Joe Rogan Experience #2208 - Brigham Buhler

1. 0:00 – 2:34

   From podcast to Capitol Hill: how Buhler ended up testifying before the Senate

   1. NANarrator0:00

      (drumming) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. NANarrator0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. NANarrator0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music plays)

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:12

      (laughs) So- so tell me what it's like to testify in front of the Senate. What is that like?

   5. BBBrigham Buhler0:19

      Man, it was pretty wild. Uh, it all transpired so fast. I got a call from, uh, Calley Means, we've become pretty good buddies. I know you're having him and his sister, Casey, on the podcast. Uh, brilliant folks that are just patient advocates. I mean, at the end of the day, uh, they had the same experiences I had. Calley a little bit different walk of life, he was a lobbyist. Casey was a doctor, Stanford-trained surgeon, uh, 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 gotta be a better way." So their voice rung so loud after, I think, they did Tucker, that, uh, it led to momentum. And then, because of you having me on the podcast, that's how I met, uh, RFK. 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?" 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 non-partisan group of individuals to take a new, fresh approach to what is going on with chronic disease in America, uh, because the chronic disease crisis is at an all-time high. I mean, we could go through all the statistics, and I know that Casey and Calley 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. 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.

   6. JRJoe Rogan2:11

      Wow.

   7. BBBrigham Buhler2:11

      And we're not talking about it. So to me, I was excited when they said, "Hey, the Senate's willing to- to hear," and that's the beauty of a democracy. They- they did let us come in there and candidly take a dump on the (laughs) Senate floor on what's going on with this healthcare system-

   8. JRJoe Rogan2:26

      Was any-

   9. BBBrigham Buhler2:26

      ... and really dig into the weeds.

   10. JRJoe Rogan2:28

       Did anybody try to take the side of the pharmaceutical drug industry? Did anybody question you or try to push back?

2. 2:34 – 4:14

   Inside the hearing: crowd turnout, Senate coaching, and pushing back on “Americans just want a pill”

   1. BBBrigham Buhler2:34

      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. They- they- they- the Senate didn't expect it. We had assembled a grassroots effort to get the word out there, and over 2,000 people took off from work. These are... This is a Senate hearing. Over 2,000 hardworking Americans took time from their busy day, flew to DC, 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. 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. Um, and to the Senators' credit, you know, behind closed doors, they- they did say, "You probably don't wanna 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-

   2. JRJoe Rogan3:42

      How- how did they phrase that?

   3. BBBrigham Buhler3:44

      Um, they just said, "You catch more flies with honey than you do vinegar." And, you know, me, Calley, and the other folks that sat on this panel, um, you know, our goal was to just share our stories and share what we saw. And so my- 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. Like that's all I wanted people to understand. These are human lives, you know? When Jelly Roll testified,

3. 4:14 – 7:55

   Regulatory capture and pharma influence: FDA funding, advertising, and the opioid disaster

   1. BBBrigham Buhler4:14

      I think he said there's equivalent to a 747 jet worth of people die of opioids a day, and-

   2. JRJoe Rogan4:20

      (sighs)

   3. BBBrigham Buhler4:20

      ... that's insane. And that all started with the lapses in the FDA and the drug regulatory market, and we know that, you know, there's an argument out there, I know Calley released the number of 50 plus percent of the FDA's funding comes from big pharma. When it comes to drugs alone, 75% of the drug funding comes from the pharmaceutical companies themselves. And so, there's a big market there. Um, and with big pharma spending over eight billion dollars a year advertising, that's more than the entire sum of the FDA's budget.

   4. JRJoe Rogan4:53

      Eight billion dollars a year just in advertisement. Imagine how much-

   5. BBBrigham Buhler4:58

      That's crazy.

   6. JRJoe Rogan4:58

      ... they're making that- that can afford eight billion dollars just in advertising.

   7. BBBrigham Buhler5:02

      Yeah. It's insane.

   8. JRJoe Rogan5:04

      And those ads are wild.

