S6E17 - The Immortalists' Conclusions (Church of Perpetual Life)

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Kayla: Ladies and gentlemen, I contend that the Food and Drug Administration, along with the pharmaceutical drug cartels they support, are engaged in a conspiracy to commit genocide against the american people. We estimate that the FDA, by denying the public access to life saving drugs, is responsible for the murder of millions of people. And we do intend to bring them up on war criminal charges.

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Chris: Holy shit.

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Kayla: Welcome back to Cult or J. ust weird. I'm Kayla, one of your hosts, and I'm a tv writer.

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Chris: I'm Chris. I'm the other host and I make games.

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Kayla: This episode is the third in our series on the Church of Perpetual life and its founder, Bill Falloon. If you'd like to chat more about these episodes or any of our other episodes, you can find us on discord linked in our show notes. And if you'd like to support the show, you can head over to patreon.com. slash cult or just weird.

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Chris: We also have a new website.

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Kayla: We do announce your new website.

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Chris: We just, it's the same, it's cult or just weird.com. It's the same domain, but we just got a new hosting thing that's like, got cool podcast specific stuff. So now we can, like, if you're visiting the website, you can sort all of the episodes by category and you. And like, our social links are better, so we can, like, link to individual episodes. And it looks cooler. And we did some custom art for it. There's a couple cool little things over.

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Kayla: There, so go check it out.

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Chris: Yeah, check it out.

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Kayla: Culturejisweird.com last week on the show, we learned more about Bill Falloon's trajectory, from his desire to defeat death, to an interest in life extension, to a career in fundraising for life extension research via the selling of vitamins and supplements, to his run ins with various government agencies like the FDA and the IR's, to the founding of the Church of Perpetual Life, a religious organization centered around providing fellowship for other life extension enthusiasts. We ended the episode by touching briefly on another endeavor started by Bill Falloon, the FDA Holocaust Museum.

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Chris: That sounds nuts. But first, there's something that's been on my mind since we recorded the previous episode.

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Kayla: What's that?

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Chris: And I think it's something really important to bring up and to talk about.

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Kayla: Lay it on me.

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Chris: Just the context of this whole thing is that if you take the leading consonants of Bill Falloon's first and last name. Yeah, it's Phil Balloon.

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Kayla: That's his alter ego. That's his evil twin who has a different last name.

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Chris: I just thought that was really important to bring up.

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Kayla: Yep. Phil Balloon.

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Chris: Phil Balloon.

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Kayla: Definitely gonna accidentally say that now.

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Chris: Think about it.

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Kayla: So, to start us off, I am going to make an obvious statement. More obvious than the one you just made.

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Chris: That was an insight, not a statement.

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Kayla: Bill Falloon hates the FDA.

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Chris: Yeah, I figured based on the fact that he owns or curated. What does he do with this?

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Kayla: It says, hey, Holocaust. He made the museum.

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Chris: I feel uncomfortable even saying, FDA, Holocaust museum.

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Kayla: We'll get into it. Having been raided by the FDA, twice, indicted on dozens of counts, forced to spend a lot of money in legal fees, and having his businesses hamstrung by the agency, it's easy to see why. Also easy to see why from, like, an ethical standpoint, from, like, a. From Bill Floon's framework, he thinks we're all terminal patients suffering from the illness of dying and eventual death. And the FDA's slow speed of approving drugs or refusal to approve drugs that might have potential live extending qualities condemns us all to death in his eyes.

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Chris: Can I. This question is kind of like a general. And now I'm being. This is an actual question. Not. Not a.

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Kayla: Not being facetious.

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Chris: I'm not being facetious, although I do think Phil Bloon is pretty important. But anyway, no, I just sometimes feel like I need to disambiguate. Like, do these guys. Does Bill Falloon think that we need to. That we're not curing death? Or is he specifically about. We're not doing anything to combat old age and senescence? Because, like, if it's death, I'm just like, what is medicine, then?

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Kayla: I think it's more the. What you said of the life extension stuff. Not like their goal is, how do they make death optional? And I don't necessarily think the goal of medicine is to make death optional.

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Chris: Okay. I mean, it kind of is, though, for each new thing that medicine figures out a way to cure, from the smallpox vaccine to AIDS research and medicines, that makes dying of that thing optional.

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Kayla: But I think that in mainstream medicine, there's still the idea of the human lifespan is finite and can maximize out at 120 years, and we're just trying to get people the most healthy years that we can get, and then they will die. Versus life extension enthusiasts who believe death should be optional, I get that.

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Chris: It just feels like sometimes they go back and forth, which is okay. If your overall goal is to make death in general optional, then I totally understand if you're going to sit there and go, well, you should have a healthy lifestyle, you should visit the doctor frequently and you should support funding for NAD or whatever. All those things contribute, even though only the last one, to my knowledge, really has anything to do with senescence and old age.

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Kayla: Right.

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Chris: I just feel like sometimes when guys like Bill Falloon say, oh, man, why aren't we doing anything to cure death? It just confuses me. Cause I'm like, yeah, we are.

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Kayla: All the time.

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Chris: What are you talking about?

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Kayla: I just think it's different. End goals.

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Chris: Yeah. Again, I totally get it, but I don't think. I just don't think that's a fair criticism that nobody's doing anything to cure death. If you're gonna criticize and say, like, we don't spend enough time, effort, resources on the senescence problem, then I can kind of see where you'd have a point.

