Ask Dr. Drew - Health Insurance Stops Cancer Patient’s Surgery DURING Operation… To Dispute Her Coverage w/ Dr. Elisabeth Potter + Dr. Eric Weiss on Stem Cells for Autism – Ask Dr. Drew – Ep 518

Episode Date: August 10, 2025

Texas surgeon Dr. Elisabeth Potter says UnitedHealthcare stopped her mid-surgery to question if the patient’s procedure was necessary – despite the fact the patient was already on the operating table. Dr. Potter was even threatened with legal action after sharing her astonishing story on social media. The health insurance giant denies that it would ever ask a doctor to interrupt care. But this incident follows an alarming pattern with UnitedHealthcare. According to Daily Mail, “UnitedHealthcare has also been accused of using an AI program with a 90 percent error rate to deny claims.” “Without insurance,” the Mail says the surgery being performed by Dr. Potter “costs anywhere from $30,000 to $50,000.” The Mail also reports a spokesperson from UnitedHealthcare claimed “There are no insurance related circumstances that would require a physician to step out of surgery… We did not ask nor would ever expect a physician to interrupt patient care to answer a call.” Dr. Elisabeth Potter details UnitedHealthcare’s legal threats against her for speaking out. Dr. Eric Weiss shares his pioneering work in stem cell therapy for autism, drawing from his son’s journey and a suppressed CDC study showing a 1135% autism increase linked to thimerosal in vaccines. Dr. Elisabeth Potter is a board-certified plastic surgeon who earned her MD from Emory University and completed a fellowship at MD Anderson. She specializes in natural breast reconstruction, performing over 1,000 DIEP flap surgeries. Formerly a regulatory analyst of FDA law, she monitors BIA-ALCL risks. Follow at https://x.com/epottermd Dr. Eric Weiss is board-certified in plastic surgery and a leader in regenerative medicine. Founder of North Florida Stem Cells Clinic, he treats autism with stem cell therapy. He co-authored Educating Marston, a memoir about his son’s autism journey. Follow at https://instagram.com/northfloridastemcells 「 SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS 」 Find out more about the brands that make this show possible and get special discounts on Dr. Drew's favorite products at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://drdrew.com/sponsors⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠• FATTY15 – The future of essential fatty acids is here! Strengthen your cells against age-related breakdown with Fatty15. Get 15% off a 90-day Starter Kit Subscription at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://drdrew.com/fatty15⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • PALEOVALLEY - "Paleovalley has a wide variety of extraordinary products that are both healthful and delicious,” says Dr. Drew. "I am a huge fan of this brand and know you'll love it too!” Get 15% off your first order at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://drdrew.com/paleovalley⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ • VSHREDMD – Formulated by Dr. Drew: The Science of Cellular Health + World-Class Training Programs, Premium Content, and 1-1 Training with Certified V Shred Coaches! More at https://drdrew.com/vshredmd • THE WELLNESS COMPANY - Counteract harmful spike proteins with TWC's Signature Series Spike Support Formula containing nattokinase and selenium. Learn more about TWC's supplements at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twc.health/drew⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 「 MEDICAL NOTE 」 Portions of this program may examine countervailing views on important medical issues. Always consult your physician before making any decisions about your health. 「 ABOUT THE SHOW 」 Ask Dr. Drew is produced by Kaleb Nation (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://kalebnation.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠) and Susan Pinsky (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/firstladyoflov⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠e⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠). This show is for entertainment and/or informational purposes only, and is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My own finger. Okay, now, today we're going to get into some interesting territory, I think. This was my own plan to do this. This is my evil mind at work here. Dr. Elizabeth Potter, you may have seen her, I believe it was on Instagram, her video where she was attempting to get clearance for a surgery that I believe she was already performing. And, of course, the insurance company was obfuscating. We're going to get into the frustrations of practice of medicine.

It's not going to be boring. Trust me, you're going to finally hear what it's actually like. She is Emory Train fellow and plastic surgeon, board certified via Princeton. She has all the credentials, and she's here to give us some experiences from the front line. And then quickly we'll speak with Dr. Eric Weiss, another plastic surgeon, talk about regenerative medicine. We've talked about stem cells before. We're going to get a little more into that and what its potential is in neurobiological processes. So stay with us.

Be right back up to this. Our laws, as it pertain to substances, are draconian and bizarre. The psychopaths start this. He was an alcoholic because of social media and pornography, PTSD, love addiction. Fentanyl and heroin. Ridiculous. I'm a doctor for a shit. Where the hell you think I learned that?

I'm just saying, you go to treatment before you kill people. I am a clinician. I observe things about these chemicals. Let's just deal with what's real. We used to get these calls on Lovelin all the time, educate adolescents, and to prevent, and to treat. You have trouble. You can't stop, and you want to help stop it. I can help.

I've got a lot to say. I got a lot more to say. I've spent most of my career dealing with illnesses that shorten life. And now we have ways to extend it and extend wellness. I've been working with the team over at B Shred to develop a product that has everything I want in a longevity supplement. NR boost has nicotinamide riboside. You know how metal can rust. Well, your body behaves.

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When I prescribe a medication, I prescribe that medicine because I expect that to work. That is exactly what I've done with these products. And I want you to go to Dr. Drew.com slash v shred MD for 10% off. Again, that is Dr. Drew.com slash v shred MD. You can follow Dr. Potter on Instagram. It's D.R. Elizabeth with an S. Potter, P-O-T-T-E-R, also on X, it is E-P-P-O-T-E-R-M-D, and D-R-P-T-E-R.com is the website. I will call her, Elizabeth. You may call her Dr. Potter.

Elizabeth, welcome to the program. Thank you so much for having me. It's a thrill. So tell people the story of what happened and what you were doing, what led to that video that I think a lot of people saw. In fact, I want to, once you set it up, I'm going to show the video if you don't don't mind. How much of it can we play, Kayla, without YouTube or somebody freaking out at us? I'll play like the first 30 seconds and then turn the volume off. It'll be fine. Okay. Okay. I think you do get the sense of your frustration very,

very quickly. And so tell me how, what led up to that and then we'll play it. And then we'll talk about the consequences afterwards. Great. So the day of this video, I did four breast reconstruction cases. I'm a plastic surgeon. 90% of my work is taking care of women affected by breast cancer. And during the third case, I received a message in the operating room while I was operating. And it was from the nurse manager of the OR saying that United Health Care was calling me and wanted to speak to me right now. And there's history there and breast reconstruction, having difficulties with access through insurance. And United Health Care specifically had been at the forefront of denying a special type of reconstruction that I am a specialist in in the past.

So I immediately deep flap. It's microsurgery. It's when you, instead of using an implant, you use your own tissue. It's healthier. It's lifelong. It doesn't have the foreign body reactions. It doesn't have all of the issues with implants and safety and all of that. It's really, it's a flap.

And it's a flap that, so basically they try to equate a muscle including flap with a flap that doesn't include muscle. So like you can, you can injure a patient and take both of her rectus muscle. to make breasts, or you can be a really elegant, delicate surgeon and do a surgery that's hard on the surgeon and easy on the patient. And insurance tried to say that those were worth the same thing. And United was the first company that kind of sent me the letter saying, we're not going to pay you anymore for the delicate work. We're going to pay you at the barbaric surgery rate. So that had been happening. Okay, so hold on. Let's stop right there. Let's just talk to people about that. So that doesn't surprise me at all. They squeeze down wherever they can.

and the doctors just eat it. I have many, many, I'd say 30% of my services, maybe 50, ended up being free, and I just did it because it's the right thing to do. And the insurance company has no, in fact, they like that. They have no problem with that. So if you don't speak up, they, and when you do speak up, they are layers and layers and layers of bureaucracy in the way, so you're unable to get where you need to go.

