Ask Dr. Drew - Mikhaila Peterson & Elex Michaelson - Ask Dr. Drew - Episode 32

Episode Date: February 17, 2021

Mikhaila Peterson is a Canadian podcaster, CEO, and lifestyle and diet blogger. Her podcast, ‘The Mikhaila Peterson Podcast’ provides a platform where she hosts a wide range of experts to discuss health, cultural phenomena, politics, and other topics that are often shied away from. She also has a series called Opposing Views on contentious subjects. Her story of overcoming severe autoimmune and mood disorders with diet and lifestyle alone and subsequently becoming medication and symptom-free have inspired hundreds of thousands of people across the globe. Mikhaila's main goal is to help people become resilient, and realize how much control they have over their own life, to encourage others to take responsibility for their physical and mental health, and to help show people that they have the power to better their lives, regardless of the cards they've been dealt. Mikhaila's socials are: Podcast (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/mikhailapetersonvideos  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mikhailapeterson/  Twitter: https://twitter.com/MikhailaAleksis​  Elex Michaelson co-anchors FOX 11 News weeknights and co-hosts the "FOX 11 Special Report" with Dr. Drew weeknights at 7 p.m. He also hosts and produces the political talk show The Issue Is, which airs on stations throughout the state of California. Follow Elex Michaelson at https://twitter.com/Elex_Michaelson​  [Streamed live on Feb 10, 2021] Get an alert when Dr. Drew is taking calls: http://drdrew.tv/  Ask Dr. Drew is produced by Kaleb Nation ( https://twitter.com/kalebnation) and Susan Pinsky (https://twitter.com/FirstLadyOfLove). THE SHOW: For over 30 years, Dr. Drew Pinsky has taken calls from all corners of the globe, answering thousands of questions from teens and young adults. To millions, he is a beacon of truth, integrity, fairness, and common sense. Now, after decades of hosting Loveline and multiple hit TV shows – including Celebrity Rehab, Teen Mom OG, Lifechangers, and more – Dr. Drew is opening his phone lines to the world by streaming LIVE from his home studio in California. On Ask Dr. Drew, no question is too extreme or embarrassing because the Dr. has heard it all. Don’t hold in your deepest, darkest questions any longer. Ask Dr. Drew and get real answers today. This show is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. All information exchanged during participation in this program, including interactions with DrDrew.com and any affiliated websites, are intended for educational and/or entertainment purposes only. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Use code drdrew20. Hey, everybody. Welcome. We'll be taking calls in a few minutes at 984-237-3739. We have a couple of great guests today. I'm watching you all on the restream as well. First up, we'll have Michaela Peterson, and then we'll be followed by Alex Michelson. Alex, of course, is my partner on the Fox 11 News broadcast we do every day.

But Michaela is someone whom I have admired and been anxious to get on the program. She is a podcaster, lifestyle blogger. I beg your pardon. Her podcast is the Michaela Peterson Podcast. Provides a platform that shows a wide range of experts. She also has a series called Opposing Views. She focuses on both sides of a debate, contentious topics. Her own background is overcoming autoimmune mood disorder with diet and lifestyle changes only

and subsequently becoming medication and symptom-free, which I'm all about. She's inspired hundreds of thousands of people across the globe. Michaela is interested in helping with people becoming more resilient and how much control they actually have over their life and to encourage people to take the responsibility for their own physical and mental health. We today are going to specifically focus in on resiliency. Let's bring Michahail on in here. Our laws as it pertained to substances are draconian and bizarre. A

psychopath started this way. He was an alcoholic because of social media and pornography, PTSD, love addiction, fentanyl and heroin. Ridiculous. I'm a doctor for... Where the hell do you think I learned that? I'm just saying, you go to treatment before you kill people. I'm a doctor for ****. Where the hell do 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 Loveline all the time. Educate adolescents and to prevent and to treat.

If you have trouble, you can't stop and you want help stopping, I can help. I got a lot to say. I got a lot more to say. There you are. Hey, Michaela, thanks for joining me. Thanks so much for having me on. It's nice to see you. You as well.

And up there on the screen, people can also see that you can follow Michaela on Twitter at Michaela Alexis, the Alexis. I'm going to spell it all out because they're all spelled a little specific way. M-I-K-H-A-I-L-A-L-E-K-S-I-S, no X in there. And I guess we got to start, Michaela, with your own story. You were struggling with a lot of stuff for many years and overcame it. How did you learn about what you needed to do to do so? I actually started off by researching the medications I'd

been put on and trying to figure out what they acted on in the body and then looking at diseases that affected those parts of my body. I started in a really complicated way, but just to give the gist of it, I simplified it down to diet, which I had always discounted because I guess my doctors had said diet doesn't really make a difference if you have an autoimmune disorder. I had a juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, very severely. I had my hip and ankle replaced. So I simplified it down to, yeah, it was not good. I was 17. That was not a fun year. And I ended up going very, very, very low carb. And that ended up resolving most of my symptoms. I've been, this is somewhat controversial, but I've been on a meat diet the last three and a half years. So that's just meat. It's not fun, but I've been in remission from juvenile rheumatoid

arthritis and chronic depression and a sleeping disorder. And I don't have any symptoms. I'm not on any medication. So I've been kind of spreading awareness about what worked for me, even though the science isn't there. Um, yeah, well, I, I gotta tell you, I, uh, I'm following, I, I coincidentally, uh, I'm following a similar diet. Uh, I, I was doing a health and fitness podcast, and my partner goes, you got to do the diet.

And I'm like, I'm too old to do a diet. I've done a million diets. And he goes, why don't you just try no carbs? And I go, all right, I can do that. And in three days, I've said this repeatedly, if I had told myself how good I felt three days later, I would not have believed myself. This is, this,

this can't be, this is wild. And I too have, I I've been a little more liberal with the diet, particularly now that I have COVID and stuff. And I have just, it's hard. It's,

as you said, it's no fun. You get palate fatigue. It's hard to maintain. And if your appetite screwed up already, like COVID, which COVID has done to me and your palate screwed up because of COVID, it's been hard, but not impossible. And I generally was feeling, you know, usually I would get, I get destroyed by viral illnesses.

That's why I knew if I got COVID, it would be bad. And normally I get about two or three a year. I haven't gotten one from the moment I started the diet three years ago until COVID. So, but COVID caught me up for lost time. Yeah, that was, that's similar to me. Honestly, I went, when I went low carb, I stopped getting bacterial. It was more bacterial, but, um, I used to get them constantly. I was also on medication, so that didn't help. But, uh, yeah, I also got COVID. Yeah. Well, yeah, this is a strange, weird bug, but across this last couple of years, I've been looking really carefully at insulin metabolism for some people. Now, what's your heritage?

Where are you from? Ethnicity. Are you from Eastern Europe? Not Eastern Europe, like Northern Europe, a lot of Irish, Scottish, Norwegian, a little bit of Polish, but mostly Irish and Scottish. I have a feeling, my sense is that the sort of the Ukrainian, Belarusian, that region, maybe even into the Slavic regions, and Ashkenazi, that those kinds of genetic backgrounds have got whatever this is that is a problem with insulin metabolism, I think. Because I've never had better cholesterol readings ever than on this diet. That's eating meat and eggs all the time. My LDL is pegged because I take a statin, but my HDL, I've never been able to bring it up. It's up now. My triglycerides, I could never bring it down. They went from 220 to 75. And I feel and sleep better, just like you described.

It's kind of interesting. I'm like you. I'm not saying everyone should get on this diet. I'm saying for some people, insulin may be more of an inflammatory mediator than we know. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think people with Irish and Scottishish backgrounds i'm not just saying that because of myself but i know celiac disease and sensitivity to gluten can be huge with people with that background so it's worth especially if you have the chronic health symptoms like i did and

you've tried a whole bunch of things i think cutting down on carbs and seeing how you feel is pretty safe and it's worth a shot. And it's just completely changed my life in a way that I thought diet couldn't. Were you an athlete in high school too? Do I remember that right? Not really. Like when I went on immune suppressants for the arthritis, yeah, I took, I did all the sports except for volleyball because of the arthritis in my elbows. But you know, I had my hip and ankle replaced, and that'll pretty much put a kibosh on any type of activity you're trying to do. I ask that because, you know, you're in high school, you're athletic, you're active,

and that's all taken away from you. And how does an adolescent deal with that? I mean, we want to focus in on resiliency, but what was your arc with that? Because I'm imagining at first it was just straight up depressing. Uh, yes. So it was terrifying and it made me angry because it came out of the blue. Uh, I'd been told that I might need,

