The Young Turks - War Games

Episode Date: December 8, 2022

Bernie Sanders will bring the Yemen War Powers resolution to the floor sometime next week. A U.S. judge has dismissed a lawsuit against the Saudi Crown Prince over the death of journalist Jamāl Khāshqujī. The United States is experiencing an intense demand for Adderall. Elon Musk’s Neuralink is under investigation for animal testing. The Office star and writer, Mindy Kaling have stirred controversy over her comments about cancel culture and the NBC show. Host: Ana Kasparian Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Woo! It's up! We're going to get into some foreign policy today. That's what we're going to do right at the top, top of the show. You're watching The Young Turks.

I'm your host, Anna Casparian. And we have a hell of a show for you today. Right after the special election, the runoff election in Georgia, where Raphael Warnock, the incumbent senator, defeated Herschel Walker, which should have been, honestly, an easy defeat. The fact that it even got to a point where we needed to have a runoff election, I think, says a lot about the state of politics in America today. But we do begin with that good news, so I wanted to put that out there. But later in the show, we're also going to discuss the possibility of a resolution passed in the

House and the Senate that would essentially do away with any possibility of U.S. support of Saudi Arabia's or the Saudi-led coalition and its war in Yemen. So we'll talk about that in a little bit. We're also going to discuss why the Biden administration has become a lot more friendly towards Saudi Arabia in recent months. There are multiple reasons that I think you should be aware of. And why is it that, you know, the guy who ordered the assassination and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi isn't facing any consequences? In fact, he's immune from any consequences. We'll talk about that. We'll also give you an update on Elon Musk's company, Neurrelink, and it's terrible treatment of animals.

Some 1,500 animals have died in a short period of time within the company through animal trials. We'll tell you what the internal staff has been telling the press and what they've been complaining about. And in the second hour, John Iderola will be joining me to talk about a number of topics. We're gonna have some fun, of course. But a story that really caught my attention today has to do with a chain of gas stations in Philadelphia that has now begun employing armed guards. And when I say armed guards, I mean guards who have their assault weapons out in the open, ready to go. Is that the kind of society we want to live in? We'll have a discussion about that and more. But as always, just want to encourage you guys to like and share the stream.

Easy way to get the word out of the show about the show and to support us. You can also become a member by going to t.yt.com slash join or click on that join button if you're watching us on YouTube and you can become a member that way as well. All right, let's get into some foreign policy here. Senator Bernie Sanders says that he has enough votes in the Senate to pass a resolution that he refers to as the Yemen War Powers resolution. It would effectively block U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. Now that Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, of course, is fighting against the Houthi rebels. They have agreed to a ceasefire, but that ceasefire has since expired.

So it is incumbent upon Congress to pass this resolution to make it clear that should Saudi Arabia decide to get back into it, increase the violence, begin the war in Yemen again, the U.S. will not be providing any support. Now, he says he's got the votes in the Senate, which means he would need quite a few reports. Republican lawmakers to vote in favor of it in order to overcome that 60 vote legislative filibuster within the Senate. But let me give you the details as reported by The Intercept, and we can discuss what we think about the future of this resolution and whether it could pass. Now, the war powers resolution is considered privileged in the Senate. So actually, let me correct myself right away, because it does work a little differently from other legislation in the Senate. So when I say that it's privileged in the Senate, it means that the

sponsor of the bill, in this case, Bernie Sanders, can bring it to a floor vote without approval from the chamber's leadership. So he would not need approval from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. He would be able to bring this forward for a floor vote as soon as possible, and he expects to do it soon. Asked whether Sanders expected to have the votes to pass the resolution, Sanders said, in typical Bernie Sanders fashion, I think we do. Yes. Likes to keep it short and sweet. I love it. Now, it's not that hard to believe that Bernie does have the votes. And I'm typically not optimistic about legislation like this, resolutions like this. Because the fact of the matter is a similar resolution had bipartisan support

previously. As the Intercept reports, in 2019, Congress advanced a bipartisan version of the current Yemen war powers resolution, only to see it vetoed by President Donald Trump. So for all the pretend lefties out there, all of the anti-American imperialist, imperialism people out there who tried to pretend as if Donald Trump outflanked the left in foreign policy, you would be mistaken. Those people lied. And there's no way in hell. Donald Trump's foreign policy was significantly better than previous presidents. Not only did he veto this resolution in 2019, he also, of course, he ripped up the Iran nuclear deal, which increased hostilities between the United States and Iran.