You actually literally have to hire somebody to do it. And then by that point, you've really undone whatever, you know, whatever compensation you're trying to get. But this notion that they determine what's right for that patient, isn't that the fundamental principle at issue here? It is. It is. And the fight that I fought with the flap surgery was,

it was so clear that there was something that was better for patients. But insurance companies can. Is it longer under the knife? Are you in anesthesia? anesthesia longer? Sometimes. So with my procedure, no. Do they pay the, listen, do they pay the anesthesiologist?

Yeah, they do. There's such a great. Of course they do. Of course. There's such a case to be made for doing the right thing here. I mean, it makes medical sense. It makes business sense. They just didn't want to do it.

They wanted to squeeze the last dime out of doctors. And that was the history when I got that phone call. So I thought, what are they doing now? they're trying, they're going to hurt this patient who's having surgery to treat breast cancer actively under anesthesia and you're calling me in the operating room and I had another surgeon with me. We're finishing that case and I said, hey, I think I better take this call because I'm thinking they might charge her cash for this or she might get some exorbitant bill. She's already affected by breast cancer. So our motivation, and I know this feeling because I have the same exact

thing, which is, pay me or don't pay me, whatever. But I don't want this patient stuck with this bill. So my patients are all awake and I end up saying to the patient hey the insurance company is called I know they're going to ask me to their demand. I discharge you tomorrow and I don't want you to be stuck with anything beyond that.

So I'll tell you my part of the story after we get through the surgical part. So let's watch the video of what happened in that interaction where you were literally called out of the operating room to deal with an insurance company which that already in and of itself people should be freaked out about. Go ahead.

I just said two bilateral deeps and two bilateral tissue expanders for patients. And I've never had this happen before, but during the second deep, I got a phone call into the operating room saying that United Healthcare wanted me to call them about one of the patients who was having surgery today, who was actually asleep having surgery, and, you know, said I had to call right now. So I scrubbed out of my case, and I called United Healthcare. and the gentleman said he needed some information about her, want to know her diagnosis and whether her inpatient stay should be justified. And I was like, to understand that she's asleep right now? And she has breast cancer. And the gentleman said, actually, I don't.

That's a different department that would know that information. All right. But that's actually not even the video I saw that. did one video where you were actually talking to the insurance company, right? Oh, yes. Didn't, isn't that? Yeah, that video, Caleb, you've got to find that one. Because that's really what we go through.

I'll find it right now. What's that? Where did you post that? It's a peer-to-peer. That's, that's, it's called a peer-to-peer review. Yeah. I'll find it. Yeah.

It's labeled deny. So in my world where they say they want a, it used to be called doctor-to-do review, and then they'd switch the euphemism to peer-to-peer. I don't know why they did that. I'm guessing so they could, you know, I don't know, I don't know why. But at the point at which there was a doctor, doctor review, I knew there was a 0% probability of getting coverage.

Zero. No matter how sick the patient was, no matter how dangerous the circumstance, no matter how much time I wanted to give the patient, it was get them out of here. You don't know what you're doing. And it's always very, the guy at the other end in Ohio or wherever hell he is,

These typically males in my experience in my world was attacking and disdainful and just not talking about peer to beer, anything but collegial. And of course, I don't know who he is or what training he has. And he doesn't see the patient in front of him, right? He's not there. He doesn't give a shit. He's only motivated to save money for the insurance company. It certainly feels that way. And I think the video that you're talking about, I just actually followed up with the.

the patient whose procedure was denied yesterday, who was who I discussed in that call. And it was just insane, right? I mean, I get this phone call. First of all, it was a phone call with a cosmetic plastic surgeon and an ophthalmologist trained additionally in plastic surgery of the eyeball. Neither one treating breast cancer patients. When I asked them to give their name, their credentials, their license number, they declined. they cited their safety as the reason for that. Here I am trying to get a cancer patient

treatment that's necessary to keep her working. She's actually a physician, needs to use her arms, doesn't want lymphidema. And then when they wouldn't give that to me, they said, you know, it's for our safety because our CEO was murdered. And I said, I don't understand the connection. And I just, I just wanted, I want to verify you are because you're making a really important decision for this patient that I care a lot about. And then so when they wouldn't give me that, I tried to verify in some other ways by like asking. asking some questions. So, yeah, here's the call.

Here's the video. Here it is right here. Who am I speaking with? Can you not, so you're, sorry, so I just, there's also another wet. So you have two doctors on the call. Will either of you give me your name or MPI number or license number? Be the reference number for the call, but you, you won't give me your name or number and neither will the doctor from Texas.

Okay. Please give me the reference number. Okay. And is the doctor from Texas? Would that person speak up, please? I'm good. Are you a plastic surgeon? What do you mean sub-specialty plastics? I'm a plastic surgeon. I wouldn't say sub-specialty. So you're an oculoplastic surgeon. What was your initial training in? So, okay, so we're speaking about lymphedema of the arm. So this is not an area that you're familiar with. Correct.

Oh, okay. Still practicing. But you won't give me your name? But you're my colleague in plastic surgery, and you won't give me your name. Yeah, I don't understand that it's connected. I understand that the CEO was murdered, right? But I'm your peer, and I want to have a conversation with a peer about a patient who has breast cancer and lymphedema, and I would like to know your name. How do I know who you are? How do I know that you're a board certified and that you're a microsurgeon?

Like, how do I, how do I verify that? I'm just trying to make sure that I'm talking to an ex- They're for sure not, right? Correct. So I went on to ask questions. So, like, have you ever performed this surgery even once? Yeah. No.

Do you know? Do you know? Do you know even the risk that this patient is facing, just the percentage risk? Like, do you have a basic level of understanding? Like, did you read a paper before you called me? No. So, I mean, I think America needs to understand what we're dealing with. and that was just for show.

There was no chance of, and then they followed up by saying, we actually don't have the ability to approve this procedure on this call. Like, that's not in our role. And I'm like, then what are we doing? Right, right. Why are you putting me and the patient through this?

In the meantime, you spend, God knows how much time, and multiple calls, right? That's not the only call. There were multiple calls and multiple paperwork. To get to that place. They're doing anything to get in the way of your doing your job and getting even and I'm sure their reimbursement you said it was already squeezed down to the level of just a regular procedure but even before it was squeezed down it was

probably squeezed down correct and I mean a couple of things I'd say they also had no idea of the patients that's their member who's been paying premiums into United they didn't know that this patient needed radiation they actually questioned me like if she doesn't and I'm like oh oh yes she does she's having an axillary dissection and radiation. They weren't aware even of their members' details. It's just shocking. Let me tell you a story that really alerted me how bad things were.

And this was in the 90s. So if you want to know how long this has been going on, on the medical, the general medical and the psychiatric. I worked in both general medicine and psychiatry. And really egregious on the psychiatric and really bad, really bad on the medical. But the psychiatric hand, when I really knew we were in trouble, is when I got a call from an HMO administrator, who was a physician.

And he said, he's actually a good doctor, I thought. And I'll never forget this conversation as long as I live. He said, I want a three-day detox rate. And whatever the rate was going to be, it was going to be something markedly lower than what it actually cost to take care of the patient. But that wasn't the issue. I said, look, we're starting to see your patients. you require them to be discharged in three days.