I was 16 at the time. I'd been told I might need a hip replacement when I was 30. And as a 16 year old, a 30 year old seems really old. So I thought the long, I was a long ways away. And then I was told, Oh no, you need a hip replacement this 30. And as a 16 year old, a 30 year old seems really old. So I thought the long, I was a long ways away. And then I was told, Oh no, you need a hip replacement this year. And I was in so much pain that it didn't, there weren't a lot of other emotions involved, but the way I got through it was I actually tapped into anger. Um, so I got depressed and

then I thought, you know what, this isn't how I'm going to be taken out. Like I can beat this. And I got angry. And that's how I made it through it. And I've talked to a lot of people who've had chronic illnesses or injuries. And sometimes in order to get through these depressed periods, when you just get majorly walloped, if you tap into the angry part of you, it can help. I'm curious about that because you and I were talking a little bit off here about how frustrating and helpless it feels with social media,

with, you know, there's nothing to get, nobody to get angry at. And I personally, I actually can't, I have an ethical guidelines as a physician. I can't get angry at people. I'm not, I can't, you know, I can't do that. It's not okay. Is there something else in today's world where we're sort of all in these positions? And by the way, COVID has made us helpless too. So is there something we can do when there's no one we can get angry? I get angry at the governor of California for making us even more helpless. That's somebody I get angry with. But I don't know that even that sort of. This is a bit of a tricky situation because people are already volatile being locked at home or

not seeing their friends or being scared. So probably erring towards anger for COVID is, is not the right thing to do. I mean, I don't know if I'm going to have any, anything more than try to keep in touch with people and try and do something social. I'm lucky enough that I have this podcast and I'm able to, it's kind of face-to-face. So at least you're talking to people and that's, what's keeping me sane. So continue doing zoom calls and talking to people. I, that's, I, I a thousand percent agree with you that human contact and connectedness and rapport and something there's something that famous psychologist peter foneghi calls reflective function where you're you're sort of we're

we're something back and forth between us but nothing replaces in the flesh though i think we're i think we're all getting kind of tired of this electronic medium of of trans of yes communication yeah it's been really hard for me. And at the beginning, I've been through some hard things, right? I had chronic health problems. My parents have been sick. I was separated,

although I resolved that. But I've been through some things and this has been going on for long enough that I haven't met very many people who are like, you know what, I'm still doing okay. So it's tough. And I don't

know about where you are but i know here we're not supposed to be seeing family or anything right so it's it's getting it's getting tough and i hope you and your it's tricky you and andre are good now yes yes andre and i are good thank goodness i can't imagine what it would be like to be alone right now. I can't be the first person to say this, but I want to joke with you about the fact that when I first met you guys, I thought, wait a minute. Oh my God, how bizarre. You two really remind me and your names even of a couple on 90 Day Fiance. I can't be the first person to have said this. Am I the first? You're not. Okay. Cause I was like, and his name is Andre and he's from, is he from Moldova? I don't think he is, but, but, but I was like, wow, that's really uncanny. And he, he sounds like he literally sounds like the guy on the guy on the television. You don't so much, but he does.

Well, that's good. Yeah, right. That's pretty funny. I know I've been compared to, there's a, I think she's a Russian lady on 90 Day Fiance, and I'm not Russian, but I get, so that's two comparisons. I don't know how I feel about that. This is the couple. If you know what it is, I look at 90 Day Fiance as the symptom of how sick we've become,

because that's all we do in this country is watch terrible television like that. We would watch it and go, oh, my God, I just think like, oh, I'm sick. Something's wrong with me. And now we've gotten to know some of the people on the cast and stuff from podcasting and stuff. And so I can't be that negative on it. But Susan, who do you think Michaelaayla reminds you of because susan's uh is uh the andre's wife no no no but she says there's a russian woman i think i think the ukrainian they're talking about really fit okay maybe there's this woman her husband ended up in

jail oh really but no no she was Brazilian. No. Well, we'll think about it. We'll come up with it. Well, you look pretty like all of them. They're all beautiful women, like amazing women. They're just so pretty. That's so funny. Well, my relationship was kind of like 90 Day Fiancé. Andre and I just met.

And we're like, honestly, we just met. We were young. And I ended up having a baby. And so I was like, I didn't want the drama in my life, but it just kind of happened. That's so funny. We're good now. We have a three-and-a-half-year-old. Congratulations.

Where is Andre from? He's Russian, right? He's Russian. Yeah, he was born in Moscow. That's so funny. He's super bright. The interactions I've had with him, lovely man, but the bright comes through. Yeah, he's very kind.

What does he do for a living? Do you mind if I ask? I'm just curious what he does for a living. He helps me run my dad's social media. He was a business consultant before that. And then when dad kind of popped up to fame, there was, well, as soon as you get to the kind of that amount of fame, there's a whole bunch of opportunity and there's a whole bunch of organization that he needed help with. And I took that over. And then there was a business and financial element that attacks that I had no idea what to do with. And I was like, Andre, there we go. Well, please say hi to him. He's also a bright, bright man.

That came flying through loud and clear with that little conversations I had with him. All right, let's go back to resiliency. So we're saying use anger. We're saying use other people. So anger got you focused and got you through. I kind of like that. Was there any, did you have an awareness at the time that the anger was sort of a driving element that got you through this? I was lucky enough that it just kind of happened right like it was for me i noticed it

when um i had my hip replaced and then suddenly my ankle failed and i needed to have an ankle replacement and they told me it was gonna be a three and a half year wait for in canada uh and i just i had a panic attack it was like seven hours because i was in so much pain and at the end of that something snapped and i got angry and was like, this is like, I'm going to make it through this. So talking to, it's a little bit different, the situation we're in with COVID, but a lot of bad situations, sometimes you have to look at your calendar,

circle a date in the future and say, you know what, I'm going to reevaluate my life then because people have horrible times that they just have to kind of wait through. But you have to remember that if you're in one of those terrible times, if you're, you know, one of your family members is sick or something horrible, it's not going to last forever. Even with this COVID thing, like we're in the middle, we're locked down, people are

lonely, but this isn't going to last forever. Okay. So I'm going to, I want to drill in on that a little bit. That's a very positive thought. And when you're negative, it's hard to hang on to those positive thoughts in a way that are, are nourishing. So,

so do we have a way to do that? I, I is, is one of the things that I did during the pandemic, when, during the fog of war, the pandemic, we really weren't,

weren't sure where we were. You can write things down repeatedly, or you can say things to yourself repeated did you do any kind of practice like that uh i did journaling for a long time but i didn't really do i know a lot of people do kind of positive journaling into the future i journaled to get my angst out so if i had repeating thoughts that were really negative or if i was angry which I said I also used in a positive way, I'd write it out and just get it out of my head. So those looping thoughts that people have that are anxiety, sometimes you can get rid of those if you write them down. Do you think that some of that anger contributed to your depression earlier? You haven't really talked about your depression yet. You said you had

depression. I'm assuming it was part of being chronically ill is you get depressed. And that's just normal. And there are psychological theories out there that some depression is anger turned inward. Do you think that was a component of your depression? And when you turned it outward, maybe that's what made it more productive? I would say my depression was primarily angry and anger and volatility. It got worse the older I got and then there was a doomy aspect, but I was very angry and very volatile. And it didn't actually get better until I went on this very low carb diet and I think reduced the amount of inflammation in my body and then it just went away. So there wasn't a lot of mindset that helped it go away. I never thought it was going to go away. I thought I was, I thought it was there forever. I was going to be on medication forever

and it left when I went low carb after a few months. You know what, let me, I'm going to throw in a little more, uh, again, we're speculating because as you said, the science isn't there yet, but right now I'm on a medication that is specifically, it's for my long hauler stuff. People that watch this stream have seen me talk to some of the researchers. That's designed to hit inflammatory mediators in the brain, something called the Sigma-1 receptor, which is a new sort of biology being looked at. And it really helped me. And I'm wondering if maybe some of that phenomenon is a Sigma-1 phenomenon somehow mediated through insulin, through the highly desaturated fats and all those sorts of, what's the word I'm looking for, oxidized fats.

I've got COVID brain. And it's really interesting to speculate that there might be a mechanism, that COVID might even show us the mechanism for this one day. Yeah. Well, interestingly, I agree with that. The medication I was on for arthritis was, it worked on, I think it was interleukin-5 or interleukin-3. Yeah. And it was so seriously anti-inflammatory, shut down part of my immune system. And it worked. It didn't stop me part of my immune system, right? And it worked. It didn't stop me from getting my hip and ankle replaced, but it worked. And there are ideas that, I was on SSRIs, and there are ideas out there that they have an anti-inflammatory component.

Right. So whatever happens to me with diet. They do. That's what I'm getting right now. Because I'm not aware of any mood. I have no sort of sense of, I think for a couple days I was a little de-repressed. Like I was a little impulsive, but that was it. Otherwise, I'm just aware of any mood. I have no sort of sense of, I think for a couple of days, I was a little de-repressed. Like I was a little impulsive,

but that was it. Otherwise, I'm just kind of feeling better. It's interesting. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Yeah, well, inflammation makes people crazy. Like, I mean, you're right. We're guessing, but I think a lot of it is an inflamed brain.

Well, that's what COVID is. That's the horrible part of COVID is the inflammatory piece. And presumably this long hauler thing is that. I can't tell if it's just, you know, subjectively, it feels like either it was an injury, like a head injury, because it feels like that. And it could have been just that. Or it feels like ongoing inflammation. And the fact that the Sigma-1 agonist helped me suggests that inflammation is a significant part of this.

