The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 7.11 "HE NUTTED ON MY LEG!" Disgusting Philly Man Charged, Katy Perry Abuser Backlash, Billie Eilish &

Episode Date: July 12, 2024

Click here https://www.seed.com/defranco and use code DEFRANCO25 to get 25% off your 1st month’s supply of Seed’s DS-01®️ Daily Synbiotic + Free shipping! Go to http://rocketmoney.com/PDS to cancel your unwanted subscriptions with Rocket Money. ==== ✩ TODAY’S STORIES ✩- – 00:00 - Philly Man “Releases” on Woman’s Leg in a Dollar Tree 2:21 - Katy Perry Faces Mounting Criticism for Upcoming Single and Music Video  5:18 - Wondery Inks $80M Deal With Dax Shepard 6:51 - Democrat Senators Seek Criminal Investigation of Clarence Thomas 9:57 - Sponsored by Seed 10:56 - NV Republican County Officials Refuse to Certify Vote in Local Primaries 14:26 - Israel’s Gaza City Offensive Threatens Latest Progress In Ceasefire Talks 19:22 - Sponsored by Rocket Money 20:35 - Race-Based Medicine is Giving Millions of People Substandard Care, But These Doctors are Fighting Back 28:15 - Comment Commentary ——————————   Produced by: Cory Ray Edited by: James Girardier, Maxwell Enright, Julie Goldberg, Christian Meeks, Matthew Henry Art Department: William Crespo Writing/Research: Philip DeFranco, Brian Espinoza, Lili Stenn, Maddie Crichton, Chris Tolve, Star Pralle, Jared Paolino Associate Producer on Race-Adjusted Medicine: Chris Tolve ———————————— #DeFranco #BillieEilish #KatyPerry ———————————— Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sup, you beautiful bastards. Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show, your daily dive into the news. And we have got a lot to talk about. This monster, the Katy Perry controversy, the world of podcasting changing, Justice Thomas' impeachment, the chaos in Nevada, Israel-Gaza updates,

and this deep dive into race-adjusted medicine. So buckle up, hit that like button. Let's just jump into it. This is a news show. News like this makes me wonder if we should just factory reset society. All right, because we need to talk about this guy who's in the news, Gary Miles,

because he's accused of ejaculating onto a stranger's leg in a Dollar Tree. You might actually already be surface level familiar with this story, because this video has been going around social media. It's blown up. You see this woman following a fleeing Gary out of a Dollar Tree in Philadelphia.

And in it, she is chasing him and yelling. Look, he nutted on my leg. You go to hell. And then, I am not gonna show you the rest of the video because she then shows her leg. And it very much appears there is something that could be from Gary on her. But then in this video, the horror of this

all seeming to catch up with her. I mean, she just breaks down in tears. And thing is, this actually didn't just happen. Well, the video absolutely blew up yesterday, getting over 30 million views. This reportedly happened back in June, getting a lot of people's attention, including rapper Meek Mill, who's from Philly,

and he offered $2,000 for Gary's location, saying, let's play manhunt with him today. And actually regarding Gary, this was a big update. He reportedly turned himself into police last night with the department releasing a statement saying, PPD extends its gratitude to the public for their assistance in locating Mr. Miles. And we just learned today that he's been charged

with indecent assault, indecent exposure, open lewdness, and harassment. Also, while this alone is horrifying enough, oddly enough, it is not even the first time this exact thing has happened at a Dollar Tree. There in fact being another woman who's in Houston suing Dollar Tree for negligence after a man followed her around the store harassing her

and then even ejaculated onto her back last December. With that woman saying, he started saying all the things he wanted to do to me. It was really bad. I couldn't believe this was happening. I panicked and told him he was disgusting and immediately went to get my friend on the other aisle. Saying, when my friend looked at my clothes,

she just panicked. And saying that when she told the store manager, they said it was the third time in less than four days that someone had been sexually assaulted in the store. So you have the woman's attorney arguing that the company is liable for the assault because they've created an unsafe environment due to understaffing.

So yeah, I guess be careful the next time you go to a Dollar Tree. I'm not saying it's a company staple, but it is very weird that that very specific thing has happened at multiple locations. And then Katy Perry is actually anti-women. That's what a growing number of people are arguing after seeing teasers for her new song, Woman's World.

