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Environmental medicine takes center stage in San Antonio · Cultural Wars | America Out Loud News

0:08
Hard hitting medical truth, cutting through conflict and confusion to the understanding you're searching for.
0:15
Join Dr.
0:16
Peter McCullough, world renowned medical expert and practicing physician for this edition of the McCullough Report.
0:24
Your life may depend on it.
0:30
This is the following returns.
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I'm Dr.
0:31
Peter McCullough, your host.
0:32
I have two stories to quickly go over before we move into the main part of our program.
0:38
And they're two positive stories on two different fronts.
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The first is that Texas AM will end its women's studies due to new policy on race and gender topics.
0:50
So Texas AM is ending its women's and gender studies program, changing the syllabi of hundreds of courses canceling six classes as part of a new policy that limits how professors can discuss some race and gender topics.
1:04
This was largely known to be a pro LGBT transgender curriculum.
1:11
And the indications here are that uh that this is changing after a viral video of a student confronting an instructor over her lessons through Texas AM, one of the largest universities into upheaval.
1:26
The University officials trying to reassure the campus that uh the impacts of the new policy would be uh minimal.
1:33
And the statement from the uh interim president, and by the way, the university president lost his job last fall.
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The interim president Tommy Williams said strong oversight and standards, protect academic integrity, and restore public trust, guaranteeing that a degree from Texas AM means something for our students and the people who will hire them.
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Um that has been our focus through this process will remain it uh moving forward.
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Now there's a counter uh statement made by Leonard Bright, the president of the American Association of University Professors, Texas In that chapter.
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Listen to this.
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They have reduced this marketplace of ideas to now emphasizing and promoting a certain view when it comes to race, gender, and sexuality.
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That view is quite literally erasing the experiences of people of color, LGBTQ community.
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Well, you know, here we go.
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Uh Friday's announcement uh followed an extensive review by the University's 5500 courses after Texas Anna Assistant Regents in November had approved uh this new policy.
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One of the reasons why they said they canceled these courses uh is that they were so poorly attended and not popular.
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Uh there's a low interest in trying to learn about sexual fantasies and gender change uh and other uh bizarre delusional ideology.
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So I can tell you, as a former Texas AM professor, I can say good riddance, and I'm glad they made this move.
3:02
Now another piece of bright news just came out, and that is uh opioid overdose deaths in the United States have fallen significantly for at least 22 consecutive months as of early 2026.
3:18
So that means the last year of the Biden administration, first year of the Trump administration, marking the first major sustained decline over two decades of the crisis, according to CDC provisional data.
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Now overdose deaths, the majority of which involve fentanyl dropped approximately 21% to 27% in the uh 12-month period ending 2025 compared to the previous year.
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Now, uh here are the key data, the historic decline represents one of the steepest and longest, with death dropping from a peak of nearly 11,000 in 2022 to an estimated 73,000 in the 12 month period ending 2025.
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Now there's certainly regional variations and notable declines in places like Ohio and Virginia.
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Um however, some Western states, including Arizona and Washington have had smaller reductions.
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There's a demographic shift.
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Drug deaths among people under 35 have plummeted, with a roughly 40% reduction in that group.
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Uh there's a there's um some indications on what are the drivers behind the decline supply changes.
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So there's a fentanyl drought, a significant decrease in the potency and purity of fentanyl in the illicit supply.
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Uh there is uh, you know, increased decreased harm reduction, so greater availability of naloxone or not canter reverse overdoses.
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Uh, there's access to treatment for drug addictions, and the drug treatments are buprenorphine and methadone, uh reduced user population.
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Uh sadly, a lot of high-risk users have died, and there's fewer using it.
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And then there's shrinkflation of drugs.
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Some evidence suggests that traffickers are altering the mixtures to become less immediately lethal.
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You know, this the article that I am citing that came out in AP News doesn't uh discuss at all changes in terms of the border.
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But we have had a much better control over illegal immigration at the border and potentially reduction in drug trafficking as well.
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The uh U.S.