So back to resilience. I want to stay with resiliency as much as we can. Back to a world where we're using screens and we're doing things that don't add to resiliency. In fact, they sort of catch us in loops of frustration and helplessness and arousal, whatever it might be. Is it strictly other people that get us out of that, or are there other sorts of resiliency notions you have? Okay, well, just the normal stuff that I know works

that's kind of difficult to implement. Exercising works. If you can exercise, if you have the energy, it's anti-inflammatory as well. Well, you know, a component of it is anti-inflammatory. well well you know the component of it is anti-inflammatory exercise really does make me feel better meditation makes me feel better so journaling makes me feel better there are things that you can do at home um a low carb diet makes me feel better those are things that you can do at home uh i'm fairly extroverted so a lot of my well-being, unfortunately, depends on social interaction.

I found one thing people can do, and it's especially important nowadays, is try and interact with people that aren't just in your social circle. Oh, that's a really interesting, yeah, that's a very interesting statement. I have, you know, I've, I worked with addicts and stuff for many, many years. And one of the things that, um, I found was sort of extraordinary is if you have somebody different than you, but who can appreciate you and experience you fully, it's literally like seeing yourself through a new pair of glasses. And such you grow you grow from that other person's perception of you or at least the sharing of emotions with that other person is that kind of thing you're talking about yeah yeah that's definitely it that works and then it also tackles the fact that people seem to be well people are angry you can see that on social media

and i think remembering that there are people who have different views than you is also helpful nowadays and important to kind of, I know I talked about using anger in a positive way, but to reduce the amount of anger online. No, I get it. I get it. But I think that is another great point, which is to take a deep breath and try to understand perspective of people whose opinions are different than yours. I mean, again, this is all about your own growth. You grow when your mind changes like that, right? Yeah. And everyone's upset that, oh, it's the people on the other side, whatever the other side is, that are being unreasonable.

But it's people on both sides that are refusing to listen to the other side. Yeah. That's it's that part is that people jump. It's almost like we treat each other like cartoon characters. You know what I mean? Anybody that has a public life is treated like a non person. Like it's a cartoon is the closest thing I can think of. We represent something that's sort of cartoonish and as such, you can do anything to that cartoon character you wish, including destroying

it or changing the channel, whatever it is. The sort of sense of there being another person there is kind of lost. The other thing I'm seeing a lot of, and I've discussed this before, which is there's so much narcissism afoot in the world, particularly in this country. Envy is one of the great risk factors of narcissism. It's one of the more unpleasant outcomes. And so a lot of people feel envy towards other people and they're not just jealous, meaning they want what they have,

they have to knock them down. And that's envy. You got to bring somebody down to, you have something I want, makes me feel bad. I got to make you feel bad like me. And that's a very destructive emotion, very destructive. It is. And social media is making that so much worse. I had the same response to people though, before I had kind of a platform, whatever size platform my platform is. I had the same issue with putting people in boxes. And looking back on it, I recognize that part of that was jealousy. And I don't think people understand that people in public eye, there are upsides and downsides. There's more opportunity. It's easier to access money, but the stress that comes with it is unbelievable to somebody who hasn't experienced it. The amount of work put in that goes on the back end, people also don't see.

It's weird. Yeah. I would love it. I totally agree with you. The back end stuff, the getting up at 530 in the morning, the traveling, the speaking, all of the craziness. Yeah. But I'd love it if you wouldn't mind speaking a little more about that change. Cause I think if you talked about your change from becoming more empathic from being a little bit abusive to more empathic,

I think that's what you're describing. Um, I think that would help other people. Yeah. Well, I'd look at, um, celebrities and these are like a list or b list celebrities with a lot of followers and think if they said something rude or irritable i'd be like well what do you have to complain about honestly right like you've made it you have money like what are you complaining about you live in this giant house you have a pool what are you complaining about and then my dad you know went viral in 2016 and that came with a whole bunch of stress and I saw and his was kind of on another level people were very very angry at him and so that was a little bit different I think than being like an actor but uh it made me feel way worse for people um that are in the public eye people like I remember being younger and being

not angry, but confused, I guess, about Justin Bieber, right? Because he'd be going, he was drinking, he went to jails. What is he doing? What a moron. And then you see the amount of stress that those people are under and it's like, thank God they're still alive. It's really serious. Yes. you're so correct but there's one thing i because i've thought about this a lot there's one thing that you have that say a justin bieber does not have justin bieber you and your dad have purpose you're trying to do something you're you're using you're using this to make a difference justin bieber or actors they're just performing you know what i I mean? They're doing their creative thing and they want to be successful, but there's really no purpose. They're

not trying to change things for the better for people except to entertain them, which is real. That's fine. But when you have a real purpose, it helps push you forward through some of this stuff, doesn't it? Yeah, actually, I agree. At least you're doing it for a reason yeah it's not just hey it's me is that right yeah i mean think about your opposing views thing i mean you're bringing people together you're you're taking the heat for that because it's helpful you want to you want to do something good you want to make things better and right now people people have trouble believing that that you're you have you know a good heart. They think that everyone is evil or trying to do something or it's, and when you are trying to do something good, it's especially

painful. It's very painful. Yeah. It's been, it's happened quite dramatically. It's happened quite dramatically to my dad when they're like, what's his real goal here? He's like, he just really wants to help people. I've been talking about low carb diet or this meat diet that helped me. And they're like, who's paying you? And I was like, who would be paying? This just really helped me. So I want to tell other people. Foster Farms chickens got you. McDonald's is paying. Yeah. This is the part that's so, it's actually painful. I'm sure you get, you say he gets it, but I'm sure you get in the crossfire a lot.

I have no doubt. Oh, man. Yeah. I get the shill for, I don't know, this low-carb diet, which is the worst way to make money. Let me tell you guys. Damn, if there really were a way you could actually make

a living by talking about low-carb diets oh that's so funny yeah yeah well um that and then i i get a little bit of heat for well i caught a lot of heat for trying to help my dad a lot of heat but i ended up helping my dad so that paid off but that was really hard in the last year. Twitter is the worst. Yeah. Would you like me to just say something about that very quickly to support you? Yeah, sure. Okay.

Michaela did a masterful job. And your husband. A masterful job helping your dad. Thank you. And that when I see people becoming critical, especially supposedly smart people in the press, it is reprehensible. It's disgusting to me because you have a family that went through something very intense. You have family members that came to the rescue and worked their ass off in stupendous ways. And these assholes have the temerity to be critical.

It's disgusting. So that's my two cents is that enough thank you thank you yeah i i appreciate it is it is truly truly disgusting it's disgusting i got so angry i was like oh makes you move away like I don't want to be around it. You know? So anyway, there you go. Yeah. Um, thank you very much. I appreciate that. Yeah. Uh, and, and again, I can relate with you having, you know, been in this, you know, this media thing trying to do good and then being accused of not and how, how, how much that hurts. And then, and then you're, you're left trying to be resilient. Right. And that's, you know And that's what we're really primarily talking about today so other people can benefit from that. And for me, I do believe that it's, I think, other people. I really think you were spot on with that, that it is finding people who see you for who you are, people who actually care, people who reflect back to you something new about yourself. And it's hard.

It's super, super hard when it's not in person. Super hard. Yeah, yeah. It's way harder not in person. Yeah. Well, Michaela, I promised you 30 minutes. We've done about 30 minutes. It's a privilege to talk to you.

We'll look for the podcast and the two podcasts now. We've got Opposing Views. Hang on here. Is there a Twitter for Opposing Views or just look up on your usual podcast platform? No, just Michaela Peterson Podcast YouTube. Michaela Peterson Podcast and then Twitter at Michaela Alexis. The Alexis is spelled A-L-E-K-S-I-S and Michaela M, M-I-K-H-A-I-L-A. And great. Great to talk to you. Congratulations on everything. And hope to talk to you soon. Thank you very much.

Thank you for having me on. You got it. Talk soon. And we're going to have my friend Alex Michelson in here in just a moment. I'm watching you guys on the restream here. Any thoughts on the restream about Michaela and her performance here? I think she's the whole family is extraordinary. And so she very kindly decided she would come in here and give us, give her a listen on her podcast. They're very entertaining.

They're very good. They're very thoughtful. We're still waiting for Alex. Do you want to take a call? Oh, sure. So Machiavelli is saying don't know who she is or what she does she is a jordan peterson's daughter she has a podcast called michaela peterson podcast uh and she is uh in the mix with some of her dad's stuff oh my goodness we have lots of calls here uh uh uh uh uh hmm do you want to take a quick break let me take a call right before we do uh

because this is kind of interesting uh cassandra how you doing there good hi dr drew how are you good thank you so much for taking my call yes um i was just wondering because of course like you were just talking about with your guest stress and stress management. And I've been kind of stuck in what I go to is listening to old Loveline episodes. That's interesting. I came across one. Yeah, I was listening to one from Marilyn Manson and it was one in 2003 and one in 2004.

Yeah. And then it got me thinking um i wonder what dr drew thinks i could definitely tell i don't want to speak too much but i could tell that you could suss something out while he was in the room with you well and i was just curious what your whole memory of that was not a hint of any of the allegations that are being made against him not not even close was i thinking anything like that. There are still just allegations. In fact, I would say he's the opposite

of that. That sort of doesn't fit for me. However, however, what you heard, I bet in the 2003 one, is he was drinking a shit ton of Abyssinian as we sat there and got pretty loaded. Yeah.