It actually made the world less safe because Iran is now free to develop nuclear weapons since that nuclear deal it has been done away with. And there are lots of other issues that we can get into. But let's get back to the main story here, the positive story. about what Bernie Sanders is trying to accomplish with this resolution. Now, the House also had its own version. The House version is sponsored by outgoing representative Peter DeFazio, who's a Democrat from Oregon, and needs the support of Representative Jim McGovern, a Democrat from Massachusetts,

to get through the Rules Committee. But McGovern is a co-sponsor of the resolution, as is Representative Adam Schiff, chair of the House Intelligence Committee. So it does appear that what Bernie Sanders is saying here is correct. that this resolution is likely to pass, and he is planning on bringing it for a floor vote in the Senate as early as next week. Now, in the Senate, it's co-sponsored by Senator Dick Durbin, who is not just the chambers number two, but he also serves as the chair of the Appropriations Committee, which of course

doles out that Pentagon funding. But this could complicate something for Biden. And this is what I'm very curious to see play out in the future, in the near future. So Biden has been warming his relationship with Saudi Arabia in recent months. And a lot of that has to do with oil. Now, we've been experiencing higher prices at the gas pump since the invasion, Russian invasion into Ukraine happened. That increased the cost of oil, which translates to higher prices at the pump.

And the Biden administration is trying to, of course, convince members of the so-called OPEC cartel to increase their production of oil, to increase the supply, and deal with the high demand for gas at the pump, energy. We all understand this, right? At first, Saudi Arabia wasn't really into it. They wanted to keep the supply low, keep profits up. Well, though Saudi Arabia has used its oil exports as a cudgel to attack the current administration, which it views as opposed to its own economic interest in human rights record, relations began to thaw last month. The Biden administration moved to grant sovereign immunity to crown prince Mohammed bin Salman in the lawsuit over journalist Jamal Khashoggi's death, angering advocates.

And we're going to do a more detailed story on that in just a moment. But it is interesting because if Biden sees this resolution on his desk and he gets to make a decision as to whether he signs it to enact it or he vetoes it to nix it and save his relationship with Saudi Arabia. Well, it'll say a lot about who Biden is and what he actually represents. Because if you can recall, Biden on the debate stage said that he wanted to make Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, a pariah for what he did to Jamal Khashoki. But then once he realized, you know, there are resources involved here, there are economic interests involved here, maybe we can all pretend like the Khashoggi thing didn't happen.

It just gives you a sense of what really matters to political leadership, whether you're talking about Democrats or Republicans. When it comes to economic interests, when it comes to business interests based in the United States, there's no question that whether you're talking about a Democrat or Republican, they will suck up to some pretty questionable people, questionable regimes in order to ensure that our economic interests are met. And so I am curious to see how Biden is going to treat this resolution should it end up on his desk. Will he sign it? I guess we have to wait and see. Now, what would the legislation block the United States from doing exactly? Okay. So the resolution defines hostilities in a number of ways, including sharing intelligence

for the purpose of enabling offensive coalition strikes and providing logistical support for offensive coalition strikes, including by providing maintenance or transferring spare parts to coalition members, flying war planes engaged in anti-Houthi bombings in Yemen. And it's also worth noting that while Saudi Arabia has agreed to the ceasefire and there hasn't been an exchange of violence in recent months, the Saudis continue to maintain a blockade of Yemen, strangling the country's economy and producing. a humanitarian crisis of biblical proportions, including a devastating famine, where as many as 80 newborns are dying every day in the country. And we had been aiding and abetting that by giving

the Saudi-led coalition the weapons they needed to just direct absolutely awful, horrendous, tragic violence toward the people of Yemen. And to see a, bipartisan effort to prevent that from happening in the future is a good thing. The question is, will Biden stand in the way? And we'll wait and see. For now, though, I do want to move on to the second part of this story, something I referenced earlier that I think is incredibly telling about the Biden administration and some of the unsavory individuals within his administration.