The one, it's not limited to that, and two, that single and the video for it don't actually come out until tonight, but these promos have generated a ton of discourse. But it's actually starting when Rolling Stone reported that Dr. Luke was among the producers Katy worked with on her upcoming album. And that after notably he and Kesha

previously settled a long legal battle that included claims that Dr. Luke sexually, physically, and emotionally abused Kesha. Though there, you know, he has denied those allegations, but still many people were shocked to learn that she's reportedly working with him. Especially since her song is Woman's World and it appears to be a girl power anthem.

With people saying things like, who is this song for? Being a woman in this world is already degrading and difficult, but to release a women empowerment song produced by a woman's abuser is insane. I really hate fake feminism. You also had actress Abigail Breslin not mentioning Katie, but writing that working with known abusers in any industry just contributes to the narrative that men can do abhorrent shit and get away with it. Stream Kesha. Though that's also not the only reason that people have been taking issue with this song. You've got tons of people who aren't fans of the music video

teaser that Katie shared, since it shows her in a revealing Rosie, the Riveter inspired outfit at one point, dousing herself in whiskey, joined by a bunch of female dancers, all dressed as scantily clad construction workers. And so you had folks writing things like, "'Woman's World' and all you can see in the teaser is a woman's body sexualized as much as possible."

Making a quote unquote feminist song when all you're doing is being hypersexual in the music video, plus sexualizing feminist icons is crazy. With many arguing that all of this, it just caters to the male gaze. Others also taking issue with the dancers, noting that on top of them being sexualized, they only represented a very thin beauty standard.

And claiming things like it's a woman's world and she only shows women with one body type. You know, with a lot of this, people say, and it just appears like she's behind the times and out of touch with where culture is at large. One of the conversations around this is, you know, rather than promoting these ultra thin ideals, you actually now have a lot of mainstream pop stars

who are singing about those standards and how it harmed them. But for example, the New York Times even doing a piece on the trend this week, noting that Billie Eilish's new album has lyrics like, "'People say I look happy just because I got skinny, "'but the old me is still me and maybe the real me, "'and I think she's pretty.'"

You also have the likes of Lorde hopping on a Charli XCX song to include a verse saying, "'For the last couple of years, I've been at war in my body. I tried to starve myself thinner and then I gained all the weight back.'" And they're not alone. Taylor Swift has also sung about this. Olivia Rodrigo having lines like,

"'I started to skip lunch, stopped eating cake on birthdays.'" And so with all this, you have the Times saying, it is indicative of a subtle shift among the current generation of female pop stars who have recently been acknowledging, often in stark, striking, and possibly triggering language, the pressure they have felt to look thin. Though obviously, with all this discourse happening,

there are people that are more focused on one thing or the other, whether it be the Dr. Luke stuff, the hypersexualization, or the body images. But ultimately, we're gonna have to wait to see if this actually negatively impacts the streams, if it negatively impacts the sales, or if all of this discourse, it just brings more and more attention and success

to something that she's releasing. You know, I mean, that's just how the attention economy works. Though personally, as someone that was previously a very lost and angry young man, the only thing I care about in the music world this week is Eminem dropping an album tomorrow. The rest is just static and noise to me.

But then let's shift gears to very interesting news in the world of podcasting. And a lot of it's being driven by Amazon's Wondry going after some of the biggest names in the industry. With them now reportedly inking an $80 million deal with Dax Shepard and his Armchair Expert show. And that's a big deal not only because of the number, not only because it was formerly with Spotify,

but now Wondry is gonna distribute that podcast and co-produce two new ones. And that's in addition to holding an annual live stream with Dax and also launching video episodes and taking on the whole back catalog. And this as Wondery is also apparently in talks to pick up Travis and Jason Kelsey's new Heights podcast. Though that is not set in stone yet.

