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The Sunscreen Paradox · Question Everything

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: There are these videos I saw last week on Instagram.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: A couple people I know told me they've been popping
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: up in their feeds. And they seem innocuous enough. Mommy
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: bloggers showing how they prep their kids for the summer sun.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Happy music playing. One of them's using a makeup sponge
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: to put sunscreen on her little kid. Caption, my favorite
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: hack for applying sunscreen to my kids. Another's brushing sunscreen
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: on her blonde toddler's head.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Cute.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: But then, in the comments of all these videos, something
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: strange and kind of alarming. People claiming that using sunscreen
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: will give you cancer rather than prevent it. Do not
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: put sunblock on your baby, says one commenter on one
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: of these videos. It causes cancer.
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: Another.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Recent scientific studies prove that there is a link between
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: sunscreen use and cancer. Another commenter. No thank you, skipping
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: that toxic crap. Another, sunscreen is harmful for humans. And
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: as one person said, rather simply, sunscreen is cancer. Sunscreen,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: for the record, is not cancer. It does not cause cancer.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: In fact, used properly, it can save you from cancer
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: of the skin. So where the hell does this idea
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: come from? And why is it gaining traction on the
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: internet right now? Because it has taken off in just
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: the last few weeks, according to experts who monitor online misinformation.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: It turns out this is not some naturally occurring viral
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: delusion that has sprung up organically as people head to
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: the beach. There are actually two specific guys who are
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: behind it. From Placement Theory and KCRW, I'm Brian Reed.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: This is Question Everything. We investigate how the truth gets buried, distorted,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: and denied, and the ways people are fighting to make
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: it matter again. Today on the show, a little ditty
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: about summer disinformation. We find out who's responsible. for injecting
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: this odd and dangerous lie into the social media bloodstream
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: and the surprising scientific phenomenon they are weaponizing.
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: To do it.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Stick around. Now and again on this show, we like
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: to check in with the folks over at NewsGuard, a
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: fact checking company that each week chooses a false claim
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: of the week and debunks it. When they do this,
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: I like that you get to see where the false
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: claims originate and how they grow online. The paths these
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: things take often are telling. And last week, I saw
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: that the false claim of the week was.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: A study found that sunscreen use increased your risk.
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: Of skin cancer.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: This is John Gregory, a health editor at NewsGuard. He's
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: worked there for eight years, debunking health misinformation online. John
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: says this claim, that using sunscreen can give you skin cancer,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: started flashing on the NewsGuard radar screens about three weeks ago.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Their team regularly monitors certain search terms.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: Skin cancer, cancer is one of those that we monitor.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: And these posts started popping up.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: More than 17,000 posts, to be exact, in seven languages
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: across 44 countries, spreading this fabrication to millions of people.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: And as someone who spends every day ingesting health misinformation,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: John says this claim stuck out.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: This kind of really out there health misinformation, one that
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: is not focused on vaccines, not focused on kind of
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: a core issue of RFK Jr. and the Maha crowd
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: is a special kind of circumstance. We usually don't see
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: conservative media telling you, hey, don't wear sunscreen.
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: It might cause skin cancer. And the risk involved.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, you're telling people to potentially adopt a dangerous behavior,
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: go outside in the sun unprotected.
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: For hours on end. Right. Like this could have real
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: impacts on people. Absolutely.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: That risk of harm also factors into how we pick
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: the false claim of the week.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: As they looked at the activity on social media boosting
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: this claim, John and his team saw that many of
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: the posts were resharing or referencing this one clip from
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: cable news.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: One American News Network featured it on Matt Gaetz's show,
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: Foreigner Congressman Matt Gaetz, who was at one point set
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: to be President Trump's attorney general.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: He has a show now on One America.
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: He's an anchor.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he does have a show on OAN.
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: If you don't know it, One.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: American News Network is like a more extreme and less
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: factual network than Fox News. And Matt Gaetz, you might recall,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: is a former Florida congressman who eventually withdrew himself from
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: the running to be attorney general. because a House Ethics
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Committee found evidence that he'd paid women for sex and
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: had sex with a 17-year-old, which is statutory rape in Florida.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: He said these findings are untruthful and defamatory. Now he's
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: a news anchor. The guest Gates had on to talk
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: about sunscreen?
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: A anti-vaccine epidemiologist by the name of Nicholas Holzer.
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: Gates asked Holzer.
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: Have I been lied to as a Florida man about
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: sunscreen protecting me from cancer?