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Kayla: I think that's more. That's my understanding. More that way.

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Chris: Okay.

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Kayla: Ask Phil. Balloon.

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Chris: Yeah, it's tough. It's tough. Cause, like, I feel like I've. Sometimes I listen to these guys and I'm like, what are they talking about? And then sometimes I listen to them like, oh, it's definitely that, right?

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Kayla: In the nineties, Bill Falloon hosted a call in radio show in Florida called life extension breakthroughs. In 119 94 episode, Bill Falloon states, ladies and gentlemen, I contend that the Food and Drug Administration, along with the pharmaceutical drug cartels they support. Hold on, hold on. It gets more.

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Chris: Okay.

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Kayla: Along with the pharmaceutical drug cartels they support, are engaged in a conspiracy to commit genocide against the american people.

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Chris: Bro.

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Kayla: Hold on. We estimate that the FDA, by denying the public access to life saving drugs, is responsible for the murder of millions of people. And we do intend to bring them up on war criminal charges.

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Chris: Holy shit.

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Kayla: That's. I think that the phrase for that is incendiary rhetoric, dude.

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Chris: Like, look, criticize them, for sure. You can definitely criticize big pharma. You can definitely criticize the FDA, but, like, that's insane.

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Kayla: On the show, Bill Floon would often counsel his audience on ways to get around FDA regulations, particularly by making purchases through his company, the Life Extension foundation. Company, nonprofit. I should note that life extension breakthroughs has been characterized as an infomercial, given that life Extension foundation paid two grand per episode to air on WinZ. Okay, it was like a paid spot. So again, is Bill Falloon a true believer, trying to save people from the finality of death, and under that framework, rightfully views the FDA as a villain standing in his way and causing the death of millions? Or is he a grifter trying to manipulate people into buying his potentially dangerous products and views the FDA as an obstacle between him and vulnerable people's money.

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Chris: Yes.

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Kayla: Is there some way for it to be like a collage of the two? I don't. No.

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Chris: I was hoping that you could just answer this for me because I don't know.

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Kayla: I don't know. I can convince myself either way. Okay, before we try to squeeze out answer from that, even though we already tried, before we try to fully ring out answer to that, let's talk more about the FDA Holocaust museum, please. I think that we mentioned it last week, and my opinion does not change. The usage of the term Holocaust here is questionable at best.

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Chris: I don't care for it.

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Kayla: Don't care for it. Opened in 1994, the museum was a small storefront available to the public, dedicated to spreading the word about the FDA's quote unquote crimes. It's papered with exhibits touting the breakthroughs of life extension technologies, while also decrying the FDA's various failures to act. The museum went so far as to, this is really bad. Literally compare the FDA to nazis. So it's not using Holocaust in, like, a general sense of. It is specifically about a one off the Holocaust as we know it, of the 1930s and forties. And it had like a gift shop. I'm calling it a gift shop. It's a retail section. It had an area where you could make purchases. I shouldn't call it a gift shop because I don't think it had, like, merch of, like, I hate the FDA.

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Kayla: I think it was more like, here's a place you can go to the FDA Holocaust museum, and then you can go through this door and, like, buy the supplements from Life Extension foundation doctor C. Everett Koop.

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Chris: With a nazi uniform on.

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Kayla: Maybe. I don't know.

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Chris: Actually, as a surgeon general, are you head of the IFD? I don't know. I don't remember.

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Kayla: In an article for the new Miami Times, journalist Stephen Allman recounted an experience an undercover reporter had at the FDA Holocaust museum. The curator there put on a videotape for the reporter that largely centered on the medical value of ozone and claimed that it can cure a number of diseases, including AIDS. And this is in 1994.

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Chris: Ozone.

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Kayla: Ozone.

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Chris: Is there any basis to any of those claims at all?

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Kayla: The FDA at the time had not approved ozone, particularly because the gas can kill you if you do not apply it properly.

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Chris: Okay. Yep. Yep.

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Kayla: After the video, the curator told the undercover reporter, hey, I can sell you an ozone machine for the low price of $1,500 from the article. I'm gonna read you some quotes here. Wouldn't that be illegal? The reporter asked. Not if the machine is officially used for water purification, the curator said, that.

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Chris: Sounds so sus man, but how would.

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Kayla: I know how to use it for medical purposes? The reporter persisted. I could supply you with the protocols for how to use it. The curator offered. Got em. So, yeah, that's the kind of thing that was going on at the FDA Holocaust museum. However, when questioned, Bill Falloon admitted that the life Extension foundation did not know if Ozone worked like the foundation did not have a position on the product. And when he was told his museum curator had pitched the product, Bill Falloon said, quote, that has nothing to do with us. We've got a lot of people here who do things like that, and frankly, that's part of why we've had problems here. I've got to figure out what's going on. So he was basically admitting that some of his employees who.

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Kayla: Yeah, the people that work for him are probably like, very into the alternative stuff and anti big pharma and anti FDA and anti mainstream science. So sometimes you're gonna get people that even don't agree with Bill Falloon, who, again, if you remember, has a tendency to be at least like, research based versus just like claim based.

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Chris: Yes. And if an employee of yours is doing things you that are, like, really bad, the buck stops with you on company time. Yeah, the buck stops with you. That's part of the deal.

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Kayla: Yeah. I gotta find out what's going on. You know, it's a little plausible deniability, if you will.