A US federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit against Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman for his role in ordering the assassination and dismemberment of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Now, the judge argued that the country's new prime minister happens to be MBS, and since he is the new prime minister, which happened just recently, by the way, he has head of state immunity when it comes to this type of litigation. Now, did it have to play out this way? No. In reality, this federal judge is taking orders from the state department and the Biden administration. Let me tell you how. Now, in his decision to dismiss the lawsuit, Judge John D. Bates of the U.S. District Court for D.C. said this. The United States has informed the court that he, meaning MBS, is immune. And Mohamed is therefore entitled to head of state immunity while he remains in office. Oh, that's fascinating. Well, among those who labeled MBS immune was the Biden administration.

And how did they do it? What's the argument here? Last month, the Biden administration determined that Mohammed was immune from the suit brought forth in 2020 by Khashoggi's fiance and the civil rights organization he founded before his death, known as Don, given his appointment as sitting head of government. Now, on September 27th, Mohammed bin Salman was named Prime Minister by his father, King Salman. King Solomon. So King Solomon is still alive and well, and that's important for you to remember as we continue. Just six days before the U.S. State Department's court-imposed deadline to determine

whether MBS was protected from legal action. Now, that declaration of immunity, by the way, didn't need to happen, right? The Biden administration is, first of all, throwing the State department under the bus. They're like, no, it wasn't up to, it was a state department. They made the determination. We'd like to distance ourselves from this, okay? Because yeah, it's kind of embarrassing. Biden said he was going to make MBS a pariah for ordering the assassination and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi. And then he turned around and provided cover for the Saudis. It's a little embarrassing. So we're just going to say it was the State Department. Okay, but it's not like there are these set in stone rules in regard to

who you declare as heads of state, because we have some pretty recent examples of the United States referring to individuals who are not heads of state as heads of state, like Juan Guaido in Venezuela. The United States, both under the Trump administration and the Biden administration, decided to declare a man who was never elected in Venezuela as the head of state. Fascinating, right? Now, in the case of Mohammed bin Salman, sure, he's now been named the prime minister, but they still got the king, who's the actual head of state in Saudi Arabia. So let me give you some details on that.

In the weeks before the decision, the White House's National Security Council privately met with democracy in the Arab world now, or Don, again, that's the advocacy group we were telling you about earlier that was founded by Khashoggi, and a plaintiff in the lawsuit against MBF. Now expressly to discuss the immunity question, the National Security Committee, or I'm sorry, National Security Council, I should say, went so far as to ask the group to write a memo, making the argument for denying immunity, suggesting that White House officials were, along with the state weighing the merits of the case. So like they didn't, they didn't even know whether this argument that MBS is the head of state

and should be immune. They didn't know if that argument would really stand. So they went to the very individuals who have filed this lawsuit, who are plaintiffs in the lawsuit. And they're like, so can you write us a memo and tell us why you think MBS is? is not immune, just let us know what your arguments are. Now, MBS was not and is not the head of state, and it shouldn't matter anyway. He assassinated someone in one of the most vicious ways and then proceeded to have his henchmen

dismember Jamal Khashoggi. The request for sovereign immunity was a ploy, Don wrote, laying out a simple argument. Head of state immunity is typically reserved for a country's leader, which is a in the case of Saudi Arabia is its king Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, MBS's father with a very lengthy name. Now, King Salman, senior to crown prince Mohammed, is head of state. There can't be two heads of state. Seems like the Biden administration, the state department under the Biden administration, just arbitrarily decided to declare MBS head of state so they can say he's.

immune from the lawsuit. That's what actually happened. And I'll tell you why in just a moment, but a few more details. And keep in mind, look, the Biden administration has discretion. Okay, I gave you the example of Venezuela. That continues to be an issue. They keep referring to individuals who have not been elected in places like Venezuela as the actual leaders of countries. And here's another example. Let's go to Graphics 6 here. So Bashar Assad, would get the similar immunity, a journalist asked, referring to Syria's president, who has presided over countless atrocities during the Syrian Civil War. I suspect not, replied State Department spokesperson, Vedat Patel.