   9. BBBrigham Buhler5:04

      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 gonna fix these problems overnight? I don't. But at least we're having the conversation. And to their credit, they let us speak freely. They didn't put a censor on us. They, you know, they tried to give us some coaching, you know (laughs) to say, "Hey, if you go this route, just understand there's gonna be blowback," and, you know, we're here to get progress on these topics, not, you know, burn the house down type deal. Um, and then I did have some... And it was- it was a bipartisan effort, 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. I, and it's funny, 'cause 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." I mean, after being in healthcare since I was 20 years old, what I see is people struggling for answers. People are in the pit of despair.

   10. JRJoe Rogan6:12

       Who was saying that the American people just want a pill?

   11. BBBrigham Buhler6:15

       Um, 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, a- and I don't, I don't think that's the case. I think people are looking for hope.

   12. JRJoe Rogan6:26

       Well, the, b- here's the thing. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. It's a really healthy, good thing to talk about what you're going through with people, the good and the bad. Don't keep it all bottled up. And sometimes, it c- that can be friends or family, but it also helps to talk to pros. And that's where BetterHelp comes in. It's therapy that's totally online, which makes it so easy to get started. You just fill out a few quick questions and they match you with someone to talk to. And if you don't get the right match at first, you can switch therapists at any time for free. It's easy, it's flexible, it's wherever you are. Seriously, it's a great thing to try. Get a break from your thoughts with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com/jre today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P, .com/jre. If there was a real easy way out, like if there really was a pill with no side effects that cured all your ails, sure, people would want that.

   13. BBBrigham Buhler7:30

       Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan7:30

       And this is the problem, the advertising, that $8 billion a year, it leads you to believe that there is some sort of a solution in the bottom of a prescription bottle.

   15. BBBrigham Buhler7:39

       Yep.

   16. JRJoe Rogan7:40

       And that's not real. That's the problem-

   17. BBBrigham Buhler7:43

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan7:43

       ... is that they've been misled so long and for so far down the line, and here they are chronically ill, suffering, and they're hoping it's the next pill.

4. 7:55 – 11:03

   Food system as upstream driver: 10,000 chemicals, Europe comparisons, and “Food Babe” examples

   1. BBBrigham Buhler7:55

      And that was, our hope was to break down from the start of, how do we process these foods? How do we ma- how do we grow, harvest, and what do we do with our soil? H- how, what do we do with our pesticides? How do we bring these products to market? How do we regulate our food industry in, I... That's all new to me. That's not my expertise. 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, from the food processing, growing, harvesting, chemical treatments, to the packaging, to the ingredients we add into our food, to the hospital systems, uh, throughout the system, front to back, the American people are set up for failure. In 19- in the 1950s, the US had, the FDA had approved 700 different ingredients in our food products. That's it, 700. Today, there are over 10,000 chemicals and petrochemicals in our food products in the United States. In Europe, still 700.

   2. JRJoe Rogan9:05

      Jesus.

   3. BBBrigham Buhler9:06

      And what gets crazier is when FoodBabe i- i- she's an influencer, right? And that, that's been, you know, crapped on by the media. It's like-

   4. JRJoe Rogan9:13

      Well, it's an unfortunate name.

   5. BBBrigham Buhler9:15

      Yeah.

   6. JRJoe Rogan9:15

      Food Babe.

   7. BBBrigham Buhler9:16

      But she, her-

   8. JRJoe Rogan9:16

      (laughs)

   9. BBBrigham Buhler9:16

      She's an advocate and she's just a voice, a mother out there saying, "Hey guys-"

   10. JRJoe Rogan9:21

       Yeah.

   11. BBBrigham Buhler9:21

       "... 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. They have the ability to sell it here, but they don't, because they know they can sell more addictive, more, uh, colorful, vibrant, that attract kid food sources here in the US.

   12. JRJoe Rogan9:51

       So dark.

   13. BBBrigham Buhler9:53

       And so we walked through all of that. It, 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, "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. 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.

   14. JRJoe Rogan10:33

       That's the hard pill for people to swallow, diet, lifestyle and nutrition. It's, it's very hard for people who are addicted to shitty food, who are lazy, who don't have a history of exercise, and you know, their lifestyle sucks and they get home from work and they like to drink.

   15. BBBrigham Buhler10:48

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan10:48

       Like all those things are killing you.

   17. BBBrigham Buhler10:50

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan10:51

       Yeah.