Neither is the future of Call Her Daddy, which according to the Wall Street Journal, while it is with Spotify now, it's being shopped around and the Wall Street Journal saying that Sirius is currently a front runner to pick it up, but also possibly a game changer. Also, maybe it's a nothing. It looks like Spotify is interested

in getting engagement on podcasts. With them now are really set to launch a comments feature on its podcast. Though apparently it would not look like the comment section that you're used to. Because according to The Verge, comments will be default as private and creators then get to approve

what comments that appear there. And then they can also just opt out of the feature in full or on a per episode basis. So I will say, I don't know how many podcasts we're going to enable the comment section. And that's because there's been conversation in the industry for a very long time that a lot of podcasts actually have very inflated

or boosted numbers. And while in places like YouTube, you can go to a video and see if the number of likes and the number of comments, it seems, you know, kind of real. Or you can have viewers and advertisers who know this space looking at it and they, you know, they can tell you if it passes the smell test or not. There is a belief that a number of podcasts

that are successful just on podcasting platforms would not. But regardless, big shifts, big changes. It's very interesting. And then, while Biden, old, definitely got the gold this week for media attention, silver, I would say, goes to Project 2025, Clarence Thomas, he's been fighting to make the podium. Right, and that, for a number of reasons,

starting with two Democratic senators are calling for a criminal investigation into Thomas for possible violations of tax laws and federal ethics. With Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon sending a letter to Merrick Garland, the attorney general, asking him to appoint a special counsel. A special counsel that would be tasked

with investigating Thomas's failure to disclose his sugar baby antics. Would you know that? Including the acceptance of lavish gifts and luxury travel. And specifically with this, they're asking the special counsel to look into whether Thomas violated tax laws by failing to disclose his income, the $267,000 he received in forgiven debt for a luxury RV. With the Senate Finance Committee previously concluding that a good chunk of that loan came from Thomas's friend, Anthony Welters, and was forgiven in 2008.

They're also asking the special counsel to investigate the $25,000 in consulting fees paid to Thomas's wife, Virginia, by conservative judicial activist, Leonard Leo, with some ethics experts saying that those payments raised questions about whether Thomas should have recused himself from certain cases. And in their joint statement, Whitehouse and Wyden wrote, "'We do not make this request lightly. "'Supreme Court justices are properly expected "'to obey laws designed to prevent conflicts of interest

"'and the appearance of impropriety "'and to comply with the federal tax code.'" And adding, "'No government official "'should be above the law. Now with this, you know, the senators may have asked for a special counsel, but that doesn't mean that the Justice Department is actually gonna make that happen.

For example, Jeremy Fogle, a former federal judge and executive director of the Berkeley Judicial Institute saying, "'Innevitably, it would be seen as political retribution for rulings the justices made that they don't like. I just don't know how you get out of that box.'" So also, you know, actions that may lead nowhere, that seems to be kind of the theme

surrounding everything Clarence Thomas. Because also in the news, you have Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introducing articles of impeachment against Thomas and Samuel Alito yesterday, with AOC accusing both justices of failing to recuse themselves from certain cases that have come before the Supreme Court,

as well as failing to disclose gifts from wealthy benefactors. And AOC saying in a statement, "'Justice Thomas and Alito's repeated failure over decades to disclose that they received millions of dollars in gifts from individuals with business before the court is explicitly against the law. And the refusal to recuse from the specific matters

and cases before the court in which their benefactors and spouses are implicated represents nothing less than a constitutional crisis. And further adding, Congress has a legal, moral, and democratic obligation to impeach. Though really with the current state of things, especially with a Republican-controlled House, this is not going to go anywhere. Though, it gives me an opportunity to drop a little piece

of fun trivia. The only time that a Supreme Court justice has actually ever been impeached was Samuel Chase back in 1805, but even there, he was acquitted by the Senate. Also, if that ends up helping you on a trivia night, you owe me a drink. But that said, going back to AOC, you know, she was joined by several Democrats in introducing the Articles impeachment. And as the New York Times said, some Democrats say their party must make a case against the justices in the court of public opinion, which I will say there, it could have value, especially as we head to an election where the Democrats are going to really need to focus on policy versus what Trump would do if he gets back in office. Whether that be something like a Project 2025, or the fact that he'd be in a position

to put more people on the Supreme Court, along with the fact that the people he has put on the Supreme Court already have made massive sweeping changes, whether it be immunity or Roe v. Wade, what more of that could look like in the near future, especially if he gets to put even more people up there. And then I wanna take a second to talk about today's sponsor