It's demoralizing my staff. I said, I'll tell you what, you name your price, anything. I was offering him the world, and I'll treat them across levels of care. We have outpatient or residential. I'll figure out where to put your patient, and I'll take the risk. You name your price. You go, no, I want a three-day detox. I go, what are you talking about it?

Do you imagine that after they have a three-day detox, they're not going to go out, that's magically that's treatment, they're not going to go out and use? Because, oh, no, they'll go out and use. but if they do that three times, then they lose their job, then they're no longer my concern. There you have it. There you have it. As God is my witness, that was the conversation because it was seared into my mind. I believe you.

And then in the 2000s, things got worse, believe it or not. Because then when you, the insurance would split you with the patients claiming that, oh, no, we have coverage for you. Just Dr. Penske's got to tell us what you know. need. They don't tell the patient that they set all the criteria. And the criteria are insane. They have to be like imminently, you know, need a ventilator or imminent, you know, gun to the head suicidal or something. Just stupid shit that, of course, nobody makes that criteria. Not the fact that they've been on the street, on heroin with a, you know, TB, with a leg infection. None of that matters. Get them out. Get them to some other level of care immediately. So, all right. So the patient

discharges. They kill themselves. And the insurance company goes, we don't practice medicine. There's Dr. Pinsky's signature on the discharge order. It has nothing to do with us. Then I complain to the insurance commissioner. Next thing I get, this, I actually went through this, is a call from the CEO of the hospital freaking out this insurance company. A big one is threatening to decertify the entire hospital

because I don't approve of their business practices. So this is how they do it. This is how they do it. It is. And the American people don't understand it. And now, Elizabeth, I'll go back to the insurance in a section. But COVID laid bare all the other influences that doctors were under that I didn't even, that I wasn't under when I was very active practicing.

Employees, departments of public health that are mandating behavior rather than advising behavior of physicians, medical boards that are rapacious. What did you see during that period? oh gosh during COVID what a nightmare um so as someone who takes care of woman with breast cancer i remember very clearly i have patients who needed surgery i mean they're getting cancer um and the hospital said to me well um you're only you're going to be able to we have to modify the surgeries we're going to do we can only you know kind of treat them not not fully treat them and they can't have their reconstruction because we think that's elective we think that's cosmetic surgery and i'm like wait a minute there's a federal

act that says that this is not elective surgery. And I can be, I can do really fast. I'll be super efficient. Like, I'm not going to use up extra resources, but women aren't going to get their mastectomies if they can't get reconstruction during this period. And they just said no. And that's actually when I decided to build my own surgery center because I was like, I will not, women's health in general is so embattled. We have to beg, borrow, and steal for good care. And when they said, we'll let the orthopedic surgeons do their joint replacements during COVID, but we're not going to let women get breast reconstruction. I said, okay, now is the time that I invest in myself and I build this surgery center. I want to stop and say two things. A, it woke a lot of people up to a lot of

things and forced creative solutions. And I'm so glad to hear you, you were one of those people, number one. But number two, everybody, again, the purpose of today's show is to wake people up to what's happening to American health care. When you centralize authority, you harm patients. That, across the screen for me or me, we're the only people actually responsible for you when we see you. Nobody else is. It's us. And if anybody adulterates what we're doing, they're screwing with our ability to represent your best interest, which is all we're doing. That's all we do. And this is a bad thing. This is a bad situation when health care providers, insurance companies, federal government. Public health officials, for God's sake, CDC, they never were intended for this.

These were advisory groups to give us information for us to form those judgments to do the best thing for our patient. Mandates where the government tells you what you can do with your body, mind-blowing. And you're much younger than I am. For me, it's super mind-blowing. What was your training with at Princeton? Was it a scientist, you biologist? Molecular biology. Yeah, molecular biology. So what is, so give me your, you're probably the youngest physician I've talked to who has these instincts that some of us 50 and above have just like crazy. I'm 49.

You're sweet. I'm 49. I'm a plastic surgeon. You're right under the, you're right under the threshold of what I've been seeing. As a scientist, I bet you have a whole other set of concerns. I do. And listen, I mean, I just think that we have to have. a system where doctors in front of the patient can weigh the individual circumstance of that

patient, consider the medications available, consider the testing that needs to be done. Absolutely. And then order it. I mean, what you have now is you have insurance companies in the room as the strongest voice in the room that I'm having to filter, I'm having to ask permission to then enact my plan of care. That has never happened before. Now we have companies who have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to maximize profits on one hand, and they have more power than the doctors who are the only ones in the room who have an oath to protect the patient. That should make patients very nervous. And we're at a kind of bit of a fever pitch. You know what? The surgeons, I noticed during COVID, the surgeons were just like, they were

very quiet and they were just doing things. They were doing stuff. And I thought, oh, yeah, surgeons, people, these forces can't reach into the operating room. They can't get into the space you guys are operating. And you're there improvising, making decisions throughout the procedure. And they can't get in the way of that. You're accustomed to being free to do that. But I thought to myself, and it's why I brought you in here. Oh, no, they're going to get involved somehow.

I just know it. They're going to somehow they're going to inject themselves into the surgeon's life too. This is a new thing that surgeons are getting. nailed the way we have been for the last 20 years. So welcome on board. My father was... Help us fix this. Well, so my father is an allergist and immunologist.

My mom is a nurse. My mom said when I finally told her about what was going on with the United, she said that if they had asked her, she would have told them not to mess with me because this wasn't going to go well. I mean, I wasn't just going to, you know, roll over and play nice for them. And I think you're right. I think for a long time that surgeons were in this sort of room that no one could enter. But insurance is in the OR.

They tell me what implants I can use. They tell me, you know, how much anesthesia we can do. They tell me how long I can keep my patient in the hospital. They tell me if they want me to take a patient's muscle or leave it. I mean, they are practicing medicine. And this system is set up to actually harm, not to protect patients from harm, right? So I'm the advocate. I'm trying my best to hold the line.

And there's no respect for that, right? So if I was a patient, and I am a patient. The wolf is in charge of the chicken coop. A thousand percent. Whatever, you know, whatever, you know, was in that guarding the sheep dog, we're the sheep dog, essentially, guarding the sheep. It's, we have, we're on a leash. We're on a leash.

We're on a bear trap. There used to be a sense that I thought that I could, in a measured way, have the last word. Like there was a card that I, as a. surgeon could play where I'm like no we're doing the right thing and that that no longer exists like with my patient with the peer to peer they they denied the service she had her axillary dissection she's gonna so here's to your point about you know if the patient commit suicide they they're no longer covered they actually they did they denied the lymph venus bypass this patient's now going to pay cash for it out of her own pocket and i'm thinking does the insurance

companies see that as a win? It's scary. Yes, they do. Yes, they do. They don't care. It's a win when the patient, when the patient pays and you get zero. Correct. Because I've been through it. I've been around it a lot. I just, I just go forget it, forget it, forget it. I'm not going to fight it. It's not worth it. And just give the service, do what's right, and that's that. And I don't think there's any other professional. People don't believe that doctors do that. We do it all the time. All the time. And there's no other profession on earth that does that kind of thing. And we just do it. And because, we do it, they keep grinding down. They know what they're doing.

We are so trained to put the patient first in all situations that when it gets bad, we put the patient first and eat it. That's just the way it goes. And I truly love that about medicine. Like, this is my calling. And because it's my calling, I've had to put myself in the line of fire of insurance companies for this. Yeah.