   19. BBBrigham Buhler10:51

       But the, uh, you and I have talked about this with some of your c- comedy friends that have become my friends too, to watch the evolution. You just got to give people momentum.

   20. JRJoe Rogan11:00

       Yeah.

   21. BBBrigham Buhler11:00

       We just got to get some wins on the board. We got to give them hope.

   22. JRJoe Rogan11:03

       Mm-hmm.

5. 11:03 – 17:09

   The “woo-woo” backlash: hit pieces, fear, and why the panel says it’s about humanity

   1. BBBrigham Buhler11:03

      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 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, it got labeled, uh, by some of the, I, I would say hatchet job media outlets that have come out and we can dive into that.

   2. JRJoe Rogan11:34

      Let's-

   3. BBBrigham Buhler11:34

      Somebody called it the woo-woo.

   4. JRJoe Rogan11:35

      Yeah, I saw that.

   5. BBBrigham Buhler11:36

      Yeah.

   6. JRJoe Rogan11:36

      Let's dive into... First of all, fuck you, whoever wrote that, because there's just nothing woo-woo about anything you guys were saying.

   7. BBBrigham Buhler11:43

      Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan11:43

      That's what's really crazy.

   9. BBBrigham Buhler11:44

      Yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan11:44

       T- to say that toxic chemicals that are illegal in other countries, but are legal in the United States, and there's a reason why they're illegal. You could find all the different things that they do to the body-

   11. BBBrigham Buhler11:56

       Mm-hmm.

   12. JRJoe Rogan11:56

       ... all the different damage they cause. To say that that's woo-woo is so crazy. Like what did they list as an example of woo-woo?

   13. BBBrigham Buhler12:07

       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, I'm not gonna 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. I don't wanna upset the apple cart, but I also wanna 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.

   14. JRJoe Rogan12:47

       But it's just stunning that people are willing to whore themselves out to write a hit piece on someone trying to help human beings find healthier choices and realize the root cause of all the diseases that we're facing.

   15. BBBrigham Buhler13:00

       The ma- the woo-woo article, she alludes to how we talked about nothing but metabolic disease, and what does metabolic disease have to do with cancer? Well, actually, I can tell you.

   16. JRJoe Rogan13:09

       Oh my God.

   17. BBBrigham Buhler13:09

       (laughs) It, 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. That's what it has to do with it. And it wasn't-

   18. JRJoe Rogan13:26

       Imagine that statement.

   19. BBBrigham Buhler13:27

       (laughs)

   20. JRJoe Rogan13:27

       What does metabolic health have to do with these diseases? That is so crazy.

   21. BBBrigham Buhler13:32

       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 (laughs) I've been-

   22. JRJoe Rogan13:49

       (laughs)

   23. BBBrigham Buhler13:49

       ... in healthcare long enough to see what they're doing, and I know their equation. I know their offense. But other than me, you had Casey Means, Stanford-trained surgeon. You had, uh, Dr. Palmer, a psychiatrist from Harvard who was breaking down metabolic disease and how it's astronomically impacting the mental health crisis in America. H- h- one of the stats he dropped on us in that h- in his testimony was we are at an all-time high in suicide and death of despair, 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, uh, girls are starting periods six years younger. Like, this doesn't ... I don't need a double-blind study to tell you something's wrong. Just look at the data. And that was this message.

   24. JRJoe Rogan14:40

       What ... You're sound like a lot ... I'm hearing a lot of woo-woo from you.

   25. BBBrigham Buhler14:42

       Yeah. (laughs)

   26. JRJoe Rogan14:42

       I need some data. (laughs)

   27. BBBrigham Buhler14:43

       It's like, as we get into that, and the, and the names they just totally breezed over, and they, they're, 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 from-

   28. JRJoe Rogan14:57

       But also, you can't dismiss-

   29. BBBrigham Buhler14:57

       ... Harvard, Stanford, and Steadman Hawkins.