But Bashar Assad literally is the head of state. He doesn't get to enjoy immunity, but MBS does, and he's not even the head of state? So why? Why? Why? Why? Why go out of your way to provide immunity and protections for a man who viciously slaughtered a Washington Post journalist? Why? Well, of course, there are economic issues at play here. In a lengthy piece written by political magazine, there was a short mention, but I think it's important to keep an eye on this about supply chain issues that we've experienced with China during the coronavirus pandemic. Apparently, the business community thinks that we would be better suited to shift

some of our supply chain to Saudi Arabia rather than continue working with China. I think that's a story that will develop further in future months, possibly years, especially as hostilities with China, unfortunately, continue to increase because of the hostile commentary and discourse we're seeing from our politicians. But there are other reasons as well. I had mentioned oil earlier, and I think that's relevant. Now, Saudi Arabia admits that they asked for immunity, and they did get their way, right? Two sources close to members of the Saudi royal family and administration confirmed to the

intercept that Saudi had asked the Biden administration to grant MBS immunity. At the same time, the U.S. wanted the kingdom to, oh, would you look at that? turn up oil production. We want their oil. Business community wants to shift some, you know, manufacturing production and supply chain components over to Saudi Arabia, so we don't work with China as much anymore. Seems like it's the same old, same old. We experience this quite a bit here in the United States with domestic policy, profits over people. And even And when it comes to international decisions, foreign policy, it's the same thinking, the same rationale.

Yeah, I mean, they murdered a U.S. citizen and a Washington Post journalist. And Biden did say that he was going to make MBS a pariah for doing it. But then there's the economic interests at play. So we got to do something about that. That's really what's going on here. And it's so incredibly disgusting to see it play out. the way it's been playing out. And the cowardice that you're seeing from the Biden administration, to just pass the buck,

it was the State Department. Have the courage to at least be honest with the American people, and particularly the individuals who voted for you. Let them know, yeah, I actually thought one thing on the debate stage when I said that I would make MBS a pariah, but then once I remembered that business interests and economic interests would come into play, I changed my mind, just be honest. about it, I would at least respect Biden if he had the courage to just tell us the truth. Instead, pointing fingers over to the State Department as if you're not the commander in chief

is ridiculous and cowardly to say the least. It also doesn't help the matter. What also doesn't help the matter is the fact that there is involvement of Biden's Middle East envoy in this whole situation, someone who should not be part of his Middle East envoy at all. His name is Brett McGirk. And apparently he loves Saudi Arabia. Many see Biden's Middle East envoy, Brett McGirk, as too soft on the Saudis. McGurk has been a reliable proponent of warm relations with Saudi Arabia under every presidential administration, going back to that of George W. Bush. Why is this guy who was employed under the Bush administration now serving under the Biden administration? And why does he seem to have a bit of a love affair with the Saudis?

Maybe we should look into that a little bit. What's motivating his love for Saudi Arabia? I think that's relevant to the story. I would have liked to see news outlets dig into that a little bit. Now, a senior congressional aide to, a senior congressional aide spoke to Huff Post about McGurk specifically. This is from a piece that was written in October of this year. And here's what they said.

It is absolutely ridiculous that the White House and the president himself still puts faith in Brett McGirk for a strategy and set of policies that have failed to deliver for the United States and its interests. The idea that the U.S.-S.-Saudi relationship not only needs to be re-evaluated but significantly reset is now not only a progressive left thing, but Democratic Party orthodoxy. McGurk has fought this at every turn, is trapped in the past, and should no longer be serving this administration. That was a senior congressional aid. We don't know who that aid was because they spoke on the condition of anonymity.

But I agree with what that individual said wholeheartedly. That guy right beside me, this McGirk character, clearly has a bias that is unhealthy in terms of making decisions about foreign policy. I don't know what's motivating him. I don't know if there's money involved, no idea. But it is strange that we are currently dealing with a Democratic administration that is providing cover, literally protecting through immunity, a man who ordered the assassination and dismemberment of a Washington Post journalist.

We were very harsh toward Donald Trump for providing cover, and he certainly did the same. I'm not going to play patty cakes with the Biden administration when they're doing the exact same thing. It's disgusting. All right, we got to take a break. We'll be right back. Welcome back to the show. Everyone, Charlie Chuckles writes in and says, I hope for peace and wish right wing extremism would stop. But with right wing extremism rising, I believe it's a good idea to better secure any place or group that right wing extremists would target while the threats exist.