So now I'm living in. Well, here's, there are three things I want to talk about. So stay with us, everybody. I want to know if anything happened to you as a result of this. Like, do you punished by the, like me, the insurance commissioner comes in or the insurance company freaks out? I want to talk about women's health. I want to talk about so many things. Hold on here.

There was something else that we were just talking about that I wanted to get into. Don't get, don't get the aging brain. Don't do that. It's very frustrating. Working memory shrinks. It's terrible. Okay, but I do want to talk that women's health is a huge topic. What happened to you? I'm interested to know. And then during the break, I'll think of the other topic and I'll open with that. So everybody stay with us. Pay attention. We stand by everything that supports us here. So support them so we can keep doing this. I'm excited to bring you a new product, a new supplement, fatty. I take it. I make Susan take. Take my whole family. takes it. This comes out of believe it or not dolphin research. The Navy maintains a fleet of dolphins and a brilliant veterinarian recognized that these dolphins sometimes developed a syndrome identical to our Alzheimer's disease. Those dolphins were deficient in a particular fatty

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i remember what i want to talk about elizabeth potters here with us plastic surgeon as i've said you can follow her get all her stuff here hmm there we go uh d r elizabeth with an s potter pottor pottor and instagram e potter md on x and dr potter dot com so what i was going to ask was did i did you have a sense that something was a remiss something something was amiss with our medical literature during covid i i just thought oh boy what did you what did you know i read widely and all of us and i lean on it i rely on it and i saw something during COVID that bother me. Did you, did you notice anything? I think, you know, there was a lot that was wrong during COVID. And things just got,

the whole apple cart got upended. And for me, my world is breast reconstruction and breast cancer. And so many things took precedence. It was like there was a, there was a, something was pushing us in a direction away from the care that we knew we should be giving. right? So, yeah, it was, I would say for me, it was just a hard time to get the patients the care that I knew they needed. How about the medical publications? Did you just stop doing the usual studies you read about? They just research and breast cancer just sort of stopped. Well, a lot of things stopped. It was crazy. I mean, and that's still going on today. And we're still seeing the effects of, you know, not just stopping the research, but also, I mean, and it did

stop. I mean, there were, there were clinical trials that stopped. There were treatments that stopped. People weren't able to get the medications that they needed or the surgeries that they needed. And then we saw this, as you know, this increase in the rates of really aggressive cancers. And we're still seeing that. So it's... Well, now, let's talk about that because I keep hearing that that's not happening. And yet the same people that say that, by the way, are saying there's, you know, there's no vaccine reactions. I'm seeing lots of vaccine reactions. What do you think that is? Is it COVID? Is it the spike protein? Is it net? killer fall off? What do you imagine's happening? So yeah, and I would say I'm not an

immunologist. My dad was. And I did actually, I grew up reading the morbidity and mortality weekly as like a table side magazine. But for me, it was more the fact that women just weren't getting mammograms. They weren't getting screened. They were not going to the doctor. They were fearful. They were mistrustful of the medical establishment. I mean, there was just a lot going on and people didn't get preventative care. And so we saw this increase in diagnoses and delayed diagnoses that were still unraveling. Now, my average patient age here in Austin, and I saw 35 patients today, I'll see another 25 tomorrow in clinic.

I take care 40% of the women in Central Texas with breast cancer. And I think my average age is in the 50s, which is young. And it's not, if you look nationally, that's not the age. that they would say, but I'm seeing younger and younger patients with breast cancer. Something is up. It's just, it's not a massive ship, but something is up. If you're in the fields, you see this kind of movement. I wonder it's that a spike has protein effects on human physiology. I'm starting to worry about natural killer function. But let's, that's, we're not going to, you and I are not going to solve that problem here today, nor should people listen to us until more

data comes in. But what happened to you as a result of that video? As you know, I got a lot of support from patients who said, thanks for sharing that. A lot of support from doctors who said, you know, I want my voice to be heard. I'm scared to speak out because I'm employed. Thank you for saying what I've been wanting to say. And a lot of folks said, I think that a lot of patients didn't understand that doctors were facing such difficulties getting them the care that they wanted to give. And so it was a sense of like, wait a minute, we're on the same side now.

Doctors and patients are on the same side fighting for good health care. So those were good things. But then, yeah, then I got a threatening letter from United. It was six pages from the defamation law firm, Claire Locke at a D.C., you know, demanding that I apologize and recant my video and that, you know, saying that I had promoted violence by not deleting comments that referenced Luigi and Mangione. Meanwhile, I'm like a microsurgeon. I'm not reading the comments, you know.

So that happened, and that was crazy. I got really good legal counsel, and we published that letter so that all of America could read how United Health Care spoke to a microsurgeon who is taking care of women with breast cancer through insurance. And I think America read it, and they were offended along with me. But then this other thing kind of started to unfold where I had a, I have a surgery center. I'm actually sitting in that surgery center, and we were trying to get a network with all the major carriers, and United is the biggest, obviously. And I was hopeful when I spoke out. I was hopeful that they wouldn't conflate those things. But after my video, they went radio silent in our discussions with our consultant to contract.

And since then, they haven't let me in network, and that's been financially devastating to me. So my reality right now is that I'm a microsurgeon, Princeton, M.D. Anderson, Emory, U.T. Southwestern. I did 500 breast reconstruction surgeries last year, and I'm facing bankruptcy if I can't figure something out in the next, you know, several months, simply because United won't let me a network. What do you imagine your options are? So I'm going to pivot hard. I mean, I'm not someone who's going to get pushed over and I'm not going down behind insurance. I'm going to figure out a way to, you know,

motivate folks to get insurance that actually cares for patients. I'm going to help promote those direct care products that are rethinking how we deliver insurance. Going back to the old model where it was like a group of farmers who said, let's all put our money in a pot and take care of each other. Those things exist today. Have you talked to Simone Gold at all? No.

I got to put you guys together. I think there's something here. There are like-minded physicians all over the place. And we're all looking at the same thing and going, that's what the wellness company thing was for me. It's like we just got to get things to the patient. We've got to get everything possible to the patient. Their freedom to use some sort of health care something to get access to medication,

to get a, we just got to get, we have lost our ability to practice medicine in a way that isn't the best interest of the patient. So we need to get everything to the patient and show them how to make good decisions on their own behalf. That's what that's what we're right now. And honestly, I think that the insurance, like patients paying $2,000 a month for health care and then getting sick and then having to pay $5,000 towards their, you know, co-pay and then another $20,000 out of pocket. Like this is a scam. This is not what health care should be. And so I'm interested in promoting those. Remind yourself that what, 30, 40% goes to the executive structure and the administrative structure, not going to your

health care. How about the fact that United spent probably $100,000 sending me that letter from Claire Locke? Yeah. I mean, United members, can you believe that your money is being spent sending that to this lady? That's crazy. Isn't that the same, right, isn't that the same law firm that just sent a letter to Candace Owens? Correct. In behalf of Emanuel Macron? Yes, you're correct. It is. And I mean, I just can't even believe that you, United's money. Heart, I mean, these people are paying it, and that's going towards me. But my granddad always told me that if someone wasn't mad at you, you weren't doing it

right. And I think that, you know, I've got a lot of evidence that I'm doing something, at least a little bit right. So, yeah. She didn't tell you it wouldn't be fun. There's no fun making people angry. It is zero percent fun. Oh, but it's good.

