Behind the Bastards - CZM Rewind: Part One: Dr. Oz: Why 'America's Doctor' Is A Bastard

Episode Date: November 26, 2024

It's a CZM Rewind week! Enjoy this old, but prescient, episode where Robert is joined by Matt Lieb to discuss Dr. Oz. FOOTNOTES: https://www.oprah.com/pressroom/oprah-bids-farewell-to-dr-oz-as-he-launches-his-own-show-september-14#ixzz6ryQsKlGx   https://www.healthnewsreview.org/2018/02/pulling-back-the-curtain-on-the-doctors-and-the-dr-oz-show-what-our-analysis-reveals/  https://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/the-dr-oz-health-quiz/all#ixzz6ryqeqPD3  https://www.nature.com/articles/nn0412-497  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6167233/  https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/how-dr-oz-effect-has-hooked-american-consumers-n134801  https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/magazine/18Oz-t.html  https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/04/reiki-cant-possibly-work-so-why-does-it/606808/   https://quackwatch.org/nccam/research/energy/   https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/case-dr-oz-ethics-evidence-and-does-professional-self-regulation-work/2017-02  https://www.marketwatch.com/story/dr-oz-slammed-for-suggesting-it-may-only-cost-us-2-to-3-of-american-lives-to-reopen-schools-2020-04-16  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/17/business/media/dr-oz-apology-coronavirus.html  https://www.businessinsider.com/dr-oz-false-misleading-baseless-medical-claims-coronavirus-2020-4#a-strawberry-and-baking-soda-mixture-can-whiten-teeth-oz-said-8  https://www.vox.com/2015/4/16/8412427/dr-oz-health-claims  http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2013/01/can_you_trust_dr_oz_his_medical_advice_often_conflicts_with_the_best_science.single.html   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi listeners, I'm Sloane Glass, the host of American Homicide, a podcast where we take you across the country to investigate some of America's deadliest crimes. We'll explore how these murders are shaped by their unique landscapes, and in turn, how these tragedies have shaped the fabric of these American communities forever. And you can get access to all episodes of American Homicide, 100% ad free and one week early through the iHeart True Crime Plus subscription available exclusively on Apple podcasts. So don't wait, head to Apple podcasts, search for iHeart True Crime Plus and subscribe today. What's lighten my dumpster fires?

I'm Robert Evans, host of Behind the Bastards. That little introduction was in honor of my hometown Portland, which just had a police officer murder a man who was having a mental health crisis and will probably be lighting some dumpsters on fire tonight. Although you won't hear it the day that this happens. But anyway, that's all beside the point right now, because the point right now is that I'm introducing our guest today. The inimitable Matt Lieb.

Hey, what's going on, Matt? Hey, you doing? I'm doing well. I'm excited to be here. A big fan of the pod. Love me some bastards. And you are you do a sopranos podcast and the name is I believe Pod yourself a gun. That's right. That's right. Yeah, that's right.

World's only soprano's podcast. Don't go looking for any other ones because they do not exist. Little known TV show, The Sopranos. You might have heard of it. Very obscure. A niche, a niche TV show that only people who really like art understand. And that's that's why we talk about it. We talk about the art. It's fun thinking about that, because I believe the song that introduced that show

was something about waking up in the morning and getting yourself a gun, which is what I did this morning. You bought a gun. I did. I did. I did buy a gun this morning. Not for sopranos like uses. Although I am Italian, so you can't really know for sure. You can't really know for sure. Yeah.

You woke up with a blue moon in your eye and you decided I'm going to go, uh, get myself a gun and then I'm going to commit crimes in the pine barons of New Jersey. Yeah. They do that a lot in the show, right? A lot of pine baron crimes. They do it at least once and, uh, and it's great. Yeah. That they're chasing that guy through the yeah

Yeah, the Russian. Yeah, and they leave their DNA everywhere We Italians are not a subtle people No, they spend that whole episode literally like dying of like cold and they're lost in the woods But they spend all the time talking about how they're starving because they haven't eaten in 12 hours. It's the most Italian thing in the world. But I want to hear about this gun. Oh, it's just a gun. But today we have something much more exciting than a gun. We have a bastard and our bastard. Are you ready for this? I'm so excited. Are you settling in? Yes, doctor Mehmet Oz

I never introduced them like that. We're talking about dr. Fucking Oz today. Yes, that's right Who thought he'd be a bastard a TV doctor? TV doctor could be a bad man. No, they they take an oath TV doctors They say do no harm and get good ratings. That's the the Hippocratic oath Do they do they also oath to be bad guest hosts on Jeopardy because he sucked and I didn't enjoy it Honestly, if you are going up against Levar Burton for any job your first action should be like, you know what? I'm bowing out Yeah Immediately, I'm not gonna compete with Levar Burton

what I'm bowing out. Yeah, immediately. I'm not going to compete with LeVar Burton. We're going to be off, sir. Fighting Geordie, fighting Kuntukinte, fighting whatever the reading Rainbow Guy's name was. No, sir. It was just LeVar. LeVar. Yeah. Yeah, I know. I did not watch him on Jeopardy, but I have seen the show

and had no idea he was a bastard. Yes, he's a piece of shit. He's a different piece of shit. We're also going to be talking in the very near future about Dr. Phil, who's a much worse person. Fuck Dr. Oz is bad for some reasons that you'll suspect, you know, the pseudoscience stuff, but also for some, I think, more complicated reasons, which will will have us a nice

talk about at the end of this episode. So I've always said that one of the great tragedies of American public life is that our very best doctors are usually like kind of schlubby dudes and ladies who maybe aren't the best at at social graces and certainly don't have enough time because they're wildly overworked to do TV appearances. Yeah, yeah, I agree. They're not hot. I've always said doctors, they're not hot agree. They're not hot. I've always said doctors, the problem is they're not hot.

I look at them and I'm like, ew. Like we need to put a couple of billion dollars into a national program for more fuckable doctors. Come on. Yes, yes. Doctors who fuck. That's the next level of health care in America. It won't be universal health care, but at least doctors will look fuckable.