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actions in Venezuela were aggressive, although Venezuela's not a major supplier of fentanyl or listed drugs.
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A major supplier is Mexico and Colombia.
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But it may be that drug traffickers are seeing what's happening and are making the wise decision to not bring their illicit drugs to the United States.
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So for all those reasons, it's great to see drug deaths, overdose deaths go down.
5:52
It's great to see some delusional gender ideology literally get out of a major university, and hopefully we're getting back to some degree of medical sanity.
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Now, the second half of the program is going to be a long format interview with Barry Staltzer.
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Barry is, I think, probably one of the smartest physician assistants I've ever met.
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He's very intelligent.
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He is a leader in the field of environmental medicine.
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He's going to introduce us to environmental medicine and then give us an invitation to uh attend uh in viral 2026, which is their marquee meeting in San Antonio, Texas.
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You're going to hear all about it.
6:30
I'll you I will be there.
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So uh any of you want to come meet me and ask questions or just uh engage in fellowship.
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I'd be delighted.
6:38
I will be in San Antonio for that five-day span.
6:42
So let's get real.
6:43
Let's get loud on America at Loud Talk News.
6:45
This is McCullough Report, and I'm Dr.
6:47
Peter McCullough, your host.
6:49
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I'm so excited to have on the program today, giving you a great view of an entire field of medicine, an upcoming conference, Barry Smeltzer.
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Barry is a leader.
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He's actually one of the you know founding elements of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine.
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Barry, welcome to the program.
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Thank you so much for this opportunity, Dr.
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McCullough.
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And I really appreciate your time and what you're doing with focal points.
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It's an incredible medium, and it brings such truth to so many.
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What is AAEM?
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It's all over social media.
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It looks kind of hot.
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Uh it's a it's a field in medicine that's actually been around for decades.
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And uh, you know, you are a dedicated professional in this area of environmental medicine.
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So tell the audience a bit about yourself and and how you got into this.
11:36
Yeah, thank you so much.
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The American Academy of Environmental Medicine.
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What people don't realize is that functional medicine wasn't always functional medicine.
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Way before that it was called integrative or complementary or alternative.
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Well, way before any of that was even a thing.
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A group of allergists had gotten fed up with what allergy uh allergist specialty was, and they actually spun off and created the American Academy of Environmental Medicine.
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This was 1965, if you can believe it.
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So this is actually going to be our 60th anniversary conference coming up in uh in March in San Antonio.
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So the environmental American Academy of Environmental Medicine is dedicated to addressing environmentally induced illness.
12:36
Well, back in the 1960s, they were talking, they were the first to bring up that smoking might actually be an issue.
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They were the ones that were bringing up, and they were the ones that were you know, kind of stouting from the rooftops that spraying pesticides on everything actually has consequential, consequential uh problems with it, and you can see this history of environmental medicine, that evolution has come even before the academy was created, but since then the goal has always been to not only bring awareness, but the more important part is to train practitioners into the understanding that everything affects everything, and what we mean by that is you have exposures every single day that your body has to either detoxify, tolerate, or utilize, and if those things get mixed up, you can have things that you should be tolerating that you're fighting.
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You have things that you should be utilizing that you're not really even uh absorbing or utilizing, and there's things that are toxic to you that the body might try to say, Oh, well, let's just tolerate that.
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That miscommunication creates chronic inflammation.
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That chronic inflammation leads to autoimmune inflammation.
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Well, fast forward to 2020s, we now have everyday exposures in everything that we eat, drink, and breathe.
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So the fact that there are so many different exposures and so many different things that our body has to deal with that it no longer can differentiate what is self-not self.
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It can't differentiate what's infection versus just a normal bacteria, you know, or something that is dormant.
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So that leads to a huge increase in inflammation.
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Well, that inflammation creates a downstream effects that leads to disease.
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Well, that's something that the AAM has been talking about for decades.
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And what has happened over the last five years with the coronavirus epidemic and all of the things that were not normal, it is its own different kind of exposure because it's not a natural virus.