I'm sure that's a reference to a story from a previous day since I haven't really talked about the right wing much today or at all. But I tend to agree with you. I think it's important to just be extra cautious, observant, and just careful, especially in. If you're working for an organization that tends to be targeted by the right wing, if you're working at, let's say, Boston Children's Hospital, it's really sad that we're living in this day and age where we have to fear one another like that over political disagreements. But yeah, right wing extremism is definitely on the rise. And you can see it in both their rhetoric and the actions they carry out.

All right, let's move on to a completely different story that really fascinated me about an Adderall shortage in the United States. Let's do it. Therapists and their patients are dealing with a nationwide shortage of Adderall, one of the best known treatments for ADHD. According to national data, Adderall prescriptions for adults jump 15% from 2020 to 2021. Some experts blame the shortage on the explosion of online mental health providers

that diagnose cases and prescribed a lot of medication. It's true. There has been a pretty devastating shortage of medication for ADHD patients. And while Adderall tends to get most of the news coverage, it certainly impacts other drugs that tend to be prescribed to people suffering from ADHD. Now, before I get to the details of the story and why it is that we're experiencing, the kind of shortage we are experiencing, I just want to note that even prior to the

pandemic, there was a problem with the over diagnosis and over-prescription of these drugs. These are stimulants, they are highly addictive, they're often abused, which is why they are considered, you know, they're the kind of prescription drugs controlled substances. They're considered controlled substances and they undergo certain regulations that other prescription drugs do not undergo because of the high likelihood of abuse while using these drugs. Now, with that said, though, the problem has actually gotten much worse during the coronavirus pandemic, and it has a lot to do with social media and looser restrictions on

telemedicine. Now, just to give you a sense of how much the prescriptions for these stimulants have gone up in recent years, the number of ADHD diagnoses in 2010 were almost five times that, or five times what they were in 1999. And between 2007 and 2016, the number of diagnoses of ADHD in adults actually more than doubled. And now we have this emergence of social media where there is both user generated content on ADHD and the symptoms they're experiencing and what they're doing to cope with that. And also ads coming from telemedicine companies that make it seem as though ADHD includes all these symptoms that honestly anyone can relate to, right?

Even if you do not have ADHD, you've certainly experienced days where you're struggling to focus, where your attention span just feels shorter than usual. We all have days like that. It doesn't mean that you have ADHD. But the way these ads are put together would make you think that you're definitely experiencing the symptoms of ADHD and you need to talk. talk to your doctor about potentially getting treatment for it. And usually these ads direct you to use a telemedicine service that they're advocating for in the ad. Now, what's really going

on is once the pandemic started, people are less comfortable going to the hospital to visit their doctor for annual checkups or if they notice that there's something they're experiencing, there's something wrong. They're less likely to feel comfortable going over to a hospital that is completely overwhelmed with coronavirus patients. And that's totally understandable. So in the beginning of the pandemic, one of the things that the Trump administration did was loosen the regulations on telemedicine. And when you're dealing with controlled substances like Adderall, there are certain regulations in place that essentially force the patient to go meet with a doctor face to face. You have to have regular meetings and checkups with your doctor

in order to get that prescription refilled. But with the looser regulations on telemedicine, suddenly you have people who can connect with a doctor online through the comfort of their own homes and not have to go through the extra trouble of meeting a doctor face to face. So that was one of the restrictions that was really loosened pertaining to these controlled substances like Adderall. At the same time, though,

you have these ads that you see on places like TikTok. I've certainly come across these ads. And again, the ads make it seem like you definitely have ADHD because you're experiencing all of these symptoms. Now, I want to go to this video that talks a little bit about the user-generated content that you might come across if you're on TikTok or Instagram. Let's take a look. One media analysis of popular TikTok videos found that talking about mental illness on social media can be tricky. About half of the videos that we had sampled contained misleading or potential misinformation. And most of these videos, what we found were that they were uploaded typically by users of the platform. Not a lot of healthcare professionals were on the platform. And typically it was

mostly user-generated content. And look, we're saying that the same issue when it comes to Randos giving financial advice on social media, they're not fiducian. They're not professional financial advisors. They're just random people telling you you should do X, Y, and Z to earn money, or you should invest in X, Y, or Z to increase your money or your wealth. You should not be taking advice from random people on social media, whether it has to do with your health or your financial situation. Obviously be an advocate for yourself and go out of your way. Make sure you go out of the way to talk to a real doctor, real professionals, because you don't want to needlessly take prescription drugs that could have some harmful effects on your life, on your body. And in the case of, you know, these wannabe financial advisors, you don't want to invest your