Now, I mean, I think the problem is not their fuckability because it's inherently hot to be a doctor. It's more the fact that they're not necessarily even the ones who are have a good bedside manner are good at explaining things. Just don't have the time to spend a lot of it on television because they're busy saving lives. This has led to a thriving industry well documented in the show of grifter health influencers and scam artists selling people poison with honeyed words and practice smiles. Today though, we're talking about a different kind of medical grifter, kind of a grifter who helps to launder

those more shady grifters, the guy, people who aren't doctors, people who have no medical training, who are just trying to sell you nonsense cures. The guy we're talking about today exists to give them credibility and launder them into the public consciousness. And his name is Mehmet Oz. Mehmet Oz is maybe the most influential public physician in the country, possibly the world. He is, in every professional sense of the word, an excellent doctor, exceptional even.

Within the bounds of what it is he is trained to do, he may be one of the best in the world at what he does. And he uses his, you know, the thing that makes him a bastard is that he uses these exceptional qualifications along with his charisma, his handsome face to sell millions of people on nonsense cures every single year. And that's, that's a bad thing to do. I kind of made worse. We'll talk with this a lot by the fact that he is, he's a, he he's a he's a heart surgeon and he's an exceptional heart surgeon. That's so sad It's always sad when like an amazing doctor is a piece of shit

This is like how I felt when Ben con Ben Carson turned out to be a Trump guy Yeah, it's like but you're so good at the brain surgeons Which you talk to doctors they'll be like, yeah yeah, of course it's always surgeons. Yeah. Yeah. And they're the ones who think they're gods, right? Yeah. They essentially have a god complex and they'll be really good at one thing. And then they'll also think that they're good at like, yes, politics and shit like that. I think good surgeons are so prone to being also like nonsense. Like so many of our nonsense public doctors or surgeons

for the same reason that so many of our terrorists are engineers, they're people who get really good at a specific thing and it lets them convince themselves that they know what they're talking about in a wider variety of things than they really do. That's crazy, it just makes me glad that I never, got really proficient in any one skill. Never gain skills.

I never ever learn how to do things. You'll become too smart for yourself and think that you are God. If no one learned to do anything, we would still be living in the mud and eating grubs. And you know what we wouldn't have? Genocide. Snake oil salesman? Oh yeah. Or that!

We would have very little at all. Mimic Sangiz-Az was born on June 11th, 1960 to parents Suna and Mustafa Oz, who must have fucked at some point in October of 1959 in order to conceive him. We have to assume his parents fucked in October of 1959. You don't know that. Yeah, he could be immaculate conception. Yeah. Robert.

It's possible. I would say right now the most likely theory is that they fucked sometime in October. All right. His father Mustafa had been born in Bozgir, a village in southern Turkey. He had grown up poor in the countryside during the Great Depression and obviously, you know, Great Depression, bad time everywhere. Real bad time if you're like in rural Turkey, you know, you're dealing with a different kind of poverty than even like our grandparents dealt with here. So he had to work himself to the bone

in order to make something of himself, in order to get into medical school and distinguish himself enough that he was able to earn scholarships, which allowed him to immigrate to the United States as a medical resident in 1955. So this is a hardworking man and a man who's has to struggle. I'm going to guess in ways that, that are kind of difficult to imagine for most

of us, even as difficult as our present times are. He's like a true, uh, lift yourself up by your bootstraps kind of guy. Yeah. Came from the middle of like nowhere, rural Turkey and worked himself into becoming a good enough doctor that he got, you know, he was able to get over the racism of the fucking 1950s immigration system. You know?

That's an achievement. Yeah, no, good for him. Started from the bottom and now he's on TV selling fake cures. Well, that's his dad. Oh, that's his dad. That's not Mehmet. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's Mustafa. So Oh, that's his dad. That's not. Yeah. Yeah. That's Mustafa. Yeah. So we're talking about his dad and his mom right now. His mom, Suna

came from a much wealthier background. I don't know if this is what helped his dad get into the country or not. It may have been. Her father was a successful pharmacist in both sides of her family came from Istanbul. She grew up with a lot of money. As befits his more modest upbringing, Mustafa was an observant traditional Muslim. Suna's family was more moderate and secular. Mehmet and his two sisters grew up split between both approaches to religion. The Oz kids spent their childhood speaking Turkish and English fluently at home, so they grew up in a bilingual house. Mehmet was from a young age ambitious, starving for success and his father's approval. He was wont to note that he was born in the year of the rat, according to the Chinese

zodiac. In one interview, he noted of this, quote, You run the maze. If you put cheese in that maze, I swear to God I'll get to it, and I'll get to it really fast. But should I be running after that cheese? Am I in the right maze? All of these questions, which people much greater than I am think through I put on the backburner As I'm running after that cheese What the fuck like he said that's way too much stock into the year of what animal the year of the rat

At least he wasn't born into the year of the pig and he's like well You what you got to do is you got to take your snout and put it into the trough of life and just, you really gotta just shove your face into food. Yeah. As hard as you can. You roll around in the shit and then you hope that someday you'll find another piggy to fuck. And then you have little piglets. It's like, look, I was born in the year of the pig.

And that's why I dispose of bodies for the mob. It's just what you do. Well, that's a, it's a nice take on year of the rat the mob. It's just what you do. Well, that's a it's a nice take on year of the rat for him. It is it is telling because what he's saying there is like I don't think about why I'm doing what I'm doing. I just I just strive to to to achieve

things and I don't think about whether or not they're good or bad. I just I have to achieve. Yeah, he just wants that cheese. Yeah, he wants that cheese. It's ambition without an analysis, I think is what you'd call it. And he's pretty open about that. Now, Mustafa, his dad repeatedly told the growing Dr.

Oz, who's not yet a doctor, obviously, that when he'd grown up, when Mustafa had grown up, he hadn't been able to relax for even a second on his road to escaping poverty and establishing himself as a cardio thoracic surgeon. So he's like telling his kid as he grows up, like, you know, like, if you want to succeed, you can't relax for even a second. You can't can't take a moment off. You always got to be hustling. Yeah. And that's how Mehmet grows up. He's an excellent student, but no amount of success is ever enough for his dad. He later recalled, I'd say I got a 93 on a test. He'd say, did anyone get better? That was always the question he asked. He's a cool dad.

Sounds like a fun guy would hang. Yeah, I mean, the school I grew up in because of just where we were in North Texas, like about half of the kids in my school were either from India or from China or Japan And so you had a lot of kids who would talk that way about their parents, right? and Some of them had especially around our senior year

there were a couple of kids who had to get like Taken in by an ambulance because they would just like one in one case seizing as a result of stress like cheese Good to put this kind of pressure on a kid Yeah, like straight having like nervous breakdowns just from like trying to get good grades. Right. Once again, don't get good at anything. It's not worth it. Develop skills. Don't develop skills. You'll get seizures.