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So that increased the level of autoimmune inflammation in so many people.
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Well, the AAM has been teaching practitioners that it matters, not that it got infected, but what the body has been doing because of that, not normal novel infection, is now created what you have done so much work on, and that is the loss of tolerance and that spike protein creating havoc in that immune response, and therefore now creates this you know wildfire of inflammation with no real target because it's not recognizing it for what it really is, and that's why reducing all of that.
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So it's just part of what we're talking about, and that's just an example of what environmental medicine, the specialty itself really does.
16:11
Right.
16:11
So it's clearly a very complex field, but you said conceptually, I think something very important.
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We can start out with an allergic response to something.
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Let's say we're exposed to some type of antigen, um, you know, ragweed or pollen or um, you know, mold.
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And a big one is mold.
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Right.
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So we get an allergic response to this, but the allergic response can be vigorous enough to actually damage some cells or tissues, change expression of cell surface proteins, and then the body recognizes itself as foreign and starts an autoimmune cascade.
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So allergy can lead to autoimmunity, and I think that's really really key concept.
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And I'm glad you hit on this.
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Now, you're you yourself are professionally on the front lines of environmental medicine.
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Tell us about that.
17:12
Thank you.
17:12
Yeah, you you hit it exactly right.
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That's that that portion of what we can we discuss as far as molecular mimicry, and that loss of ability to differentiate because those protein structures are so similar, the immune system starts to actually see it as a signal or as a foe and starts to react to it.
17:36
Now, uh, as far as I'm concerned, my practice is based out of Austin and San Antonio, so same same stage as you, Dr.
17:44
McCullough, uh called cleaning provisions.
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I got into this not because I wanted to, not because it was something I was looking forward to.
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It was because of like so many of us.
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I had a personal stake in it, and that was my son Nick.
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So when we started in looking into this, it truly was trial by fire because my son was vaccine injured back in 2008 and 2009.
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So we're talking way long time ago, and before all of this kind of became a thing.
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Well, he lost all of his speech, he lost all of his eye contact, so he fell into moderate to severe autism.
18:26
Well, I was working in orthopedics.
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I had no idea of any of this, but my wife was not having that this was just a disability that he all of a sudden caught.
18:38
Oh boy.
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We also had problems that people weren't talking about, and this is why we so are so passionate about teaching practitioners, teaching doctors.
18:48
It's because the same thing happened to us.
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I wasn't taught any of this, but my wife was asking really good questions of the developmental pediatrician.
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Like, yeah, he may have this disease or this disability or this diagnosis, but he poops once a week.
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He eats five foods.
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He, you know, is drooling out the side of his mouth.
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He has allergic shiners, you know, pale.
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Like this doesn't look like a healthy child.
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The developmental pediatrician said, Yeah, but he fits the criteria for autism.
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So they literally said the best thing you can do is get him into therapy, probably get your affairs in order.
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And again, this was 2008-2009, and then he'll probably end up in a group home.
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Oh no.
19:35
So it wasn't me that initiated this.
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It was my wife who said that's not okay.
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That's not the truth.
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So she went and started doing the research.
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She's the one who started saying there is something going on here, and she forced me to say this is not just what they're saying it is.
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And that's when we started finding out that he had massive.
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gut issues he had in you know intestinal dysbiosis he had permeability issues he ended up having a chronic inflammatory response to exposures both heavy metal chemical you know different things that his immune system was just overreacting to he had titers to different vaccination um uh titers to things that he had been vaccinated against that were 10 that are over a thousand times greater than what they were actually considered immune so to say that that's just a robust reaction is completely false that is an autoimmune inflammatory response that is creating this storm of inflammation well unfortunately it was attacking his brain oh my I'm happy to say mostly because of what my wife insisted upon the interventions that we did the dietary change the supplementation the the um different medications that were more medical food based he went four years of healing and didn't qualify to be on the spectrum at age uh he was probably six or seven now my gosh things yeah so this is possible and that's once you have that how do you not make that your career how do you not make that your passion right that's when we opened up healing provisions and healing provisions when we started was truly just seeing children on the spectrum but I'll tell you Dr.
