318: Wellness is the New Big Pharma [feat Mallory DeMille]

Summary

Podcast Summary: Conspirituality – Episode 318: Wellness is the New Big Pharma (feat. Mallory DeMille)

Date: July 23, 2026
Hosts: Derek Beres, Julian Walker
Guest: Mallory DeMille

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Episode Overview

This episode confronts the core contradiction in the modern wellness movement: while wellness influencers relentlessly criticize "Big Pharma" for its profit motive, lack of transparency, and medicalized culture, their own practices—ranging from unregulated supplements to dubious biohacking—mirror many of those same profit-driven, pseudo-scientific, and sometimes predatory behaviors. Guest Mallory DeMille joins the hosts to dissect the "wellness horseshoe" theory, highlighting the convergence of extreme wellness and conspiracy culture, and exploring how supplement sellers, biohackers, and internet gurus are, in effect, the “new Big Pharma”—only with less oversight, fewer consumer protections, and a great deal more hypocrisy.

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Key Themes & Insights

1. The Wellness "Horseshoe" Theory ([04:23])

• Definition: Mallory introduces the concept adapted from politics, whereby radical ends of an ideological spectrum loop toward one another, making the “wellness” world’s anti-pharma rhetoric ironically similar to Big Pharma’s practices.
• Notable Quote:
  "You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." – Mallory DeMille paraphrasing "The Dark Knight" [04:04]

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2. Money, Marketing, and Pharma Parallels ([07:10]–[18:39])

a. Marketing Tactics & Supplement Industry Size ([07:10], [09:52])

• Clips reveal supplement company leaders rationalizing their lack of oversight because they're smaller than pharmaceutical companies.
• Derek and Mallory highlight the hypocrisy of influencers slamming pharma for profit-seeking and kickbacks while earning undisclosed commissions from unregulated supplement sales and MLMs.
• Stats:
  • Wellness industry value: ~$2 trillion/year in US (per Global Wellness Institute) [05:43]
  • Pharma industry value: $700 billion/year in US [05:43]
  • Wellness projected global value by 2029: $9.8 trillion [15:42]

b. Big Pharma Criticisms Echoed in Wellness ([09:52])

• Derek details pharma's billion-dollar ad spend, lobbying, and history of kickbacks to physicians, grounding critiques in facts (referencing the Sunshine Act and legal settlements).
• Julian and Mallory lampoon wellness hypocrisy:
  "I think I'm going to start taking my coffee up the butt, pouring my urine down my gullet, and smothering my body in beef tallow while I mainline grass-fed butter." – Julian Walker [14:41]
• Mallory likens influencers to pharma reps:
  "Influencers can seemingly sustain a career on affiliation commissions… labeling an ad as an ad is hit or miss, mostly miss. These kickbacks are rarely referenced..." [19:12]

c. Lack of Oversight in Wellness vs. Pharma ([16:26])

• Pharma undergoes rigorous, expensive clinical trials; supplement industry can put products on the market with minimal oversight.
• Alarm: 40% of sports supplements and 83 of weight loss supplements tested don’t contain what's on the label, some even contain unlisted pharmaceuticals [16:49].

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3. Evidence, Testing, and the "Natural" Fallacy ([22:20]–[34:53])

a. Selective Demands for Evidence ([22:20]–[24:34])

• Wellness influencers reject scientific evidence for medicine but don't apply those same standards to their own products, relying on vague claims like "may support" or "may benefit."
• Notable Quote:
  "Imagine if Big Pharma was making claims about something… with absolutely zero evidence behind it. I would have to imagine that these same influencers would lose their goddamn minds." – Mallory DeMille [23:17]

b. The "Sick Care" System & Conspiratorial Thinking ([25:16])

• Batshit conspiracy: "Doctors are keeping people sick to create customers for life."
• Mallory calls out the circular logic:
  "...you've started doing coffee enemas, and all your supplements are on auto ship now, one could argue you've been made a customer for life." [26:43]
• Discusses how every accusation against pharma often applies to the wellness industry itself.

c. Chemical vs. Natural – The Marketing Mirage ([28:39])

• Natural vs chemical is a false binary: wellness products use processed, synthetic chemicals too.
• Example: Vitamin C, D3, B12 supplements (and major vitamins sold by wellness influencers) are manufactured via the same industrial processes and parent companies (BASF, DSM) as prescription drugs [37:41].
• "Their stuff passes the 'natural' test, but anything Big Pharma does doesn't. Sometimes their products are actually coming from the same place anyway." – Mallory DeMille [29:09]

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4. Peptides, Biohacking, and Supplement Phantom Borders ([30:41]–[41:05])

• Peptides, popular in wellness and fitness scenes, are often unapproved, unsafely imported pharmaceuticals.
• Derek explains that many peptides and supplements sold as “natural” or “for research only” are synthesized the same way as prescription drugs—often illegally [33:43].
• "Wellness influencers love peptides... All of this obscures the fact that what they're selling are actually drugs." – Derek Barris [32:43]
• Citing FDA research: widespread contamination and mislabeling of supplements; some “natural” gas station products are spiked with real drugs [18:14], [34:53].

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5. Adverse Events and the Wellness Industry's Accountability Void ([41:30]–[42:53])

• ER stats: Supplements send ~23,000 Americans to the ER per year, but the real number may be much higher due to lack of post-market surveillance [42:09].
• Influencers routinely ignore, misattribute, or reframe adverse events (as “detox” or “healing”) to avoid accountability.
• "If a person actually gets really harmed, like emergency-room level by their products, that little disclaimer will shield them from liability..." – Derek Barris [42:11]
• No wellness equivalent of the Sunshine Act; no requirement to track or publicly report side effects or finances.