   30. JRJoe Rogan15:00

       You can't dismiss someone who's giving out factual information because they're a so-called influencer. Some people-
6. 17:09 – 20:17

   Compounding pharmacies and selective scrutiny: how narratives get built (and who benefits)

   1. BBBrigham Buhler17:09

      Absolutely. And this is what I've seen before, owning a compounding pharmacy. Uh, I, when I went on Jillian Michaels' podcast, she was ... She is very opinionated and, 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, 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. Compound ... My pharmacy's been inspected three times in 18 months. Every single ingredient we buy is an FDA approved ingredient. 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. T- we've treated over a million patient lives at Way- I mean at, uh, re- our pharmacy, over a million patient lives nationwide, uh, and-What they do in that environment is they, the media will list any recall, any mistake a pharma, 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 gotta get visas and approvals and all these things to come inspect those facilities. 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. But 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 2,000 manufacturing facilities owned by big pharma haven't been inspected in five or more years? It's just not good journalism. It's not-

   2. JRJoe Rogan19:24

      Well, it just goes back to that-

   3. BBBrigham Buhler19:24

      It doesn't have integrity.

   4. JRJoe Rogan19:25

      ... $8 billion.

   5. BBBrigham Buhler19:26

      Yeah.

   6. JRJoe Rogan19:26

      That $8 billion has an effect. I'm sure these journalists aren't sitting there watching this Senate hearing going, "You know what? I'm outraged. I feel like these people are full of shit. I'm gonna help the American people and write this piece criticizing it." No. They're probably being instructed.

   7. BBBrigham Buhler19:40

      Well, she gave us the, she sent us and said, it was very vague. I get a voicemail, "We wanna write an article on your pharmacy." I find out at 3:00. I'm in meetings. We draft a response explaining all the things we do to go above and beyond and how our, our vision is to bring, you know, cost-effective prescription drugs to the American people, for pennies on the dollar, typically less than your co-pay or deductible. What part of that... And in this article at the end, I shit you not, the girl puts, "And by the way, Eli Lilly's slicing prices by 50% on their weight-loss drug." That's how the article ends.

   8. JRJoe Rogan20:14

      (laughs)

   9. BBBrigham Buhler20:14

      And I'm like, "How is this not an advertisement?"

   10. JRJoe Rogan20:17

       (laughs)

7. 20:17 – 26:49

   Follow-the-ownership money trail: Vanguard/BlackRock, PR firms, Monsanto, and PBMs

   1. BBBrigham Buhler20:17

      And so I looked, and now that I've, uh, 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, but I went and looked and said, "Okay, 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.

   2. JRJoe Rogan20:46

      (laughs)

   3. BBBrigham Buhler20:46

      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, 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. 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 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, in our systems and our protocols and our procedures. We know that corporate capture is real. 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.

   4. JRJoe Rogan22:23

      God.

   5. BBBrigham Buhler22:23

      I mean, good luck getting a story out there.

   6. JRJoe Rogan22:26

      It's so weird that they've been able to do this for so long in such a shifty way. It really is.

   7. BBBrigham Buhler22:32

      Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan22:32

      'Cause it, there should be laws against that. If there's laws against insider trading, how is there not laws against manipulating narratives in order to profit at the expense of people's health?

   9. BBBrigham Buhler22:42

      Yeah, and it, and it, and to even further highlight the level of corruption and corporate capture, uh, 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-

   10. JRJoe Rogan23:00

       (laughs)

   11. BBBrigham Buhler23:00

       ... that owns the PR firm that got this other ... And it's, it's always layered. It's never abundantly clear.

   12. JRJoe Rogan23:06

       Yeah.

   13. BBBrigham Buhler23:06

       Like, it's hard, uh, the other one we talked about was, um, The Atlantic, you know, and as I peeled 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 American, but it got captured by the (laughs) 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. 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% of their profitability in a shell company that's not disclosed to the American public or the US government. 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 wh- wholesale price-

   14. JRJoe Rogan24:28

       (laughs)

   15. BBBrigham Buhler24:28

       ... 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. We, we talked about this again on your last fi- But it's like, uh, I think it was 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.

   16. JRJoe Rogan24:50

       Oh, my God.

   17. BBBrigham Buhler24:50

       And think about how much money is being made off of keeping people on prescription drugs.

   18. JRJoe Rogan24:56

       Did you see the article that I put on my Instagram that they put in The Atlantic? Is it time to torch the constitution?

   19. BBBrigham Buhler25:03

       Oh, I did, I did.

   20. JRJoe Rogan25:03

       Did you see that?