Surgery is fun for you. You like doing that stuff and you're being prevented from doing it. Well, there are like-minded people I've got to put you in touch with some of these folks. And it seems like you should be able to sell your surgery center and just be a surgeon that operates at that center then or something. You know what I mean? It should be something like that you could do. If there's someone listening who has an idea and wants to invest in a lady who's just like,

honest to God, a good person taking care of women with breast cancer, call me up. I'll do anything to keep going in this work. I started to go fund me. I mean, like, I started to go fund me. we raised almost $600,000. The average donation is $70.70. Wow.

Wow. Amazing. So, yeah, I'm hustling. Well, let's quickly head over, slide over to women's health, which it's like, you know, let's slide over to cardiology and just discuss cardiology for five minutes. It's a gigantic topic. Does not get enough attention. What is your take on our shortcomings there? Oh, gosh.

I mean, there's so much that we need to do better for women. I mean, just including women in clinical research studies in a way that's thoughtful, let's do that. Let's treat women respectfully and give them options. And let's fund women's health care in a way that has parity with health care for the other half of the population. I think breast reconstruction is one of those things that really shows how underappreciated and undervalued women's health care is. We've had to fight just to keep access to the basics of care. And still today, I'll have phone calls where a doctor will tell me, you know, isn't that cosmetic surgery?

And I'm like, no, it is not, this is not elective. This is about women's health and we have to do the right thing. So, yeah, I'm a huge proponent for women's health and choice and being able to access the very best. I'm committed to that. I've always fought for the underdog. I'm amazed by the things that women do when you take care of them. I think if we want to change things for the better,

what do you mean by that? What do you got my interest there? What do you mean by that? Amazed by the things that women do when you take care of them? When a woman has the energy, when she's just, just mentally physically taking care of, I mean, do you see what moms do? Do you see the level of energy, you know, they just go to another level. When I look around and I see the women who work with me, they just, I mean, honestly, they're used to, they're used to running, carrying weights. And when you free them up to just race, they do amazing things because of the weight that

they've been carrying. They have been training to just crush it. And if we can just unleash women to do good, and I see that in health care. I see my female surgery colleagues, they just do amazing things. They don't get, they don't get ruffled. They just, you know, buckle down and do hard things. Speaking of carrying weights, one of the areas that women have been encumbered needlessly, in my humble opinion, is once they're ovary shut down to the post-metapausal interval and prairie menopausal interval. And I just, it's so odd to me the bias, a thyroid shuts down, we replace it with physiological hormone.

Why don't we do that to these sex organs? They shuts down, has massive effect on the body, as much as thyroid, certainly in most situations, maybe more, certainly in terms of ability to function in life and misery. And we don't, and we go, oh, no, no, I don't think we want to do that. That's insane, in my opinion. It is insane, and it's another example of how the medical establishment for so many years didn't take care of the actual science. They just didn't take care of business when it came to women.

I was trained in medical school that estrogen, you know, caused you during cancer and blood clots. And it's like everybody be scared. Don't give it to your patients. Listen, I, the New England Journal of Medicine published a editorial after that women's health initiative, this must have been in the 90s, that you were literally, because I was like, I don't think I'm going to take these women off. I see how much better they are. What are we talking about here? I just said something's wrong with this study. And of course, now we know there was, it was deeply flawed.

But the editorial that worried me and it caused me to talk to all my patients on estrogen said, we are no better than which doctors. That was the phrase. You're a witch doctor if you continue estrogen therapy because the science is in. Sounds familiar, right? Sounds just like COVID all over again. But we did that. We did that to women in the 90s.

That we had, oh, sorry, I made a mistake. No, no, no. Oh, sorry. Sorry. sorry, sorry. And not just made a mistake, caused osteoporotic fractures, caused dementia, caused cardiovascular disease. What I saw was the cognitive decline. You know, I had other ways to deal with the osteoporosis, right? We have, you know, reclass and things like that. But in terms of, and thank God, we're starting to have that stuff right then. We had Fossamax back then. But,

but the effect on cognition and affect and relationships and so many aspects of their life ruined, ruined because of that. study. And no one said, I'm sorry. And God bless Mary Claire Haver and all the women out there like fighting this fight and going to the FDA and demanding better. And that is going to be huge for one's health that already is. And yeah, I just, I, it is a cautionary tale that someone could, that a whole group, a whole group of doctors believed that study for a decade or more. Elizabeth, what did we do during COVID? We're still doing it. We're still not even willing to talk about things because people are afraid to talk about it.

It's crazy. But let's stop on that one. Last thought, because I want to make Dr. Weiss in here just a second. And I suspect we'll be talking again in the future. So we'll wrap it up with, is the HHS in your opinion moving in a good direction right now? Oh, gosh. I mean, can we have a little bit? Sorry about that.

That's a big question. I mean, it's a big question. And I mean, so I have to look at, you know, I'll be real specific. So the recent announcement about prior authorization reform where the HHS, you know, had basically a press conference with Ahip, the Insurance Society. And they said, you know, we're going to, we're going to allow the insurance companies to promise to do better, to promise to do better on prior authorization. I mean, I like the idea of noting the problem publicly. Authorization is a huge problem. I don't like the idea of asking bad actors to voluntarily police themselves.

So, yeah, I like the general direction, but I would like to see teeth behind the directives. Yeah. There are so many things that they're moving cautiously, which I'd like, because I don't want them throwing the baby out with the bathwater. But my sense is that these things will have to be shaped further. Many things they're doing as time goes. And I want to give them the time and the space to do that. I mean, just I tell you, look to Jay Bhattacharya. That should be your, your, I don't want to say this guy got in trouble saying things like that during COVID. But let him be your. guide post as how things are going at the HHS because he's very, very astute and very good human beings and not a bad actor, that's for sure. I would love to meet with them. Yeah. He's a good guy. Well, listen, I appreciate you meeting with us.

I appreciate you spending time here. If you could pick one place where people should go to find you if they want to follow up on this or they need help with these procedures, where would you like people to do? to go? Honestly, I'd say Instagram. That's kind of my home on social media, and I go there to tell folks what I'm doing. So yeah, find me on

Instagram. It's Dr. Elizabeth Potter. Thanks for caring. Thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate you. Well, you are fighting the good fight, so we appreciate you. Thank you, Elizabeth. Thanks so much. You got it.

All right, so we're going to switch gears here, and we are going to talk a little bit about functional and reconstruct, well, what should we call this? Regenerative medicine. Dr. Eric Weiss is a board certified plastic surgeon as well, and he's a leader in regenerative medicine, and he has been using stem cells amongst other things to treat non-neuronormative patients, including, I believe, somebody in his own family. He has a book called Educating Marston, where he elaborates this story. You can find Dr. Weiss at Educating Marston.com, North Florida,

STEMC on Instagram, North Florida StemC, North Florida StemSells.com. So, Dr. Eric, what? Non-normative, neuro-normative would be like autism. People that are not, you're a little non-normative. Can I get this? Does it help ADD? Sign up.

Yeah. Sure. All right. Tell us how you got into this. what your thoughts are on it and we appreciate you being here well i'm classically trained i'm a plastic surgeon like dr pott's uh but to make a long story short my life changed with my youngest child he had autism and uh i felt that there was something you could do i always felt the medical problem and not a behavior or a psychological problem and so i i kept up on the

literature you could you could see stuff starting to happen but the landmark trial i mean i think even if you ask most pediatrician what's the fundamental problem with autistic kids that they would have a blank stare but in 2005 there was a uh an autopsy study by hop john hopkins and they showed 100% of the kids had brain inflammation clearly abnormal brain pathology they followed that up Can I stop you? I'm sorry, we have a little delay, so I have to interrupt. But what kind of inflammation? I mean, that's a pretty broad statement.