You're at risk of seizures. You're at risk of your of your dad not loving you. You know, you just got to love you no matter what. Yeah, exactly. Stop caring about your dad. You know, just host coastline. Some dirt. Eat some grubs. You'll be fine. Yeah. Start a sopranos podcast.

That's all you've got to do. Really, really bringing it back there. So Mehmet decided to become a doctor when he was just seven years old. He recalls standing in line at an ice cream parlor. Quote, I remember it like yesterday. There was a kid in front of me who was 10. My dad, just to pass the time, said, what do you want to be when you grow up? The kid said, I don't know.

I'm 10. My father waited until he was out of earshot and said, I never want you to tell me that if I ask you that question. I never want you to tell me you don't know. I'm 10. My father waited until he was out of earshot and said, I never want you to tell me that if I ask you that question, I never want you to tell me you don't know. It's okay if you change your mind, but I never want you to not have a vision of what you want to be. Mamet go kill that kid. Kill that kid. Murder that loser kid and tell me what you want to do with your life. God damn. That is is way too much pressure. Way, way too much pressure to put on a kid.

And it seems like the kids like that always end up becoming the like going into the career that their father wanted them to do. And then eventually their dad dies. And then they're like, oh, fuck, I didn't get to do what I wanted to do with my life and now I'm miserable. Yeah, yeah, it's it, it's a real bummer. Um, it's not just don't put pressure on people. There's plenty of grubs.

By the time Mehmet was ready to start school, his father was wealthy enough to pay to send his son to Tower Hill School, a K through 12th grade private college preparatory school in Wilmington, Delaware. Jesus, that sounds horrible. I know it sounds like a fucking nightmare Fancy boy. Yeah, yeah uniforms ties Yeah, probably like During the summer. Yeah

The fancy boy prep school worked well enough that Mehmet was accepted to Harvard where he played football and water polo His grades were as as always, exceptional. One of his roommates later recalled, he was very competitive. There was never any question that he wasn't going to be a doctor. He wanted to be a fantastic surgeon. So people around him,

like everyone kind of recognizes this kid as brilliant. Everyone recognizes he's got the drive he's going to achieve. You know, so good for him. I mean, it's just like, I just look back now at my own childhood and I'm like, God damn it. If I can think of one friend where I knew what they wanted to do for a career. I don't think we ever talked about like, what's your career going to be? No one was like, I'm a doctor. You know, it was it was mostly just like, you know, how's how's your hip hop album working out?

And they're like good and they're like, cool. And that was the whole thing. That's interesting. I think It was different for me because there was definitely a lot of pressure to have something, you know I went to a public school. Yeah, I didn't go to a private school, but I went to a public school in My early schooling years was in a dirt poor farming town called Ida Belle, Oklahoma And the school was as good as it could be in a place like that. Like they paddled us and stuff. Like it was not a high end educational. Wait, they paddled you in a public school?

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, damn. They still did that in Oklahoma back in them days. Yeah. You got to sign the paddle afterwards, too. It was nice. You got to sign the paddle afterwards, too. Nice. But when I was in, I don't know, third grade or so, I moved to Plano, which is a fairly wealthy

suburb of Dallas and the schools, the public schools are very good. And there is a lot of drive to achieve. Like I said, a lot of like kids who were really motivated by their parents to achieve. And so you either were kind of planning to be a doctor or, you know, something on that level or kind of planning to be a doctor or, you know, something on that level, or you were planning to join the military because it was Texas and I was in ROTC. So me and all my friends, I think we all kind of assumed we're all going

to join the army, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I went to public school, you know, my entire life. And I think most of my friends either wanted to, they were either going to go into the army or they were, um, or they wanted to be famous musicians and or athletes. So see, my brother is a doctor and knew he was going to be a doctor from the, he's my older brother too, from the time that he was like seven.

So like, and I, and I'm like, no idea. I'm just saying like a level of ambition at a very, very young age has always been a turnoff for me when it comes to like friends, because it's just they always have that like sense where they're trying to get your some sort of stepping stone into their whatever their career path is. And I don't like it. is and I don't like it. So Oz took only one break during his relentless progress through medical school, uh, in his, that break was to do a compulsory, I think it was a one year term of service in the Turkish army in order to maintain his dual citizenship. Um, other than that straight. Onto like becoming a doctor.

That's the only kind of breakage. So I guess that's his gap year is being in the Turkish. I'm just going to take a break, have a gap year and join the military of a foreign country that helps suppress, you know, Kurdish liberatory movements and stuff. Whatever. Yeah. They got to stop trying to have their own thing. Yeah. Yeah. He got a four year degree in biology and then transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where he doubled up working on both an M.D.

and an MBA. He succeeded in earning both. So that's interesting to me. He gets at the same time as he's getting his MD, he also gets a business degree. Yeah, this is very, there's a lot of foreshadowing going on here. Yeah, there's some foreshadowing.

He earned both obviously with flying colors. He's an incredibly intelligent man, right? This isn't just a guy, like we'll talk about Dr. Phil later. Dr. Phil, I don't think is very smart. He's incredibly good at reading and manipulating people. He's not particularly a genius. Mehmet Oz is a genius.

Like, I think he almost certainly is an actual genius. Yeah. In 1985, at age 25, he married Lisa Lemolle, who was the daughter of a cardiothoracic surgeon who worked with his father. They met at like a party or something. This relationship gradually opened him up to alternative medicine and Eastern mysticism because Lisa's mom was hardcore into homeopathy,

meditation, and other new age stuff. We'll talk about that more in a little bit. For the next decade and change, Dr. Oz's career zoomed forward. He became triple board certified, which I don't know what that means, but it sounds impressive. It's at least three boards. It's at least three boards.

That's three more than I've been certified. I got zero boards under my belt. Not a one. Not a single board between the three of us. We really should find a board just to get us some certifications guys. Just to get certified. If you're a board, if you're a medical board, hit us up certified if you're a board if you're a medical board Hit us up board out there. Well, actually, you know what the state of new jersey has certified me as a reverend doctor So i'm one board certified. I assume that out there

Is there a board in the universal life church? Because I am a minister slash jedi knight. I'm gonna say that counts. All right, i'm board certified Can you get me painkillers? I put you know, I'm board certified. Can you get me painkillers? I put, you know, I know a guy. If that's what you need. That sounds legal enough. Yeah, yeah.