   21. BBBrigham Buhler25:04

       I did. It's scaring me, man.

   22. JRJoe Rogan25:05

       Same people.

   23. BBBrigham Buhler25:06

       It's scary.

   24. JRJoe Rogan25:06

       Same people. They're, they're putting a narrative out there to the general public, who are like, "Whoa, he makes a good point. Maybe we should just give up all our power to Satan."

   25. BBBrigham Buhler25:15

       (laughs) Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan25:16

       It's ... Literally, it's, they're l- literally saying, "Should we torch the constitution?"

   27. BBBrigham Buhler25:23

       It's crazy. It's scary.

   28. JRJoe Rogan25:24

       The only thing that protects us.

   29. BBBrigham Buhler25:26

       It is really scary. And I, 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.

   30. JRJoe Rogan25:31

       And he probably barely knew, right?
8. 26:49 – 32:05

   GLP-1s, telemedicine testosterone, and the prevention-vs-profit tension

   1. BBBrigham Buhler26:49

      And that's where, you know, you and I disagree somewhat on the GLP-1s. Jillian and I disagree on the G- ... Kallie and Casey and I disagree on it. It's okay to disagree. There's nothing wrong with having differing lenses.

   2. JRJoe Rogan26:59

      Well, I think ... I understand your perspective. Your perspective is for chronically obese, like really morbidly obese people, we need to do something. And this is a very good step, and it does work, and it can help people.

   3. BBBrigham Buhler27:12

      Yeah.

   4. JRJoe Rogan27:12

      It is a very good step. I'm the hardcore discipline guy.

   5. BBBrigham Buhler27:16

      (laughs) Yeah.

   6. JRJoe Rogan27:16

      I'm the like, "What the fuck are you talking about?" This is something that you can solve just by eating less.

   7. BBBrigham Buhler27:21

      Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan27:21

      Something you can solve by cutting out sugar, cutting out sodas, cutting out ... Eating whole ingredient foods.

   9. BBBrigham Buhler27:28

      Yep.

   10. JRJoe Rogan27:28

       Eating fish and chicken and red meat and vegetables and cutting out all the bullshit.

   11. BBBrigham Buhler27:35

       You're right. No, you're spot on.

   12. JRJoe Rogan27:36

       That's, that's real. That's a real thing that you can do. However, if you're 600 pounds, and if you've gone so far down the wrong road, you need a hand. You need someone to help you.

   13. BBBrigham Buhler27:45

       Well, and that's where I'm like, i- if I was pushing an agenda, I have a ton to gain by GLP-1s going gangbusters. (laughs)

   14. JRJoe Rogan27:51

       Yeah.

   15. BBBrigham Buhler27:51

       I'm not on that bandwagon. I, I literally sat there with the Senate meeting and said, "This is crazy if we government fund prescribing GLP-1s to children."

   16. JRJoe Rogan28:00

       Well-

   17. BBBrigham Buhler28:00

       That's insanity.

   18. JRJoe Rogan28:01

       We should also-

   19. BBBrigham Buhler28:01

       Like, we need to fix our food products in schools. We need to limit soft drinks and advertising to children. Like, there's a million things we could do that are way more logical and reasonable than starting to stick a kid with an injectable-

   20. JRJoe Rogan28:14

       But it's not as profitable.

   21. BBBrigham Buhler28:14

       ... that they're gonna take the rest of their life.

   22. JRJoe Rogan28:15

       But it's not as profitable.

   23. BBBrigham Buhler28:16

       Yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan28:17

       Yeah, that's the real problem. And, and the, the advertisements about that, they seem to me the same advertisement. It's the same feeling I get when I see advertising about giving babies COVID vaccines.

   25. BBBrigham Buhler28:27

       Mm-hmm.

   26. JRJoe Rogan28:27

       Like, what the fuck are you talking about? Like, you're just trying to make money. You're not trying to protect babies from COVID.

   27. BBBrigham Buhler28:33

       Yep.