Where was it? What was it? What did they see specifically? It was sporadic, but it was one particular cell, the glial cell. So it wasn't of the neurons. It was of the glial cell, which is the only kind of non-neuron cell in the brain are not neuroectodermalib derived. You know, it's a myloid.

So it's like the monocyte. of the brain and a tremendous amount of neuroinflammation mediated through the the glial cells. So I'm sorry, I'm going to push a little hard because I really want to get the bottom of this. It's very interesting to me. So the glial cells themselves, so although the, I'm used to the glial cells being the cells that are wrapped around the neurons, and they're also in and around the neurons. So which glial, the oligodentocytes, is that what we're talking about?

What are we talking about? The elite dendrocytes make myelin. And so, but about 10% of the actual cells in your brain are the myloid cells, and they respond to certain things. And they're also very important in formation of the brain. They snip or they pair synapses that are not being used. And they can also help form new synapses. But the ones that were mostly, it was spread, it was throughout the brain,

but prefrontal cortex and then in our brain we have a lot of white matter tracks so different parts of the brain can communicate much better and those are actually decreased and they also had less connections in their brain than most people and how old was this it was a series of subjects and what was the sort of age range on that because again i'm thinking if you're going to intervene on this inflammation you better do it early so it doesn't cause permanent stuff. Correct, correct. The children range kind of between four and eleven, but there were two outliers. There was a 33-year-old and a 42-year-old, but the 33-year-old and the 42-year-old had the same brain pathology, which will talk about my son because when some other things happened, my son was 23 when I wanted to treat him. And they kind of said, well, he's too far gone. we don't treat, you know, anybody really post-adolescent. And the more I read, the more I said, you know, if the older people have the same pathology, why wouldn't it help?

And it turned out it did help. And now Duke's doing a study on young adults, 18 to 26-year-olds, using stem cells. How did you get to stem cells as a solution? Where did you see that? Well, it came from Duke, but how it came from Duke was, The pathology was to find at Hopkins, you know, and they said, okay, we have this brain inflammation. And then that was 2005, kind of 2007, 2008, 2009 is when, you know, chronic traumatic encephalopathy was big with the football players.

And so the traumatic brain injury people were looking at that. And CTE turns out to be a problem with the glial cell as well. And so when they, when they knew the. the glial cell was inflamed, they did a trial. They actually did 30 trials. The 30th thing they tried was umbilical cord blood because they knew that umbilical cord blood and its stem cells had broad anti-inflammatory effects. And so they showed that not only did the stem cells from umbilical cord blood stop the inflammation, but it turned on neural restoration. These glial cells can secrete multiple factors, but there's kind of a pro-inflammatory stage.

There is a pro-restorative stage. And so when they showed that, Duke understood that cerebral palsy is a neuro-inflammatory disease, and they understood autism was a neuro-inflammatory disease. So their first study was on cerebral palsy patients. 88% got better with stem cell infusion. And then they did autism. And about 65% of the kids got significantly better. You know, within 95% confidence limits, it couldn't be explained.

But more importantly, by MRI, after a single dose of stem cells, they had more synapses in their brain, and they had more white matter tract growth. And I went to Duke. You know, I went to Duke Medical School. I knew some of the people involved in the study. So as soon as that was published, I called them. and they just said, you know, Eric, we're seeing some incredible stuff here. But, you know, obviously I have to treat my son.

And they said, no, he's too old. You know, we do pediatrics. I actually called Panama. You know, Panama is big in the stem cell world. They've been doing it for a while. I became disillusioned with Panama because I wanted to talk to a doctor. You know, I wanted to talk to somebody who was going to treat my child. And I was, you know, talking to salespeople.

and then finally they said they wouldn't treat anybody over the age of 19 and then finally I found Thomas Loeb who's a pediatric surgeon who was a pediatric surgeon in Chicago very well trained he was the head of pediatric surgery at St. Jude's

Children's Hospital for 20 years that he was very familiar with stem cells and he had a pediatric brain injury study using it and after talking to him he came up you know and said why don't you bring your son up to Chicago and we'll treat them on a compassionate need basis.

And that's what he did. And my son got remarkably better. And he showed me how to do it. And I've been doing it. I did it for my son. And we all get pushed by our wives. And my wife said, are you planning on helping our son and nobody else? Because my son currently lives on his own, drives a car and has a job.

And it's completely conversant. And before STEM cells, he had been. maybe 30 to 40 words. He could put two words together, but he could do none of those things. And so my wife said, you have to take care of autistic kids. And I said, okay, a half a day a week. And then it became a full day a week. Then it became a day and a half a week. And it became two days a week. And then in February, I gave up plastic surgery. And I've been doing this full time. Amazing. And again, what is the treatment? Is a systemic? infusion of stem cell

and what's the source? It's a warden's jelly. I mean, what are we talking about? A little bit of both. The Duke study was done with umbilical cord blood as opposed to Wharton's jelly. And I think they both have good things. But it is a systemic confusion.

These cells have the ability to cross the blood-brain barrier and they actually seek out inflammation and they work in what we call paracrine function. So they seek out inflammation. they nestle up to the inflamed cells and they actually secrete factors. It's called the secretome. One of those factors are exosomes.

The exosome then leaves the stem cell, enters the glial cell, and then turns off the glial cell from the inflammatory state to the restorative state. And we now know when a glial cell becomes in the restorative state, it secretes two main factors, something called brain-derived neurotropic factor,

which makes more synaptic. And something that's called nerve growth factor, which actually means, which makes your stem cells, which are deep within the brain, migrate to the area, and start to differentiate. In the Duke MRI study, backed that up, which showed new growth and more connections. Again, people have the, they imagine that the stem cells themselves go where they're supposed to go and form new connections. No, they're anti-inflammatory and pro-growth. It's the activation of a physiology that is nascent in the brain. Exactly, exactly. And a lot of people think they become part of you, but they don't.

No. They turn on the body's ability to heal itself. I couldn't have said it better. What percentage of kids are responding, and what's the sort of response range? The response rate is probably COVID. closer to 65 to 70%. And the big question is why don't 30% respond? And I'll

answer that later because I think I'm now that I've given up surgery, I'm starting to find some other things that are important to do. But it ranges from having the kid just more present that they're not in a fantasy world anymore.

But I've had kids go from special needs schools or regular schools. I've had kids that didn't talk start talking, kids that weren't potty trained, become potty trained. And you have to keep repeating the infusions? How long is the course of treatment? There's never been a study of more than one treatment. You know, this, the paper was released in 2019, followed by the pandemic,

like we talked about with Dr. Potter, you talked about with Dr. Potter, all sorts of research got shut down. And so the Duke study showed that what they did was they gave the stem cells, then they tested the kids every month. And they noticed that they started to see growth, you know, better improvements on the autism rating scale, starting at two months. It peaked between six and seven months, but they followed these kids for a year after that a total of 18 months. And there was no decrease. So we know that the improvement kind of peaks at six to seven months.

And the question is, what do you do then? Do you give another dose? and certainly I do, probably 40% of my patients come back for a second dose, and we see further gains. Are there not to get off track here too far, but are there other conditions you're looking at? Oh, do we freeze? I'm about that. There you are. You froze for a second.

Go ahead. Okay. Any neurodegenerative disorder that we really know about starts with neuroinflammation. Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, chronic traumatic ocephalopathy, etc. ALS? ALS, yes. I think it's going to be more preventative than actual treatment. But there is a paper out of UCLA.