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Chris: Sure.

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Kayla: In the same article, anonymous former employee of Life Extension foundation who eventually became a federal witness in the case against Falloon, claimed Falloon and his partner Saul Kent, were tax dodgers reporting this witness said that they reported to the IR's income of $300,000 when it was closer to like $5 million. I don't have confirmation those numbers. This is just the claim from the witness. And more importantly, the witness called into question bills intentions. These guys try to sell themselves as true believers, but they're nothing more than drug smugglers who are being allowed to continue a criminal enterprise.

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Chris: Wow. That's pretty definitive on the grifter side of things, that is.

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Kayla: But again, like, that's one man's opinion to that. Bill Falloon had this to say. This is a very, quote, heavy episode. We have been offered to plea bargain this whole thing out. We could have a real light situation occur, but we don't accept that. To us, this is a life or death situation. Because if the FDA maintains their dictatorial control over healthcare and medical research, we will age normally and die. We have done nothing wrong. Certainly we've had no complaints from our 15,000 members, other than allergic reactions. We simply believe the terminally ill person should have access to any drug they want, end quote. And just like that, I'm back in. We simply believe the terminally ill person should have access to any drug they want. I'm back on the side of Bill Falloon. Being a true believer.

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Chris: Yeah, I guess. Yeah.

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Kayla: Am I naive? Probably.

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Chris: I don't know. I don't know either. I mean, fear of death is a powerful thing. So I do believe that it could motivate someone to be a true believer in that manner.

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Kayla: Yeah. I'm scared of death. I don't want to die. I want this to be real. God. I'm gonna take Metformin. Talk to your doctor before starting any drugs.

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Chris: Yeah, but don't take ozone, though.

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Kayla: I'm not taking ozone. That doesn't sound correct to me. I'm gonna read that statement again because it's important. We simply believe the terminally ill person should have access to any drug they want.

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Chris: Okay.

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Kayla: Bill Falloon and the Life Extension foundation are not the only groups to express this desire. They're also not the only groups to openly criticize, resist, and fight against the FDA. I find myself at odds with Bill Falloon's approach here. I don't care for him opening something called the FDA Holocaust Museum when the FDA was established to protect public health by regulating products that can potentially harm or kill us. But there's another group that had a shockingly similar message to some of Bill Falloon's Ajit prop, one that I do not find myself at odds with and support wholeheartedly, which makes this even more difficult.

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Chris: Does our audience know what agitprop is?

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Kayla: Who doesn't know what Ajit prop is?

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Chris: Not everybody that is listening to us may be as militant a leftist.

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Kayla: Agitating rhetoric. Agitating propaganda. Propaganda meant to stir an agitated mind, emotional, in you.

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Chris: Yeah.

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Kayla: Right now I'm talking about ACT UP, a grassroots coalition formed in 1987 that worked to end the AIDS pandemic through direct action, medical research, and political and legislative advocacy. ACT UP was one of the most visible and arguably one of the most efficacious groups that challenged the american government's failure to deal with the AIDS crisis. They were experts at drumming up media coverage and were responsible for iconic slogans such as silence equals death. Originally appearing on posters of black backgrounds with a pink triangle, the symbol that Nazis had once used to identify gay and queer prisoners in concentration camps. They were responsible for a number of powerful actions, including 1990 two's ashes, actions in which activists scattered the ashes of people who had died of AIDS on the White House lawn, protesting the inadequate government response to the crisis.

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Chris: So I see with the pink triangle thing there. Yeah, that's, again, using. Yeah, I mean, I guess that's like, that's everybody's favorite agit. Prop. Prop, right? Like, I get it.

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Kayla: I mean, the argument that, like, gay people were being, like, genocided via inaction is like, I'm on the side of that claim.

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Chris: Yeah, no, I just mean, like, comparing stuff to Nazi Germany is sort of like the go to. Yeah, it's powerful. It makes sense. And at least in that case, like, they have an actual symbol that was used. It's not like, what does Bill Falloon have? You know?

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Kayla: Sure.

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Chris: There's no, like, life extension people were.

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Kayla: Being put in concentration camps in the Holocaust for wanting life extension drugs.

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Chris: Right.

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Kayla: Another action of particular note from Act UP was the 1988 seize control of the FDA, in which aids activists shut down the FDA for an entire day by blocking doors, walkways, and roads into the building. 1500 protesters held up a black banner reading federal death administration and chanted, hey. Hey, FDA. How many people have you killed today?

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Chris: Geez. So why were they so mad at the FDA?

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Kayla: We'll get to that.

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Chris: Okay.

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Kayla: Activist David Vojnarovich, an HIV positive artist, wore a jean jacket with a painted message on the back that I will never forget if I die of AIDS, forget burial, just drop my body on the steps of the FDA. He eventually did die from AIDS in 1992, and his ashes were spread on the White House lawn during the ashes actions.

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Chris: Wow.

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Kayla: I know. Along with protest act up, activists armed themselves with deep and thorough knowledge of the FDA drug approval process, becoming experts themselves. A working group within the organization spent a year educating themselves on the drug approval process in the FDA prior to the action, and then educated the entire body of act up through a 40 page handbook and a series of teach ins. So everybody who participated in this action, like, knew how the FDA worked. AcT UP prepped the media before the action, ensuring that not only were journalists and tv stations there to document, they already knew the messaging and could report on what was going on and what the intent was accurately and fairly go, like, study act up if you want to be any sort of activist these days.