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6. Case Study: Brian Johnson and the Limits of Self-Quantification ([42:53]–[52:20])

• Julian and Mallory discuss centimillionaire biohacker Brian Johnson, whose relentless self-measurement failed to catch his autoimmune gastritis for years, despite 80+ daily supplements and extreme routines [45:16].
• Johnson ultimately advocates for real medical screenings, in contrast to the influencers criticized earlier.
• "Brian Johnson is arguably the most measured human alive and this condition still hid from him for years." – Ram Hariharan (quoted by Derek) [47:11]
• Johnson’s refusal to acknowledge direct medical causes, instead blaming childhood diet—contradicted by evidence.
• Mallory notes Johnson’s ostracization from traditional wellness—he’s “too sciency,” but also not embraced by medicine.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• Mallory: "Every accusation is a confession." [26:43]
• Julian: "I think I'm going to start taking my coffee up the butt… that’ll show those corrupt bastards." [14:41]
• Derek (on pharma & wellness): "The chemicals inside the shiny packages were probably sourced from the same company and manufactured in the same facility as those dangerous big pharma concoctions that they decry." [39:22]
• Mallory (on influencer accountability): "There is no wellness equivalent to that [Sunshine] Act…We have no clue how much the major players… are making and who they’re being funded by." [19:12]
• Julian (on 'wellness' conspiracies): "When they start talking about babies like this, I want them to go to jail." [25:21]
• Derek (on Brian Johnson’s mythological claims): "That is the most twisted comparison I've ever heard. ... implying you're a God of medicine and healing or the son of a God who can heal others is just wild when you can't even heal yourself." [50:20]

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Important Timestamps

• 04:23 – Mallory introduces "wellness horseshoe" theory; quote from Dark Knight
• 05:43 – Wellness industry vs. Pharma industry size/marketing budgets
• 09:52–14:41 – Kickbacks, lobbying, sales reps, industry structure
• 16:49–18:39 – Unregulated supplements: mislabeling and contamination stats
• 22:20–24:34 – Selective demands for evidence in wellness
• 26:43 – “Every accusation is a confession” (wellness acting like pharma)
• 28:39 – Chemical vs "natural," processed supplement manufacturing
• 30:41–34:53 – Peptides & off-label drugs in wellness
• 37:41–39:22 – Industrial manufacture of “natural” vitamins/supplements
• 41:30 – ER visits, adverse event (lack of) reporting for supplements
• 42:53–52:20 – Brian Johnson case: biohacking’s limits; autoimmunity diagnosis

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Episode Tone & Style

• Candid, critical, and often darkly humorous, with frank language (“that fucking guy,” “batshit conspiracy”), self-deprecation, and a mix of scholarly research and exasperated outrage.
• Willingness to point out hypocrisy in both Big Pharma and wellness, but emphasizing the especially egregious lack of accountability and transparency in wellness.
• Mallory blends sharp analysis with sarcastic wit, Julian is more satirical, Derek brings statistics and righteous anger.

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Conclusion

The episode convincingly argues that today's wellness industry has adopted the worst tendencies it claims to despise in Big Pharma: profit-motives, shady marketing, low accountability, and the exploitation of fear and medical distrust. While there are real problems in pharmaceutical culture, the unchecked growth and lack of regulation in the wellness industry, turbocharged by influencer culture, has created its own dangerous version of “Big Pharma”—but with less science and scrutiny. The hosts conclude that true critical thinking and skepticism must be applied equally—especially by those selling health—and that applying the rules of evidence and accountability to all sides is the only way out of this horseshoe-shaped conspiracy maze.

Transcript

[Brian Johnson]

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[Julian Walker]

Go easy.

[Carvana Customer]

Sold my car on Carvana. Amazing offer, really.

[Brian Johnson]

I hit 200 on the scratcher.

[Carvana Customer]

Did the scratcher come to your house and hand you a check?

[Brian Johnson]

No.

[Carvana Customer]

How many scratchers did you hit to get that? I hit a button on Carvana.com once.

[Brian Johnson]

Okay, that's fair.

[Carvana Customer]

It's like the lottery, except you always win.

[Brian Johnson]

Not like the lottery at all, actually.

[Carvana Customer]

Exactly. Inexplicably good offers worth bragging about. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pickup fees may apply.

[Benjamin Boster]

Welcome to the I Can't Sleep podcast with Benjamin Boster. If you're tired of sleepless nights, you'll love the I Can't Sleep podcast. I help quiet your mind by reading random articles from across the web to bore you to sleep with my soothing voice. Each episode provides enough interesting content to hold your attention and then your mind lets you drift off. Find it wherever you get your podcasts. That's I Can't Sleep with Benjamin Boster.

[Anti-vaccine Influencer]

Hey, everyone.

[Derek Barris]

Welcome to Conspirituality, where we investigate the intersections of conspiracy theories and spiritual influence to uncover cults, pseudoscience and authoritarian extremism. I'm Derek Barris.

[Julian Walker]

I'm Julian Walker.

[Mallory DeMille]

And I'm Mallory DeMille.

[Derek Barris]

Welcome back, Mallory. You can find us on Instagram and threads on SpiritualityPod as well as individually on Blue Sky. Mallory, where can people find you?

[Mallory DeMille]

People can find me on Instagram. I'm his is Mallory. And I'm also on YouTube, still working on some longer form videos. And that's just. Just my name, Mallory DeMille.

[Derek Barris]

Well, the first. First few are great, so I look forward to more of those. As for the podcast, you can access all of our episodes ad free, plus our Monday bonus episodes on [e-mail] conspirituality. You can also access just our Monday bonus episodes via Apple subscriptions. As independent media creators, we appreciate and rely on your support, so thank you for that.

[Julian Walker]

Conspir Wellness is the new big pharma. The pharmaceutical industry is filled with greedy businessmen getting innocent consumers hooked on their toxic products in order to barely keep them alive. But if you want to actually thrive, an entire array of natural supplements are just one click away. So goes most every wellness pitch on social media. Mallory DeMille returns to break down the marketing techniques as we dive into the sordid world of supplements and peptide creation, which in reality is not dissimilar from pharmaceuticals. In fact, many products use the same manufacturing processes and production plants as Derek breaks down. In the final segment I'll revisit Brian Johnson, the centimillionaire, on a quest to live to 200 and what his recent chronic illness diagnosis says about pumping your body fill with experimental drugs.

[Ana Rosa]

I'm sorry, but if you need a scientific evidence for the most blatantly obvious facts that are right in front of your face, you are fucking retarded and you have not left the box that has been created for you. Like, if you genuinely still believe that cereals are okay to eat and the government would never poison us, they'd never put chemicals in our food and water, then you need to wake up, you genuinely need to go outside and look around because the evidence is right in front of your face. This is what people used to look like and this is what people look like now. Everyone's fat, everyone's depressed, everyone has some sort of chronic illness. You do not need scientific evidence to validate something that is right in front of your face. Just look around and you will see the evidence of people following the advice of the government and what they're told is healthy and good for them.

[Mallory DeMille]

Listeners, that's aspiring wellness influencer Ana Rosa. In addition to her sparkling personality, she is selling collagen and tallow lip balm. And this little monologue of hers is probably the perfect introduction to what we're going to be talking about today. In politics. There's a theory and it claims that the ends of the ideological spectrum, the far right and the far left, don't actually exist on opposing ends of a linear line. Instead they bend towards each other because they actually resemble each other quite closely and are closer to each other than they are the center. This is fittingly called the horseshoe theory. And today we're going to be talking about the wellness version of this, the wellness horseshoe theory, or how wellness is the new big pharmacy. To quote the 2008 film the Dark Knight. Can't believe it took me this long to do that. You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

[Dr. Mike]

You mentioned there are some reasons to be critical of pharma. What are those?