I'm blanking on the name of the drug, what they call it, but it's a stem cell product. It's an MSC product. And they gave it to people with Alzheimer's, kind of end-stage Alzheimer's. It had three months, they demonstrated new growth in the brain. There was no difference in the dementia, however. But it was only three months, and they showed that the neurons started growing again. So I think there may be a promise for the treatment.

of Alzheimer's. What are the headwinds you're facing? The headwinds, it's not approved for me for autism. Autism is special to me because of my son. You know, most people don't know that we've been using a biblical cord blood and its stem cells in the United States for 60 years, you know, mostly around pediatric and malignancies. But now there's 80 different diseases that it's the primary treatment for.

So we can use it for autism as an off-label use. But I think that pediatricians and psychiatrists, you know, look down on it because it's off-label. But I think, you know, do you, two questions to follow on. Do you ever use autologous stem cells and go through that procedure? A and B, are you trying to get FDA approval? Are we going to get that? Yes. I've actually had a Zoom meeting with the chief of staff of the Surgeon General. And it's ludicrous because the Duke study, one of their studies, was with autologous blood. And I haven't been able to use autologous blood, not because I don't want to. It's because none of these banks that are holding the autologous blood will give it up. So even a parent that's paid thousands and thousands to have it bank. and then hundreds of years that keep it banged,

I can't get it, they won't release it to me. And I think, plus there's a financial incentive for the company not to give it out. And so the parents are fabricized the debt they paid for this and they can't use their own. Wow. But I talked about the surgeon general staff.

Well, good, good. I mean, it sounds like it's moving. It's stem cells are just, it's weird that we haven't been more systematic in our analysis of their therapeutic benefits in all areas. I agree. But so many physicians are starting to use various ideas, you know, because they're just, they work.

And so people are trying to, you know, whether it's with the Wharton's Jelly or their own autologous, there's all kinds of ways of doing this. And they're all kinds of, I mean, maybe you're going to find that intrathecal, Wharton's jelly or something is, you know, superior. Who knows what we're going to find? Right, right.

They tried that. They tried intrithecal. Oh, yeah? I think the difference is, is Wharton's jelly is all MSCs, misinclamal stem cells. And they do have the ability to decrease inflammation with the glial cells.

But umbilical cord blood is like chicken soup for healing. And I know you mentioned natural killer cells, but umbilis cord stem cell, or umbil cord blood is filled with natural killer cells, as well as T-regulatory cells. So when you give that, to a person with a neurodegenerate disease, you're kind of restoring the whole immune system. You're getting T-regulatory cells. You're getting natural killer cells. You're getting seven

different types of stem cells, including, you know, the mesenchal stem cell that's in Wharton's jelly. But I tend to combine the two. How come the immune, there's not immune reaction to that to the blood? Ambival cord blood is so new that the stem cells and the cells, within it, don't have HLA markers yet. But that's... Well, the stem cells, I get it. A stem cells, I get it, but I would imagine a T regulatory cell and a natural killer would have markers of some type.

That's how they do their job. But they don't. But they do, the more they work, the more they develop these HLA markers. And which is why we think that the response kind of dies out after six months. Because the more they divide, the more they divide, the more they, HLA markers and then the recipient immune system takes them out.

Got it. All right. That makes sense. Well, listen. I have a question. Yeah, please go ahead. How did they, where do they do you have to drill a hole in the skull to put the stem? Or does it go through this?

I didn't hear it. It's an IV. I'm guessing it's just a yeah, just IV infusion like you had with stem cells. But what we were talking about was what's called an intrithecal injection, which means into the through into the central nervous system,

usually into the spine. That's what that goes. Right, that's just fine. Okay. But they don't do that. They're not doing that. Oh, so it's like an infusion. It's an IV infusion. I find it astonishing that it's one.

You get your fecal is really big in India. Oh, that's right. Interesting. Yeah. Interesting. I find it astonishing that it's one treatment. That doesn't, that my intuition is you'd need two or three. just, you know, at least across a couple of years. No, no, no.

I'm not saying it's one treatment. There's never been a study of multiple treatments. I give multiple treatments because the parents... So what is your protocol? Oh, God, so what is your protocol? My protocol real quick would be to look at some auto-antibodies to see what's going on in their immune system because they tend to have immune issues.

I look at their guts because the dysbiosis in the gut can cause brain inflammation. And so we can treat the gut with something called FMT or fecal microbial transplant. And then once we got the body as clean as we can, then I give the umbilical cord blood. And then I just reassess it six months and I talk to my patients and I just say, or to the parents of my patients. And I go, listen, do you think we ought to do this again? Because I do see stair step improvement, you know, to the point of almost normalcy. Or normalcy, how do you say that?

Wait, I'm a little confused. How many infusions does an average child go through? And over what period of time? Okay, well, first of all, I've been doing it for about, you know, a year and a half. But I would say 40% of my patients come back for a second time. And I would say, you know, right now, 20% come back for a third time. but I don't have too many people who I you know I started out very slowly so I've got an abnormal amount of people starting in February when I gave up surgery but and I got it and when did was your son treated my son he got his first treatment in 2020 I've given him five treatments over seven years and I see little things but my son has a significant cognitive disability as well.

And so now I'm trying to press IQ more than I am autistic symptoms. Well, it also makes me wonder the extent, you know, that Sigma 1 receptor in the brain, are you familiar with that biology? I am not. It's an inflammatory look up the, there's some really good data, actually in the

journal about Sigma 1, and there's some evidence that antidepressants may work by activating this immune function, this anti-inflammatory Sigma 1. system. And it makes me wonder if certain psychiatric conditions, particularly recalcitrant depressions, wouldn't also benefit from this. I believe it does. And they're starting to look at that, both that and schizophrenia, because it looks like there's inherent brain inflammation in both those. And another exciting thing is chronic pain. Chronic pain looks like it can induce

brain inflammation. So I think we're just scratching the surface. You know, I've seen some incredible stuff. I've given two people with multiple sclerosis and wheelchairs this product and they were both walking within two months. Well, I mean, it seems like multiple sclerosis is a perfect sort of paradigm for this.

I mean, that's a glial, inflammatory, anti-mile, you know, it goes right at this biology you're talking about. Caleb, you want to ask a question about IQ? Why don't you go ahead and ask it yourself? Dr. Weiss, I just heard you say something about, you know, how with your son, how now you're focusing more on IQ,

and is IQ something that's affected by the stem cell therapies that you're doing now? There's no study that I know comparing IQ to stem cell therapy. Now, if there was a secondary study by Duke that actually was a negative study, but it turned out they had a lot of children with intellectual disabilities. And if you drew a red line from people with IQs below 70, there was no benefit of the group, but people 70 above did benefit. So the question is, you know,

did the low IQ autistic, did they need a second dose, did they need a higher dose, or maybe it just doesn't work? Or something else going on, something different. I know my son's biggest issue now is cognitive, and so I have the ability to give it to them.

Well, listen, we appreciate you coming by and telling us, educating me about this and alerting the public to what you're up to, where would you like people to go? If they're interested, if they want to read more, is there a primary place you'd like to send people? Probably just north Florida stem cells, you know, dot com, because I think that's good.

I wrote three chapters in my wife's book. It's not my book on kind of the biologic basis of stem cells, you know, and why they work, because most people don't know there's an animal model for autism. most people don't know when you give these animals adults stem cells they get better and when you start to lay it out it makes sense to do it I have a question

how do they trigger the animal model I'm not I'm not familiar with it with inducing inflammation in the brain like lipopolysaccharide you know you inject that around them intrithically yeah yeah in the meninges got it interesting

all right well listen I really appreciate you coming by. I look forward to your future progress and particularly with the Surgeon General and the federal government and the FDA and let's get this thing rolling here. I really think you may be the person that gives this thing a chance.