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Kayla: According to Douglas Crimp, an AIDS activist at the time, quote, act UP's fundamental contention here, this is, to answer your question, Act UP's fundamental contention was that with an epidemic disease such as AIDS testing, experimental new therapies is itself a form of healthcare, and that access to healthcare must be everyone's, right.

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Chris: So the FDA was dragging its feet on.

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Kayla: Correct.

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Chris: Okay. And it was saying, no, you can't.

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Kayla: People are dying.

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Chris: Try this drug.

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Kayla: Correct.

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Chris: I don't even like, what are they regulating there? The sale of such things or the like, actual usage? Like.

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Kayla: Let me read you. So, act UP had presented the FDA with clear and precise demands of what they wanted. Okay, let me read those to you because I think it helps explain. Okay, this is a little bit long, but I think it's really important. Number one, shorten the drug approval process. The FDA must ensure immediate free access to drugs proven safe and theoretically effective. That is, as soon as phase one trials are completed, together with clear information that the drug has not yet been proven effective. Number two, no more double blind placebo trials. Because giving a placebo to someone with a life threatening illness is unethical, the FDA must inform designers of clinical trials that it will not accept data based on placebo trials.

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Kayla: Instead, new drugs must be measured against other approved drugs or, where there are none, against other experimental therapies, different doses of the same drug, or against what is already known of the natural progression of AIDS.

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Chris: I didn't know that they used to do placebo trials, apparently. Wow.

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Kayla: Number three, include people from all affected populations at all stages of HIV infection. In clinical trials, the FDA must mandate that drug trials recruit participants from all groups affected by HIV infection, including women, people of color, children, poor people, iv drug users, hemophiliacs, and gay men. If a trial requires a homogenous population, parallel trials must be conducted in other affected populations. Moreover, trials must be opened to people at all stages of HIV infection, not simply those with CDC defined AIDS. Number four, Medicaid and private health insurance must be made to pay for experimental drug therapies. And number five, the FDA must support, rather than harass community groups working to keep community members alive. In other words, trying to do what the federal bureaucracy has thus far failed to do. Does that kind of explain, like, what was going on and what the demands were?

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Chris: Yes, that tells me what was lacking at the time. Yeah.

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Kayla: After this action, government agencies like the FDA and the NIH began to change course on how they approached AIDS. According to, again, Douglas Cramp, the success of seized control of the FDA can perhaps best be measured by what ensued in the year following the actions. Government agencies dealing with AIDS, particularly the FDA and NIH began to listen to us, to include us in decision making and even asking for our input, end quote. So, okay, how does that make you feel about Bill Falloon's approach to the FDA?

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Chris: Oh, I was just about to ask you the same thing. I'm not sure yet. Somehow it still feels a little different to me. But it is interesting how similar their approaches seem to be. For some reason, it feels like act up has more of a case. But I can't really put my finger.

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Kayla: On why I think it's viewing. If you don't view death as the same kind of crisis or pandemic as AIDS, then how could you view them as equal?

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Chris: But if you do.

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Kayla: But if you do, then you're viewing them as equal. And so, again, that's why we keep going back to, is Bill Fallon a true believer or not? Because the intent does seem really important here. I don't agree with him that death is the same as AIDS. I can maybe understand that mentality. They're not the same, and I don't think that anybody would argue that they're the same. However, Bill Falloon has argued that allowing death to continue as it is like, quote unquote, genocide. Is killing millions. Is murdering millions of people.

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Chris: Yeah, I think you're right. I think that's what it is. I think it's that, like, I just can't overcome my internal bias of senescence and natural death by natural causes as being anything other than natural. Not that I care for it, but, like, I don't. I just can't. I can't wrap my mind around, like, that paradigm of senescence being, like, this. This thing that, like, we have been neglecting to cure.

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Kayla: Right, right. It doesn't make it easier, because I. Again, I'm like, I find act up and what they did and continue to do, like, some of the most impressive and empowered and powerful and inspiring, like, activist actions that have ever taken place in this country. And I'm firmly on their side of, like, yeah, those demands to the FDA seem incredibly reasonable. And then with Bill Flune, I'm like, I don't know if he should have an FDA Holocaust museum.

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Chris: Right. And, you know, in my head here, I'm thinking, too, like, well, you know, the other thing is, like, with the AIDS crisis, it was, like, primarily, like, a marginalized group that was being affected. There was obviously effects more than, you know, just the gay community, but it.

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Kayla: Largely affected marginalized groups even outside of the gay community.

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Chris: Right. Yeah, even outside of. And I'm like, oh, well, that's not the case with old age. But then I'm kind of like, well, or is it, though? Because we do kind of neglect elders a bit in this country. Once you get to be a certain age, we just sort of forget about you. And that's the thing that they seem to be harping on is the senescence bit.

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Kayla: Right.

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Chris: So once you get to be an age where we're like, I don't really care to fix that problem anymore, then it does kind of start to feel a little bit like AIDS.

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Kayla: Yeah. Elder advocacy is, like, extremely important. And like dovetails with disability advocacy, we can get into some incredible disability advocacy movements and actions that have happened in this country. And how that ties in, well, this is hard. I don't, I know. And we're kind of approaching a conclusion here. And I do want to run the church of perpetual life through the culture. Just weird criteria. Before we wrap up the topic.