   28. JRJoe Rogan28:33

       That's fucking nonsense. It's not a problem with them. It's just not. It's just-

   29. BBBrigham Buhler28:37

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan28:37

       ... sta- statistically not an issue, and certainly not an issue for you to be promoting this potentially dangerous, dangerous remedy.
9. 32:05 – 38:23

   Buhler’s personal health turnaround: diet change, protein focus, and hormone optimization

   1. JRJoe Rogan32:05

      I wanna talk about you, because one of the things that's interesting about this is, like, you were unhealthy at one point in time.

   2. BBBrigham Buhler32:12

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan32:12

      And you were overweight, and this is how you kind of started this journey, and maybe a lot of people aren't aware of that.

   4. BBBrigham Buhler32:17

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan32:17

      Like, you weren't... You, you had to learn all this stuff, and you had to learn all this stuff through your own personal health crisis.

   6. BBBrigham Buhler32:24

      Yeah. I was, um, what was I? 29, 30 years old? Uh, early 30s. And I was 25% body fat, pre-diabetic, headed towards all the same chronic diseases that we're talking about. And I needed-

   7. JRJoe Rogan32:38

      What was your diet like?

   8. BBBrigham Buhler32:40

      Uh, my diet, I had to... Well, originally, my diet was terrible. It was a tr- traditional American diet, right? So, I, I was a surgical rep, and I had to be in the OR by 7:00 AM, and so I would go do CrossFit every morning, 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 in, maybe it was the '80s, eating healthy was like eating wheat bread instead of white bread.

   9. JRJoe Rogan33:15

      Right.

   10. BBBrigham Buhler33:15

       It was eating, uh, low-fat Lay's potato chips and a Diet Coke.

   11. JRJoe Rogan33:19

       Yeah.

   12. BBBrigham Buhler33:19

       That's literally what my family thought was healthy. And that's a lot of Americans. They don't know.

   13. JRJoe Rogan33:24

       Yeah.

   14. BBBrigham Buhler33:25

       And they, 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. But he was like, "If you're doing everything I'm saying..." And so, 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 gonna look at your lipid panel. We're gonna do a, a wellness check." 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 gotta get you in and out of there.

   15. JRJoe Rogan34:10

       Right.

   16. BBBrigham Buhler34:10

       Long story short, six months later, still fat, still trying to lose weight, working out every day, seeing a nutritionist. Nutritionist said, "I wanna refer you to a urology buddy." Uh, 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 and was... We actually did it twice, 'cause he just didn't believe my readings. And my testosterone level after seeing him was 98.

   17. JRJoe Rogan34:38

       Oh, my God.

   18. BBBrigham Buhler34:39

       It's, it's insane. And he-

   19. JRJoe Rogan34:41

       That's like a woman's.

   20. BBBrigham Buhler34:41

       But I, I know. It was terrible.

   21. JRJoe Rogan34:43

       (laughs)

   22. BBBrigham Buhler34:43

       And so he's like, "Of course you're..." He's like, "I don't know if you're, if you're fat because..." Yeah, I told this story before. "I don't know if you're fat because you have low testosterone or if you have low testosterone 'cause you're fat. But you are fat with low testosterone." (laughs)

   23. JRJoe Rogan34:56

       (laughs)

   24. BBBrigham Buhler34:56

       And so, that was my baseline. And through just using-

   25. JRJoe Rogan34:59

       What were you eating then? When you went to the nutritionist-

   26. BBBrigham Buhler35:00

       By then, I was using the nutritionist, but then it was a question of, was the hole, w- did I dig too big of a hole? And then I was in... They, the question is, are you overtraining and you're crashing what little hormones you have left and your body's trying to get-

   27. JRJoe Rogan35:12

       Right.

   28. BBBrigham Buhler35:12

       ... ramped up? So, we ended up treating at the time with hCG and clomiphene.

   29. JRJoe Rogan35:16

       But, but let me ask you this. What, what did the nutritionist tell you to do?