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Pulitzer responded, Yes, it appears we've all been lied to, unfortunately.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: The claim that was being spread was based around a
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: November 2023 study done in the UK.
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: This massive study of over 470,000 people confirms it. When
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: they compared sunscreen users to non-sunscreen users, the sunscreen users
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: faced increased risks of all the major skin cancers.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: We'll dig into that study in a bit. But that
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: interview happened on June 26th. The guest, Nick Holsher, posted
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: a clip of it on X and got 2.9 million
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: views in four days. He also went on other shows,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: like comedian Jimmy Dore's podcast, which has nearly 2 million
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: subscribers on YouTube. Nick Holsher was out there pushing this claim.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: And did you know who that guy was?
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: Oh, yes. He's a very frequent purveyor of health misinformation.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: Often in the anti-vaccine space, he's also a big promoter
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: of ivermectin as not only a treatment for COVID-19, but
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: also as a cancer treatment.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Ivermectin, used to deworm horses, also used to treat some
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: conditions in humans, not supposed to be used to treat
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: COVID-19 or cancer. But since the pandemic, it's become gospel
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: among some people on the right that it's a go-to
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: cure for just about everything. John says Holscher got his
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: master's in public health from the University of Michigan. And
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: on paper, he's sort of unremarkable. When you Google him,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: he seems like a relatively normal researcher. He has a
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: whole profile on a research website listing scientific journals he's
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: published in. But it's who he works with that's noteworthy.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: He's one of the writers on a substack called The
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: Focal Points. It has about 138,000 subscribers. The more famous
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: author on that substack is someone that Holzer has worked
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: for for a number of years named Dr.
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: Peter McAuliffe.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: Who's one of the big sources of misinformation from the
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: COVID pandemic.
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: If I was not listing them off, he'd be in.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: The top five in terms of sources of bad information,
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: particularly about COVID vaccines.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: If you look at Nick Holscher, the sunscreen guy's resume,
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: John says his entire professional career as an epidemiologist since
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: graduating just a few years ago is working with Peter McCullough,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: who is a real doctor.
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: He's a cardiologist.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: He had affiliations with major institutions like Baylor University prior
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: to becoming this big misinformation purveyor. He left in early 2021,
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: and Baylor later had to sue him in order to
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: get him to stop mentioning his affiliation with them as
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: if it were current because they didn't want to be
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: associated with with the claims he was starting to make
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: about COVID vaccines.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: Together, Dr. McCullough, Nick Hulsher, write this prolific newsletter on Substack,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Focal Points.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: This Substack alone is responsible for, you know, dozens of
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: false health claims. I'm probably being conservative with that. It's
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: not 100% in line with RFK Jr. They've had some
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: articles that are a little critical of RFK Jr. for
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: basically not moving fast enough.
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: On issues.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: I mean, these are people that want to see COVID
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: vaccines 100% pulled off the market because in their eyes
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: and their claims, it's killed millions of people.
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: That's what they claim on this sub stack. Yeah.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: They have actually claimed that it's killed more people than,
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: you know, World War I, World.
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: War II in Vietnam combined, at least for the U.S.
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: death toll.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: So back to the sunscreen. A few weeks before he
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: went on Matt Gaetz's show, on June 9th, Amid all
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: these other Focal Points articles about vaccines killing people and
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: the government doing biowarfare experiments with ticks and vaccines causing autism,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Nick Holscher published a Substack post about sunscreen.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: The headline is study finds sunscreen use linked to higher
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: risk of multiple skin cancers. And then further down, he's
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: got this graphic article. that says sunscreen use linked up
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: to a 292% higher risk of multiple skin cancers.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: There's an image of a man and a woman in
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: their bathing suits slathering sunscreen on their skin, oblivious to
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: the danger. Next to them are dermatological sketches of the
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: layers of skin with cancer in it. The Substack post
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: centers on a study of more than 470,000 people in
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: the UK.
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: And what did it find?
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: So it did find that people who reported using sunscreen
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: more frequently did also report having higher rates of skin cancers.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: What was that? It's not what it sounds like. We'll
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: get into it after a quick break. When I spoke
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: to the founder of Ground News a little while back,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: Harleen Kaur, she dropped this line on me. Ground News
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: helps you, I like using the phrase, walking in somebody
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: else's news. Walking in someone else's news. Pretty catchy, huh?