As I recall, right? Isn't that what happened? Can't believe I remember 17 years ago, 18 years ago. And that made me uncomfortable. We were on radio and he was getting pretty wild. And I think I even talked to him afterwards. I'm like, dude, you know, this happened all the time on Loveline. I just pull people aside and go, hey, if you ever want to do something about this let me let me know i mean i used to do that with steve all the time and he finally called um and uh he but he was

always i i would call him gracious i knew his dad too i i don't you know so this whatever happened you know it makes me wonder, Hmm, could it have been with the substances that made that problem? Cause you know, substances are associated with problematic behavior, no matter who you are. Uh,

so that's the only, other than that, I have zero opinion about it, except to say that that's not, does not fit with the guy I met at all. Interestingly, Cassandra, how's your, you said your, you said how's your mood and stuff doing? Is it all COVID-related?

It is. I mean, I'm working through trauma and doing it in isolation and all that. But it's really like your guest was saying, too. I kind of use the anchor to help myself create things and get over things and the old love wine i recommend that to anybody out there if you just want a nostalgia time capsule for an hour and be transported that's really a great option yeah it was it was a moment wasn't that really you really get a flavor you get a feel for the pulse of the moment for sure that's that's what i loved about it we were definitely in it all the time and uh but it's

interesting to me a lot of you using anger that's not that's not where i routinely go with these kinds of uh phenomena but i'm fascinated that that's helping so i'm going to keep my eye on that all right yeah look the deal the deal is dr drew I'll be straight with you. I'm not at the point where I can really go through the feeling. So instead of disassociating, I'm going to hold on to anger. So that makes me get out of bed and do my job every day. That's perfectly fine, right? Dissociation is, and you understand, dissociation is this vagal mediated detachment that becomes a predominant means of regulating emotions. And you'll go to that very easily. So your job is to not dissociate, feel the feelings, increase the range of feelings and sort of connection to those feelings.

That's it. I mean, that's what you're doing. And that's great. Okay. All right. Hang in there. But I'd be neat. But I heard you say, I heard you say that it's hard to do alone and I agree. You kind of need to be in the room with somebody to really do this properly. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Hang in there. You're all right. You're going to do fine.

You're in it. It's all good. It's all good. All right. We will take a break. We have Alex Michelson coming here in a few minutes. Anything else, guys? Do I need to talk about anything, promote anything? DrDude.tv, I'm being told now, is where you should all be going in case YouTube has any issues. I've got all the COVID misinformation policy from YouTube that I'm trying to follow. None of it has anything to do with anything I would ever discuss under any circumstances. It's all far out nonsense rather than scientifically based clinical material that we discuss here. It's pretty funny. I mean, I read that.

I guess you have to click through. They don't send that in the letter, but I clicked through and I was like, wow, how did I miss this? I can't read it because if I read it, YouTube will cancel me, but it's all the crazy conspiracy theories and stuff you've heard. It's beyond. It's beyond, beyond, beyond. So you feel better now? You know you didn't do anything

wrong? No, Susan, I had read this. I had read it and that's why I was so frustrated. The only thing I could find in this six pages was they don't want any discussions about immunity and I had discussed my illness and what that meant and stuff. Yeah, but I don't think they were picking on. And I had discussed, you know, my illness and, you know, what that meant. Yeah, but I don't think they were picking on that because that was that's the only thing I could find.

Only thing I could find a reason to take down. Only thing I could find. That's the point. None of these things that we ever get anywhere near. So if, you know, whatever. But anyway, if we want people to to keep an eye out at Dr. Drew dot TV, you can find all our different platforms there in case YouTube is not up someday. You can also go to drdrew.locals.com where we will have streaming soon.

You can sign up without paying. Yes. We'll give you an email when we start the show. I've been trying to link everything to it. It's not quite there yet, but it's building slowly. It is a subscription model, but you don't have to be in the subscription. What is Giovanni Gorgio's what's giovanni giorgio's uh twitter do you know it off because i want to send people the link for the because this you can get oh michael alex is there waiting for us he just

texted me um uh let me tell him we're on it uh i can get you giovanni just a second if you give me for it on your twitter i can't figure it out. I thought it was Giovanni Giorgio. Hold on. Okay, we'll figure it out after the break. Hold on. It'll just take me a second. No, no, no. I really got it right now. We got it good. G-I-O. Here it is.

Uh-oh. Maybe it's not as easy as I thought it would be. I told you. Let's do it during the break. I got a lot of Giovanni's that popped up during the break, honey. Okay. I told you. Let's do it during the break. I got a lot of Giovanni's that popped up here. Let's do it during the break, honey. Okay. Really, seriously. All right, all right, all right. Okay.

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That is seed.com slash drdrew. Use code drdrew20. Welcome back, everybody. We're trying to hook up with Alex Michelson here. I have a little technical stuff. I'm looking at your, yes, Jax L. Suicides have gone up as well as overdoses. We're up in the range of around 90,000 overdoses now with people in this country.

Not surprising given the fact that we are allowing people to die of drug use on the streets. We are not doing anything from a law enforcement standpoint. We're not doing anything from a treatment standpoint. And we are locking people into a helpless situation that makes them lonely and desperate and depressed. And, of course, young people particularly. I'm going to do a couple of podcasts coming up. I've got Dr. Lisa Stroman coming on the Dr. Drew podcast maybe next week where she has been involved on

a national scale with what's going on with young people. She says it is, quote, a total mess. If we don't get kids back to school, it's only going to get worse and it is accelerating now. Joe Giannotti, I don't know what we'll be talking about Fox LA tonight. Maybe Alex knows a little something. I'll ask him. I haven't

had my call yet with the people that produce that. Yeah, Ryan, anxiety is way up. Of course it is. We're telling people that the outside world is a dangerous place. Anybody is a source of transmission. Stay away from other people. Shelter in place. As though there was a nuclear holocaust underway. And yeah, there was a serious thing underway, but we way overdid the mental health consequences of this particular list in this state of this particular crisis. Do we have Alex there? Is he showing up? He says it is Chrome he's using. So for whatever that's worth. Oh my, Chris, tell me, you said a seven year old said, I wish I was dead. Who is the seven-year-old you heard say that?

Because that kind of stuff, I'm hearing an awful lot of that sort of seven to 15, really eight to 15 age group, a lot of desperation, a lot of helplessness, a lot of hopelessness. Brian, that's a confusing story. I don't quite know what to make of that. Hi-Fi, you don't have depression. I don't know why, what that is. Yeah, Halidine is something I use when I travel especially. I mean, you know, they're making us wear two masks now

or they're recommending two masks. Why don't they recommend something you put on your throat and nasal cavity that can really reduce the transmission of this virus? I don't understand why it's only the mask. It's again, the orthodoxy, the bureaucratic mandates are really kind of crazy. Not to saying that it's not a good idea to wear a mask and that I've always thought the two mask thing was actually probably a better idea anyway, because we had a lot of aerosolized stuff. I think that's how I probably got COVID. I was walking around with a surgical mask where the aerosolized stuff can get in on the sides.

I was in a hospital, you know, and that was that. There it went. Fart smeller. What is a good medication for depression? Depends on the symptoms of your depression and your age and sort of um what you've tried in the past uh with chris i i don't see who was the seven-year-old or your kid oh my goodness uh that is terrible uh have you had her evaluated or anything or you know i'd take

maybe pediatrician talk to the pediatrician about her and is she getting back to school yet um kava macuveli i'm very aware of kava kava is a little more dangerous than you might imagine uh back there are stories of people in these uh i think they're islands outside the philippines which have a lot of indigenous kava and people getting strung out on it because it has benzodiazepine properties a little kava i don't object to but to be using it therapeutically whenever you use something therapeutically you're treating yourself and that's always a mistake right you don't treat yourself now if somebody wants to recommend it to you and follow you can't be objective about what's happening to you um yeah you don't treat yourself um den Denise says next it'll be three masks.

Jesse, you had your defibrillator moved last year due to not using it. Talk to your cardiologist about that. If you had reason to put one in in the first place, I don't understand why they would take it out. That's actually kind of concerning. Let's see here. neighbor has lung cancer, improved with new medication.

She now has COVID. Oh boy. They said, take Tylenol, drink fluids. Shouldn't she be doing more? This is a Kirkwood, a Kirkwood.

Look right now, there is a monoclonal antibody that has been approved. In addition to the Bamlanivimab, there's a combination product. Seems to me she would be ideal for it the bamlanivimab as a combination product seems to me she would be ideal for. It's bamlanivimab and etosivimab. Oh my goodness, these medication. Etosivimab. Yeah. So it's bamlanivimab and etosivimab. Those two together become a polyclotal antibody, and that would be perfect for that woman. It seems like

that's a circumstance where that should be used. Justin, yeah, Valium is a benzodiazepine. It would be very dangerous with those medications. Gene, the Novavax vaccine has been sort of mixed stuff. We'll

see how that turns out. I'd be surprised if it is as good as the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. I'm right now waiting on my Adatex score. I had it drawn yesterday. And we're going to see if that antibody, my antibody response, which was 10 or 20 times the level of normal vaccine levels, has come down at all. If it comes down by 60, 70%, I think I'm going to get the vaccine. I'm interested to see if I can wait until the Johnson & Johnson vaccine so I can just take one vaccine.