So he starts working as a heart surgeon, and he's very good at being a heart surgeon. And he's not just good at the heart surgery part. He's good at the science part. Over time, he authors hundreds of peer-reviewed articles. And he's awarded 11 patents. One of them is for a solution to preserve transplanted organs.

Another is for an aortic valve that can be implanted without open-heart surgery. Like, he's not just really good at the mechanics of surgery. He's an excellent scientist. Yeah, yeah. 11 patents is pretty good. Seriously. One might say he's the wizard of Oz

There I think I read like six articles with variations of that title on the guy. All right. Well, I gotta go then It's just a fake journalists can't fucking help them so you can't help anybody you see Oz you're like I gotta call him a wizard. Mm hmm. Got to call him a wizard. Mm. Dr. Oz was hired by Columbia medical school, uh, as a teacher and as you know, he's also working, they've got a hospital he's working there, but he's also teaching, uh, he very quickly rises to the level of full professor and becomes a device chair of the cardio cert of the heart surgery department, basically.

How old is he at this point? He's in his 30s. Oh man. Yeah. Like everything I've read right now on its own would be a career trajectory any doctor in medicine would envy. Yeah.

You could die happy with that being your fucking resume. Like that's a hell of an achievement. Yeah, my God. Yeah, in 1995, a New York Times profile referred to Dr. Oz as quote probably the most accomplished 35 year old cardiothoracic surgeon in the country Jesus he might be the best at what he does in the entire United States at this point I mean, I don't know how to measure that but he's he's very good

I mean, I don't know any other heart surgeons by name, so fuck, I mean, he's the guy. Yeah. Now, the article that I found that quote in, however, gives some hints about what was to come, because that article was about Dr. Oz's increasing experimentation with alternative medicine. It opens with the story of one of his patients, a 49-year-old diabetic smoker who suffered

a critical heart attack. She went under Mehmet's knife for a dangerous surgery. At the invitation of Oz and his patient, there were two other people on hand in surgical gowns and masks. A second-year medical student named Sally Smith stationed at the patient's feet and a 52-year-old healer named Julie Motz who was standing at the patient's head. As volunteers in Oz's Cardiac Complementary Care Center, they worked for free through the operation, seldom moving except to reposition their hands.

As Oz requested sutures and clamps and units of lidocaine, Motz called softly to Smith to move her hands from the small toe of the patient's right foot to a point on the sole known as the bubbling spring. What they were doing, no one else in the operating room knew how to do or had ever seen done during a coronary bypass or had ever thought worth doing, even as an experiment. In this ultimate theater of scientific medicine, the women were using their hands as kings

once did to treat subjects with scropula, and as Jesus is said to have done, and as shamans and mothers in Chinese qigong practitioners still do, they were using their hands to run a kind of energy, which science cannot prove prove exists into the patient's kidney meridian which also may or may not exist. The kidney meridian? Yeah you gotta get that meridian! That's the best part of the kidney, the meridian. That's the most delicious part of the kidney is the meridian. Oh man, with fucking on a Ritz cracker sliced thin. I love me some little bit of... You just want to get get you want to get like some duck fat or some butter and you want to get it sizzling in the pan.

And you just slap that meridian on for like a half a second and it's good to go. That's all you fucking with just a little bit of little bit of char, you know? I mean, this all feels like he's going to start turning his patience into foie gras. And I'm very excited for what's to come. This heel turn that he's going to take. Yeah. So, yeah, that's that's that's silly. I think that's silly.

But at the other hand, like it's in a hospital, these people are clearly following sanitation guidelines. They're not getting paid. The patient's not getting charged extra. So I don't have a problem with that. And it's the smartest doctor in the world. It's like one of those things where you're like, I feel like this is wrong, but I don't know enough to dispute it. So I'm going to let him fuck with my kidney meridian.

I'm not willing to morally condemn him for that, even though I think it's silly, just because like, yeah, yeah, what's the fucking harm in seeing, you know? And in that case, if you're actually doing it in the medical context, you're guaranteeing everybody's taking proper sanitation procedures, fucking whatever. You know, it seems like from what I can tell, that sounded noninvasive. It's not like they were just doing energy work or whatever. They were throwing, you know, crystals and doing fucking pendulums over over him. It falls into the category of it couldn't possibly hurt. So why not give it a shot, right? Yeah, we'll talk about this more later, but that's kind of what they were going for. You know what else can't hurt?

I don't the products and services that support this cut podcast Guaranteed to not harm you. In fact, every one of the products of ours that you buy Extends your life by exactly 45 minutes. So, you know, spend all your money and gain immortality. Hi, listeners. I'm Sloane Glass, the host of American Homicide, a podcast where we take you across the country to investigate some of America's deadliest crimes.

We'll explore how these murders are shaped by their unique landscapes, and in turn, how these tragedies have shaped the fabric of these American communities forever. And you can get access to all episodes of American Homicide, 100% ad-free, and one week early through the iHeart True Crime Plus subscription, available exclusively on Apple podcasts. So don't wait, head to Apple podcasts, search for iHeartTrueCrimePlus and subscribe today. We're back.

Uh, we're talking about Dr. Oz who in the mid nineties has started some weird alternative medicine stuff. Now he's not the person who starts the alternative medicine program at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, which is also like a teaching hospital. Whatever. It's one of those hospitals that they have a medical school with. You know how you know the thing. If television has taught me accurately, all of the doctors are fucking constantly. Doctors fucking teach. That's what they doctors fucking they teach.

That's all they do. You know, when you're not teaching, you're fucking. And Columbia Presbyterian was among the most reputable medical establishments on planet Earth. Still is as far as I'm aware. So this alternate medicine program there is kind of an odd thing. It was not started at the behest of anyone at the top of the school. The whole thing came about because in 1993 a retired utility executive named Richard Rosenthal gave them three-quarters of a million dollars as a private grant in order to establish a center to study alternative medicine. Just gifted money and just said start a magic doctoring school. Now wanted to be like Hogwarts. Yeah, okay.