   30. BBBrigham Buhler35:19

       Oh. We prioritized 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 for, 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 and, or lifestyle and activity level. 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, uh, a 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.
10. 38:23 – 44:05

    Insurance incentives and the opioid lesson: cheaper pills beat safer alternatives

    1. BBBrigham Buhler38:23

       It took about a year. And w- and that's where it, what gets crazy with the insurance model. So a lot of people don't know this, like, i- most insurance carriers in the US don't practice preventative. So testosterone would be considered a lifestyle drug. The challenge with, like, an issue like the DEA, if they really do over-regulate testosterone and shut telemedicine companies down from prescribing it, it's gonna limit accessibility for these patients, 'cause primary carers don't wanna prescribe it, right? And so they're gonna punt them off to a urologist. Typically, for an insurance company to cover it, you've gotta 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 gonna take you six months to get in with that urologist. That's i- in the dream world. So just to get the insurance coverage, you're talking six months to a year. And by then, that patient has been chronically ill, headed towards mono- m- metabolic disease, diabetes. You know, we know that testosterone's important to insulating us from certain types of cancer, uh, it's important to our, uh, metabolic health, our bone mineral density, our lean muscle mass. All of these tie into health and longevity and health span and preventing chronic disease.

    2. JRJoe Rogan39:37

       Do you think that the reason why th- it, th- they make it very difficult to get hormone optimization is because if more people get hormone optimization, more people are not on these medications?

    3. BBBrigham Buhler39:50

       I think somewhat, yes, but I also think the-

    4. JRJoe Rogan39:53

       If you just looked at it from a bottom line...

    5. BBBrigham Buhler39:55

       ... the insurance model is a, the insurance model is an obstructionist model, right? And so, i- I can give you a different example with the opioid crisis. You know, there were non-addictive, non-abusive pain creams, okay? If somebody is going to be put on... Uh, 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 that are non-abusive, non-addictive.

    6. JRJoe Rogan40:20

       What are the alternatives?

    7. BBBrigham Buhler40:21

       There were ketamine-based pain creams that were topicals, that could not be diverted or, uh, you couldn't e- extrapolate the ketamine out of it and abuse it. So nobody ever got high or stimulated from it, 'cause 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.

    8. JRJoe Rogan40:38

       So it just works locally?

    9. BBBrigham Buhler40:39

       It had... It just works locally to address that knee pain. Insurance within 12 months quit covering it, because those creams cost hundreds of dollars, whereas an opioid's like, I think $10 a month, right? And then the other thing you'll find is the pharmacy benefit managers who- who the insurance companies own have reimbursement deals on certain drugs. 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's been on the market so long, it's compounded a million places. There is no rebate for the big pharmaceutical companies, or the big, uh, 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.

    10. JRJoe Rogan41:38

        Ugh. Ah.

    11. BBBrigham Buhler41:39

        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. 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's actually in your system. All of those reimbursements used to be covered by insurance companies, but they got rid of that. 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, and I'm just... I'm telling you what I saw. I'm just trying to tell you what I saw.

    12. JRJoe Rogan42:28

        (laughs) Okay.

    13. BBBrigham Buhler42:28

        I'm not saying I have all the answers.

    14. JRJoe Rogan42:29

        I like how you, I like how you had your guts there.

    15. BBBrigham Buhler42:31

        (laughs)

    16. JRJoe Rogan42:31

        But, uh, I mean, that's all highlighted in that Netflix documentary that Peter Berg made about the Sackler family.

    17. BBBrigham Buhler42:37

        Mm-hmm.

    18. JRJoe Rogan42:37

        Which is...... in, not documentary, what'd you call it, docudrama series.

    19. BBBrigham Buhler42:41

        Mm-hmm.

    20. JRJoe Rogan42:42

        That fucking series is so enraging. And a- after that, you know that one guy that they, uh, kept in a hotel room for like two days?

    21. BBBrigham Buhler42:50

        Mm-hmm. The head of the FDA.

    22. JRJoe Rogan42:50

        Who knows what they did for that guy.

    23. BBBrigham Buhler42:52

        Yeah.

    24. JRJoe Rogan42:52

        To that guy. What the fuck did they do to him-

    25. BBBrigham Buhler42:54

        Yeah.

    26. JRJoe Rogan42:54

        ... where they got him to approve that? They found that guy. That guy was in a small town in New Hampshire and they ostracized him. People were just, the sheriff was like, uh, uh, tr- trying to highlight how many people in the community had died of opioid overdose and how much blood was on his hands.

    27. BBBrigham Buhler43:10

        Well, he took a job with the Sacklers.

    28. JRJoe Rogan43:12

        Yeah.