money into something like, I don't know, FTX and lose whatever you have, invested into something that'll be squandered by fraudsters like Sam Beckman-Fried. Now, what's interesting is what doctors are noticing with patients showing up and asking them very specific questions. So for instance, Dr. Sasha Hamad Hamdani, who's actually a doctor who has been diagnosed with ADHD, actually does put out some content on TikTok to help correct the misinformation that's all over the place on social media on this very issue. And she says, a lot of my patients would hold up their phone to the camera and be like, here's this video that I saw on TikTok, and this is why I have ADHD.

Now, I want to give you an example of one of the ads. What you're going to see is sponsored content on TikTok, and it's exactly part of the problem. So I don't mean to pick on this particular guy. I'm sure, you know, it's sponsored content. It was an easy way to make some money. But there are many videos on TikTok that look just like this, sound just like this. And it's convincing people that they have ADHD and they should talk to a doctor and get their hands on Adderall as soon as possible. So let's take a quick look. Did you finish that paper?

What paper? The paper that's due to night. Oh, yeah. No, I've just been staring at a blank document all day. Again? Yeah. Just get started by putting your name at the top. What time is it due? Midnight. Oh, okay, cool. I'll just wait here in my anxiety and stare at a wall until 11 when the urgency finally kicks in. Oh, fun, right? Dude, you've got to get this app called Timo. It's made for ADHD brains like ours. It helps me out a ton every day. Yeah, that is, guys, that is a disastrous ad. So disastrous, especially when you consider how young TikTok users are and look at like what he's selling. I'm really struggling in school. I can't get my work done, but there's this magic pill. There's a magic pill. I found a

solution. By the way, pitchforks dragon in our member section has a pretty hilarious comment about this. Imagine selling Adderall as a drug dealer. You guys want to get high grades? I hear what you're saying. But at the same time, these are stimulants that make people who don't actually have ADHD feel like they're high. It's an upper. So that's part of the reason why it's abused, people like the way it makes them feel, but it's also incredibly addictive and can be incredibly destructive. Now, there's also another side of this that I think is important for you to know about because with the prevalence of these diagnoses and people getting these prescriptions, it's leading to a shortage of the drugs that people with ADHD need to function.

So they're going to pharmacies and they keep getting told, we don't have it. We don't have it. I was reading some testimonial stuff from CVS patients, like patients who get their drugs from CVS and other big chain pharmacies. And apparently the pharmacists, if you call to ask if they have it in stock, since it's a controlled substance, they won't tell you whether or not you have it in stock. So some of the patients literally have to drive from one pharmacy to another pharmacy to another pharmacy to see whether or not they can find a pharmacist who has the drugs that

they need in stock so they can function. ADHD is real. Okay, there are people who do need these drugs to be able to live a good life. And the idea that they're not able to get what they need because people are abusing it through prescriptions they really shouldn't have is pretty infuriating and crazy. And again, if there are opportunities to loosen regulations to help companies make a lot of money, they're going to do what they're going to do. They're going to want to make more money, and they're going to overprescribe the drugs. So now some pharmacies have stopped filling prescriptions for people who received the prescription

from a telemedicine company. I don't know if that's the solution to it, because I'm sure some of those prescriptions, are valid, right? So how do they determine which prescription is valid and which isn't? It's a mess. Now, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced in October that there was a shortage of both the brand name and generic form of Adderall in the United States. And going back to Dr. Sasha Hamadani, she says, logistically, it's been a nightmare for patients and providers. Stimulate medications are so highly controlled. You can't just transfer it to a different pharmacy. You have to cancel a script. You have to then go find another

pharmacy that has it. By that time, it might not be filled because other people have filled it there. It's a lot of logistical shifting and work on that front. And that's extremely frustrating for the patient. And I can imagine that would be frustrating for the patient. So while it's important to consider ways for people to see a doctor when they otherwise wouldn't be able to, it's also important to consider the abuses of looser regulations and the abuses that could essentially lead to shortages like this that hurts everyone. It hurts the people who are taking drugs that they really shouldn't be taking, of course, but it also hurts the people who actually need those drugs in order to live a full and good life. And that's what we're