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Chris: Yeah.

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Kayla: But I have one more thing I want touch on before we get to that. As I was doing research for this episode, I, of course, I researched news articles, but I also went to Wikipedia and I just gave them money. And you should too, went to Wikipedia for the Life Extension foundation. And if you scroll down to my favorite section on all of Wikipedia that, see also section, it hits you with.

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Chris: A high popular culture.

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Kayla: Love it. It hits you with a hyperlink to something called the health freedom movement. What's that?

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Chris: It sounds an awful lot like something anti vaxx, but please enlighten me.

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Kayla: The health freedom movement is a libertarian coalition that opposes regulation of health practices and advocates for increased access to non traditional healthcare.

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Chris: Okay. I mean, it kind of sounds like what they're.

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Kayla: Yeah.

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Chris: What they're into.

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Kayla: Okay, so this is a decentralized movement consisting of a lot of different groups of people, either explicitly or like, de facto. De facto. Does that mean by default?

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Chris: I think so.

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Kayla: Well, that's what I said. For example, the conservative John Birch Society, which I don't know much about. I just know that they're a conservative society. They have been explicitly advocating, like, health, quote unquote, health freedom since I think, the seventies.

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Chris: I think they're like a libertarian leaning conservative group.

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Kayla: Life extension foundation would also fall into this coalition, kind of like by default. I don't know if they say, like, we are a health freedom movement, or they just kind of are right. It's not. Part of what makes it libertarian, quote unquote, is that it's not defined by, like, a traditional left right political divide. Hence that kind of distinction of like, get the government out of my health care kind of thing. Its supporters include people like, you might be shocked, libertarian congressman Ron Paul.

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Chris: Weird. Libertarians support libertarian things.

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Kayla: He introduced something called the Health Freedom Protection act in 2005. And then I think this is like, not small in Britain because you have other supporters of note are Sir Paul McCartney and actress Billy Piper, who, you know, from doctor who and Secret Diary of a call girl.

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Chris: I think, yeah, two shows I've definitely watched.

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Kayla: They're really, really big into vitamins and supplements. And along with folks like Bill Falloon, have worked to ensure that these products are exempted from us regulations requiring evidence of safety and efficacy. That's like their big thing. Mainstream medicine does not accept their belief that high doses of vitamins and supplements can improve health and longevity with little to no negative consequences. The Wikipedia page dedicates a section to the Dietary Supplement Health and Education act of 1994. We talked about that last week, how bill Falloon helped bring that about. The DSHEA defines supplements as food which allows them to be marketed and sold unless the FDA proves that they pose significant risk of harm, rather than requiring the manufacturers prove the supplements safety and efficacy.

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Chris: And that's huge because the FDA only has limited resources, so they can't check everything. Whereas if you require it on a case by case basis for. For them to prove the effectiveness or whatever of their supplement, then that scales.

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Kayla: Right? The FDA also cannot take action unless manufacturers make medical claims about their products or consumers become seriously ill. So just don't do those two things and you can sell whatever the fuck you want.

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Chris: Sick.

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Kayla: That's like when Michael Moore named his healthcare documentary sicko.

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Chris: Oh yeah.

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Kayla: Which that did radicalize me, I won't lie. I haven't watched it since it came out. So it could be a piece of shit. I don't know.

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Chris: It probably is.

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Kayla: Consumer Reports magazine claims that in a poll in 2002, this showed that 59% of respondents believe supplements had to be approved by a government agency, 68% believe that supplements had to list side effects on their label, and 55% believe that supplement labels could not make claims of safety without scientific evidence. And these beliefs are false, as outlined by the DShea.

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Chris: Yeah, I think that. I don't know, I might have answered yes on several of those too.

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Kayla: Sure. Yeah.

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Chris: Because it seems like no, if you're.

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Kayla: A supplement, you can kind of say whatever you want and it drives.

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Chris: It seems like you shouldn't, but you totally can.

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Kayla: Like I mentioned, the health freedom movement has campaigns elsewhere, like in the UK elsewhere in Europe. So, like, at least it's not just us. At least we're not alone in this. In the little United States health freedom movement, folks tend to fall into the conspiracy theorist camp, particularly with the belief that any restriction on supplements is a move to protect big pharma, which, like, God, that one's tough, because big pharma does legitimately suck. In so many ways it does. We don't have time to go into it here. There's so many ways in which it does suck.

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Chris: Yeah. The overriding profit motive.

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Kayla: Yeah.

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Chris: Just inherently erodes trust from, like, what is act. What the. What the pharma companies, actually. Yeah, exactly.

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Kayla: But also, like, supplement pushers also suck.

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Chris: Yeah, I know. But again, it just feels exactly like the QAnon thing that were talking about where it's like, yeah, QAnon is cancer and cancer is really bad, but also we should address the carcinogens that got us there in the first place.

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Kayla: Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. From Wikipedia, quote, pharmacist and skeptic. Ooh, pharmacist. Big pharmacist.

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Chris: Big pharmacist.

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Kayla: Pharmacist and skeptical writer Scott Guevara notes that the reverse is more often true and that, quote, governments around the world have consistently given manufacturers the upper hand, prioritizing a company's desire to sell a product over a consumer's right to a marketplace with safe, effective products. The Dsaga is like, the quintessential example of this.

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Chris: Okay, and what is. Sorry, what does the acronym stand for again?