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Well, I think that they market them non stop and so they almost creating the market.

[Dr. Mike]

How is that different than your supplement line?

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

That's a good question. Supplement companies like mine don't have nearly the money that pharma has.

[Derek Barris]

And so, well, the Global Wellness Institute

[Dr. Mike]

estimates that the wellness industry is a $2 trillion a year industry in the United States and big pharma is 700 billion.

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

That would shock shocked me, right? Because I mean I own a supplement company knowing our budget as opposed to Eli Lilly's budget. It's like we're not even talking the same thing or even the very large supplement company. So I just don't know.

[Dr. Mike]

Yeah, well, let's take the numbers out of it. Like, if I want to start my own supplement company, we have 14 million subscribers, very healthy YouTube channel, very active audience. If I wanted to start a supplement company, wouldn't take much. I have to get someone to give me the ingredients to create the label, send it out. But pharma has to go through trials. The FDA has to approve it. They have to spend a lot of money. Don't you think it's easier to create a supplement than it is to create a pharmaceutical?

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Yeah, no, I think absolutely you're correct. And there are a lot of bad actors in the supplement world.

[Dr. Mike]

What's a bad actor in the supplement space?

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

Well, somebody who doesn't test the ingredients. Someone who. You don't feel confident what it says on the label is actually in the bottle.

[Dr. Mike]

Do you think the FDA should be out there randomly sampling and testing to make sure that these supplement companies have what's written on the label?

[Dr. Daniel Amen]

I think it's a. It's a good idea.

[Mallory DeMille]

As some of you might have already clocked, that's Dr. Mike interviewing Dr. Daniel Amen. He's the brain scam. Sorry, brain scan guy. Brain Scott. That always happens. Brain scan guy. And he's doing what I think Dr. Mike does best. He's calling out these inconsistencies and kind of demanding, holding people's foot to the fire. He's demanding an answer in the kindest way possible and ultimately kind of just letting the clip speak for itself.

[Julian Walker]

So good.

[Derek Barris]

Dr. Mike. Yeah, he has way more patience than I do for these grifters, but I usually tighten up clips for this podcast. I had to leave that very long silence after Dr. Mike's first question. If I could give you a visual of Eamon's face during that painful moment, I would. I do wish Mike would have pushed him further after he said, bad actors test their products. Because if you go to Eamon's Happy Saffron plus Gummies page, the top clearly states, clinically studied Saffron gummies for mood support by Dr. Daniel amen *. But if you scroll down, you will discover the FDA disclaimer that the product has not been evaluated by the fda. Of course, about midway through this very long marketing page, though, you find out that, quote, we only use clinically researched ingredients backed by science. The language at the top makes it seems seem like the gummies have been clinically studied, but they have not been. It's the ingredients. And he's pretending that they all work together to support whatever the he wants to. I'm going to guess that Eamon doesn't consider himself a bad actor, even though his very definition of the term points right back to him.

[Mallory DeMille]

And none of them consider themselves bad actor. They're here to save the world. So as this podcast and our individual work has covered over the years, in order to better position itself and what it has to offer, the wellness industry and its influencers have always needed an arch nemesis to throw rocks at. And that arch nemesis is Big Pharma. It's the root cause of their fear mongering. And where are the anonymous they come from? And Big Pharma is indoctrination. Big Pharma is propaganda, not them. Big Pharma is all about the money and wants to keep you sick, not them. You can't trust your doctor, but you can trust them. Look at all the discount codes they have. Wellness has a lot of beefs with Big Pharma. Some warranted, some unwarranted, and some batshit crazy. So let's unpack these beefs and how the wellness industry has found itself acting, how Big Pharma acts and how it thinks Big Pharma acts. On the tales of that Dr. Mike clip, let's start with beef number one, money, marketing, conflicts of interest and kickbacks.

[Derek Barris]

Okay, I have so many issues with the pharmaceutical industry, so I'm going to get specific here. Yeah, the United States and New Zealand are the only two countries in the world that allow direct to consumer prescription drug advertising. And to that end, pharma companies spent $10.1 billion on drug advertising here in 2024. Over 6 billion going to TV alone. I mean, I watch a lot of Mets games on the MLB app and if I hear one more fucking Skyri commercial this season, I'm going to throw my phone. I've read analysis that put the number closer to $14 billion per year. The fact that we can't publicly confirm that number is yet another problem.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, I grew up in, in other countries where this was not the case. So when I first arrived here, I was just like, what ask your doctor for? Insert your brand name here and it's your ticker. It's your ticket out of suffering into a joyful life. And all of the animation and the, and the way that people like finding freedom and joy and connection with one another is supposed to convey that. And then they have to do that lightning fast listing of all the potential side effects.

[Celebrity Plastic Surgeon Terry Dubrow]

Right.

[Derek Barris]

Yeah. Where the older couple is on the beach for the boner pills.

[Mallory DeMille]

Slow motion dancing through the kitchen. Yeah.

[Derek Barris]

Okay, let's look at another problem. Pharmaceutical sales reps. The field grew from 40,000 in the mid-90s to more than 100,000 a decade later. And that number has shrunk a bit, but not because the industry was in profiting companies. Companies just use digital and virtual detailing more now so they don't have to pay those pesky humans to go on the road. Then there's the biggest issue, and one that RFK Jr promised to end but has done nothing about. And that is the pharma lobby, which is the largest of all lobbies in Washington D.C. and it's held that title since 2010. I think there was one quarter where they were not the top lobby. But Pretty consistently for 16 years now, the pharmaceuticals and health products industry spent $391.5 million lobbying just in 2024. I should note that that number includes wellness companies as they're just lumped in there with pharma. And I'm going to unpack this in segment two, but it kind of makes sense given that most wellness products are chemically indistinguishable from pharmaceuticals. Plus a number of pharma companies own supplements lines for the same reason. That said, to be fair, the bulk of that lobbying money was from pharmaceutical companies for pro pharma legislation. Okay, another one. You likely hear about industry kickbacks a lot, and they are real. But we should note that legislation has reined that in a bit. I'll return to that. The criticism about kickbacks is a thing we should think about though. A JAMA analysis found 57% of physicians received a payment from a pharmaceutical or medical device company over a 10 year period. Another analysis found nearly half of all physicians accepted industry payments totaling $2.4 billion. And this was in 2015. Further research has tied industry payments. Even things like sponsored meals led to higher rates of prescribing, especially when it comes to opioids. And the last one, thankfully did have consequences. Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty to $5.5 billion resolution in 2020 that included conspiracy to violate the federal anti kickback statute in OxyContin. GlaxoSmithKline paid $3 billion in 2012 for deceptive marketing off label promotion and kickbacks. And Tiva Pharmaceuticals agreed to pay $450 million in 2024. To resolve anti kickback statute and false claims act violations that were tied to sham speaker programs and fake consulting fees to use a drug called Copazone. Now as I said, there has been some movement in the right direction. In 2010, Congress passed the Physicians Payment Sunshine act as part of the Affordable care Act in 2010. You know that pesky thing that the right has tried to get rid of every ever since? The Sunshine act as it's shorthanded, forces manufacturers to report any payment of any size to any physician. So as citizens, we can all search for our doctor in an online database. And that's important because there was still three point. Sorry, $13.1 billion across 16 million payment records in 2024. So to be clear, doctors are still getting paid and Congress seems completely uninterested in ending that practice.

