's just going to be a cakewalk
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And I think there's a lot of. industry influence and spit being swapped that can skew decisions and viewpoints. And that's dangerous. It is dangerous.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Just give it a try. Even walking. Casey has a stat she'll drop on you. I don't remember the numbers, so I won't even attempt, but just walking a few days a week, maybe four days a week. Especially after food. It's insane, the difference in all-cause mortality risk and reduction in chronic disease.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Yeah, after the age, I think it's after the age of 65, one of your greatest risk factors is a fracture. If you fracture a hip or vertebrae, you have between a 15% and 35% chance of being dead within a year. Oh, my God. It's one of the greatest risk factors.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And think about it because your body has to recover and rebuild and you don't have all the health and youth that you had in your earlier years. But surgery from older people is rough too. So if you stay active and keep muscle and keep bone mineral density and get proactive and all the things we've talked about. If we start monitoring your bone mineral density in your 20s to your 30s to your 40s.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
We know your family history. You're a petite girl. You're going to experience a decline in bone mineral density. We've got to get ahead of that. One of the things they did that ruined that for so many women was the Women's Health Initiative, scaring them out of hormone optimization for women.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And it terrified women, telling them that it was going to cause cancer and all these things, which ends up being the opposite. And it did a huge disservice to women that created indirectly a rise in osteoporosis and osteopenia. But one of the companies that was funding that was Merck. And Merck sells an osteoporosis drug.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
They have a blockbuster osteoporosis drug called Fosamax that they printed money on during that time frame.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And so it's hard because they do say trust the science, and I'm not telling people don't trust the science. Trust but verify. Let's keep honest people honest.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
That he was intentionally saying that he was being funded to say those things. Yes. And mislead the public.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
Well, and it makes total sense because, again, not to say – when you're in it, you think you're doing right. I don't think that people are out there trying to harm humanity. I don't. I really want to hope that's not the case. But when I was a drug rep at 22 and you bring in a thought leader from Harvard that tells me all the ways that they're using this brilliant mental health drug off-label –
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And then you put tremendous pressure and give me an expense account and send me out to drinks with a doctor. And I'm sitting there and the doctor's like, where else can I use this drug? You're like, do I tell him what that guy from Harvard told me? Because I also signed a contract that said I wouldn't. But then the company taught me all that and put me in this environment.
The Joe Rogan Experience
#2208 - Brigham Buhler
And it's like a wink, wink, nod, nod. And the pressure is to grow the patient population on a drug. That's why GLP-1s went from being for diabetic, obese people to... Now let's help people lose weight for spring break. Real quick. Fast. Real quick. And it got accepted fast. That's what's scary.