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Kayla: Dietary supplement. Health and Education act of 1994.

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Chris: Okay, right. The one that said that everything's food and you don't have to disclose. Okay.

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Kayla: So again, dsaga companies are allowed to market and sell supplements without going through any of the trials and regulations, quote unquote, big pharma is held to.

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Chris: Can we just call it Dashia?

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Kayla: Dashia. And to be clear, like, people do get harmed by this, right? A review published in 2015 found that the increase in supplement uptake had led to the adulteration of dietary supplements by the addition of synthetic drugs, which is illegal for manufacturers to do. So, like, remember hydroxy cut? We all took hydroxy cut.

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Chris: Okay, I did not.

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Kayla: But you didn't take hydroxycut?

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Chris: No, I never did. But it was going around my freshman dorm at the time.

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Kayla: It made you feel great.

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Chris: No, there was this guy, I won't say is that he's. He's a totally cool dude, but, like, he's like, he was like one of those fitness guys, you know, those guys. Yeah, super fitness guys. And so he was like, I don't know. He was a year ahead of us, too, so he was a sophomore in our freshman dorm. There were a few of those. And he would go around and he had this hydroxy cut, so he'd be like, hey, man, like, do you want some hydroxy cut? It's. It's, like, really good. It helps you study. And, like, a few of us were like, get away from me. Like, you drug pusher. And. But then a few of us were like, oh, sure, I'll try it.

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Chris: But then, like, it definitely got to the point where it was like, the people that had tried it had been like, hey, man, I have a test tomorrow. Do you have any more? That hydroxy cut, that really helped me last time. I need some more of it.

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Kayla: If you're taking a supplement and it has this effect on you, like, there might be something not great in it or something that should be regulated in it. For example, hydroxycut ended up having ephedra in it, which was eventually banned by the FDA, and hydroxycut had to reformulate. So I'm glad that they did that.

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Chris: Do you remember that TikTok that just got served to us?

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Kayla: No. Oh, about the pre workout.

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Chris: About the pre workout. Yeah.

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Kayla: If your pre workout is making you go, like, I could run 17 marathons, there might be something not great in it, because, again, it's not regulated.

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Chris: The TikTok we got was, like, some influence, some, like, meat influencer, some guy that, like, you know, does fun videos that cooks meat, I think. What was it? He dry aged a steak.

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Kayla: He dry aged a steak in pre workout.

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Chris: In pre workout.

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Kayla: And he had to go to the.

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Chris: Hospital, and then when he ate the steak, he had to go to the hospital because so much caffeine had gotten into the meat just from dry aging it in that shell of pre workout that he got, like, caffeine poisoning.

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Kayla: Yeah, don't do that. Don't dry age your meat in pre workout. Maybe sleep pre workout. I don't know.

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Chris: Yeah. I mean, I've taken supplements before, but I do try to check that it's just like, not just caffeine, not just ephedra, vitamin B, and, like, you know, gaba or something. Not like. Yeah, nothing super active.

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Kayla: Along with things like the synthetic drugs being in products, the overconsumption of vitamins in large doses, which is something that is often undertaken by health freedom movement folks as an alternative therapy, like drowning yourself in vitamin C or whatever.

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Chris: 1 million% of vitamin C each day.

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Kayla: This can lead to something called hypervitaminosis or vitamin poisoning, which can be harmful to your health. So don't do that. We could do an entire other episode on this, but like, before the dream.

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Chris: Did an entire season on it, before.

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Kayla: The FDA, America was just like a wild west of supplement sales. And, like, not in a good way. And it's not a joke that things like heroin and cocaine used to just like, be in everything. And, like, things were just making people sick and ill and covered in rat garbage.

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Chris: Like, there's a. I miss my morphine tincture.

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Kayla: There's a reason we have regulatory agencies, and it's not necessarily the conspiratorial reasoning or just the conspiratorial reasoning.

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Chris: Okay, well, I miss Laudanum, so I don't know what to tell you.

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Kayla: So, yeah, the health freedom movement might make you think about the bill Falloons of the world a little differently, though. I still find all of this very confusing and confounding, and not easy to grapple with. If it makes you feel any better, if you scroll down to the see also section of the health freedom movement, one of the things it links you to is the abortion rights movement. You know, the whole, like, my body, my choice thing. Okay, does that help? Does tying these two things together help give you any clarity?

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Chris: I feel like I have whiplash now, actually. I feel like I'm just going back. I'm getting whipped back and forth in this whole episode.

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Kayla: Yeah, yeah.

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Chris: Can't you just, like, fit yourself neatly into one side of the culture war or the other, please, for my brain.

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Kayla: To consume two more small things before we jump into the criteria. First, two reasons that the FDA regulates medical treatments and says, like, yes, you can do this one, or no, you can't do this one, are because one, unapproved therapies might be harmful, causing further illness and injury to those already sick or who perceive themselves to be sick.

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Chris: I thought that was the only thing. There's a second thing.

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Kayla: And two, because seeking out unapproved therapies might make people delay seeking out the approved therapies that they definitely do need.

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Chris: Oh, okay.

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Kayla: So if they're like, I can, like, do Gerson therapy, which is like a quack cancer treatment, versus like, I'm gonna do that before I do the chemo, they do the fake thing, and then it's too late for the chemo, and.

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Chris: Then they go, it's the real thing. Yeah.