[Julian Walker]

Okay, okay, you've convinced me, Derek. I think I'm going to start taking my coffee up the butt, pouring my urine down my gullet and smothering my body in beef tallow while I mainline grass fed butter infused with off label peptides. That'll show those corrupt bastards.

[Mallory DeMille]

Yeah, me too. I take it all back.

[Derek Barris]

Yeah, that I also love that woman in the beginning who's selling the beef towel lip balm uses filler. So it's again, you have this other hypocrisy of these fucking influencers. All right, but back to the this list here. One of the major wellness criticisms involves money in pharma. And here's where I want to defend the industry for one reason. The cost, time and rigor it takes to bring a drug to market is astounding. The FDA requires a multi phase clinical trial process that costs from $435 million on the low end all the way to over a billion dollars before a new drug application can even be reviewed. One analysis found bringing a drug to market can take a decade of work and almost $3 billion in total. Meanwhile, as Dr. Mike sort of hinted at earlier in that clip, I can literally buy bulk ingredients, mix them in my kitchen and sell a supplement online with virtually no oversight. The wellness industry is predicted to reach $9.8 trillion by 2029. Currently, as of 2026, wellness is roughly four times the size of the entire global pharmaceutical industry, Though those estimates are by a wellness industry group. And it does include things like tourism and services, not just drugs. That said, there's still a shit ton of money in supplements.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, and a lot of that. Those kinds of stats, when I've looked at them before, the forecasts that they have for how the industry is going to keep growing based on everything that they know are pretty astounding. But, you know, all of the catalyts that you just offered, notwithstanding, four times the size of Big Pharma, but with almost none of the regulation, the scientific rigor or the accountability. Right, none of it.

[Derek Barris]

They get away with that asterisk, as I said. And even then, Mallory and I have talked about a number of influencers and websites for supplements that don't even include that which should be under the purview of the fda, but it's not. They don't. They don't pay attention to this shit. All right, last word on all this. Whereas Big Pharma has to rightfully endure so much time and effort in the drug process, a JAMA Network Open study found that 40% of sports supplements tested didn't contain a detectable amount. Amount of their labeled ingredients. So, yeah, doctor. Amen. Doctor. I don't even know what the. He's a doctor. What is it, Daniel? I think, yeah, he is of something. And he's selling that, you know, he. He's not even trained. Yes. Brain scams. So they should be obviously tested. Now. Other research on weight loss supplements found 83 had inaccurate labels, with 80 listing ingredients that weren't actually in the product and 23 containing undisclose ingredients that were. And finally, this is bonkers. Research on adulterated supplements flagged in FDA warnings, found the large majority of those that I just referenced contain at least one unapproved pharmaceutical ingredient. So some natural products are spiked with actual drugs.

[Julian Walker]

Of course, the ones that work, you know, the old natural gas station dick pills have Viagra in them. And the unregulated bodybuilding supplements that muscle heads swear by often contained banned pharmaceutical performance enhancers along with the creatine, the protein and the vitamins. That's why people get popped and they're like, I wasn't using anything I wasn't supposed to. It's like, yeah, it's actually in the amazing supplement that makes you feel so good now.

[Mallory DeMille]

They secretly love Big Pharma. John Oliver's Last Week Tonight had a really great episode on the gas station dick pills that you mentioned. That's how I learned about them. So forever, Same, same, same. That's how I learned about them. For whoever might be interested, it was a really great episode. So, like I said, there are absolutely, obviously warranted beefs to have with Big Pharma, as we've discussed, and we're starting with those ones before we get into the batshit ones. I don't think we or anyone who is critical of the wellness space would deny these criticisms, but for the wellness industry and its major players and influencers to act like they're not doing their own version of it is pretty comical. As you noted, Derek, the wellness industry is just bigger. More and more of the influencers on my radar are daring to address this before they kind of just ignored it. Most of them still are, and as you can imagine, the ones who are are fully on defense. As you alluded to, their tactic right now seems to be trying to itemize what's counted on the wellness side and remove just enough for it to come under pharma. I noticed they're not itemizing what's included on the pharma side. That all seems to be still lumped in together, and that might be because they don't actually know what all the parts of their arch nemesis are. In my observation, wellness folks seem incredibly resistant to acknowledging that the industry they exist in and benefit from is an insane moneymaker. And I have to imagine that's because it wouldn't exactly bode well for the underdog trying to save you from evil marketing they have been and continue to rely on. I also view these wellness influencers who are like brand partners and affiliates or God forbid in a wellness MLM as their own kind of pharma rep. Maybe not exactly, but they're certainly bridging a gap and their job is to influence sales in the health space in order to drive profits. And on top of that we know that the influencing is happening thanks to often incorrect and misleading health information. Influencers can seemingly sustain a career on affiliation commissions where labeling an ad as an ad, in my observation, is hit or miss, mostly miss. These kickbacks are rarely referenced, or if they are, it's framed as unnecessary to be fighting or a necessity to be fighting the good fight. Derek, you also mentioned the Sunshine act that forces payment reporting. There is no wellness equivalent to that. We have no clue how much the major players or any players are making and who they're being funded by. I personally would love to know how much money there is behind the marketing of unregulated and untested wellness products via influencers who are, quote, just sharing their own journey. Those in wellness are not required to disclose conflicts of interest, and I think most telling, we don't exactly see them fighting for that to be required. I think a lot of this simply comes down to asking why folks on the wellness side aren't applying the same level of skepticism or demands to their own side as they are to the pharma.

[Anti-vaccine Influencer]

One Vaccines have never been proven to be safe. They don't keep you from getting sick. None of them are necessary. There are millions of unvaccinated kids in this country now that aren't sick. They don't have asthma, allergies, eczema, add, they don't use inhalers, they don't have of chronic daily medications. Every single vaccine causes a level of harm.