seeing. And there is a limit to the amount of stimulants pharmacies can sell in a given year. And that's because of the fact that it's a controlled substance. So those limits, the loose loosened regulations when it came to telemedicine, the profit motive behind health care in this country, all of that is just a dangerous stew that has led to the problem that we're seeing today. All right, we got to take another break, but when we come back, we're going to give you an update on the allegations of just awful animal abuse during animal trials at Elon Musk's company known as NeuroLink. We'll be right back. Welcome back, friends. Let's get right to our next story. I will say for the animal lovers out there,

and I'd like to think you're all animal lovers. This next story has details that are disturbing and difficult to certainly produce for this story, but also difficult to hear about. So I wanted to give you that warning before we get into those details. So Elon Musk's medical device company, Neurlink is now facing a federal investigation over statements coming from internal staff, indicating that the way animal trials were run within the company were cruel and certainly broke, according to their accusations, animal welfare laws. Now, the complaints allege that the animal testing that's being conducted has been rushed, leading to needless suffering and deaths of said animals. Now, the federal probe, which has not been previously reported,

so this is the update to the story, was opened in recent months by the United States Department of Agriculture's Inspector General at the request of a federal prosecutor, according to two sources with knowledge of the investigation. The probe, one of the sources said, focuses on violations of the Animal Welfare Act, which governs how researchers treat and test some animals. Now, Neurrelink is a company that, look, it seeks to do something wonderful. So I want to be fair and honest about that because the idea is implanting some sort of chip in the brain of a paralyzed individual. So they're able to communicate with a computer and be somewhat, basically somewhat free to function on their own.

So they're looking to accomplish something really great, but obviously there are laws and regulations in place for reason to protect animal welfare, to ensure that these trials aren't rushed, to ensure that certain protocols are met. And based on what the internal staff has been alleging, those protocols were not met. And there was a lot of pressure to rush through these trials, which led to, according to them, unnecessary deaths of countless, I don't want to say countless. 1,500, possibly more animals. Now, the specific complaints come from more than 20 former and current employees at Neurrelink. In all, the company has killed about 1,500 animals, including more than 280 sheep, pigs and monkeys following experiments since 2018, according to records reviewed by Reuters and sources with direct knowledge of the company's animal testing operations. So Reuters did a pretty good investigation into this themselves. They looked at the documents, they interviewed dozens of individuals who either had worked at NeurLink or currently work at Neurlink.

And here's what they found. They identified four experiments involving 86 pigs and two monkeys that were marred in recent years by human errors. The mistakes weakened the experiment's research value and required the tests to be repeated. Leading to more animals being killed, three of the current and former staffers said. The three people attributed the mistakes to a lack of preparation by a testing staff working in a pressure cooker environment. And the pressure cooker environment is a comment or statement that you see repeated over and over again by the employees, by the staff. that, you know, there are certain methods in place that you should follow to prevent unnecessary deaths of the animals that are, you know, being used in these trials.

And since there's this constant pressure to rush, rush, rush, rush, rush, get it done, get it done, get it done, be more hardcore. Well, it leads to human errors, which then leads to these animals needlessly dying. And then they have to do the trial again. I mean, which by the way, takes up more time. It's just so stupid and insanely cruel to the animals, of course. Now, the sources characterized that figure as a rough estimate, the 1500 figure as a rough estimate,

because the company actually does not keep precise records on the number of animals tested and killed. There are other animals like rats and mice that are not included at all. So just something to keep in mind, a caveat that I think is, important. Now, one employee in messages seen by Reuters wrote an angry missive this year to colleagues about the need to overall overhaul, how the company organizes animal surgeries to prevent hack jobs. The rush schedule, the employee wrote, resulted in underprepared and overstressed staffers, scrambling to meet deadlines and making last minute changes before

surgeries, which of course that raises risks to the animals. And I think the risks were carried out with the insane number of animals that died during these clinical trials. The mistakes leading to unnecessary animal deaths included one instance in 2021 when 25 out of 60 pigs in a study had devices that were the wrong size implanted in their heads, an error that could have been avoided with more preparation. So what is this really about? Okay, do I think that there's this intentional effort by employees and leadership at Neurrelink to be cruel to animals, to kill animals?