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Kayla: Lastly, Bill Falloon has done things like talked about how toxic and killer things like chemotherapy are, and suggested that you seek out life extension recommendations for alternative therapies.

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Chris: So he's, like, anti traditional cancer treatment.

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Kayla: I think he can be at times.

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Chris: That sounds a little dangerous.

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Kayla: It's definitely not the front and center thing because it took me this long to, like, stumble across that accusation, but it's not. Not a part of this.

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Chris: Okay. Okay.

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Kayla: Okay.

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Chris: Cancer sucks.

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Kayla: Ready for criteria?

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Chris: Yes. The answer is a call.

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Kayla: It's easy.

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Chris: Oh, yeah.

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Kayla: Charismatic leader, for sure.

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Chris: Charismatic leader.

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Kayla: Check, check.

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Chris: He fills all the balloons.

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Kayla: He is, honestly, like, I watched an interview for the previous episode to record, and, like, I meant to sit down and watch, like, a few minutes, and I watched the whole thing because I was like, I want to keep seeing what this guy has to say.

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Chris: Oh, that's a good. I don't. I don't. Like, he sounds charismatic from his influence, but I haven't actually. So you've seen him, and he does. Yes, he does radiate. He has Riz. He has the Riz.

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Kayla: Yes. I enjoy. But I mean, like, Riz in the way that when I read the article talking about how he used to have a radio show selling shit, I went.

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Chris: Oh, yeah, that sound you heard was all of our gen Z listeners shutting off their phones.

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Kayla: Yeah, they're gone now, correctly.

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Chris: I mean, you should. You should. I should not be saying, Riz. It sucks.

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Kayla: What do we do about this one? Expected harm.

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Chris: This is the thing that we don't know how to answer.

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Kayla: Cause they keep reiterating that, like, nobody complains about us. None of our people, none of our thousands and thousands of members complain, except, like, sometimes they'll get an allergic reaction. Nobody's complaining about this. So, like, is it harm? I don't know. And we're just. Okay, to clarify, we're just doing church of perpetual life, Bill Falloon Life extent Foundation, that conglomerate. Not health freedom movement.

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Chris: Right. Not.

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Kayla: Not the FDA.

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Chris: Transhumanism in general.

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Kayla: Not this.

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Chris: Yes. My face right now is very pained.

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Kayla: If you're 87 years old and you take a drug that maybe you shouldn't be taking, is that expected harm?

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Chris: I don't know exactly. Yeah, it's kind of like the act up was saying. It's like, look, if you're gonna die, then let me take the experimental thing if I want to. I don't know.

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Kayla: That said, I think the DShea is a unequivocal harm to society. Yeah.

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Chris: Oh, yeah. I would be. I'm saying I think I'm anti. Dashia.

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Kayla: Dashia. So what do we say?

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Chris: Expected harm. Okay. But I think that. Here's my take. If we think that this is like nugga and they're grifters, we can probably safely say there's some expected harm. If we say that they're on the up and they're just doing experimental stuff to try to ultimately do good, there might still be some expected harm. Because when you're pushing bleeding edge stuff, there's a trade off. Right. There's, like, it's not always gonna work. So there might be some expected harm there. So I think that regardless of which direction we take the. Like, are they good guys or bad guys? I think that there's still expected harm.

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Kayla: How high? Medium. Do we have to just go with medium? Because one hand it could be low. On one hand, it could be high. And so we average it out.

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Chris: It's 23.

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Kayla: Okay. Presence of ritual. Hi. They have church.

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Chris: Really? Oh, yeah. Church. You're right. Sorry. It is literally a church. They place specific songs. They have a logo. Okay. Yep. Hi.

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Kayla: Niche within society. Yes.

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Chris: I mean, everybody dies and everybody's afraid.

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Kayla: Of death, but the church of perpetual life itself is niche.

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Chris: You're right.

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Kayla: Even life Extension foundation is thousands of people, not millions of people.

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Chris: Right. And the service went to is, like, ten people.

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Kayla: It was, like, a couple dozen.

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Chris: Okay.

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Kayla: Just want to clarify.

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Chris: Thanks for clearing that up.

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Kayla: Here's another one. Anti factuality.

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Chris: Na. I don't know. Like, it doesn't strike me like, the spirit again of this one is just. We always have to clarify this, but, like, the spirit of this one is, like, logical fallacies. Right?

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Kayla: Sure.

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Chris: I don't know that there's. I mean, I'm sure there's some biases going on here, I think. Like.

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Kayla: But they're upfront that this stuff is experimental and the research says this and that. It might not help you. It might help you. You need to get your baselines done or else we don't know if it's helping you. Like, we don't know if this drug is good or not. Like, it seems like they're okay saying, like, we don't know.

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Chris: Yes. And if we're gonna red flag stuff, like motivated reasoning.

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Kayla: Sure.

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Chris: Like, the reasoning is very motivated here, whether it's correct or not. Who knows? Maybe. And it's good that they're upfront about saying maybe, but there's definitely motivated reasoning. They're afraid of death, and therefore they're reasoning to themselves. Well, yeah. I mean, if I take a shit ton of vitamin C every day, then that's motivated reasoning. So I'd say at least medium.

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Kayla: Okay. This is hitting all the things.

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Chris: It's hitting them. It's hitting them.

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Kayla: Percentage of life consumed.