[Interviewer]

How long were the majority of the safety trials done on the vaccines on the childhood schedule?

[Anti-vaccine Influencer]

Most of them are somewhere between four days and 15 days. It can take months to years to develop. Autoimmune diseases, neurological complications, other types of things like GI disorders, Encephalitis can start right away, but it can be slow brewing for a long period of time.

[Interviewer]

If a parent can says okay, I still want to do some vaccines and they want to follow a slower or a customized vaccine schedule, what should they know about safety and timing that if

[Anti-vaccine Influencer]

you are making that decision, you haven't done enough of your homework yet. A little poison is still poison.

[Mallory DeMille]

God, that music always really gets me. That's so intense.

[Derek Barris]

That's Sherry Tenpenny by the way, the woman who is sticking spoons to her skin because of the vaccine where the fox.

[Mallory DeMille]

That was her.

[Julian Walker]

That's so crazy it magnetized your shoulders.

[Mallory DeMille]

Anyway, on that note, we're on to beef number two. Let's talk about evidence and testing. Those in the wellness space will throw the there's not enough evidence or the evidence is corrupt or are you really going to believe the Rockefeller funded evidence rocks? I'll mind you while their link trees are filled with products that not only is there no evidence, that evidence isn't even required. Websites list potential benefits fluffed up with things like may support or may benefit. There's lots of mays there because they don't actually know and can't claim it does anything. Anything with any certainty. Imagine if Big Pharma was making claims about something that they were trying to sell with absolutely zero evidence behind it. I would have to imagine that these same influencers would lose their goddamn minds.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, and then as we saw with COVID vaccines which were tested on tens of thousands of people each probably a total of 100 to 200,000 people across those phase three trials. Well, you know that doesn't really count as evidence, right?

[Mallory DeMille]

No, of course not. Don't be ridiculous, Julian. When they bring up the long list of side effects often associated with pharmaceuticals as some sort of gotcha moment, they fail to acknowledge that the supplements they're slinging don't have a similar list because they aren't tested for it because they don't have to be. Also, shouldn't a list of potential side effects indicate a level of evidence acquired about something? You know what? I do want to mention that there are some studies that have been done on supplements, specifically the ones that have found how prevalent, like you mentioned, Derek, it is for supplements to not contain the listed ingredients either at all or at the amounts that they're supposed. On top of that, like you mentioned, these studies have also found that supplements, they contain actual pharmaceuticals, they contain the actual arch nemesis. I again ask you to imagine how wellness influencers would react to pharmaceuticals having ingredients not listed, including other pharmaceuticals. The wellness industry and its influencers are demanding a standard again of an industry that they seemingly have no interest in demanding for themselves. And that's probably because doing so would cause it to absolutely crumble. And so instead they just scream indoctrination.

[Anti-vax Advocate]

Oh, no, that's not a conspiracy theory. That's facts. Big Pharma does not want you cured. There's no benefit. So they want to keep you sick. And then as soon as you have your baby, if you follow the western medicine route and trust your doctor, your baby's going to come out, they're going to get a shot of vitamin K, hepatitis B vaccine and antibiotics on their eyes. And already now you're messing with their immune system. And so they grow up being sick and they start needing medications, allergy meds, asthma meds, autoimmune meds, ADHD meds, they can become autistic. So become a big money making machinery for big pharma. So it's not a conspiracy theory, it's the facts.

[Mallory DeMille]

If you just say it's not a conspiracy theory enough times, I think it becomes not a conspiracy theory.

[Julian Walker]

And I have to say, like, generally I have a range of different responses to these people, but when they start talking about babies like this, I want them to go to jail.

[Mallory DeMille]

Yeah, but she has really great merch that says you sound vaccinated.

[Derek Barris]

So ProPublica just published a piece last week about how babies are suffering increased adverse effects for not getting vitamin K shots. Because now that's become a thing in the anti vax circle, that intervention when they're born is somehow nefarious. And so babies are actually being harmed because they're not getting that vitamin.

[Mallory DeMille]

I don't know, Derek, you sound like you're funded by big Pharma, so definitely vaccinated. We all sound super vaccinated. Right now. This is the introduction, of course, to the third beef that I want to talk about, which is the most conspiratorial or as I referenced before, batshit of them all. And that's that doctors and healthcare professionals and actually healthcare and big pharma at large are intentionally keeping folks or making folks sick in order to create customers for life and maximize their profits. Also known as you can't trust your doctor, also known as the sick care system. Ultimately, this is where the next beef will land. It has to land when you can't convince everyone of the first two. Instead of looking at individual gripes like evidence or marketing, which we've talked about, how there is some merit to them, you have to go big or go home. This beef is large scale and harder to counter because where do you kind of like even start? This strategy is meant to put folks in a position of proving that something doesn't exist instead of themselves proving it does exist, which is classic conspiracy theory. But coming back to that horseshoe, wellness influencers are convincing people that doctors are keeping people sick to make them a customer for life, while simultaneously influencing folks to perhaps forego evidence based treatment in favor of what they're selling. Because as one could argue, they're trying to keep people sick to make them a customer for life. If you're told that you need to be doing this parasite cleanse every three months in perpetuity, and also you've started doing coffee enemas and now you can't go to the bathroom without them, and all your supplements are on auto ship now, one could argue you've been made a customer for life. And if you've been influenced to buy everything in this influencer's link tree, instead of addressing a health concern with evidence, one could argue you're also being kept sick. At this point, it does feel like every accusation is a confession.

[Holistic Grenade (Riley)]

If I had cancer, I would not get chemotherapy and I wouldn't even go to a doctor. This is because all they know how to do is prescribe toxic medications and treatments that absolutely destroy your health. Instead, I would reduce my exposure to toxicity and get in alignment with nature. This means spending every single day outdoors under the sun, without sunscreen, getting grounded to the earth, drinking nothing but the highest quality spring water water, making sure there's absolutely zero toxins in my lifestyle, like cleaning chemicals, artificial fragrances, shampoos, soaps, conditioners, and other products that are full of industrially manufactured carcinogens. The entire system is designed to poison us, and our body naturally reacts by producing Cancer symptoms. If we don't want those symptoms, it's essential that we address the root cause.

[Derek Barris]

I hate that fucking guy.

[Mallory DeMille]

I could see it in your eyes

[Derek Barris]

that, oh, I hate him so much. Holistic grenade, if you have to know. And he just. His videos are just, just. They're all bad. But he's.

[Mallory DeMille]

He the one that. He said he. He. To my knowledge, he doesn't have a partner, but he said that he would never let his wife get a colonoscopy because it's gay. That's him. Do you remember that?