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: You really get it if you start to use Ground News.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: Because we know two reasonable people can have very different
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: understandings of the same event because they're reading different coverage.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: We may think people are ignoring facts, but sometimes they're
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: just seeing different facts shown to them or emphasized. Ground
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: news lets you step into that other perspective and see
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: coverage the way people with maybe different algorithms, different backgrounds,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: different political perspectives are seeing it shown to them. It's
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: less about changing your mind than understanding how someone else
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: got to their perspective. Go to groundnews.com slash question for 40%
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: off their unlimited access Advantage subscription. That's groundnews.com slash question.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Make sure to use that link so they know we
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: sent you. So this epidemiologist, Nick Holscher, who's spreading the
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: claim about sunscreen causing skin cancer, he's basing his claim
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: on a 2023 study in the U.K., which was investigating
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: a very technical scientific question related to skin cancer. But
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: as part of the research, looked at the correlation between
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: people who self-report using sunscreen and the occurrence they have
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: of skin cancer. This is a real scientific study conducted
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: by real doctors and published in a peer-reviewed journal called
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: But did find that people who reported using sunscreen more
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: frequently were did also report having higher rates of skin cancers.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: But the study was very clear right as they made
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: that finding that this was a paradoxical finding. That's the
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: exact terminology they use. It had been seen in similar
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: studies because people who report using sunscreen more regularly also
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: might tan more regularly and or a lack of reapplication
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: of sunscreen throughout the day, this so-called sunscreen paradox.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: Wait, this is a thing?
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: Like in science, the sunscreen paradox? Yeah.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Apparently, this is a recognized phenomenon that scientists have seen
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: in multiple dermatological studies, not just this one. Just want
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: to make sure I'm getting this right. Basically, the sunscreen
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: paradox is people who report higher use of sunscreen tend
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: to have higher instances of skin cancer. But the understanding
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: of scientists doing this research is that That might be
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: happening because people who report a lot of sunscreen use
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: might just go in the sun more. And so they
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: have skin cancer for that reason. Or they think they're
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: using it properly. They stay in the sun a long
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: time feeling they're safe and they don't reapply it. And
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: so they do have higher instances of skin cancer, but
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: it's not because of the use of the sunscreen.
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: They've given themselves kind of a false sense of protection there.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: by just saying, oh, well, I use it, but like,
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: you know, they're applying it once and then staying out
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: for hours and hours on end and spend more time
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: out in the sun without really using the sunscreen properly
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: for the amount of time they're in the sunlight.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: John says in other studies, where instead of simply asking
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: people to say how regularly they use sunscreen, researchers are
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: following people over time and checking that they're using it properly,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: applying enough, reapplying it over the course of the day,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: the sunscreen paradox goes away. And in fact, the results
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: show that sunscreen used properly decreases instances of skin cancer.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: A study in Australia showed daily use of sunscreen reduced
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: the incidence of melanoma by 50 percent. A Norwegian study
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: found using SPF 15 lotion reduced melanoma risk by about
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: 30 percent. There are similar findings for other skin cancers, too.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: But Nick Holscher's Substack post concluded the exact opposite, that
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: sunscreen use can cause skin cancer. John and his team
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: at NewsGuard contacted one of the authors of the UK study, Dr.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Ivan Litvinov at McGill University, who told them Holscher's take
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: was a misrepresentation of their findings. He said, quote, the
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: proper use of sunscreen combined with other sun protection measures
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: reduces the risk of skin cancer. But again, he and
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: his co-authors also said this in the study itself. The
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: very study that Nick Holscher is supposedly reading and summarizing
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: on the Focal Point substack and later on One American News.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Does he ever report in this Substack post that the
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: authors of the study have said that their study should not.
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: Be interpreted this way?
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: No.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: And should not be interpreted to link skin cancer to
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: use of sunscreen?
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: No, he never provides that countervailing information. There's no mention
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: of what's in the study about the paradoxical finding or
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: the comments they made since then. He cherry-picked and just
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: worked around that.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: So Nicholas Holzer, do you have a sense, like, does
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: he believe that sunscreen causes cancer?