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Chris: Well, they're trying to give your life back, Kayla.

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Kayla: I think it is high.

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Chris: Really?

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Kayla: I do. I know that, like, the church services are only every two weeks, and, like. But I think that the people that are into this, they're also, like. They're, according to a fulon, like, a lot of people are, like, involved in many different ways, and they're, like, keeping up on the research, and they're in the buyers club, and they're buying their stuff from Life extension Foundation, and they're going to church and they're. I think it's certainly medium. I think it's. I don't think it's small, really.

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Chris: Okay.

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Kayla: You're worried about death all the time.

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Chris: No, I know, but, like, when I think of life consumption, I'm, like, thinking.

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Kayla: Of they're not living on a commune.

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Chris: Living on the commune. Or, like, being a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader where you're just doing that 100% of the time, your whole day.

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Kayla: Okay. I can be argued out of it. I can be argued that it's small.

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Chris: But I think it's there. For sure.

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Kayla: I think it's there. It's just. Maybe it's not as high as a teal swan situation.

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Chris: Right.

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Kayla: Dogmatic beliefs.

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Chris: I would say having a FDA Holocaust museum suggests some amount of, like, we're right and you're wrong.

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Kayla: I agree. I agree. I don't think it's as upfront and explicit as we've seen in other groups, but I think it is extremely there.

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Chris: Yeah, yeah.

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Kayla: Chain of victims.

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Chris: I don't feel like there's a request recruitment aspect to it where one person gets taken in and then starts taking in other people.

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Kayla: I don't. I'm sure that happens. I'm sure that, like, that happens. But it's not as, like, codified as an MLM.

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Chris: Yeah. Yeah. Can I say something? I kind of feel like chain of victims is, like.

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Kayla: It's. Chain of recruits is what we should be calling.

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Chris: Yeah, chain of recruits. Either way, chain of recruits. I kind of feel like that criteria is just, like, for mlms. Like, I kind of feel like most of the stuff we talk about. Well, some of them doesn't really have that.

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Kayla: Some groups we've talked about have been, like, the Amish.

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Chris: Yeah.

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Kayla: That's a chain of recruits.

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Chris: Oh, and the other thing we talked about with this was QAnon, because it would be, like, someone would get into it and be like, hey, you gotta check this out. And then they would get radicalized, and then they would tell their friends, and.

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Kayla: I'm sure that happens here, but it just doesn't seem to be as. Like, it's not written as a rule kind of thing.

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Chris: Yeah. And I don't feel like the. Like, went to a service and nobody was like, oh, you gotta come to more of these, right?

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Kayla: Tell your friends, safe or unsafe exit.

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Chris: Well, you're dying if you're exiting this, so that's pretty unsafe.

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Kayla: I don't get the sense, though, that you're gonna lose your entire community.

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Chris: No, no. I would say this is not there.

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Kayla: Yeah. Okay. So charismatic leader. Yes. Expected harm, medium. Presence of ritual, high. Yes. Niche within society. Medium. Interfactuality. A small percentage of life consumed, high. Dogmatic beliefs, low. Chain of victims, low. Safe or unsafe exit. Is the church of perpetual life a cult, or is it just weird?

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Chris: This is right on the cusp for me.

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Kayla: I know.

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Chris: I know it's a cusper because I don't think. I just don't think that having a plurality of the criteria hit. Like, I don't think, like, 50% plus one is enough, you know? Or, sorry, a simple majority is enough, but this isn't that. This is, what, like, six of eight or something? Yeah, that's right around it, let's say. Yes, just for funsies.

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Kayla: I think it's a cult, but I think it's not a cult in the way that somebody who's getting their PhD in new religious studies would want to write a ton about this. Or, like.

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Chris: I don't know, though, like, with all of the trappings of, like, church that might be right up their alley. When I attach a category to this on the website, I'm definitely gonna put it in new religious movement.

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Kayla: I think it's a cult, and I think it's not the same kind of danger as we see with, like, teal, Swann, and QAnon.

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Chris: Yeah, yeah. Although we did say expected harm was there.

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Kayla: I'm confused on that one. Look, I hope that our people listening have been able to draw their own conclusions and, like, tell us what you think. Cause we are having a hard time with that one.

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Chris: I am washing my hands of telling you what to think this time. Although I normally do like telling you what to think.

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Kayla: Yeah. That's why we have a podcast. So that's it for the church, perpetual life? Kind of.

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Chris: What do you mean, kind of?

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Kayla: So we wanted. You and I have talked about. We wanted to continue our deep dive into test Creole into the concept of test Creole until we hit every letter of the acronym and this kind of was a little bit of a detour. Definitely dovetails. So next week on culture. Just weird. We are going back to the origins of the Church of perpetual life to hit that sea. Cosmism. Remember, one of their prophets is the father of russian cosmism, which was the father of cosmism.

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Chris: Ooh, russian cosm. Okay. Yeah, that's right. No, I remember that from the first episode. That's crazy.

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Kayla: Yeah, that's next time on.

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Chris: It's all tied up. It's all tied up.

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Kayla: It's a bundle. That's why you have the word tezcriel.

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Chris: That's right. I should go thank Emile again.

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Kayla: That's next time on culture. Just weird. This is Kayla, this is Chris, and this is Ben.

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Chris: Cult or just per. Do we already do perpetual life?

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Kayla: I don't know.

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Chris: Cult or just FDA?