Now, Richard had been motivated by having several close friends of his get terribly sick, in such a way that doctors told him there was nothing that could be done to help them. And his response was to basically throw a bunch of money into a hole to see if alternative medicine could come up with solutions. And it's one of those things I could make fun of. Like this is almost exactly a week after my mom just died of a type of cancer that when you get diagnosed with a pancreatic, there's basically nothing they can do.

You know, it's even like like she went through chemo and it did nothing. You know, I get it. You go through something, I think, OK, well, let's try other shit, you know? So I can't I can't even blame Richard for like, it seems like he was motivated out of grief to do this. You know, you can't blame people for trying to try any other alternative to. I mean, you know, something in which there is no cure and modern medicine. I will blame the snake oil salesman.

I'm never going to blame someone who's like, well, doctors said they can't cure me, so I'm going to eat this root, you know, fuck it. Why not? Go for it. Who gives a shit like you can't hurt if you're definitely going to die. Yeah. And it is, to be honest, like it is kind of within even you could argue within kind of medical best practices, because one of the things if like I took EMT training years ago, one of the things they tell you is that you're not supposed to use an AED, you know, like paddles to restart a heart. You're not supposed to use them on an infant. But if an infant is in, you know,

the state where like you use them on them because they're dead. Shock the shit out of them. Yeah, they're dead. You can't make dead worse. So like, why not? So I guess like, yeah, you can't, I don't know, can't make it worse. So like, why not? So I guess like, yeah, you can't. I don't know. Can't make it worse. Why not see if it if if something happens? I'm not against the basic idea of testing. Some of this shit is what the worst thing you're going to get out of that

is a really cool TikTok video of electrocuting a dead body. Absolutely. And then you get a fuckload of followers and you start selling brain pills. It's a perfect plan. Uh, so yeah. Um, so I can't blame the college for this. I can't blame the guy for funding it. It's a reasonable thing. Why not?

You know what? That's kind of my attitude is, is why the fuck not. And that's more or less what the dean of faculty of medicine at the college said. Like, all right, well, we're not paying for it. Why not give it a shot? That said a lot of medical professionals were really angry about the idea. Dr. Victor Herbert, a Columbia Medical School graduate and a professor of medicine at Mount Sinai and a board member of the National Council Against Health Fraud, publicly lambasted the lecturers brought in by the program

as con artists and sociopathic liars. And knowing the kind of people who get into the selling this shit business, I don't know if he's wrong about that. A lot of these people are fucking sociopaths, you know? He says, quote, I am nasty. I call practitioners a fraud practitioners a fraud. It's my feeling that the Rosenthal Center has been promoting fraudulent alternatives is genuine. And I get his critiques, you know, that is one of the, like, I can say on one hand, what's the harm, but also maybe the harm is that people hear

this stuff is being done in a hospital, so it must help when it doesn't. And maybe some of those people do that, not the way Dr. Oz is doing it, where we're going to do the normal medical procedure, we'll have this done. Maybe some people decide, I just wanna have the energy work done,

and then they drop dead of a heart attack because it doesn't replace a valve, you know? I'd like to think that even at a hospital or a research facility with Western medicine, that they still peer review and try out different, you know, like alternative medicines, right? You know, like some of them, some of them work, some of them work. Like there was a time when, you know, uh know Acupuncture was seen as kind of like a croc and now it's like kind of just a standard part of Western medicine It's just you know so yeah, and there's so there's a lot to be said about even acupuncture You know I I went through a lot of it as a kid and it did nothing for me

But my grandpa swore by it for his Parkinson's and even if it was I don't know you could say it's like fucking Whatever placebo, but he experienced relief, so I don't know, you could say it's like fucking, uh, uh, whatever placebo, but he experienced relief. So I don't care. Like, yeah, yeah. Um, I don't know. I, I'm not going to get into like a, cause I don't know. I don't know all of the, I know it's one of those things where there's a number of divergent opinions on accurate, but a number of things that were initially considered alternative

medicines had been found to have medical, you know, benefits, not that that's the norm, but it has happened in history, you know, different kinds of traditional or whatever treatments. Um, so this is very controversial though, is the point I'm making. And a number of people even picketed the college when the Rosenthal center opened. None of this dissuaded Dr. Oz from participating in it. His explanation as to why he embraced alternative medicine was, to be quite honest, kind of brilliant. He said that his, by this point, vast experience as a real doctor had really informed him of the limits of medical science.

Specifically, he said that while he could sew bypass grafts and even implant a new heart into someone's chest, he couldn't change the habits that had made them sick in the first place, nor could he cure the emotional issues that they were dealing with. Depression, he pointed out, was a major risk factor in heart patient recovery post surgery and things like meditation, right? That's kind of considered woo new age. That can help with depression and that can help with healing. And he's right about that.

That's not a bad point to make. So he seemed to insinuate when he was talking to the New York Times, why wouldn't a caring physician want to try everything possible to improve his patients odds? He could point out that meditation had shown some benefit for heart disease patients. Who was to say that other stuff wouldn't work? Dr. Oz told the New York Times that he felt ethically obliged to experiment in new directions in medicine. The article makes it clear that Dr. Oz had not let

up one bit in the workaholic tendencies that he inherited from his father as well. And I'm going to quote from the Times again here. Mehmet Oz is one of those rare beings who seem incapable of sloth. He's doing a heart transplant right now, his secretary says on the phone, and he's got a double lung transplant waiting. And those are in addition to his two regularly scheduled open hearts. And then at three, he's supposed to fly to Boston to deliver a lecture So exceptional is Oz's energy that some of his colleagues use him as a benchmark Correlating their own vitality is a fraction of a full memet unit He runs down lobs size his tennis partner mentor and department chairman

Dr. Eric a Rose who at 44 is one of the top heart transplant surgeons in the world. So I can't tell you how nervous I would be going into a lung transplant procedure and then hearing like this doctor's got to do a heart after you and then got a flight of Boston. I'd be like, you think you could maybe take your time with this, bro? Like could you please? I get that. I do.

It is a matter. We'll talk about the ZN2. We don't have enough of these guys. It's actually a major health problem. How few people there are that can do this. Yeah. But it is exhausting. Everything you read about this guy's day, like you're just one of those people who I think I kind of get the feeling.

I don't want to psychoanalyze someone, but you get the feeling he can't be alone and still like he has to always be Moving towards some yeah, he's got his dad in the back of his head You know telling him to murder that kid in the ice cream shop. Yeah I mean I imagine that would create a bit of a problem later in life with stillness. Yeah, I feel for him a little bit in that. Sure. Now, the article also goes into more detail about how Dr. Oz's wife's family, Dr.