Poor Alex is having real trouble getting in here. So I'm meantime, why don't I take some calls in the meantime? Okay. Let's see. Let's do that. Okay. Let's talk to Jan. Hi Jan. What's going on? Hey, Dr. Drew. Hello. Can you hear me? I got you, Jay. Sorry. Hey, I'm a... Oh, no problem.

I'm a big fan. I just wanted to start by saying that. Thank you, buddy. My brother wanted to say hello. That's all right. My brother, Jerry. All right. I want to be man-tashed.

What's that, Jerry? I want to be man-tashed. Okay, fair enough, buddy. I want to be baptized. What's that, Jerry? I want to be baptized. Okay, fair enough, buddy. All right, we will put Jerry and Jay back on hold. Let's talk to Sarah. Hey, Sarah, what's going on?

Sarah? Hey, how are you? Hi, I'm good. How are you? I'm good. What's happening there? I'm just curious. What's your opinion would be if you were in a toxic relationship with your partner, still with two children, seven and three,

boy and girl, you know, and we've been together nine years. Could we heal from all these? How toxic are we talking here?

There's been, you know, mental abuse, you know, substance abuse. There's been physical abuse. All right. So was he loaded when he was physically abusive? Intoxicated? Yeah. Okay. So you were talking about a very complicated situation. It can get better. It does not get better on its own. It does not get better on its own. It gets worse. Which is why when we hear stories like this, the first order of business is getting you away from him and putting you in some sort of shelter or some sort of environment where you can start the process of healing. Now, both of you have to be motivated to get better if you're going to save this relationship.

Now, there are circumstances where one person gets a lot better and the other person wants to stay in the relationship. And in order to do so, they have to kind of come along for that ride of health. They have to kind of improve with you, and sometimes you being able to form a more stable, secure, healthy attachment sort of teaches them to form that attachment, but that's kind of unusual, and particularly when substances are involved. He has to be treated for his substance use disorder. You have to be treated for the trauma and PTSD of being in a relationship like this.

We have to look at why you chose to be in a relationship like this, what it was about your parents. You have to remember your kids are being exposed to domestic violence or what's called intimate partner violence now. And that changes their mental health dramatically. Go ahead. Both children are the father of my kids. And I keep him around because I'm epilepsy and we have kids together. So what medications are you on? Other medication, the reason why I'm epilepsy

is because I abused Xanax. Right. Sounds like you're still on that stuff though. Yeah. Yeah. So you need to be treated as much as I was. You need to be treated

for your substance use disorder as well. So there's a lot to do here. A lot, a lot of stuff. And, you know, it's time. It's time. How old are you now? I'm 29. Yeah, it is time.

It is time. I mean, you could do something very simple. I mean, your kids are, I worry about the safety of your kids with everybody using around them. But here's something simple you could do. You could go to a 12-step meeting and raise your hand and say, I need help. And see if you can get help from some people there. Very simple. Or go to a Zoom meeting.

It's even easier now, right? You can't even go to meetings. Maybe in some states you can. If you're in Michigan, I probably have to Zoom there. Go to a Zoom meeting, a 12-step Zoom meeting, and just go, I'm in trouble. I need help, and see what you can get back from people. But we need to get you a social worker and some doctors and some psychologists and really get going here. But the story under the story is substance use disorder, and that always has to be treated aggressively.

So I'm sorry about that. All right. Do we have sorry about that. All right. Do we have Alex at all? No Alex. We just give up on that because I got lots of good calls here. Yeah, keep going. All right. Dale, go ahead.

Hi, Dale. Yeah. Hi. Drew, would you just in general address the variants that are out there and kind of summarize how bad is it, how dangerous? Right. Appreciate that. Yeah, okay, we'll do that. I'm going to put you on hold because I'm just going to be sort of going with it here.

Give me a second here. So here's the bottom line. The bottom line is there are lots of variants out there right there are in and we are trying to chase them the british have been very good at doing genomic studies and they're seeing all the different varieties there this country is starting to ramp up what they're looking at and we are seeing it it's complicated, right? It's very complicated. I was just reading an article about how the virus creates some of these variants. The reality is that these are gene alterations. They're actually transpositions. The virus has a mechanism for

repairing mutations, but it can't repair transpositions. And so the kinds of things that are developing are developing in multiple sites because it's a feature of the virus. It's not just in one individual and then getting out. It's developing in multiple sites. Now, one of the ones that people are very concerned about or preoccupied with is this one that's more infectious. It came out of the UK. I believe it's the B.1.1.7. And that is a somewhat evading vaccine. We don't think it's evading immunity, though, and it is more contagious. So it's going to be the predominant virus out there. The ones that are really causing a concern, though, that one really is not a real concern. Let's just say that we probably have that one hand. The vaccine is probably covering it well and immunity is probably covering it well. And by the way, speaking of immunity,

saw some data this morning that suggests we've been underestimating the number of COVID cases out there. So immunity may be more pervasive than we know. But the South African variant, the B.1.351, that is one that has been causing concern because it can get around some of the vaccines, for sure. And in Brazil, the P.1 variant is also of concern. Similar phenomenon. And I believe P.1 has developed in multiple sites as well, I guess also in Japan. So it's got some additional mutations that make it difficult to be recognized by antibodies. So these are ones that we worry are going to get past people like me who've had the illness and people that are vaccinated. Now, my understanding is that the Moderna people are working very hard on, because the mRNA vaccines are very quick to be produced and changed, we can alter them and change them very, very quickly.

They're very optimistic. If you saw Dr. John Campbell's review yesterday of the variants that are out there, he was very optimistic that the booster, particularly what Moderna is putting together, will be something that will cover it. Now, what I haven't heard yet is whether that booster will only be good for Moderna recipients or whether people who have been fully vaccinated with the Pfizer or the Johnson & Johnson vaccine

can then take the Moderna booster. We'll see on that. I don't know the answer to that. But you see, it's a pretty loaded topic. So I hope that helped kind of under, you know, focus it a little bit. In the meantime,

it's why we will continue to wear a mask. It's why I wear a mask. You know, I want to signal that everyone's comfortable, but also I don't want to get another, I don't want to get a variant. I do not want to get that. Joe,

what's up, buddy? Hey, Drew, how you doing? We're good. How are you, man?

I'm good. Good. Doing well. Let's, you know, let's continue on with what you, what you doing? We're good. How are you, man? I'm good. Good. Doing well. Let's continue on with what you were just discussing, because the Biden administration this afternoon, according to the Miami Herald, is, you know, they're looking at potential domestic travel restrictions because of those new mutations.

And the place they're looking in particular is Florida. However, if I'm not mistaken, isn't California also has one of the higher percentages of B.1.1.7? Right. And we have another one. And we had a spontaneous one that developed here, my understanding is. But that horse is out of the barn. I don't understand what travel restrictions are really going to do with that one. Again, it's the South African and the Brazilian ones that are really of concern. That's the stuff we've got to get after. Yeah.

You agree? And I know that Dr. I do. And I know that Dr. Bean has done an outstanding job on one of his podcasts, which I'll put on Locals, about the South African and Brazilian trains. Another question quickly for you. Did Susan get the ADTIC score? Because I'm more curious about her than about you. Yeah, that's true because she has not gotten this thing in spite of lying next to me all night while I was sick. I'm with you. I could not shake that out of the tree just yet. I'm still, because they don't have it commercially available yet, it's very sort of restricted. I kind of had to beg for mine to

get done. Well, not beg. They're interested in me because I had such high levels. But I do not have other scores yet. I have a couple of vaccine recipient scores, and I'll keep pushing to see if I can get Susan's eye group to be better. I want to see if my son can get it because he had COVID. Hey, Alex is on the phone because we gave up on the firewall situation at Fox. We're not sure why he's not able to get it. Got it. Okay, Joe, I'm going to put you back on hold. Thanks, buddy.

You got it. All right, man. And we're going to talk to Alex Michelson, my partner at 7 o'clock on Fox 11 here in Los Angeles. Alex, sorry about that technical issue. It's all good, Dr. Drew. You are always worth the wait. Well, Caleb, will I be able to bring callers up in addition to having Alex?

Yeah. Okay. All right. So let's talk about, just before we go to calls because there are people there's somebody here that wants to talk to us about the um la school board member we spoke with uh i guess that was your friend what's his name i forgot his name doug something is that right nick melbourne nick nick melbourne yeah uh yeah he's the uh he's the vice president of the la usd school board but but let's look back over this last year.

I mean, you guys have been, we've been doing this for like a year. And we started it as an experiment in March of 2020. I was actually in South Carolina when we started. And Susan, before we got on the air here, was saying, what has Alex learned? I'd be interested to know what he has learned. Because you're not normally doing these kinds of topics. I'm sure you come across them. But this has been, you know,

mostly we've been talking about COVID and its consequences in that 7 o'clock slot. What have you learned? Well, that's a broad question. Yes, it is. But what comes to mind? It's okay to focus on one thing. Susan has her mic on, too. What do you want to...? It's okay to focus on one thing. Susan has her mic on too.