[Derek Barris]

And you just. Just learned why he'll never have a. Yeah.

[Mallory DeMille]

He's like my hypothetical wife. I'm like, oh, yeah.

[Ana Rosa]

Okay.

[Mallory DeMille]

Anyway, Riley, the holistic grenade is going to segue us into the last beef that I want to touch on before it acts as a seamless transition into the next segment of this episode. And it's this idea of chemical versus natural. You noticed. You mentioned toxic a lot. Wellness influencers pitch what they have to sell under the guise of, quote, more natural when compared to pharmaceuticals. Alternative cancer influencers talk about treating cancer in a, quote, more natural way. Folks are influenced to believe that if you choose either the natural or the not natural route and somehow end up with the same outcome or a better outcome if you go with the former. Those in the wellness space seem pretty sick and tired of the everything is a chemical clarification. As if we're supposed to know they mean the bad chemicals, the chemicals they decided were bad, and the chemicals they have detoxes and cleanses to counter. But what counts as natural seems to be up to these influencers. They're highly processed supplements and tinctures. Totally natural because they said so. More food and less supplements. But Paul Saladino, marketing his processed protein bars as real food is a good example of this. He seems to be in charge of what real food means. And like these other influencers taking charge in deciding what natural means, their stuff passes the test. But anything big pharma doesn't. And Derek, as you're about to get into next, sometimes their products are actually coming from the same place. Anyway.

[Julian Walker]

What are your favorite peptides right now?

[Celebrity Plastic Surgeon Terry Dubrow]

Retatrutide. I mean, that's the next trillion dollar drug. It's the triple agonist. So it's gip, glp. It's basically Mongero Zeppbound. Same drug with glucagon, which is a fat burner. So you get to preserve your muscle mass, you get to burn fat. And some recent studies may indicate that it even slows tumor growth. In cancer patients. Patients.

[Derek Barris]

That's celebrity plastic surgeon Terry Dubrow talking to chiropractor Will Cole about retactide, an experimental medication that Eli Lilly is developing for the cost of hundreds of millions of dollars right now.

[Mallory DeMille]

I think that this is the clip that I sent you that actually inspired this episode.

[Derek Barris]

Yep, absolutely. And we had to include because it's, it's such a perfect example of what we're talking about today. Because these influencers are chomping on the bit over a peptide that's being funded exclusively by the type of pharmaceutical giant Will Cole usually rages against. But once the drug hits the market, I'm guessing Cole will spin up a version of it via a Chinese gray market compounding pharmacy and talk about how amazing this natural product is. As I've covered before, Cole loves peptides, those pharmaceutical creations, because that's the only way they get into your body. Even if in a blog post, two of his top five peptides are not even actually peptides. But why start getting all sciency now?

[Julian Walker]

Will, I'm so glad we included this clip because that sentence that you started with Derek, in terms of describing it, it's just like, wait, what? The plastic surgeon, the chiropractor, Eli Lilly, natural self. I don't know what's going on here. What's amazing to me is the parasocial context of this kind of alternative wellness conversation that's being listened to by many thousands of people. And in that context, the question gets asked, what are your favorite peptides right now?

[Mallory DeMille]

Yeah, I don't think I've ever asked my doctor what her favorite favorite, like anything is. I trust her to pick what's best for me. Although one time she did joke about coffee, and it was with me.

[Derek Barris]

As for peptides, wellness influencers love them. They've even created their own language around them. Bioregulators, research compounds, longevity peptides, cellular optimization. All of this obscures the fact that what they're selling are actually drugs. I mentioned some legislation in segment one. Let's talk about another piece. Under the FD and C Act, anything intended, diagnose, cure, mitigate, treat or prevent disease, or to affect the structure or function of the body is a drug by definition. And many wellness products fall into that category, regardless of that little FDA disclaimer that I mentioned earlier. So let's talk about peptides. The entire point of taking them is to change how your body functions. Heal tissue faster, release more growth hormone, suppress appetite, build muscle. These all fall under the definition of. Of pharmacology and manufacturers are making pharmaceutical level money. The industry is currently currently valued at $141 billion. Now a lot of that is for peptides we know well, like insulin and GLP1s. But that's the thing, everyone knows and classifies them as pharmaceuticals. When every single peptide is produced in a similar fashion, it has to be. There's no way to harvest peptides in someone's body and then them into someone else's body. That's not how they work. Think about one of the most popular off Label Peptides, BPC 157. It's marketed as a gut healing injury recovery peptide. The FDA explicitly states that there is no legal basis for selling BPC157 as a drug, food or dietary supplement. And compounding pharmacies are not legally allowed to produce them in America right now. Now so people source them from China. It also hasn't been meaningfully studied in humans. So nobody knows what a safe dose actually means yet. It's one of the best selling products in the gray market peptide space.

[Julian Walker]

It's really fascinating because it seems to me the, the appeal at some level, whether they explicitly say it or not, is, is not that it's non pharmaceutical. It's the biohacking early adopter. I can take control of my health by off label use of something not yet approved. It's the maverick inside track. I'm gaining an edge on the sheep who wait until like phase three trials or FDA approval or something.

[Derek Barris]

Yeah, they're not yet approved. They will be approved and you're going to see how ahead of the curve they are. But the way that they're approved is by the pharmaceutical companies we're telling you not to trust. That's it, that's, that's the entire story right now. And people somehow fall for that. And to be honest, wellness is just catching up to the hype and money that's been in the fitness space for decades. And in fact, selective and androgen receptor modulators or SARMs already ran this exact playbook. They were sold in bodybuilding circles as dietary supplements. They're also unapproved drugs that have never been reviewed for safety or efficacy. And in this case, people have ended up hospitalized with injuries from them. Thanks to the success of GLP1s though, peptides are everywhere and so many people are trying to cash in while they're sold under the meaningless for research purposes only banner. Dietary supplements have escaped scrutiny for generations with that tiny FDA disclaimer, even though they too are effectively pharmaceuticals. Let's just talk literally here, between 2007 and 21, the FDA identified 1,068 unique tainted supplement products, products containing undeclared pharmaceutical ingredients. Contamination testing across studies found rates ranging from 12 to 58%. So first you have companies using actual pharmaceuticals under the guise of natural products, which is a common tactic. There's also some cultural blindness going on here. Some of the most common supplements on shelves in America are considered drugs elsewhere. Melatonin, serotonin, very popular in America. It's prescription only across the uk, the eu, Japan and Australia. DHEA is a controlled prescription only substance in Switzerland and much of Europe. Then you get tianeptine, which is otherwise known as gas station heroin. And it's a regulated drug in France and Russia, and it's a banned or controlled substance in Italy, Turkey, Bahrain and Armenia.