Oz's wife's family piqued his interest in alternative medicine. His father-in-law was one of the surgeons on the first heart transplant team in Texas. He'd also been nicknamed the rock doc by Rolling Stone for playing music in the OR to relax patients. His mother-in-law had developed a special low fat diet for her husband's cardiac patients. And this was really before it was accepted that low fat diets would be good for heart patients.

She once refused surgery for her own inflamed gallbladder and handled it instead by altering her diet. She taught her son-in-law, Dr. Oz, about using arnica for sore muscles and herbal tea for stomach aches. So he gets brought in, in part to alternative medicine, by these people who have a real medical background and are doing things that aren't widely accepted, but also may help. You know, music, I think there's some data now on how music can help with with Sure, it's of the healing process right? Mother-in-law seem to be on on the cutting edge of that when you said the rock doc. I I got concerned

I thought it was gonna like replace people's hearts with crystals and shit. No, yeah No, they all died, but my god their hearts are pretty So this is how Mehmet gets introduced to the wide world of quack cures. And it makes sense. He enters it through largely reasonable ways, alternative treatments that have some positive impact on people. That's in there's extremely reasonable stuff in the article in general. Like Dr. Oz points out that in 1995, American hospitals had only recently allowed family to stay in the hospital with a patient while in Turkey It was common for families to do this and of course having loved ones nearby can help a patient's morale

Which can influence how well they heal no one I think today would even Like think to disagree with that it didn't used to be common It changed so he's in medicine during a time when a lot of stuff that like just wasn't that is kind of now common sense medicine Wasn't and I think that kind of opens his eye to like well, maybe all this other shit works Yeah, maybe everything in my head is correct. Yeah, and then we getting to him turning into a complete narcissist Yeah And the article kind of veers right from yeah having loved ones in the room can can influence how well you heal to? veers right from, yeah, having loved ones in the room can influence how well you heal, to Dr. Oz's love of energy work, particularly his work with a lady named Motz, who believes

she could sense the energy of heart transplant patients. The Times article certainly does not portray this woman in a particularly positive light. Quote, she now has her surgical sea legs under her, but the first time Motz observed open heart surgery, she had a shaky debut. She had been standing at the patient's head outside the sterile field, periodically telling Oz what changes she was able to sense in the patient's energy. The patient was obviously not awake but probably had some awareness, most likely smell and perhaps hearing. Open heart patients are often fitted with headphones and provided with tapes to listen to, including, if they want, Oz's own specially recorded soupy trance music. For the bypass team, it was quite a novelty to hear Motz report that she was registering

the patient's moods in her body. Various states of fear, anger, or satisfaction perceived as roughness in her chest or turbulence in her stomach. At one point, seeing that Motz was not looking so good herself, Oz asked a burly assistant to take her outside for some air. When he returned, he said, I sense a change in my stomach. It's a tenseness. No, it's a growling. No, wait a minute. I'm just hungry. Oh, my God. I swear she's like she seemed like she is just describing her own feelings

and then just ascribing them to an open heart. But yeah, it's it's one of those things. I'm not sure exactly what type of energy work this person is doing because there's a few different kind of categories of it. I check in the lives, dude. She's checking the lives. Just making sure, you know, the vibe dipstick is filled with oil. I should note, if I'm going to be totally fair, that Ricky,

which has its origins in Japan, has been shown in some early scientific studies to help diminish the symptoms of chemotherapy and to significantly alter people's experience of physical and emotional pain. And I have some friends who swear by it for kind of physical and emotional pain in particular. I don't know what Ricky is. I've heard of it. Is it like when Mr. Miyagi rubs his hands together and then he puts his energy work, I guess, I don't know. It's not a kind of thing that I particularly believe in. And I kind of think in a lot of cases, it's that you have a good relationship with the practitioner and you trust them and it can be, you know, an emotionally soothing thing, which I don't know. There were early studies, scientific studies, that showed that it could diminish the symptoms of chemotherapy and reduce people's experience of pain. Now, further studies were commissioned after these early studies, which starting in the early 2000s were more negative.

A number of hospitals did, however, add REE-key practitioners to their stable of available providers, in part as a result of the work that Dr. Oz and the center at Columbia was doing. You can find these people in hospitals now. And it's worth noting that a number of the positive studies about Reiki and other similar things were conducted by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Their work is problematic to say the least.

And I'm gonna quote now from an analysis of several studies conducted by this organization by Professor Dr. Edzard Ernst, quote, three studies suggested that energy medicine had an effect, but their authors either applied statistics inappropriately, confounded the effects of energy healing by adding unrelated interventions to the experimental condition or failed to design or blind equivalent placebo controls. Their results are therefore untrustworthy. The two studies that were well designed failed to demonstrate effects from energy and healing. The odds of generating a useful result of a clinical trial of energy medicine are small.

Moreover, what impact would negative studies have? Scientists will simply say, we could have told you so, and proponents are unlikely to change their mind. Proponents may then claim that the negative study must have been flawed or that energy medicine cannot be investigated by the tools of science. Or they might rely on the NCCAM that organization I talked about, funded studies that generated biased but apparently positive results. The NCCAM's approach encourages a self-perpetuating cycle

of misinterpreting research and conducting flawed research, which inevitably generates some studies that erroneously claim positive effects and give the false impression that the efficacy of energy medicine is still scientifically unresolved. Man, we are just veering into anti-vax territory and like anti-mask territory. People who just they Google stuff and then they go, this article right here says that mass actually cause COVID. They can't analyze and it's from a government science organization. You know, these guys like, and here's a study that's it.

And it's like, well, OK, but you actually look at scientists. You don't have a vested and often financial interest in this. And they point out all these very obvious flaws in the study. It's worth noting that the NCCAM was founded in 1998, three years after the New York Times article about Dr. Oz and the alternative medicine center at Columbia was published. Now, Dr. Oz at this point was not yet on Oprah's show, but he had been featured on TV several times for his pioneering work with mechanical hearts as well as his embrace of alternative medicine. You can draw a direct line. I don't know if we would have an NCCAM without Dr. Oz. I don't know. You can't say that for certain.