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than with Show County, Nevada. Which if you're unfamiliar is a swing county and a swing state as well as the second largest in Nevada. And it is gonna be a decisive factor in choosing the next US president. Last month, we saw Washoe voters going to the polls for several local elections, including a Republican primary

for the Washoe County Commission and a nonpartisan primary for a school board seat. And right off the bat, there were some administrative issues, most notably a printing error that meant that some people in a small precinct may have needed to re-vote. So the losing candidates in each race, Mark Lawson for the commission seat

and Paul White for the school board seat, both Republicans, requested a recount. It turns out, the man funding not only their election campaigns, but also the recount itself, is a wealthy Republican donor by the name of Robert Beatles, who notably, ever since the 2020 election, has been working very hard to replace local officials with far-right election-denying conspiracy theorists. And he has shown himself not to be above mobilizing an army of activists to harass election workers until they buckle. Or to be back in 2022, for example, he hounded the registrar of voters so hard, accusing her of treason and demanding she be fired or thrown in jail, that she just quit. And just to give you an idea of what's inside this guy's head, he claims to have an analysis from a mathematician

and an artificial intelligence supercomputer showing that it was highly unlikely that his candidates lost their elections. So as you might imagine, he and his people went absolutely buck wild when the voter registrar's office took longer than expected to recount ballots because the tabulation machines broke down. And this, even though the interim voter registrar

said there were no errors or discrepancies in the recount, which by the way, changed only a single vote in each of the two races, so the initial results were essentially fine. But when the county commission gathered to certify the recount on Tuesday, dozens of people, including Beatles, protested outside the building. We want a hand recount now. But a key thing is that Nevada law requires recounts to be performed by the same method that the original election was tallied. So in this case,

it was machine tabulation, right? Meaning that everything seemed to have been done properly and the results were clear. And so the drama was presumably over. But then in a shock to the whole county, three Republicans on the five member commission, they voted to not certify the recount. With that including Michael Clark and Gene Herman, who really they weren't a surprise since they both voted against certifying votes in the past. But this also included Clara Andriola, the swing vote on the commission who voted with Democrats to certify the initial count. And her decision was especially unexpected because the votes for the commission seat being recounted was her seat. So she actually chose to not certify her own victory. And so as far as why she did that, she told reporters afterwards.

There's a lot of information that has been shared that, in my opinion, warrants further investigation, which is why I asked the question. It's not a reflection of anything intentional. I am not an election denier. And a fun little thing here is like the irony is that if she gets pushed out with a far right activist that she just threw a bone to, the person who replaces her will be an election deny. Though with that, last night,

Nevada's Secretary of State and Attorney General sent a petition to the state Supreme Court asking it to require the entire County Commission to meet their legal obligations and certify the results. Also Alexis Hill, the Democratic Commission chair, made an announcement about Andriola, you know, that one swing vote. I am pleased to report that cooler heads have prevailed

and commissioner Andriola has asked for reconsideration of her vote on the canvas. Right, so it's looking like she might switch her vote back in favor of certification the next time the commission meets, which would hopefully defuse the crisis. But also while that would be a relief, I wouldn't say stop holding your breath yet. Cause the thing about this little local fiasco,

it is just one symptom, an example of something going on in counties and states across the country. Far-right Republicans working tirelessly to purge local offices and fill them with election result denying Trump supporters. And if we go through a scenario where this happens all over the place and or in a way that could affect the results, I mean,

we could be looking at a full-blown the results. I mean, we could be looking at a full-blown constitutional crisis. And then, so the latest Israeli offensive underway in Gaza, we should talk about it. And also with that, everything that it means for the ceasefire talks, the situation with Hezbollah, and of course, because we can't help it, where the US fits in all of this.

So to start this latest offensive, it's happening in Gaza City. That was once home to more than a quarter of Gaza's residents before the war. And it was largely destroyed by the end of last year. But despite that, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have now returned. And also notably, so have some Hamas fighters.

So again, we're seeing similar scenes play out there. You had leaflets dropped on the city earlier this week, as well as online and recorded phone messages being shared, calling on everyone in Gaza City to head south. And all of it echoing the very first evacuation order from last October, when the Israeli military told a million civilians to leave the city and other parts of Northern Gaza

ahead of its initial ground invasion. But of course, that was the beginning of this war, and now we're almost 10 months into it. With the vast majority of Gaza's roughly 2.3 million people already displaced, and many of them multiple times. Not to mention the areas Israel marked as safe zones, they're already extremely overcrowded. And then also sometimes they're not even really that safe.