The poor guy's been struggling with the internet. We have to let him take a breath here in between. No, I mean, there's so many different aspects of what we've learned. We've learned a lot about medicine and what viruses are about. We've learned about human behavior when people are going to be confined to different spaces. And we've learned about the human need for freedom and interaction and the need for socialization. We've learned about how people adapt when they're put through the ringer. We've learned about how situations like this create strange bedfellows when it comes to politics. We've learned about our own ability to adapt from a technological perspective. The fact that so much of the way we communicate with each other is changed forever. I think that will change things forever.

And then I don't even think we've begun to deal with the repercussions of what our kids are not learning and what that will mean for us to people at the center of this every single night and learn something from them every night. But I think all of us have changed immeasurably in the last year. And to even think about what life is like. Some people are posting pictures because I think yesterday was the one year anniversary of last year's Oscars. Um, and to think how different life was like, just looking at people's pictures on a crowded red carpet, that much focus on celebrity that much, you know, everybody close together, you know, how media was different, how people went to the movies, you know, that feels like a lifetime ago. And that was just one year ago. And to think of even politics at this point a year ago, you know, was it was all this push for Super Tuesday and the travel and the crowded planes and the crowded events and the

rallies and all of that has changed so dramatically. I'm really interested the way you summed this up because I agree we learned a lot about the biology and the epidemiology and the medicine of this illness. And that's sort of a foregone conclusion that we'd be covering that and learning that as this thing evolved. But I'm also so interested that you zeroed in on how people behave in a situation like this. And to me, that's been the most extraordinary part of this, both in terms of how people adapt, how people push back, how people sort of, you know, studying the 1918 flu, some of the same stuff, the theories and the rumors and the resistance to masks and all the same stuff

that was 100 years ago is happening again now. And I don't think anybody could have convinced me that this would have been the narrative of how things played out. And it's complicated, too. It's not like there's one narrative. There's layers and layers and layers and localities that have different phenomenologies as it pertains to what happened here. But I do, do you have anything to say to that? Anything that stood out for you in that, you know, when we talked to, you know, one hand we talked to the Chad goes deep guys from, you know,

going down the streets in Huntington Beach getting yelled at for handing out masks. On the other hand, we're, you know, you're questioning the governor of California for his choices on shelter in place and school closures and these things that are had huge impact and questionable, you know, questionable scientific sort of meaning behind it. forum than we even get to do on TV every night. I think it's interesting about how our society's, what I call misinformation crisis, um, happened at the same time that we had the pandemic and how that made it worse. Um, and on the one hand, because we do have social media and we have zoom and we have Vimex, which apparently doesn't work in the building and we have all these other ways to communicate with each other. You know, we were more connected than ever, but because we also have all of these places to spread rumor and innuendo in a way that we've never seen

before. Clearly, rumor and innuendo has been a part of human life since probably, you know, the cave paintings, which probably had some rumor and inn in it. That's right. That's right. And it's always been a part, but I think our tools have made it easier to spread misinformation in a faster way than ever before. And so that has exacerbated, um, a lot of our crises in terms of people getting correct information. And I think the anger over trust issues in our society, over the feeling that public officials are lying to you, the feeling that you're not getting a straight answer, the confusion over whether I can trust the science or whether this person has an agenda behind them or what's really going on or what's the real story and let everybody into camps. And when you really think back upon the pandemic, how so quickly it became so partisan, you

know, this idea of wearing a mask is a sign that, you know, I'm a Democrat or I'm anti Trump. But no, it's just about like, like, I don't want to get my grandmother sick, you know what I mean? Like, and so quickly all we, we went into our corners and I think, you know, we had a lot of, you know, forks in the road of how to deal with this as a country and as a world. And it seemed like almost every time we took the wrong, you know, we went the wrong direction. Um, and, and, and I just read a great piece,

the New Yorker did, that was like a 60 page piece. It was the longest piece they'd published in a long time. It's almost like a mini book on the pandemic, really looking back on, you know, taking us through the year. And so often our decision on a state level, on a federal level, on a county level, so many often our decisions were wrong. Not all of them, but so often they were. And there was such a communication gap, I think, between the federal government and state governments and state governments and county governments and just people. And because of that, there was so much confusion of who do I believe and what do I listen to and why is this rule different across the street than it is here, that some people just said, you know, F it, I'm not going to listen to any of it.

And then things, I think, got a lot worse because of that. Well, two responses to that. I had a 16-year-old on here, actually, I think she's 15, who was forming a website and publication. And she said the task for her peer age is to figure out what's so, what's real. They're acutely aware that they don't have someplace to go. They have to cull through the data and figure it out for themselves, which I found very inspiring because they know that they have to really evaluate things carefully and objectively. And to that same point, I feel like the local, one of the winners in all this, I think, is local news.

Because I feel like we were able to, and you guys all day, are able to stay sort of even. Let's just take the masks, for instance. We would make fun of it. We'd just go, why don't you wear it? What's the data? We just asked lots of questions. We wouldn't get into the spin. Well, if you went over to CNN or Fox News, you'd see sort of outrage on either side or some spin around the topic, which is anathema to what we need to be doing. Would you agree?

Well, I mean, I think their business model is a lot built off of outrage and fear because that's what drives people to watch those networks based off of if you just look at the data. And I think the local news business model is much more based off of trust and information. I think it's hard, probably if you're doing a cable news outlet, to really dig into

the conditions for every place in a country with 300 million people in 50 states. And it's even hard for us in Southern California with 15 million people in five counties and so many different even hard for us in Southern California with 15 million people in five counties. And, you know, so many different communities are so different from each other. But I think, you know, people are looking to us for as much objective information. And even when you and I sometimes stray a little bit too much and get a little too heated and a little too

opinionated, you know, I'll hear from people saying that's not what we're looking for at this time slot. You know, we're looking for information and, and I, I always try to keep that in the back of my mind. Um, cause you know, it's, it's, it's fun sometimes to stray, but I think we have a responsibility to try to keep it as straight as we can. I agree. I do though, think sometimes they want us to kind of poke at the people we get to interview. No, I, I, I think that there's a lot of people that uh that do like that well but but i mean that's because that's the other thing they can get is that the the we're we're very nice to our guests but we you know we ask them questions

that might be uncomfortable they're tough and that's what people want to hear not we're not mean we're not and we're not i don't think we are are we i're not, I don't think we are, are we? I hope not. No, I don't think so. And I think, look, I think it's important that people are held accountable too. And what's cool, I think, about our show is that it's one of the few places on certainly local TV where people can have an extended conversation. Right. You know, where somebody who's making these decisions can explain why they're making that decision and what went into it, or maybe this is what I learned from this, or we got this wrong, but we're getting this right, or this is why you got to do this.

Because most people at the end of the day are not, whatever side they come from, are usually have good intentions and are trying to do this for the right reason, but they just have a difference of opinion. And when you actually listen to them and you at least get an understanding of where they're coming from, you may not agree with them, but it is, I think, really beneficial to have an understanding of where somebody else is coming from. And too much of the cable news outlets and too much of the way social media is set up is to shield you from hearing any opinion that you disagree with. And I think that's so damaging for our society. And I think it was damaging for our society in the way that we handled the

pandemic as a country because of that. And, and I think it, it, it, it made things worse in terms of where our country is at now. Yeah. It feels like we're kind of settling down a little bit,

doesn't it? Am I too optimistic? Yeah. Well, I mean, it seems like, you know, objectively we are starting to go in the right direction and that the case numbers, the hospitalization, the ICU capacity, ICU capacity is back. And then maybe there's a feeling, okay, we've gotten through this election. Maybe, you know, let's take a deep breath and let's, you know, try to, I guess, come together a little bit. I mean, it's just, it is, it is hard, but it does feel, I think the nature of who Joe Biden is, and this is without taking a position on whether you agree with his positions or you disagree with, or you're a Trump fan, Joe Biden style is much more predictable, much more formula. You know, you, he releases a schedule the day before and pretty much sticks to it. He's like a nine to five guy. He's not doing stuff on the weekend. He's not tweeting out, you know, um, anything other than the most boilerplate cliche

thing. And so there is not even him, right? It's not him, right? I don't think he even knows. I don't think he even looks at Twitter. So there's not this sense of chaos and covering Trump. Um, you never knew when news was going to break. It could happen over the weekend. It would happen overnight. It would happen early in the morning. He went off script. I mean, in some ways that made him so interesting to cover, right? And it made him, you know, you would cover his event and like, you didn't know where he would go. His staffers would, I mean, I covered him a lot out, you know, with him and his staffers would tell you this is going to happen. And he would just ignore the plan and come do something else. So, you know, with a lot of ways it's more boring to cover more boring to watch which is why the ratings for

a lot of these cable news outlets are down um but it also is not as exhausting that's for sure you know that that that pace that pace is exhausting you know it's interesting five years really yeah i got to know ben cars Carson very very well and I'm going to keep that relationship going he's going to work be working on the homeless I think and but I also got to know Secretary Azar and he was he was talking about that he goes yeah he goes we are encouraged as secretaries to be making decisions 24 7 and if we have any just any we need a we need some sort of uh answer from the president we are supposed to call no matter what time of the day or night it is, and that he will give you a decision with that phone call at three in the morning.