21:31
McCullough there are no more difficult complex sensitive patients than pay than children on the spectrum because it's veterinary medicine first of all they can tell you nothing they react to everything.
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In other words you could have an inactive ingredient from a supplement or a medication and the actual active ingredient works but because they can't tolerate the inactive ingredient they have a horrible reaction it's there's so many factors and it's so multi-systemic that you have to cast a very wide net well that got me doing a very complex workup on a lot of these kids and that's when I got introduced into environmental medicine because the biomedical side was looking at the nutrient deficiencies the you know microbiome the heavy metal toxicity but what was key was understanding the reactivity and the tolerance that lack of tolerance because of that degradation of the body's regulatory system that everything now became the enemy and that's what environmental medicine training taught me was that I now not only could correct the deficiencies get him absorbing get him utilizing better but I had to address the intolerance of his own body to what was supposed to be helping him and we did that through low dose allergen therapy low dose immunotherapy um low dose naltrexone different things and then from a nutrient facility we actually started using food as his medicine and you know that's where we get into all sorts of different things that really you know most people will be like what are you talking about you know because I utilize you know different food like camel's milk as medicine and it has so many different healing properties to it that we could have an entire hour talking about it but just know that those are the types of things that even though this would be considered an alternative or complimentary I tell you I have done orthopedic surgery I have done emergency medicine I have done liver transplants and by far this is some of the most detailed rewarding work I've ever done wow yeah it's so so fantastic now you're a physician assistant you make your independent medical judgments uh prescribe medications other interventions and then you're supervised uh by a doctor um you know to oversee things but he's not there with you directly so which which is in Texas that's you know you know the standard practice so yeah I want everybody to know that Barry Smelzer is the real deal he's seeing patients every day uh it sounds like you and your wife Linda just tremendous uh you essentially took your child whose destiny was going to be a group home permanently impaired with profound autism or a phenotype like autism and now he's uh he's a teenager right yeah he's 19 um he graduated from high school he's you know getting getting working he's talking about doing actually trade school he's talking about so uh there's there's all sorts of opportunities and independence for him it really is now just treating him as a teenager and all the struggles that come with it now and you mentioned now through this these methods these environmental medicine methods that he now is tolerant to things that he's not around as a as a as a reactionary entity to to all because we do get exposed to all these uh uh antigens that now he can tolerate them yeah and it's it's an ongoing thing you know it's dynamic there there's you gotta remember we the the exposures don't go away you know we always have to be vigilant and he's a teenager so he's not always going to do as we asked and that's okay that's where the tolerance does play a role and that's where they all are able to tolerate things that maybe aren't perfect because we just don't live in a perfect world and I think that's actually counterproductive when we try but you have to build up that resilience and that's where you know it ebbs and flows but it's nothing like the the bar has been raised to such a degree that you don't have to be concerned about his independence or his future or that his that inflammation is going to take over and render him unf not functional.
26:09
Well you know I wonder Barry if if he would have born been born into a different family a different socioeconomic status uh you know parents who are cash strapped who are are working all the time or just had him go into daycare things like that.
26:25
I just wonder what his trajectory would have been you know and it's really I mean again I see this every day and um it's it's evolving as we talk as well but the what's really interesting is I don't see as much of it being from a socioeconomic as far as the willingness of parents to do whatever it takes I have a feeling actually the biggest barrier is the uh collective dissonance and the collective ignorance that they just can't get around that this isn't just a disability or that they have to change their own lifestyle to heal their child's um you know chronic issues and that's difficult and that is something that takes time it takes uh a little bit of soul searching to say you know what we need to make sure this happens for everybody wow wow you know Leo Canner who uh was the first child psychiatrist to um in a sense characterize uh autism spectrum disorder he's given credit for that it was 11 children and he observed them carefully you know one of them did you know have the the trigger actually at the time was the smallpox vaccine but others obviously you know there was no description of whether or not a vaccine played a role but he did describe this this classic uh development a child being in normal at birth and then uh developing this trajectory you know early in infancy um but one of his observations Barry and this applies to you and Linda uh is that he observed that the parents have autistic children he described them as quote unquote exceptional so I and I appreciate that thank you yeah well I've had a chance to speak at you know autism summit and McCullough foundation put out a very very influential report amazing work you've done I truly appreciate it yeah the determinants of autism spectrum disorder and you know we believe we sent it to the White House to HHS Robert F.