Right, I mean you had one Gaza City resident telling the Washington Post that she and her family categorically refused to leave our house. And there, not because there's some sort of attachment to their home, but because they don't know where it's actually safe. And at that point, the evacuation order reportedly sparked heated discussions among Palestinians online about whether or not to follow it. With the UN Humanitarian Affairs Office also warning that Israel's instruction for people to leave Gaza City will only fuel mass suffering for Palestinian families. But in any case, we're now seeing tanks and troops moving deeper into Gaza City and clashes are breaking out between Israeli forces and militants.

With Hamas also claiming that there have been 45 airstrikes in the Gaza City area just today. And then also with that, we're seeing reports of residents trapped in their houses. As well as, you know, just bodies laying out in the streets. And notably with all of this, the Biden administration just confirmed that the US will resume shipping 500 pound bombs to Israel.

Because the US had paused the shipment of these and even bigger 2000 pound bombs back in May due to concerns about the scale of civilian casualties in Gaza. And specifically at that time, concerns about a potential full scale Israeli assault on the Southern Gaza city of Rafah. You had Biden at that time saying

that it was a red line for him. Also to be specific here, the 500 pound bombs, those have resumed, but the 2000 pound bombs are still being held back. Though as you could probably guess, 500 pound bombs are still a fuck ton of bomb. And to that point, you had a researcher at the Center for International Policy saying,

in Gaza's densely populated areas, the difference in the destructive impact between a 500 pound and 2000 pound bomb is negligible, both causing immense destruction in civilian casualties. Right, and with that, a key thing is that the Israeli strikes continue to be associated with mass casualty events. Take Tuesday, for example, when a strike near a school sheltering displaced Palestinians reportedly killed

at least 25 people and wounded 50 more. The Israeli military saying that it was all to target a single Hamas member who took part in the October 7th attacks on Israel. And then to add to that, these bombs are coming in as more people are also dying from not having enough food. In fact, a group of UN experts released a statement this week accusing Israel of waging, quote, an intentional and targeted starvation campaign against the Palestinian people and even calling it a form of genocidal violence and saying it's

resulted in famine across all of Gaza. But with that, you have Israeli officials characterizing that statement as misinformation and saying instead, it has continuously scaled up its coordination and assistance in the delivery of humanitarian aid. Also another notable big development with humanitarian aid is that this week the US built peer for increasing aid to Gaza. That is now being permanently dismantled after operating for just 20 days.

And actually in that time, it only delivered what would have been a single day of supplies before the war began. And then, you know, all of this stuff is relevant today because an Israeli negotiation team is heading back to Cairo to hold further Gaza ceasefire and hostage talks. Well, yes, this is something that we've seen before with it obviously leading nowhere.

There are some important things that have changed this time. Most of all, Hamas has reportedly dropped one of its key demands for an agreement, or which was that any deal include a guarantee of a permanent ceasefire. And then beyond that, both Israel and Hamas reportedly signaled their acceptance of a quote,

interim governance plan in which neither party would rule Gaza, and in which security would be provided by, quote, a force trained by the United States and backed by moderate Arab allies, drawn from a core group of about 2,500 supporters of the Palestinian Authority in Gaza, who have already been vetted by Israel. And in fact, in just the past day, we've had U.S. national security spokesperson John Kirby telling CNN that they're cautiously optimistic about these talks. And actually, for the first time in a while, there is a tiny little bit of a reason to believe him. But of course, also with all this stuff that we've talked about, right? This latest Israeli offensive into Gaza city, this worsening food crisis,

the arrival of more US weapons, we are at risk of going back to square one. Not to mention, of course, there's still real doubts about whether leaders on all sides have any real interest in a ceasefire at all. Though also notably, there the head of Israel's biggest opposition party has offered Netanyahu

something of a political lifeline, saying he will help keep Netanyahu in power if he signs a ceasefire deal. Plus, another big thing is that a ceasefire deal could help Israel prevent further conflict with Hamas ally Hezbollah in Lebanon, because Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters, they've been trading fire since the war began.

That, I mean, it's just been escalating more and more in the past few weeks. But now we've had Hezbollah's leader coming out and saying, "'Hey, the only way to stop the fighting "'was to end the fighting in Gaza.'" And adding there, Hamas is negotiating on its own behalf and on behalf of the entire resistance axis, and what Hamas accepts, we accept.