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: It's hard to discount with any single health misinformation source
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: whether or not they believe this stuff. His motivation seems
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: to be railing against vaccine and mainstream medical opinion. Whether
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: he actually believes in it or not, I think someone
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: would have to be inside his head to really get
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: into it.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: The explanation here is he either didn't read the whole
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: study or he did and specifically left out the really
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: important information that the authors of the study said the
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: opposite thing is true than what he's saying.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: And it's just, you know, only he would know whether
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: he deliberately cherry picked or he just stopped reading at
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: a certain point when he felt like he had his
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: narrative set in stone.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: We emailed Holscher and McCullough to ask if they believed
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: it or were purposely deceiving people. They didn't answer us.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: There is a profit motive behind a bunch of the
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: disinformation Holscher and McCullough push on Focal Points. For one,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: they have subscribers to the newsletter, nearly 140,000 of them,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: some portion of those paid. But more important, McCullough and
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: Holscher are involved in a for-profit company called the Wellness Company,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: which sells certain prescription drugs and other medical products online.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: And on the Substack, they're like encouraging people to go
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: buy stuff from the wellness company?
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: They do talk about.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: Their products, provide links to it, and they have put
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: up stuff that we would consider, frankly, just advertising for
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: the wellness company. It might be kind of couched in
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: an article that's about like, you know, if they're talking
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: about ivermectin, they probably will insert, by the way, you
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: can go buy it.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: Here and link out to the wellness company site.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: Which, of course, sells ivermectin. Any sense of how much
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: money they're making?
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: For them, no. We don't know exactly how much money
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: they pull in. But, you know, you can look at
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: their website and see they're selling drugs that are, you know,
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: generic drugs that probably cost, you know, cents to produce
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: at this point. Things like ivermectin. And they're selling them
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: for hundreds of dollars. So I would imagine, well, I
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: can't put a round number on it. Their margins are
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: extremely high.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: But here's the interesting thing about the shoddy sunscreen claim.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Holscher and McCullough don't appear to be leveraging that to
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: sell any specific product. It's not like ivermectin, where they're
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: claiming falsely that it cures cancer and then directing people
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: to go buy it from their website. I didn't see
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: any skin cancer or sun-related products on that they might
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: be trying to trick people into paying them for. They're
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: not selling hats or rash guards. In fact, Holscher doesn't
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: tell people to swear off sunscreen totally. He writes, He
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: suggests mineral sunscreens for long sun exposure. Quote, John says,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: In his near decade covering health disinformation, this actually tracks.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: I think there's sometimes a misconception that health misinformation like
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: this always has to be based on, for one, a
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: consistent agenda that doesn't contradict itself or that it's selling something.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: And in this case, it's not doing either of those things.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: It's really just about, seems to be just about contrarianism.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: That whatever mainstream medical science says, whatever health authorities say,
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: people like Nicholas Holzer have to have a counter-narrative. They
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: have to say, no, they're lying to you. And this
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: is the real secret truth that you're being let in on.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: They are trying to keep that audience engaged with them
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: that is expecting to hear a alternative view on everything
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: that comes out of mainstream medicine and mainstream news. The
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: misinformation itself is the product. That's John Gregory at NewsGuard.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: Since we're on the topic, a few quick tips for
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: proper sunscreen application from the American Academy of Dermatology. For adults,
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: use a broad-spectrum formula, at least SPF 30, on all
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: exposed skin, 15 minutes before you head into the sun.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: Most adults need to use at least one ounce, a
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: shot glass, for all skin that's not covered by clothing.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: Not as much as I thought, but that's why I'm
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: not a dermatologist. The American Academy of Dermatology also says
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: make sure to reapply every two weeks. hours or after
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: swimming or sweating. If you found this episode edifying, please
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: send it to a friend. And if you're new here,
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: go check out our recent episodes about chatbots and conspiracy theorists,
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: Ashley St. Clair, Meta, and also our two-parter from earlier
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: this year about deported journalist Mario Guevara. Another request, please
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: follow Question Everything wherever you get your podcasts. It helps
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: us reach more people who should hear the reporting we're doing.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: And follow us on Instagram at questioneverything.podcast. Today's show was
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: produced by Sam Egan and edited by Jen Kinney. Robin
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: Simeon and I are the executive producers of Question Everything.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: Our team also includes producer Zach St. Louis, managing editor
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: Kevin Sullivan, contributing editor Neil Drumming, and associate producer Kevin Shepard.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: This episode was fact-checked by Annika Robbins, mixing and sound
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: design by Brendan Baker. Our music is by Matt McGinley.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: Abby Kwong manages our social media. Special thanks to Dana Chivas.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: Our partners at KCRW include Arnie Seipel, Tejal Ajmera, Natalie Hill,
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: and Jennifer Farrow.
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: We'll see you next time.