As I said at the beginning, sign me up. Oh, Susan wants to be a fusion. You know, you got to watch people who are on a mission from God, you know, and so I think this is now my passion. I got the time and I certainly have the energy. do you give any sort of anti-inflammatory infusion you know Susan did have one down in you know Central America at one point

and they gave her a huge dose of decadron beforehand and I and she felt so much better I said I don't know if that's the decadron of the stem cells so are you are you doing anything like that we give a short acting we give salucortep sorry Medrol but yeah but but just a minimum A half a milligram What? Half a milligram. I was going to say like 20 milligrams, something like that, 20 or 30.

Yeah, that would be high. It's mostly like six or eight because they're kids. But just like when you give blood, you usually give a little Benadryl and hydrochortisone just to prevent, you know, a histamine reaction. I would just a little surprise at the big dose. It lasted for a year. I know she's an enthusiast.

You should have had it done. Give it to me and I enjoyed it. I know, I'm aware. Okay, listen, please keep us. I know, I know, I know. She didn't know, but I'm trying to sort out what's what there. So, okay, listen, we have to wrap this up, but I really appreciate you bringing this to us,

and I hope you'll keep us posted on your future progress. No problem. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. You bet, Dr. Eric Weiss. Thank you so much. So I hope you all enjoyed this today. It's a little different than usual.

You're indulging me with my peers to talk about, some of the advances and the frustrations. And, you know, with COVID, we got sort of mono vision, monocular in our vision of the medical landscape. And this kind of expands things out a little bit, I hope. So I appreciate you all indulging me. And I hope you'll tell a friend, a lot of other people look at this. I think this is important for people to get a sense of what's going on in medicine and what

some of the issues are. Josh Vanderbilt, what do I need to let Who talk. You got understand something, everybody. If I'm interrupting, it's because there's this huge delay. And the only way we can ask each other questions is if we interrupt each other. Now, I would not do that otherwise. So it's apologies that it feels a little jerky. But I also talk show.

Anybody that, no, no, I try not to interrupt. I mean, if you didn't ask questions and it would be boring. But it's kind of impossible not to step on each other. Like, for instance, one of the things, one of the tricks I use is if I'm asking somebody a question. I put the question up front and then I keep talking and then the other person hears that and then they, so they're not interrupting me so much because I can, I understand how to use the delay. They don't know on their end how to do that. So like I'll go, Caleb, would you mind asking me the phone? Would you say hi on the stream here in just a second because

I'm still talking. So why don't you go ahead and say hi? Hi, hello. See, there's no delay that way. but he heard me say, why don't you say hi a second and a half ago? You're right, Drew. See, I automatically jumped in like a second before you even finished talking because I just picked up on the trigger but yeah, I see what you're saying. You know that I do that. Right. Just by habit.

I didn't know that. I actually found this, I found both guests to be very interesting. Even though this was like a very more medical of a show, that was very, I've never heard of anyone having any success in the way that Dr. Weiss is having. That's pretty groundbreaking stuff that he's seems to be working on. So that's, I was very interested in that. And it, the, the, the significant inflammatory biology in autism, that the thought bubble over my head was,

uh-oh, maybe there is something with vaccines, because vaccines cause cross-reactive immune reactions. And it makes me think, uh-oh, maybe something is going on. Maybe Jenny McCarthy was, after all, really on to something. inflammation connection to everything too it's always it's so interesting that a lot of this stuff because I've Crohn's disease so I think about inflammation stuff a lot it's really affected my life and so I'm thinking about well if there's brain inflammation you know

there could be all over your body from these things Emily wanted me to mention Dr. Sabine Hazan and the microbiome and yeah well I almost said to Dr. Wise Sabine Hazan would be so happy to hear you say that about the fecal transplants that you start out with to try to get the microbiome straight before you. I don't quite fully get that relationship between the microbiome and the kind of inflammation

he's talking about. And Caleb, you don't want to worry about inflammation all over the body. Inflammation is a very complicated, very complicated biology. And when we say inflammation, we're talking about a lot of different things. And in this case, we're talking about a targeted inflammation of microbeysmation of microbolegy. microglial cells, which is a certain cell type that's active immunologically and produces cell growth factors in the brain. It's both immunologically active, so it helps prune cells, prune synapses, happens a lot during puberty, for instance. And it also helps grow cells and keeps cells healthy at the same time.

So it's activating those and how you activate those. You describe the pathways that get to the activation of those microglial cells. cells with the exosomes, that's pretty complicated stuff. So it's not like, my body's in flame. It's not like that. It doesn't kind of work that. There is such a thing called, it's called SSS, sick, not sick sinus syndrome, sick. Oh, shoot, well, you had it, Susan.

You had it from penicillin. Tell them about that. I became stiff as a board and I couldn't move from penicillin. And rash and everything. And I was like, what was going on? I thought I was having a stroke. That's what that is. I was only in my 20s.

I was really young. I know. That's penicillic can be nasty. All right. We're going to take a little extendo break here. I'm not really clear on next week's schedule. I know it's a little rocky going forward. We're back Tuesday and Wednesday.

We're going to be in on Tuesday and Wednesday. Yes. We're going to be at Elijah's studio in Florida. Beautiful. And Emily has guests lined up and we're all right. One of the guest is from hillsides, and I think she's set up there on Tuesday. She's the executive officer at Hillsides, and they have some really wonderful things they're doing now, and I want people to be aware of it.

So I'd say, let me put it on the blast here. Dr. Victor being on the 20th, Steve Hilton, who's running for governor here in California. Skid Row coming up with Reverend Bales and Arthur Kleinschmidt, who's the head of SAMHSA at the, I think that's under HHS now. That's going to be the 28th. We're going to walk Skid Row that day. Well, let me make sure we have that way. Uh-oh.

Wait, what day? The 28th. What? Emily, call me. Why? What's wrong on the 28th? I have a gigantic deposition. I have to do it in Woodland Hills all day.

It's fine. But Clanchmitt is coming to town for this. Oh, right? So we can do this. Maybe we can do it earlier. What time? Maybe we can do it on Friday, the 29th. That there's a way we could kind of move it around. We're back to our old habits again of sorting out the schedule at the end of the show.

Oh, God. We're discussing this on the air. Yeah, I know. Well, this is a big one. All right. Well, listen, we'll get into it. We'll figure it out. Yes, exactly.

We appreciate you all so much. Don't look at me. I didn't do it. All right. Emily, we will talk. Caleb, have a good weekend. And everyone else have a good weekend as well. We'll be talking to you from Florida next week. And then from New York, the following weeks,

so we're going to be pretty busy here. We'll see you then. Ask Dr. Drew is produced by Caleb Nation and Susan Pinsky. As a reminder, the discussions here are not a substitute for medical care, diagnosis, or treatment. This show is intended for educational and informational purposes only. I am a licensed physician, but I am not a replacement for your personal doctor, and I am not practicing medicine here. Always remember that our understanding of medicine and science is constantly evolving, though my opinion is based on the information that is available to me today,

some of the contents of this show could be outdated in the future. Be sure to check with trusted resources in case any of the information has been updated since this was published. If you or someone you know is in an immediate danger, don't call me. Call 911. If you're feeling hopeless or suicidal, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255. You can find more of my recommended organizations and helpful resources at doctordo.com slash help. Thank you.