And so ultimately, there have been real significant developments in terms of pushing both sides closer to a deal. But I wouldn't bet the house on it, right? Take everything with a grain of salt. Words are words, hopes are hopes, and actions are actions. And then, how much do you think that you're paying for subscriptions every month?

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that the US healthcare system, it just sucks ass. I mean, it's one of the few things everyone left, right and center can pretty much agree on. But however much you think you know, I promise you that by the end of this story, you're never gonna see a simple doctor's visit the same again. And so to kick this dive off,

we're gonna start with one of the most controversial drugs in recent American history, Bidol. And it's nothing more than two generic drugs combined into a single pill to treat congestive heart failure. It was invented back in the 80s by cardiologist, Jay Cohn, who ran trials, got a patent, and then took it to the pharmaceutical company Medco, which then sent it to the FDA for approval in 1997,

but the agency rejected it. And that's even though most of the review panel said they thought that it was effective, or they said that the trials weren't designed to meet the agency's particular standards, meaning that if Medco just ran another trial, it could probably get Bydell approved. But the thing with clinical trials

is that they're very expensive, and by then, half the drug's patent life had already run out, so the company just handed the rights back to Cohn. Now, the thing with that is, if he could market the drug to a specific subgroup instead of just the general population, then he could obtain a new patent.

So Cohn, he starts sifting through the old data and he notices that Bidil, hey, it actually seems to work better for African-Americans. But notably, there were only 49 black participants in the trial. So the sample size was just too small. So Cohn, he patents Bidil again. He takes it to a different company, NitroMed,

and conducts a new trial, this time with only black patients. And the drug seemed to work, but there was one big problem. They didn't gather any data to see if it also worked on white patients. So the core selling point of the drug that he was going for, right, that it's specifically for black people, it was never actually proven.

But NitroMed, they only needed to prove that the drug was at least good enough to treat whatever population it marketed for. So that's how in 2005, Bidyl actually became the first drug ever approved by the FDA exclusively for a single racial group, which was one small step forward for NitroMed, but one giant leap backward for American medicine. Because immediately the news got picked up

by major newspapers across the country that ran headlines touting Bidyl as a drug for black people, effectively lending government and media credibility to the idea that race is a biologically meaningful category. But as geneticists have known for decades, it's just simply not. It won't take long to tell you neutrals ingredients. Vodka, soda, natural flavors. So what should we talk about?

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Instacart. Grocer groceries that over-deliver. The reason this is a problem is it's grounded in bad science. So that is Harvard resident Dr. Rohan Kazanshi. So there's actually more genetic variation within racial groups than there is between racial groups. And he says that race, it's an imprecise category, not only because it's an extremely poor predictor of genetics, but also because it's so fluid. Many people identify as mixed race, others change their racial identification over time, and the racial categories themselves, they change from census to census. Which is why Dr. Neal Schluger, a professor at the New York Medical College, says that

race is entirely a social construct. The differences that we assign to racial characteristics, skin color, hair texture, shape of someone's eyes or something like that are really not much more meaningful than differences in hair color. Yet, as the case of Beidou shows, the myth of biological race continued to play parts of the medical field well into the 21st century.

But what I wanna show you here is that this ugly idea, what Kazanchi calls racial essentialism, it goes so much deeper and further than Beidou in ways that not even all doctors are aware of. I mean, let's take, for example, your lungs. If you go to the doctor to get those things tested, they'll often have you blow into a device

called a spirometer. They'll then plug the data into an equation along with a bunch of other information about age, weight, and sex to see if you have healthy lungs. But what you might not realize is that one of the inputs for that equation is your race.

And to understand why, we have to go back to the 1970s. It was noticed that for any given age, height, and sex, that black individuals had lower levels of lung function than whites. And that was just assumed to be normal biology. Of course, differences in lung health could probably be explained by a host of other factors tied not to race, but racism. Economic status, educational status, environmental exposures, access to good nutrition. But the people designing the equations,

they didn't think about any of that. So they just figured it made sense to adjust the score up or down depending on the patient's race. Meaning you could take two patients, one black, one white, who are completely identical, except for their skin color. When you test them, the equation says

that the white patient has lung disease while the black one doesn't. Basically telling the black patient, your lungs are pretty weak, but they're not bad for a black person. And while the medical community really only moved away to de-racialize lung function testing a few years ago, I mean, race is still used for it

in many, many hospitals to this day. So as you might expect, it leads to a lot of black people getting fewer diagnoses, lower doses for prescription drugs, and fewer referrals to a specialist. And so to actually try to quantify the effects of all this, a team of researchers, including Kazanshi, they conducted a study.