But he is someone who before his embrace of alternative medicine starts to be well known as an exceptional doctor and scientist. He embraces this stuff. Columbia starts studying this stuff and even though everything they find is pretty inconclusive, the fact that it's in an actual hospital lends it legitimacy. This organization is started in order to test this stuff. The organization is filled with people who already believe in it, carrying out tests that are flawed. And it helps prepare this culture culture believing too much in this stuff. My God. It's just like it's a real life Facebook group. You know, it's just like everyone already

believes in all the stuff and they just keep like just co-signing each other's bullshit. And it's one of those things like I again, I know people who swear by Ricky who gain, you know, emotional benefits from it, who think it helps with, you know, emotional benefits from it, um, who think it helps with, you know, a number of things, um, including like physical, including emotional pain. And like, if you find something that helps you alleviate your emotional pain, more fucking power to, you know, you're never going to hear me say a damn word against it. You know, go with God. That's that, that's all great. But, uh, I mean, you want to relieve pain. Yeah. Try some morphine though though, dog, because that's it.

Oh, my God. More and there's no downsides to morphine. No, I can't think of one downside to morphine. It's not a single one. Yeah. It just feels good the whole time. And you just take more. My issue is not so much with any particular treatment. Not that not not even an issue that people would like.

It's number one, a lot of people will issue actual medical treatment in favor of some of this stuff, and it's not going to I I'm trying to be as fair as I can. Really is not going to solve your blocked cardiac pathways, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not going to fix it. Yeah. I mean, energy is great, but Plavix works wonders. You know, this is a lot better. Yeah. And it's it's it's it's more to the point. Even more than that is it gets us on this

this road of increasingly accepting and legitimizing things that there's no there's not a scientific basis for. And that leads us to shit like let's drink bleach to cure the coronavirus. Like, you know, it's where the road ends. I have more of a problem with than Dr. Oz experimenting with an energy worker during a surgery. Like, it's where that leads to. And he plays a major role in legitimizing that.

He's, he, he helps put it, He helps put our national foot on the gas pedal into the post-science age. So, yeah, it's a slippery slope to that, you know, downing that brain octane oil. You know, exactly, exactly. So, yeah, at this point, though, we're talking still in the mid 90s. Everything Dr. Oz is saying is reasonable from a certain point of view. He's not claiming that Ricky's going to cure cancer. He's not even claiming it's going to cure your heart disease.

He's saying it could help with recovery and a lot of recovery is mental. And he's not, you know, it's possible he's right. You know, it is not yet a bastard. It's certainly not impossible for this kind of stuff to have a mental impact, which can positively affect recovery. Okay. Yeah. So yeah, he's not a impossible for this kind of stuff to have a mental impact, which can positively affect recovery, okay? So yeah, he's not a bastard at this point. Nearly all of his alternative medical claims

were things that you could argue were at least to some extent reasonable based on the way he framed them. And he was most importantly, regardless of whatever kind of woo-woo stuff he got into, an exceptionally gifted medical professional who was performing something like 250 heart surgeries a year. That know, that's 250 lives a year. Yeah, extended. Yeah, that's that's great. He's not a bastard yet. Yeah, he's doing great work so far. You know, despite the little weird hard stuff. Fine. A little bit of energy, a little bit of heart surgery. It works out. And the thing though, that is, I think is happening during this

period. And I don't know how conscious a choice this is by Dr. Oz. I think it is because of the fact that he gets an MBA as well. And the fact that he's very good at getting press very good at getting on TV, at getting in the news. I think he is at this point crafting his career to make himself into an ideal candidate for famous TV doctor. I think he is building a background that will allow him to establish his celebrity career later. It is not hard to see how a handsome doctor with TV experience, a New York Times profile

talking about alternative medicine and a seriously impressive resume was going to wind up eventually on Oprah Winfrey's radar. He almost built himself perfectly for that to happen. And he tried in the early 2000s, he tried with his wife to start a TV show. They like filmed a pilot episode. It didn't really take off, but he succeeds. And I think he's pushing and his wife is pushing him

to get into, she's very much his business partner, to develop himself into a media personality. And he eventually succeeds in 2004 in getting invited to Oprah Winfrey's show. Now Mehmet immediately endeared himself to Winfrey's audience with his willingness to discuss Frank health details in a way that was demystifying and humorous. He most famously explained that healthy poops tended to be shaped like an S and should hit the water like an Olympic diver with very little splash. Oprah herself later recalled,

When he made it okay to talk about the shape of a good poop, I knew he could talk about anything. He always found ways to make the human body endlessly fascinating. Man, that is, I mean, I'm low-key impressed that he impressed Oprah with the doo doo shapes It's where it's mom's stuff, you know, my love poop. Thanks. They love talking about doo doo. That's Um, and and that's what like Oz does exactly the right things to endear himself to like Millions of middle-class moms. Yeah, which is the best market in the country It's an incredible mark you can make all of the money if you can get a few million middle-class moms to love you Yeah, I worked at this this digital

What do you call it like a digital production company and the most famous person that we dealt with Was a famous Facebook mom who had millions of followers and I would watch her stuff and I was like, this is, you know, maybe the most awful shit I've ever seen is just a lady in a car yelling at people about kids. Yeah. And, uh, but the, she was a famous mom. I mean, if you can become a famous mom, you will be one of the most famous people in the country. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's the power of, of particularly particularly middle class moms can't be exaggerated, like in Portland, the cops and the feds were able to fuck over as many people as they wanted

until they started gassing moms. Right. The whole country's piss. Yeah, they're like, like, hey, listen, you can do that to people of color, but those are moms. Those are white moms. Those are white moms. Those are white moms. That could be my mother.

Yeah. You know what else? Yeah, where are you going with that? Where are you going with that, Robert? White moms. I thought you were going to say, you know, what else is your mom? That's where I thought you were going with that. What else is your mother?

The products and services that support this podcast. are shaped by their unique landscapes, and in turn, how these tragedies have shaped the fabric of these American communities forever. And you can get access to all episodes of American Homicide, 100% ad-free, and one week early through the iHeart True Crime Plus subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts, search for i for I heart true crime plus and subscribe today

We're back so we so we've all just agreed that Matt is very funny You made this one into a two-parter Matt so you audience can thank you for two episodes about dr. Oz this week All right, or they can blame you. And if they blame him, Matt's home address is we love to dox our guests. Don't ask me, baby. So Oprah had Dr. Oz on her show 55 times over the course of five years.