It's like, wow, crazy. Pretty crazy. Yeah. I mean, the guy, he never slept. Right. I mean, he is a medical miracle if you think about it. At his age. He never sleeps.

He doesn't exercise. He eats McDonald's. He doesn't work out. he doesn't exercise he eats mcdonald's doesn't work out he doesn't eat he doesn't eat well and yet and yet he like survives everything you know it's really incredible uh from a medical perspective uh even covet you know he conquered that you know let me let me um i want to take a call somebody who specifically has a question about our program or about somebody we interview in our program go ahead there matthew oh hi hey so excited this is the first time i've ever done this oh excellent i love i love watching you guys's show i really appreciate that you're willing to have uh some people from riverside county talk with um uh and unfortunately the

rest of the nation can't realize that LA does not encompass all of Southern California. You know, hey, by the way, from my perspective, some of the most interesting stories from the pandemic came out of Riverside. Really interesting stuff came out with your sheriff and during the riots. There was all kinds of interesting things that are going on out there. Alex, you agree? Oh, yeah.

I always say that in the Inland Empire, every story is heightened and usually more interesting. That's San Bernardino, though. That's not Riverside. Yeah. No, it's both. Yeah, I know. Go ahead, Matthew. Okay. Well, I had

watched your February 3rd show, and you were interviewing the negotiating director for the L.A. Teachers Union wanted just complete shutdown. Everybody just stays home, picks up a welfare check until something was done. And which to me, logistically, is like, that's wacky. And because, number one, if you don't have kids, you're only going to get a fraction of your actual income from working. And so you're going to end up in the poorhouse. And then. Well, let's let's let's talk about that. I think. Hang on, Matthew. I think both of us remember that interview.

So, Alex, you go ahead first. Yeah. OK, so the interview for people that didn't watch it was with a woman named Arlette Inouye, who is the negotiating secretary for the United Teachers Los Angeles, which is the largest teachers union in Los Angeles. They are the make up tens of thousands of members of the Los Angeles Unified School District, which is the second largest school district in the country. And her position is that teachers, all of the teachers, to go back to school, they want all teachers to be vaccinated, all of the custodians and school staff to be vaccinated. And they also want a lot of PPE and other safety measures to go into school. And they want kids, as many as possible possible to be vaccinated as well. What he's, what Matthew is referring to is one thing that that union and other teachers unions have said is that they're frustrated that, you know, a lot of other aspects of society were

allowed to reopen, you know, whereas like you can take a kid to Walmart, but you can't take a kid to the classroom. And their point is, in their mind, that we would have been better off locking everything down, nipping this thing in the bud, and being able to move on as a society. But because there were so many businesses that were eager to keep going, people continue to transmit the disease, and it slowed the process of reopening. Now that I think there's, you know, we can have a debate about the science behind that, but that's their, that's their position. And the other thing that was interesting that, that,

yeah, go ahead. No, you finish Alex, finish that. Then I'll give my, my thoughts. Yeah. And the other, the other thing that what she was, she was saying when we pressed her on the question about reopening is, because we have seen, and once, you know, we interviewed the night before her, we interviewed a superintendent from the El Segundo Unified School District, where they have reopened for in-person learning for kids K through second. And so I said, why can they do it? And LAUSD couldn't. And our last point, which is an interesting point, is like, look, LAUSD has, LA is the coronavirus capital of the country. And the population that LAUSD serves, which is 96% minority from some of the poorest areas in

LA County, which have some of the highest rates of COVID-19 of anywhere in LA County, is so extreme in terms of the COVID risk that it's great essentially for wealthier white kids from El Segundo to go back that don't have as high of transmission chances, but that it is so extreme in LAUSD that we want our teachers and staff and everybody

else to get vaccinated because the situation in the LAUSD is not, is a worse situation than it is in other places. Want to respond to that, Matthew? And then I've got some thoughts. Oh, no, I actually, I was just one, actually, my curiosity was since I was, because I, I, congrats, I applaud you that you got her focused on that because um i just felt like you guys had a reaction like when she first started then you asked her what is it that she wants or what is it that they right and got to what they want right as a right now well and i i took about and matthew i took a slightly different tact. I said, let's assume what you want is what we're going to give you. Why aren't we doing that?

Let's go now. Let's do that. What's the holdup? Who are you trying to talk to? Who are you trying to convince to do this thing you say you want? If we want to open schools, let's do it. Let's do what we need to do to make you feel safe. And she had no answer to that, which I found kind of interesting.

Well, but I mean, I think, well, I mean, part of what the challenge is, if you listen to what she says, is we don't have enough vaccine to do what she says. Well, given the priorities as set by the state on this day. So

what she should have said was, I need Governor Newsom to prioritize educators. She could have said that, but she had had no answer, right? And so it was like, okay, you know, how much do you really want to do this? That was sort of my question. So, right. I mean, that's it, but that is, that's the, that's the challenge. And that's sort of the point that the governor made yesterday when he was talking about schools and, and, you know, that maybe, you know, I mean, there are some that say everybody's got to get vaccinated. Some that say even all the kids have to be vaccinated. That's crazy. I was waiting for her to say that, by the way. Yeah. But thankfully

should not. The point that the governor made yesterday, the point that governor Newsom made yesterday is if we do that, we're just not going to get in have kids back in school this year right and you know so as a society you know everything's got to be risk reward so you know there are some that feel okay you know police officers have continued to work firefighters have continued to work there are other people that are deemed as like essential, important parts of our society that, you know, we need to function as a society and they have been brave and they have gone and done the work as well as of course, healthcare workers, as well as of course, you know, grocery store workers and other people, you know, is it time

for teachers to do that? And if there is a And if we do indeed prioritize teachers in terms of vaccination, when is the expectation then for them to actually go back into the classroom? And that has not been made clear. And I think what you've seen from an objective perspective, if you're just talking about this, is areas where teachers' unions are especially strong, states and communities where teachers' unions around the country are especially strong. Most of the kids are not in class, in-person learning. And areas where teachers' unions are especially weak or non-existent, some of the private schools, in most of those cases, you are

seeing kids back in the classroom. And so that is, I think, the biggest story in this state in terms of politics right now, in addition to the recall with Governor Newsom, I think those two things frankly go hand in hand, is this fight between the teachers union and a lot of the democratic politicians that they all supported. I mean, the teachers union is the biggest, most powerful political force in California politics. Um, and now you're in a situation where governor Newsom's survival potentially could be tied into what happens with schools. So he wants to get schools back open and yet his biggest backer is, you know, pushing the brakes on that, and there is a real conflict happening now. New York, they have prioritized educators.

They're vaccinating educators of all types, and their schools are open. And there's no excess spread. And by the way, in terms of their idea that we should have done things differently, the science I'm reading suggests that once you have a 1% incidence of COVID or of this particular illness, there's zero effect of locking down other than slowing things. You cannot contain it. The reason New Zealand could do it is they never got to 1%. But once you get to 1%, that's it. Now you have to do mitigation efforts. So, hey, Ben. Yeah. It now you have to do mitigation efforts so hey

evan yeah it's obviously easier to do it on a little literal island right easier that's right so do we know what's coming up tonight on the program i haven't heard yet yes uh so tonight first of all we'll be talking about impeachment um so we have uh i don't know if you got to see the video today that was put out. It was really dramatic. A lot of never before seen video from the surveillance cameras inside the Capitol on January 6th. One of the moments which was really dramatic was Mitt Romney was trying to flee the Capitol and he's heading in one direction. And that cop that's been like the hero cop, he runs up to him and tells him to turn the other direction.

And you see Romney run away and like literally right behind him with the mob. And so Romney, if that cop hadn't gone there, there would have been a, you know, confrontation between some of these people that were, you know, confrontation between some of these people that were, you know, vowing to kill him. Um, you see Mike Pence, you know, being ushered out, you see how close the people get in. I mean, it was really dramatic stuff. So we're talking about that. Harvey Levin is going to join us, talk about that. Also Jason Harrow, that constitutional law guy who argued before the Supreme Court. We really like him. He's going to be with us. And then in our second block,

we're going to be talking with a guy who's been putting together some work for PBS, looking at how vaccines are made and actually has gone in and filmed the process of how they're doing it with some amazing video

of that and also some science behind, you know, masking and how to wear, you know, the, the double mask controversy and all of that. So some, a lot of interesting video and interesting people tonight at seven o'clock.

Fantastic. Susan's interested. Susie, you think it's gonna be a good show? She's like, wow, I want to see that. All right.

Well, listen, I appreciate it. Go ahead. There to me. All right, well, listen. I appreciate it. Well, go ahead. There's one thing you didn't talk about. Oh. Your censorship on YouTube. Oh, so I don't quite know how to segue into that.