With them taking a sample of nearly 400, a team of researchers, including Kazanshi, they conducted a study. They're taking a sample of nearly 400,000 people and extrapolating the data out to represent 250 million Americans. And they asked a simple question. If we test these people with a race neutral equation instead of the traditional one, how different will the results be? What they found was absolutely shocking. Many people would be reclassified. So ventilatory impairment for 12.5 million people. Medical impairment ratings may be reclassified for 8.16 million. 12.5 million people, medical impairment ratings may be reclassified for 8.16 million, occupational eligibility for over 2 million, greeting of

chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or COPD for over 2 million, and military disability compensation for 413,000. I mean, we're talking about disability payments that are increasing on the order of thousands of dollars annually and redistributing over a billion dollars in disability payments to eligible veterans. With the study's lead author, James Diao, adding there, almost 90% of the lung transplant waiting list in 2020 would have been rearranged or given some other priority if we had not used race back then. And while Black patients are definitely impacted the most by race-adjusted equations, all racial groups, even including white people, they feel the effects. The use of race in these equations made black patients look less sick

and made white patients look sicker. And so some white people, they experienced the opposite problem of getting over-diagnosed. And sometimes, because nowadays the equations are done automatically through an algorithm in the machine, even doctors themselves don't know race is influencing the numbers.

But, and this is where things get really scary, all of this goes far beyond just lung function tests. Right, going back to congestive heart failure, an equation that predicts your risk of death from that is also race adjusted. And then, I mean, you've also got race being factored into equations for the risk of death from complications during cardiac surgery, the risk that an organ transplant is going to fail, the risk of complications during vaginal birth for someone who's had a prior c-section. I mean, the list of things just goes on and on. Kidney disease, kidney stones, UTIs, osteoporosis, cancer, diabetes, on and on. Hell, even the tests that modeled cognitive functioning for NFL players who sued the league

for concussive injuries, they used race as a crude proxy for social factors and life experience. I think the unfortunate reality is that there are examples of race-based medicine that impacts nearly every organ system in the body. But interestingly enough, the murder of George Floyd prompted a sudden reckoning in just about every corner of American life, and that includes medicine, with the American Medical Association

passing a resolution that fall condemning racial essentialism, as well as calling for a stop to using race as a proxy for biology or genetics in medical education, research, and clinical practice. Then in 2021, we saw the American Thoracic Society and European Respiratory Society renounce race-ad race adjusted lung function testing.

And in 2022, the Global Lung Function Initiative created a race neutral equation for testing. So at this point you're thinking, okay, well that's it. Right? We did it. We fixed the problem. There's no reason Phil should be talking about this. Well, as it turns out, correcting the historical legacy of racism, not the easiest thing.

Because just changing the guidelines, it doesn't automatically change what's happening on the ground. Sometimes we talk about this like 30 year delay from when something becomes standard of care to when it becomes, you know, widespread clinical practice. We can see this delay in one of the other big examples of race adjusted testing, kidney function. There was a study that found that when there's a new equation that was recommended for kidney function, after like 10 years, only a quarter of testing laboratories have switched to the new

equation. Right now, he says, we don't have any concrete data on how many hospitals have and haven't made the switch to race neutral equations. And so if your doctor asks for your race while filling out paperwork or punching numbers into a calculator, that might be a good time to ask some probing questions. Which to be clear, it doesn't mean get ridiculous and start yelling about how you're going to call your lawyer. Though, you know, if you think that you may have received substandard care because of race-based medicine, lawsuits are an effective way to apply pressure on institutions to change their practices.

But rather, just ask how race might affect your care. And depending on their answer, it either clears up your concerns or it starts a useful conversation. Ideally, that's how it plays out. But then finally today, let's talk about yesterday. Because when I went into those comments, I saw a lot of people frustrated with YouTube.

