And so I worry about the future of digital ecosystems without any sort of checks and balances.

I never raised my voice with patients, and I feel like these conversations are similar in that way, in that they should be kept very respectful.

But at the same time, I thought it was valuable to show the level of passion that not only I feel, but my colleagues have been feeling for a very long time.

In watching it back myself, I thought I did a pretty good job balancing being an active, empathetic, attentive listener with going to bat for my colleagues, science researchers, science in general, and allowing people just to see the flip side of the conversation, but being a good person, meaning that the people who I was disagreeing with, I didn't want them to hate me because I felt like if we created a hateful relationship right at the outset, no one's mind would be changed.

No one would get any meaningful value out of these interactions.

And it actually worked quite well.

Even walking in, I think I made a joke sitting down at the chair, which last time I didn't, I was so nervous.

perfectly.

So in your opinion, what are some of the MAHA movement's most harmful ideas? Where do they come from, and what aspects of the community allow these ideas to gain traction?

Yeah, so usually the initial ideas of these types of movements start with good intentions.

In fact, we, we've seen this play out in medical media.

The medical talk shows when I was going through my medical training was, like, the Dr. Oz Show, and initially that started off as a great program, educating people about heart health, heart healthy diets, ways to incorporate exercise into your everyday life, and that was the early seasons.

Later seasons transcended into how your zodiac sign impacts your heart health.

So it's [laughs] like they always start with a little bit of accuracy and a little bit of science, and then it transcends into something else.

And I've seen that with the MAHA movement, where they will rightfully point out that obesity is a huge problem in America, uh, that chronic disease, prediabetes, diabetes, hypertension, all of these issues are huge problems in our nation and we need to desperately get them under control, especially when it comes to thinking about the quality of life, the length of life, and the healthcare dollars that are continually ballooning to truly a level that's going to be unsustainable, and the system will un- undoubtedly break.

[laughs]

What are some of the most common claims you're seeing, uh, Dr. Mike, and how do you respond when it comes to misinformation related to vaccines and scientific research?

To be honest, there's not many clear claims that people make because a lot of times it's arbitrary.

Oh, vaccines are a chemical that we introduce to children, and people get scared of that because of that chemophobia that we discussed before.

They try and create lies about vaccines that they're not as tested as pharmaceuticals.

Lie.

It's the exact opposite.

The first vaccine, smallpox, 1700s.

Why is nicotine harmful for the teenage brain?

I also, like, I don't know if this is true, but I like saw something online that now with like CPR, like the breathing into the mouth is not a thing.

Yeah.

So people used to not do CPR for people because they were worried, "Oh, I have to do mouth to mouth." So we said, "Forget mouth to mouth.

The most important thing is pushing hard, fast, and center of the chest after you call for help" And that means either you're calling for help or you're saying, "You pink- neon pink scrubs, you call 911," and you have to say, "Yes, and then I start the chest compressions." [laughs]

If someone has trouble sleeping, how would you suggest that they sleep better?

Um, it takes, uh, a visit with someone like me, who will try and figure out what's the issue.

Because some people have trouble falling asleep, which is one issue.

Then you could have people who can't stay asleep.

weird.

I don't know.

Anyway, listen, you're speaking my language.

Steve, you know, you and I share a passion for things.

And, you know, from a health perspective, I think it's healthy unless you have a compulsive spending issue.

You know, and there are people like that.

You know, they just can't resist buying something.

Now,

Hmm.

I could have a heart attack right now.

Cannot predict it, but what we can do is try to do the best that we can with the information that we have.

Varshavski told us it was his idea to go on Surrounded.

Of course there's gonna be bad actors who weaponize this and allow them to get millions of views, tons of sponsorship dollars.

That's not going anywhere anytime soon.

But instead of just villainizing it, I think we need to study it, we need to, uh, figure out how to do it effectively so that we can be there to, uh, contradict the false narratives, inaccurate information, and conspiracy theories.

How quickly

can it adapt? and change well i i it's not going to be overnight but as you saw with covid right it mutates it changes because uh one person uh may harbor it for a while and they get a a slight change in the genetics of it the genetic makeup of it and so because of that then it becomes Or a different strain becomes more prevalent.

And that's why we do the best we can.

Now, I'm going to bring it up because vaccination has been in the news every time.

And look, there's a lot of gnashing of teeth on both sides, whether you believe in them or not.

What I like about the whole outcome of all of this is that it's making people have a discussion.

I love it.

Do you foresee at some point down the road for just weight maintenance and things like that? Not necessarily, I need to lose 100 pounds.

How well did they do? What did they do wrong? What could we get better next time?

I think they did a great job given the circumstances, and given the fact that they were coming into the pandemic underprepared, not from a pandemic preparedness standpoint, not from a scientific standpoint, but from a communication standpoint.

Even three years prior to the pandemic, I wrote an article for the American Academy of Family Physicians website, where I explained that the lack of evidence-based accurate communicators on social media was creating a gray zone, and in the gray zone is where grifters flourish.

I actually, uh, did a TED Talk at the time and I called them IKA experts, I Know All experts.

They do a phenomenal job whenever there's a gray zone.

Where modern science doesn't yet have all the data or all the knowledge, they throw in theories with a massive amount of confidence, and therefore they're able to sway public opinion, confuse individuals, and therefore lead- lead to bad health outcomes.

So, I saw that gap was forming, and as basically was predicted by that article three years later, we weren't ready from a CDC standpoint, from a government standpoint, from a Dr. Fauci standpoint to be able to communicate on a mass scale.

Is that true?

No.

He said that it's made in a sewage plant.

He said that it contains cyanide.

He s- fearmongers constantly without understanding the ramifications of what he's saying.

And that's not to say I love Celsius or that it's not problematic for young people to drink it.

It's just a fact that what he's saying is inaccurate, and no one holds him liable because he's not an actual doctor.

I mean, for Dana White to peddle this gentleman as some sort of medical expert when his medical expertise is that he worked for an insurance company and he calls himself a human biologist, which I guess anyone can call themselves a human biologist once they have a bachelor's degree in biology, is irresponsible.

Sure.

So, w- why did you think it was a failure and when did you feel like the switch had actually flipped and you had, uh, proved the people who fired you, uh, wrong?

Yeah, so the reason I even got into the YouTube sphere was because the people who were functioning in the traditional media landscape were writing me off.

They were saying, "You're a young doctor.

Uh, we got the superficial soundbites out of you.

We're no longer interested in your medical information." And I viewed that as a missed opportunity.

I thought I had a lot of value to offer to the audience and YouTube was a place where I could bypass those gatekeepers and present the information in the way that I thought people wanted to receive it, uh, in a way where I didn't have to corrupt the medical information that I was presenting.

We started the YouTube channel thinking that my two million followers off Instagram would come on over and start watching these dense educational videos, and it didn't really happen.

I'm really curious, the decision to go to YouTube, in 2018 were a lot of your patients essentially, like, were they, like, bringing you YouTube videos? Were they saying like, "Oh, I saw XYZ thing on YouTube and therefore I am convinced that I have some sort of insane malady or whatever, or s- insane, uh, disease"? Uh, is that, like, part of the reason why you decided to do YouTube or was it literally just like, "This is the easiest way for me to kind of circumvent the, uh, traditional media which is not taking me seriously"?