28:31
Kennedy C C D C we believe it actually tipped the scales within about three weeks the CDC changed its position on vaccines and autism on his website within 90 days Trump orders Jim O'Neal Trump and O'Neill not being medical people just trim the schedule and so uh you know we believe this kind of external position of of examining the evidence investigative scholarship and then fair presentation of this in the media just like you and I are fairly presenting things really does turn the type activism uh uh plays a role in raising public awareness and it was all of this uh welling up over decades that that have led us to kind of a new vista just on vaccines but um the whole field of environmental medicine involves so many aspects of um uh of care so let's go through some of these uh academy firsts uh many listening are gonna actually attend with us to San Antonio at the JW Marriott we're talking March uh 12th through the 15th um but talk to us about these firsts of the academy well you can see on there Dr.
29:48
McCallow you looking at especially on what would be the you know uh serial dilution endpoint titration sub legal a lot of it was very focused on that immune
30:00
Dysregulation because the founding fathers, obviously, of the academy were all allergists.
30:05
So the whole purpose of what they felt was not working in their own specialty was this inability for allergists to not look beyond IgE.
30:17
So we started to understand, I shouldn't say we they started to understand that this goes beyond IgE and can actually be IgG mediated.
30:28
So they were utilizing different techniques to actually turn on and turn off that late delayed reaction that would also then work on that T cell to then bring down the IgE reactivity as well.
30:44
Now there's other things, the um immunotherapies, but then they really started to be very interested in how food was making such a difference in all the other reactions that they were having.
30:58
So that's when they started looking at food allergy and addiction because food was actually creating addiction.
31:04
Well, as we evolved and understood more, we started realizing that there were actually opioid-like components to different foods if they weren't fully broken down.
31:15
That's why gluten and dairy can be such a problem, because if you don't fully break it down, you can actually have a molecule that looks almost identical to morphine, and it's called gesomorphin or gliadomorphine.
31:31
And that can be measured actually.
31:32
And that's been done in autism many times, and that's been proven.
31:37
So there's literature showing that that can happen.
31:40
Well, if that's the case, then that then becomes a drug.
31:45
So you can see that, and that's why we started talking more about this rotary diversified diet, so that understanding that if you had diversity and rotation, you had less of that intolerance because you weren't overloading the body's ability to tolerate it.
32:01
So another big first for the academy was chemical sensitivity.
32:06
So many people were not aware, but yet couldn't tolerate being in many environments.
32:15
Like an example is there would be a person that would go into the mall in the 80s, and every single time they would go into a department store, they would get a raging headache, and they don't realize that they were walking through the perfume aisle, and they all the different scents were triggering a hypersensitivity.
32:33
They weren't allergic to the perfume, but it was triggering an inflammatory response, which then spilled over their ability to tolerate what they were in their environment, and that goes to the total load phenomenon.
32:48
That is not ever just the one exposure, it's the culmination of all the exposures, whether the body can actually either tolerate, detoxify, or utilize all the things that the body is now having to deal with.
33:04
That's the burden side.
33:06
And what we describe that is as kind of the bucket theory.
33:09
We all have a bucket, and that bucket can do because we can tolerate things that are actually toxic to us.
33:15
We have detoxification systems, you know, whether it be gut related, whether it be cellular, whether it be immune related, there's things you know, within the liver.
33:24
We have detoxification systems inherent in our body.
33:28
But if they get overloaded, you have either an acute you know toxic exposure, or what's not talked about as much is chronic toxic load.
33:40
And that total load doesn't just affect you from you are poisoned, it actually affects how your body tolerates other things.