[Julian Walker]

The amazing thing about this is that this is not also what they look at when they say, well, across Europe, you, you can't use, you know, red, this red food dye or what have you. Like, they're much more careful about this stuff. But when it comes to the supplements. Oh, no, no, no, no.

[Derek Barris]

Yeah, good call. Now, the clearest indication of the relationship between supplements and pharmaceuticals might come down to petroleum. Now, you might remember last year when there were a bunch of wellness influencers like Will Cole, like Mark Hyman, and they were raging against petroleum based food dyes. Ironically, these same men sell petroleum based supplements that rely on the exact same processing as food dyes. And this process is exactly how pharmaceuticals are made. And this all makes sense because both from a health perspective and from an economic perspective, synthesizing vitamins makes them more reliable, more stable and cheaper to produce. So all those wellness influencers have a higher margin on their downline when they sell them. This process is accomplished through chemical synthesis, where scientists build the molecules step by step from simpler chemical building blocks, or through fermentation, where bacteria or fungi are grown in giant steel tanks, just like the process of turning yeast into alcohol. Couple examples. Vitamin C is typically produced by feeding sugar to microbes in a fermentation tank that converts it into ascorbic acid. They have vitamin B12, which is very structurally complex. So essentially all B12 supplements on the body market come from industrial bacterial fermentation, followed by additional chemical processing, and then vitamin D3, which is often made by taking lanolin, which is wool grease from sheep, and exposing it to ultraviolet light. And they're all produced in the same facilities that create prescription drugs. Even more. Ironically, it's largely the same handful of global chemical companies behind both industries. Basf and DSM are the two dominant suppliers of bulk vitamin ingredients worldwide. I'm guessing Kohl's and Hyman's ingredients all come from companies like this, if not them, and they also supply active pharmaceutical ingredients to drug makers. So what you see on an influencer's page is just marketing. The chemicals inside the shiny packages were probably sourced from the same company and manufactured in the same facility as those dangerous big pharma concoctions that they decrypt cry. So for as much grief as they give pharma about adverse events, a CDC and FDA analysis published in the New England Journal of Medicine estimates that supplements send about 23,000 people to the emergency room every year. Even more ironically, those numbers exist precisely because these products don't go through the adverse event infrastructure that real drugs are required to. Bringing a drug to market requires three phases of clinical trials, as I mentioned mentioned, but there is a phase four, and that involves the real world tracking data that pharma companies are required to keep detailed records of which I doubt any wellness influencer has any concern about. I mean, sure, if someone comments on their post saying their supplement helped them, they're going to screenshot that and use it as proof that it works. But if someone comments or DMS them about how it didn't do for them, I'm pretty sure they either ignore or block that person. In fact, Mallory, I know you've been blocked many times.

[Mallory DeMille]

Times I've been blocked many times. I also think it's kind of interesting. I've seen specifically with these parasite cleanses that folks will comment and be like, I started taking your tincture and it gave me a rash. And the influencer will respond by saying, oh, you're just detoxing. And so even if these side effects potentially are coming to light, it's all still framed as something good is happening.

[Derek Barris]

Yeah, I have personal experience. My old massage therapist, who was a friend, was also a young living oil oils rep. I used to buy the oils from her. Then she sold me the deodorant and when I had outbreaks, that's exactly what she said. And she meant it. She wasn't trying to. She was a close friend. She wasn't trying to grift on that. She was like, that's a detox. I stuck with it for two weeks and I finally threw it out. And I've never had a rash again.

[Mallory DeMille]

Yeah, I think in the Netflix show Unwell and there's an entire episode about essential oils, there's a very similar story of like, just keep putting more oils on it. It's working.

[Derek Barris]

Or yeah, in that series using oils as sunscreen, which is fucking nuts.

[Mallory DeMille]

That's crazy stuff.

[Derek Barris]

You know I again, that was an old friend of mine, she was well meaning, but forget it. If a person actually gets really harmed, like emergency room level harm by their products because that little disclaimer will shield them from liability and I'm sure they just move on with their lives. So yes, wellness is the new big Pharma, but without all the pesky things like responsibility, consumer protection or clinical evidence. Even though their products are often produced in the same manner and can affect our biology in the same ways, they have to keep a wall between the terms to keep the illusion alive.

[Julian Walker]

The world Wants me to die. That's how A recent post on X by 48 year old centimillionaire venture capitalist Brian Johnson, best known for spending around 2 million a year in his quest to live fore or as his catchphrase advice he puts on the merch his followers by puts it don't die. That's how he started that post. He's actually an excellent example of the strange horseshoe style phenomenon we've been looking at today. I mean he's easy to peg as a biohacker self optimizer type. But everything about Brian Johnson's public Persona has to do with his performance of science, and he blurs all of the lines between science and wellness trends, personal life and Internet avatar, reliable evidence and vibes based claims about the products that he's selling. We've covered him several times in the past. Every aspect of his life is a cog in the machinery of a highly controlling open ended experiment in which he is the smooth, pale, lean, solitary subject. He takes over 80 supplements a day, he monitors every nutrient carefully, stays on a strict sleep regime and a highly structured self care and exercise routine. And Johnson avails himself of every novel expensive biohacking longevity treatment imaginable. And sometimes it has negative effects on him as he ends up telling us, which I guess is good. He's done a lot of objectively weird things too though, including monitoring and then publicly sharing the data on his nighttime erections.

[Mallory DeMille]

I wonder if you use gas station dick pills

[Julian Walker]

in comparison to that of his nighttime 15 year old son, who certainly doesn't need them, as well as then sharing the results of his girlfriend's vaginal microbiome test. For whatever reason. He's also created YouTube content, doing a family blood transfusion excursion with his father and his son. You know, like it like as you do. Get ready with me As I prepare to exchange blood with my, my father and my son. And then he livestreamed his recent psilocybin mushroom journey journey. Now, as with all of his activities, every measurable data point for everything I just listed was then analyzed for potential life extending effects. But then on July 8, Johnson made this announcement on his YouTube account.

[Brian Johnson]

Hey friends, so I've got some bad news. I got diagnosed with an autoimmune condition and my stomach is eating itself. We just found out about this diagnosis last month when I I did a bi directional endoscopy, which means it's a colonoscopy and also you go down the throat as well. So looking at my entire intestinal tract. And so this is actually something that I was diagnosed with when I was 21 years old. I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism and so I started taking hormones to modulate my thyroid. But the thyroid and the stomach actually pair really well together in immunology. So when you have a problem with the thyroid, thyroid, you sometimes have a problem with the stomach. There's actually a clinical name for it. And so I didn't know this thing was happening inside my stomach. You know, a lot of people, they look at my, my protocol and they'll say this is insane. You've been measuring yourself so much over the past couple years. Like how is it possible you missed this?