    29. BBBrigham Buhler43:13

        He worked at the FDA, approved that.

    30. JRJoe Rogan43:14

        Yeah.
11. 44:05 – 1:21:02

    Pesticides, government PR, microplastics, and environmental exposure as health risks

    1. BBBrigham Buhler44:05

       (laughs)

    2. JRJoe Rogan44:05

       ... that tweet that I sent you from Jay Bhattacharya. So Michael Pollan, um, you know, he's, uh, highlighted the dangers of, uh, pesticides. "The USDA funded a PR organization that worked with agricultural interests to downplay the harms of pesticides in farming and to compile defamatory dossiers on opponents of pesticide use, including food writer Michael Pollan." Just imagine that the USDA spends money to defame people.

    3. BBBrigham Buhler44:40

       Mm-hmm.

    4. JRJoe Rogan44:40

       Using your tax dollars, spends money to defame people that are trying to tell you that there is poison in your food.

    5. BBBrigham Buhler44:49

       Yeah.

    6. JRJoe Rogan44:49

       Measurable amounts.

    7. BBBrigham Buhler44:51

       Mm-hmm.

    8. JRJoe Rogan44:51

       Something along the lines of 90-plus percent of Americans have Roundup in their system. They have glyphosate in their system.

    9. BBBrigham Buhler45:00

       Mm-hmm.

    10. JRJoe Rogan45:00

        From crops. You have government-funded-

    11. BBBrigham Buhler45:02

        Yeah, that was one of the things I learned too. 5% of the human brain mass and weight is now made of, uh, is now plastics.

    12. JRJoe Rogan45:09

        What?

    13. BBBrigham Buhler45:09

        We learned that in the hearing too.

    14. JRJoe Rogan45:11

        5%?

    15. BBBrigham Buhler45:11

        Blew my mind. Never heard that statistic.

    16. JRJoe Rogan45:14

        Oh my God.

    17. BBBrigham Buhler45:14

        It's terrifying.

    18. JRJoe Rogan45:15

        "Revealed: The US Government's Funded Private Social Network Attacking Pesticide Critics." So what does it say about this? Uh, "In 2017 two United Nations experts called for a treaty to strictly regulate dangerous pesticides which they said were a global human rights concern." Which, by the way, uh, Roundup is illegal in a lot of countries.

    19. BBBrigham Buhler45:35

        Mm-hmm.

    20. JRJoe Rogan45:36

        "Sighting scientific research showing pesticides can cause cancers, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's, and other health problems. Publicly, the pesticide industry's lead trade association dubbed the recommendations unfounded and sensational assertions." (laughs) In private-

    21. BBBrigham Buhler45:51

        But what's crazy is this is Monsanto which is also Bayer, and we talked about that. They, this i- this is the company that knowingly infected people with HIV and shipped it to third world countries because they, their, their, uh, hemophilia drug had been contaminated and they knew they'd get busted if they shipped it in the US, so they shipped it to third world countries and knowingly infected thousands of people with HIV.

    22. JRJoe Rogan46:16

        Put that back up, Jamie.

    23. BBBrigham Buhler46:18

        (laughs) And we're trusting these people?

    24. JRJoe Rogan46:20

        Look, look what it says here. Uh, "Publicly, the pesticide industry's lead trade association dubbed the recommendations unfounded and sensational assertions. In private, industry advocates have gone further. Derogatory profiles of the two UN experts, uh, Hilal Elver and Bashag Tuncock... Tuncak? Tunsak? Are hosted on an online private portal for pesticide company employees and a range of influential allies. Members can access a wide range of personal information about hundreds of individuals from around the world deemed a threat to industry interests, including the US food writers Michael Pollan and Mark Britman, the Indian environmentalist Vandana Shiva, and the Nigerian activist..." You say that one.

    25. BBBrigham Buhler47:06

        (laughs)

    26. JRJoe Rogan47:07

        Nin- how do you say that? How do you think you say that name?

    27. BBBrigham Buhler47:10

        Nnimmo Bassey?

    28. JRJoe Rogan47:10

        Nimamo-

    29. BBBrigham Buhler47:12

        Nninamobassey.

    30. JRJoe Rogan47:13

        Ni- Nimamo-

Episode duration: 3:07:47