No, I don't think that's what's driving this. What's driving this is what drives a lot of the problems that we see in society today. The profit motive behind it, the competition behind it. And in the communications that Elon Musk, the CEO of NeurLink, has had with the staff, it's abundantly clear that he's concerned that he's not going to beat the competition. And they got to go, they got to go, they got to go. You got to get it out there. You got to, we want to move on to the next phase of trials.

We've got to start doing the trials on humans. No, if you are a human thinking about participating in a human trial for Neurrelink in the near future, do not do it. Okay, do not do it. Why? Well, there are some examples of Elon Musk applying the pressure that I want to provide for you. Now, many companies routinely use animals and experiments to advance human health care, and they face financial pressure to quickly bring products to market. That's where Reuters reported. And it is demonstrably true.

Not just in this case, but in many cases that we've seen with companies in a rush to roll things out, they make all sorts of mistakes, make terrible decisions. They cut corners because they want to be first. You know, they want they want a larger market share for the innovative technology they're putting out there. Earlier this year, the chief executive sent staffers a news article about Swiss researchers. So this is what Musk did. So Musk sent staffers a news article about Swiss researchers who developed an electrical implant that helped a paralyzed man to walk again. We could enable people to use their hands and walk again in daily life, Musk wrote to staff at 637 a.m. Pacific time on February 8th. 10 minutes later, he followed up. In general, we are simply

not moving fast enough. It is driving me nuts. Okay, we're talking about technology that would implant a chip in the human brain, maybe slow it down a little bit. Okay, even if you don't care about animals at all, which, okay, fine, I think that's terrible. But we're talking about implanting a chip in the human brain. You want to make sure that safeguards are in place and you're not rushing this technology out to the market. And look, do I have a lot of faith in our institutions and our federal institutions to oversee this and make sure that everything's being done carefully. I want to say yes. I mean, there's obviously a federal investigation now. So that's good. I think there should be a federal investigation into this. But there's a lot of talk coming from feds.

We see it in so many different instances where they talk about self-regulation. I don't like that. But let me continue. Other Neurrelink rivals are having more success. And that's making Elon Musk incredibly nervous. So synchron, which was launched in 2016 and is developing a different implant with less ambitious goals for medical advances, received FDA approval to start human trials in 2021. The company's device has allowed paralyzed people to text and type by thinking alone. First off, let me just say this technology is incredible. So I'm not against the idea. I'm not against the technology, but I am against how the profit motive of private companies pressures the company and the executives of the company to push this as quickly as possible,

knowing full well that there are serious ramifications for both the animals and the clinical trials and potentially the humans that might be part of the trials and might use this technology in the future. For Musk and all other private companies, time is money, right? And there's that pressure to go, go, go, go, go. Financial pressures are at play. On several occasions over the years, Musk has told employees to imagine they had a bomb strapped on their heads in an effort to get them to move faster, according to three sources who repeatedly heard the comment.

On one occasion, a few years ago, Musk told employees he would trigger a market failure. Oh, interesting that he said that. at Neurrelink unless they made more progress, a comment perceived by some employees as a threat to shut down operations. Yeah, because it was a threat to shut down operations. But it's interesting that he said he would trigger a market failure. He certainly does have a lot of experience manipulating markets on, you know, social media platforms like Twitter, especially when it comes to things like the cost of crypto and all that. So you should believe him when he says it because he's definitely done it in the past. But at the end of the day, again, it's the profit

motive and the financial pressure that should be completely banned in the context of clinical trials, in the context of our health care industry. But we're so far away. from even having a serious discussion about that. Our politicians are so far away from even considering that. So in the meantime, all sorts of animals are just going to die during these clinical trials that are being rushed by a man who's really feeling the financial pressure. Great. We'll let you know the outcome of that federal investigation as we learn more.

But for now, we're going to move on to something completely different. Now, you know what? I'm going to do John Idaola a favor. We're going to do this story with John. He's going to disagree with me. It's okay. It'll make for a good conversation. When we come back, John will be here.

And we'll talk about Mindy Kaling and how she's getting some backlash for claiming that the characters on the hit show The Office would be canceled if that show were airing new episodes today. So we've got that story and more coming right up. Don't miss it. We'll be right back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.