But I got put in the doghouse on YouTube for discussing with my peers, with other physicians, novel therapeutic breakthroughs for COVID. I talked to intensivists and anesthesiologists. I talked to people who are trying things on the front lines and doing things. Working with long haulers. Working with long haulers. It's all coming out in the medical literature. None of it is in any way funny. It's all very specific science and observations and stuff that's being published. It just hasn't been peer-reviewed published yet when we're talking about it. It becomes so within days of our discussions. And yeah, I got put in the YouTube set.

I violated their policies. They sent me a giant document of misinformation. And nothing even close to what I was talking about is in their policies. I guess, Susie, you want to ask how we avoid it in sort of traditional media? Right, you talk about it on Fox 11 every night for a year, and it's medical misinformation if you're on YouTube. I understand it's different in the rest of the world, but it just blows my mind that we've been targeted as this malpractice-type doctor. And Drew's very, very careful, and he's learned a lot from you, Alex.

He's very—I mean, although he is sort of the hot-headed one on the show. How dare you, Bob? I mean, you guys inform a lot of people on what the next move in we're not always correct you know it changes because medicine changes every day when it comes to covid but i don't know i just thought i wanted to hear your take on it i just wondered what you so so i guess the question would be do you have any thoughts about the big tech and they're censoring you know a president they're censoring me they're censoring, you know, a president, they're censoring me, they're censoring physicians. And it seems sort of, um, we're probably going to get canceled today after this show for talking about it. And anybody who's on YouTube head on over to Twitch or

Facebook, we're moving you guys out. Okay. Just say no, but it seems capricious. It's capricious. Do we have a problem there with the ability to protect our free speech privilege? I guess I always say, look, it's a private enterprise. They can do as they please. However, it's a public square. And if I get into the public square and I get up on a soapbox to express myself, and every time I do so, somebody throws knives at me or tackles me, other than the violence, does the government have some responsibility to protect my privilege that I'd like to express?

I don't know the answer to that. Yeah, I mean, it's a thorny issue, because as you mentioned, they're a private company and that may be, you know, the argument on one side would be, well, if you're, you know, your freedom of speech is not free of consequences. And if you scream out fire in a, you know, a crowded movie theater, that's not freedom of speech that you could be arrested for that and all the free of consequences. And if you scream out fire in a crowded movie theater, that's not freedom of speech, that you could be arrested for that and all the rest of that. I mean, I do think that though, we need to have a bigger conversation as a society about censorship and about cancel culture and about where are the limits on that. Because, frankly, I think there's a lot of liberals that,

sort of central to being a liberal, is being a big believer in the First Amendment. You know, the ACLU itself. Seemed to be. Used to be. Used to be. You know, but the founding principle of the ACLU was to defend unpopular speech, and the thought being that the best antidote to people that are wrong is having people that are right, and have the dialogue. challenging for a site like YouTube or Twitter or Facebook to sort of pick and choose because there's just so much content that's put out there you know easier for like the FCC to regulate TV channels back in the day when there's

three cheats three TV channels even now you know there's even if there's a couple hundred channels between all the cable satellite and everything else, you know, you can monitor that in a in a in a, you know, a real way that that where there's real consequences. If you say certain things and like if we say certain things on Fox 11, which is regulated by the FCC, there are real consequences to that. The problem on Facebook and the whole internet itself, I think, is set up as sort of a wild, wild west. And there's just so much content that's constantly being hosted. So clearly, they're focused on you

because you're a big name that gets a lot of attention. But there are other people that are posting crazy shit. Yes, there are. I'd like to address that, please. Read a couple of the rules on that list. That isn't talked about. And so how do you pick and choose? Do you only target people that have big audiences? You know, what's the penalty? How do you get out of it?

Because as much as people complain about certain things or they might fear the concept that their political opponent is being canceled and that feels good, you know, that could happen to you too, right? Well, that's the way history tells us, right. The guillotines go up pretty much. Everybody goes on the guillotine. Right. It just takes time. Right. I mean, that's like, you know, to compare it to, you know, politics in the Senate, you know, where they have the filibuster rule, which is right. You need 60 votes in order to pass anything major legislatively. And now there's a debate about whether Democrats should get rid of that or not. And the people that are the most against getting rid of it are the people that have been in the Senate the longest because they've been in the majority and the minority and they know what it's like that, that, that, you know, and so they know what it's like to be in the

majority and be frustrated, but they also know what it's like to be in the minority and know how things can be ramrodded through and they like having those protections. So sometimes when you've been around a minute, you start to see things from multiple perspectives. And I think people are so quick now that maybe haven't been around a minute to jump to conclusions in the sort of our society, which rewards instant gratification and isn't thinking, isn't rewarding nuance and context, and everybody can share that in one tweet, you know, the cancel culture thing. But I think we need to think deeply and hard, um, as a society about the long-term effects

of that and have a, a better conversation than the one that we're currently having. Your mouth, Alex's mouth to God's ears. So with that, Kathy Kang is calling me right now. So she wants to go over the show evidently. So I will call her. Yeah. And we will wrap this up. I really appreciate you spending a little time with us.

And hopefully some of the viewers of this thread will come on over and watch the show tonight at 7 o'clock. And we'll have you back when you can get your video up. You're so adorable. And we just have to back when you can get your video up. You're so adorable and we just have to look at your picture all the time. Yeah. Maybe we'll do it. Maybe I'll have to do it at home. I think you have a firewall

up at the station. Oh, the station. Of course. Yeah, that's definitely why. If people want to connect with me, follow me on social media at Alex Michelson. It's E-L-E-X-M-I-C-H-A-E-L-S-O-N. I would love to be able to interact with you there.

Alex, not Alex. Oh, there's no underscore in your name, right? Yeah. Okay. I accidentally tweeted. Well, there's an underscore on my Twitter. Okay. But everything else, there's no underscore.

So on Instagram and Facebook and all the rest of it. Alex is very active over on Instagram, so you can find him there for sure. He's a great promoter. I've enjoyed your hard work in the social media. Now, I have a question. Do you think that Trump should have been banned from Twitter? Yes or no? He's not going to give you yes or no.

I don't know. I don't know. I think that one's complicated, and it's more complicated than yes or no. Yeah, I agree. I agree with you. That goes to the freedom of speech with consequences. Right, I agree.

And if you watch some of what is being put on this week, there's some evidence of what some of those consequences can be. And let me just say before that, I'm looking at all the data on California and locally here in Los Angeles. Los Angeles still got a little ways to go to get our cases down to where we were before the surge. But Orange County is way down. California is way down. So we're down and around. Let's see.

Today we are at 8,300 cases. Death rates dropping. Hospitalizations are way down. So we're down and around. Let's see. Today we are at 8,300 cases. Death rates dropping. Hospitalizations are way down. So we're making steady progress. And why? We don't really know. The virus is just doing its thing. Maybe it's the vaccine. Maybe it's herd. Maybe who knows. Maybe it's just the ecology of the virus. Maybe it's our altered behavior or all of the above. Probably

more to the point. But Alex, thank you so much. And I will see you in about an hour and a half, right? God bless you. Thanks for coming in. We'll see you on TV. And we'll be on TV at 5 o'clock if you're in Los Angeles. Yeah, check them out.

FoxLA. Yes, Alex will be on shortly with Christine Devine. FoxLA.com slash live. Yes, yes, yes. Thank you very much. All right. Have a good night. Thank you, and thank you for everything.

And one thing I want to talk about, somebody is waiting in the queue for the phone line about Adatex score. I talked to them yesterday, and they are going to have Adatex score available through medical practitioners. I will get you a list of who the people are that will have access to the Adatex score, and then somewhere in the next month or two, they're saying they have to ramp up their productivity, their production to be able to do this. So I'm hoping they'll do it in a month

or so. Then you'll have direct access as a private citizen and get this thing, get your score so you can see your immune response. You can see whether or not you should be vaccinated. You should see how your vaccine is doing. I mean, this is a tremendous, it's a really excellent profile if you're worried about the status of your immunity. Additicscore.com is where you can learn more there. Anything else, Susan, as we wrap this thing up? Thank you, Caleb. Thank you to Susan Pinsky. Thank you to everyone who produces this show. Thank you to Alex. Thank you to Michaela Peterson for spending a little time with us. Amazing. Yeah, amazing. Also, we have a benefit coming up on the 27th of February Go to hillsides.org

And check it out We want to see there And are we in here tomorrow Susan? I'm going to need a little We're not in here tomorrow You're doing a YPO thing tomorrow And then we'll figure it out And then Friday we don't know

Because I'm coming down to Orange County I don't know maybe Caleb might be able to do it from here too If you want. I said he's happy to. All right, we'll see. Or we can teach Jordan how to do it tonight. Maybe he'll help you out. Sometime in the next couple days following.

Tomorrow, we have to give a lecture tomorrow afternoon, and that's sort of taking the place of this. So we will see you sometime in the next couple of days. Do we have anything else to promote coming up? Any special guests that you want to talk about, Susan? I don't think so. No, not right now.

I'm glad we got to talk to Alex today, though. Yeah. Okay. We'll see you in a couple of days. Ask Dr. Drew is produced by Caleb Nation and Susan Pinsky. This is just a reminder that the discussions here are not a substitute for medical care or medical evaluation. This is purely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm a licensed physician with over 35 years of experience, but this is not a replacement for your personal physician, nor is it medical care. If you or

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