She gave him the nickname America's Doctor, which stuck. And although I'm not saying this in a positive sense, is unfortunately accurate. He's definitely America's Doctor. Just appealing to the lowest common denominator, the stupidest human being. America's Doctor. And if you look at the health of the average American, you can tell the quality of job he's done. Eat more bread.

Everybody eat bread. Well, actually, that's the one thing he is. He's actually pretty good about like weight loss. Well, I don't know. That's still debatable. Stop defending Dr. I'm not going to defend. I just love to be fair. You know, I know, you know, you're very fair. Look, say what you will about Hitler.

No, you will. He was a, say what you will about Hitler. You will. He was a vegetarian. And that's good for the environment. The man cared about animal rights. By 2009, it was clear that Dr. Oz had more than enough star power to justify a shot at his own show. Oprah's production company had little trouble finding a buyer for what was sure to be a blockbuster new series. Her show celebrated the launch of Dr. Oz's show with an entire episode dedicated to Dr. Oz, which acted as something of a coming out party for his brand, from a press release on Oprah.com. Moving personal stories and extraordinary surprises are featured throughout

the hour as Dr. Oz meets viewers who share stories and extraordinary surprises are featured throughout the hour as Dr. Oz meets viewers who share how his advice saved their lives. From those who noticed life-threatening diseases their doctors missed to those who lost weight thanks to his diet tips from Dr. Oz, real people step forward to offer their thanks to America's doctor. Plus, it's the reunion that Dr. Oz never imagined would happen as Oprah Show producers track down a young boy He cared for in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina and the two reunite for the first time

He's like the fucking perfect perfect guy for this I mean, I love that it's literally sounds like an hour-long special of people just thanking him Which might be the most narcissistic thing I think I've ever heard Yeah which might be the most narcissistic thing I think I've ever heard. Yeah. I mean, like, it's one thing for Oprah to do that, because I think America does legitimately owe her thanks for just years of content, you know? Years of mostly dangerous health-based content. Oh, yeah, no, I mean, it's awful content, but the fact is it's it's quantity over quality in America. And, you know, but an hour of just thanking Dr. Oz and having people come up to him like

you saved me is fucking wild. It's worth noting in terms of his bastardry that in kind of the acceleration from, hey, maybe energy healing works to becoming a monster. The early 2000s is the period in which Oprah becomes aware of a Brazilian healer named John of God who believes he can do psychic surgery and like, John of God. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, of the, of the Brazilian of God's goal. And on the episode in which she introduces, uh, John of God to America, Dr. Oz comes on and gives his professional opinion that like, he seems like he's really having an effect on people

and I can't explain it. I don't think medical science can explain what this man is doing. Basically giving a real doctor's opinion that this guy's gotta be legit. John of God later turned out to be a mass rapist. On a scale, hundreds of victims, on a scale almost incomprehensible.

We did a two-parter on John of God. You can listen to it. It's a fucking nightmare. This guy never gets half the following that he has if it's not for Oprah and Dr. Oz. So... Wow. Holy shit. It's good shit. Good shit. I found a fascinating New York Times article written a few months into Dr. Oz's new show. It notes that, in transitioning to his own series, Dr. Oz had to spice up his act for

a daily daytime audience, quote, potentially distracted by the tantrums of a toddler or the yelping of a labradoodle. They go on to summarize his early episodes. His show tackles topics as diverse and diversely weighty as skin cancer, kitchen burns, sleep eating, and pubic hair loss, returning constantly to the same television mother-load, wind-free profitably mind, weepy, overweight guests who vow and often fail to get in shape, and it has taken its star far away from any sort of traditional medical practice. He explains that transition as the product of frustration. Too often, he told

me, he would sit in an office and be telling you stuff too little, too late, that if you'd been able to lose a little weight or if your diabetes had been managed more aggressively, then it would have dramatically altered your destiny, which is now to go downstairs and have open heart surgery. With his TV show, he can exhort Americans to end all aspects to tend to all aspects of their health, head head to toe before they reach a point of no return Lose weight go to Brazil and get sexually assaulted by a con man You know, there's always that point, you know I've listened to your show and there's always that point in the episode where the comedian or the guest has no other option

But to just say, fuck that sucks, dude. There's no other comment, but what? Oh, that's crazy. But you know, Hey, John of God, uh, Dr. Oz there, uh, they all sound like great people. Yeah. Yeah.

And it's, it's going to get worse. You know, he, he, this is kind of the period. One of the things he's just to do in this period is he starts cutting back on his surgical practice and performing fewer surgeries. Yeah, because he's got to keep up all those TV dates. Yeah. In order to tell people about John of God, the mass rapist, and in order to tell people about, I don't know, some stuff that's good. Right. Telling people to eat healthier is a good America's diet sucks.

His diet advice, I think is, well, we'll talk about that later. It's also problematic. Anyway, he's trading objectively useful medical work for being a nonsense doctor, but he's making millions of dollars. Yeah. And yeah. And in America, that is the ultimate marker of doing the right thing. Yeah, that's the only thing that tells you whether or not you're doing the right thing.

Yeah, if you make a lot of money, then whatever you're doing is the right thing to do. It's morally correct to make a lot of money. Yeah, morally righteous, righteous wealth. You know what else is righteous, Matt? Is it the products and services? No, my man, it's you. Because the episode's over. Part one is over. And we're gonna sail out,

but first you've gotta plug your pluggables. And I just decided to compliment you before we were back. Yeah, that's very nice. Here I thought you were just trying to get me to talk about products and services. Well, thank you for having me on. I have a product and or service called Pod Yourself a Gun. It's a Sopranos podcast. And yeah, if you like the Sopranos or even if you don't, check it out on the, you know, wherever the podcast store is. Podcast! All right, well, this is the show that it is and we're done doing the things that we do.

So go out into the world and I don't know, find Dr. Oz and scream at him. Give him a good screaming. Hi, listeners. I'm Sloane Glass, the host of American Homicide, a podcast where we take you across the country to investigate some of America's deadliest crimes. We'll explore how these murders are shaped by their unique landscapes, and in turn, how these tragedies have shaped the fabric of these American communities forever. And you can get access to all episodes of American Homicide, 100% ad-free, and one week early through the iHeart True Crime Plus subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. So don't wait.

Head to Apple Podcasts, search for iHeart True Crime Plus, and subscribe today.