[Julian Walker]

Yeah. So as you heard, it turns out he's been diagnosed with autoimmune gastritis, which is a chronic inflammatory condition in which rogue antibodies destroy acid producing cells in the stom to stat news. I've got a link in the bio here. It's a link in the show notes. It's notoriously hard to diagnose and they say, referencing a 2025 study, that it affects about 4% of people globally. The number may be smaller in terms of people who have a chronic version of it. Right. And while not fatal, it does increase the risk of stomach cancer and over time contributes to potentially dangerous B12 and iron deficiencies. Now to his credit, in that video, Johnson does go on urging people to stay up to date on their colonoscopies and endoscopies and to keep an eye out for telltale signs like lack of iron absorption, which I imagine might show up on the screen on my in home daily blood testing device that sits on my kitchen counter.

[Derek Barris]

Yeah, that's the thing about the wellness influencers we normally cover on this podcast. They steer you away from common sense medical intervention. So I'm really glad he's advocating for Regular screenings as well. I'll also say it sounds suspiciously like leaky gut, like what the wellness influencers called leaky gut, because that's how a lot of nutrients escape when, when you actually have something like Brian has. But wellness influencers will just make up a term likely he got as a catch all and then say, you need my supplements without actual screenings. Right. And that's, that's where they differ in terms of their sort of methodology and approach. I found this quote, this quote by Northeastern data scientist Ram Hariharan. Then he frames it one well quote. Brian Johnson is arguably the most measured human alive and this condition still hid from him for years. And Harihara knows what he talks, knows, knows what he's talking about. He studies anti aging research professionally, and he says the n of when health tracking that people like Johnson do is quite limited. Most biomarker insights simply point back to the sort of same handful of levers for good health health. We've talked about this for years. Get enough sleep, exercise, try to have a good diet, keep your stress level levels low, avoid smoking and alcohol. I mean, it's, it's what we said about wellness writ large for a long time. Since you can't really monetize those things, you have to make it seem like these boutique solutions are what really matter, when that's simply not true.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah. In another post about his diagnosis, the millionaire speculated that his childhood diet, consuming sugary cereal, sodas and fast food, and then his ensuing significant weight gain may have been the real cause. Right, the root cause of his condition. But experts say there's no specific evidence to support this. While genetics, environmental conditions and inflammation are all factors, the specific cause is not known. But autoimmune gastritis is often correlated, as he said, with autoimmune thyroid disease, which he also has. The writer of the Stat News article I cited was left scratching their head head at how the most measured biohacker alive was still actually three years past due on the type of medical screening that typically catches this condition a little earlier. For Johnson's part, he took to X about four days after his announcement, saying, the world wants me to die, and lamenting the schadenfreude he says many responded with as a telltale sign of other people's insecurities. And you know, this all does sound kind of humbling for him. Wait, hold the presses. He went on in that same tweet to compare himself to figures from mythology associated with the quest for eternal life, saying, quote, I occupy the same philosophical and archetypal Space as Gilgamesh, Asclepius and Jesus Christ. I mean, sure, Brian, if any of those dudes were millionaire biohackers who the gods cursed for some reason with difficult autoimmune conditions, Jesus Christ.

[Derek Barris]

That is the most twisted comparison I've ever heard. A squeaky crepius was struck down by Zeus for raising the dead tracks Christ himself. Christ himself supposedly rose from the dead and Gilgamesh failed in his quest to become immortal. So I have no clue what point he's actually trying to make. I can imagine Johnson trying to embark on the same quest as Gilgamesh as some sort of analogy, but implying you're a God of medicine and healing or the son of a God who can heal others is just wild when you can't even heal yourself. But Brian, you know, we've given him some credit, but he's also always played really loose with words like science. On his infamous mushroom trip a few months ago that you referenced earlier, he measured around 200 biomarkers in an attempt to prove that mushrooms do this or that. From a scientific perspective, that's completely useless. Two weeks ago, Eli Lilly purchased psychedelic drug research company ATII Beckley, predominantly for a drug that is being developed called BPL003. And that's a late stage nasal spray that's being studied for treatment resistant depression and alcohol use disorder. And that the drug is based on the psychedelic 5 Meo DMT. We've talked about it before. Rogan loves this drug now. If it's approved, it'll be at least two more years before it hits the market. And phase one trials began in February 2022. It's just entering phase three trials. So that's one sub substance, one psychedelic that's been studied intensively for at least six years to the tunes of hundreds of millions of dollars for two separate indications. Taking some mushrooms and measuring two biomarker. 200 biomarkers on a live stream is just self marketing for your brand. And Brian is his own brand. It's just not how scientists science work works as much as he claims. That's what he's doing.

[Mallory DeMille]

And I don't even measure how many steps I take in a day. Not anymore. I don't measure anything. It's been kind of interesting watching how the wellness crew has navigated. Accepted, not accepted. Brian Johnson. When I did our episode on Dave Asprey In 2024, I covered his 10th annual biohacking conference where Brian Johnson was a speaker. He ended up attending virtually, but he was still being interviewed by Dave and He was on Dave's podcast, but I feel like Brian always kind of existed on the cusp of where most of these wellness folks are playing. He's a bit too committed to, like, actual science for them. And it seems in some ways that he's being more and more ostracized from this kind of community. Recently he was being interviewed outside on a very sunny day and was holding an umbrella and talked about how important it was to protect yourself from the sun, specifically as it related to anti aging, which is kind of his whole shtick. And since wellness influencers are now fully on board, the sun is healing and that it's actually sunscreen causing cancer. Cancer. And they don't want you to know this and they don't want you to be out in the sun. He was kind of made fun of and these influencers were working pretty hard to use this to strip his credibility. To be successful in this space, it seems like you have to balance being just sciency enough for wellness without sounding like it being a pharma shill pitch. While working on this episode, all I could think about was, well, Big Pharma isn't fear mongering, cold plunges and coffee enemas to sell more medicine. That's just like, not happening. The wellness industry has become, I would say, a worse version of what it thinks Big Pharma is. Folks who debunk the wellness space seem to be just as open to critiquing Big Pharma as they are to being or to critiquing wellness. So it's telling when those inside the wellness industry influencers who rely on Big Pharma boogeyman marketing can't apply the same level of skepticism to the industry that pays their bills. The reality is, is they're throwing tantrums and risking lives for simply being asked to apply equal criticism.