Commenting on that story yesterday, saying things like YouTube is ruthless when a content creator uses a no-no word like suicide or rape, but can't stop bots promoting illegal stuff like CP or animal abuse. And others replying YouTubers have to change the way they talk about serious topics,

self-censoring in the most ridiculous way, even if they're talking about it respectfully. Though I will say there, I've just reverted to using the regular words. The one time I said unalive in a video, I felt so stupid. Though I will say the really interesting thing about creators self-censoring

is that it has actually changed language, especially of young people. Like I have young kids and I've heard groups of kids talk about like, usually in reference to a video game, saying unalive or they oof. So the latter there is more connected to the sound in Roblox. But that is more of just an interesting thing to me,

how the entertainment that we consume, it affects language. Also funny enough, a bot that took a real person's comment said, "'The internet has been worse for a while. "'Moderation is trash across so many platforms, "'except for when it comes to banning creators.'" It's just something so perfect, the fact that a bot picked that comment.

There was also some interesting input from people like Moonwielder who claimed, "'To anyone who wants an explanation, the bots exploit a Unicode where it uses right to left characters to flip text that makes their comment look backwards to the system. To us, the comments look normal because the characters are displayed correctly.

Which I will say, very interesting if true. I also wanna mention this. If there is one section of this show where you should definitely do way more of your own research and take everything with a grain of salt, it is the comment commentary section. Like when people start a comment and they're like, hey, as a civil engineer, I like,

I don't know who that person is. For all I know, it could be some fucking idiot that looks like me that's like, hey, as an 18 year old black girl, here's what I think. Also, I will say there was a lot of conversation regarding phones and classrooms. Are you even seeing more and more news about school districts banning phones or trying to find ways to restrict them? And there, some of y'all said things like the fact that phones are even allowed during class today is baffling to me. I graduated in 2013. We all had iPhones and Androids during high school, but we were never allowed to have them out during school. I remember teachers taking them and keeping them the entirety of class if they did see. I remember having to sneak texts in my backpack. I was only allowed to have them out

during art classes for references when sometimes my teacher was cool and let us listen to music while we painted. One time I got detention and my phone taken away until my parents came and got it. We also had folks like Drew saying, I'm a teacher in Australia and we have a policy that students are allowed to have their phones on them, but if they use them whilst on school grounds without permission, then they get it taken from them for the day. We've got all the same benefits that were being listed for the pouches, just without having to take phones off the entire school for the day. The biggest problem we have is parents still messaging their kids throughout the day despite wanting this policy. Also on the topic of pouches, we got comments like, as a teacher, I will say flat out

that yonder pouches or anything like them are worthless. It literally just takes a strong enough strike on a desk or wall and the magnetic lock will open. Other options are cutting the pouches open or bringing a dummy phone or putting just the phone case in the pouch. These kids will find ways to get around these types of things,

which I will say is absolutely true. It's also why, and I'm not condoning it, or am I? But I do think there is an argument that very creative cheating in school is itself in a way a showcasing of creativity and intelligence. Now you shouldn't do it. You should learn the stuff.

But, you know, hearing someone talk about a dummy phone, I'm like, ah, that's thinking on your feet. That's a kind of life skill. But finally on this topic, there was also a group of people that were just like, I'm against the idea of a full ban. With Kyle saying an outright ban concerns me for several reasons.

One, proof of bullying slash abuse is often video footage from cell phones. And we've had several clips over the years of teachers way overstepping their authority that would have never been believed without the footage. Two, in the age of school shootings, not having a phone to call 911 is fucking terrifying. Three, phones can often be used as a helpful tool

for disabilities and medical conditions. Four, they're built-in calculators, so they don't have to shell out $100 on average for a device they'll likely never use again. Noting there are many free graphing calculator apps for smartphones that greatly lower the fiscal barrier to entry for education. But that, my friends, is where today's daily dive into the news is going to end. Am I goodbye? A little bit different today? A worst case scenario, I'll see you right back here on this channel on Monday. I'm playing around with the idea of doing kind of a show tomorrow, but doing it during a live stream.

So if you're not subscribed, make sure you are. If you are subscribed, make sure you have all notifications on. And worst case, if you're in the US or Canada, just text me at 813-213-4423. I'll shoot you a text so you can be a part of the live PDS. But main thing, I love yo faces and I'll see you next time.