33:50
So that gets into it.
33:51
So then we started talking about you know, reducing exposure, reducing different chemicals, and that's why we are we have different position papers out on you know different exposures, whether it be mold, chemicals, um, you know, preservatives, things like that.
34:08
But also another thing that we just came out of and re-redone over this last year was electromagnetic field, so EMF exposure, which can also be another thing that fills that bucket.
34:22
So then we started talking about how do we get the bucket to empty more efficiently.
34:28
So we started talking about different ways, like sauna, because sweating is an excellent means of eliminating toxic toxic load, especially things like mold and chemicals.
34:41
Um, hepatic detoxification enhancement, so increasing the body's ability, glutathione, and acetyl cysteine, glucronidation, all of those things, but then talking about yeast, because yeast can affect not only your absorption of your nutrients, but it actually releases different metabolites that actually affect your body's ability to function at a high level.
35:05
That's why people who have a lot of yeast overgrowth tend to have brain fog, tend to not be able to concentrate.
35:11
So then they end up with depression or anxiety because they can't function, but yet then they're being told that it's a medical, it's a psychiatric condition.
35:21
So we've been able to reverse that overload of yeast or bacteria in the gut, and that gut-brain connection actually clears up, and these people are functional.
35:33
So there's so many different fields, but it isn't just the applying to children, it's applying to adults, it's applying to really everybody, and that's what we're teaching, and that's what we're talking about in this this coming March in San Antonio.
35:50
That's when we have our annual conference, and we're having this, you know, big celebration, and you are a part of it, and we can't wait because this is the training that we feel that every practitioner needs to go beyond just what we would call functional medicine to truly address all of the different exposures that our bodies deal with on a daily basis.
36:15
Well, Barry, let me uh just uh stop here.
36:18
We're gonna come we're coming up on a break for our commercial sponsors, but you know, you've with great alacrity uh walked us through this slide.
36:26
But can you just explain these last two uh abbreviations, uh, acronyms at the bottom, CFID and FMS?
36:34
Yep.
36:34
So chronic fatigue inflammatory uh dysfunction is has to do with people, and then the other one is fibromyalgia syndrome.
36:45
These are two of the most misunderstood diagnoses in our medical system because chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia are diagnosed by exclusion, and what that means is that they have looked at all of the so-called organic medical reasons for this person to not be able to sustain function for any period of time or to have chronic pain for any for but no real discernible reason.
37:16
And so they look at the MRIs, they do the basic metabolic workup, they'll do the EMGs, they'll do EEGs, and they won't be able to find anything that is classically causing their so-called pain.
37:30
So what ends up happening is they get referred to a psychiatrist to address the mental side and the psychiatric side of what they're dealing with.
37:39
What we have done in the AAEM is we have dug deeper.
37:44
We have uncovered, we peeled back those layers, and what we have found has been astonishing.
37:50
We have found everything from heavy metal toxicity, you know, chemical mold toxicity, intolerances.
37:59
We have found chronic infections like Lyme, um, mycoplasma, bacterial, Epstein bar, these are things that the body has never fully actually gotten rid of.
38:11
So it's this simmering burn that's constantly going on, and eventually it ends up affecting different systems differently.
38:19
And for these patients, it affects them neurologically, and it starts turning their pain receptors on high alert.
38:28
So they now become hypersensitized to multiple stimulus stimuli.
38:33
Well, that creates a drain on their energy store, so they have no ability to function at any level because their batteries are getting drained by this chronic pain and fatigue on a daily basis.
38:47
But if you don't start putting back those layers, you will never look.
38:52
Yeah, that was such a great explanation.
38:54
I've never heard such an insightful, you know, exploration, uh you know, explanation of chronic fatigue syndrome.
39:03
That was brilliant.
39:04
I think the message to patients out there uh is that while so many doctors want to ignore uh chronic fatigue syndrome, uh, or they they just want to pretend it doesn't exist, it's a real syndrome and specialists in environmental medicine, the type of doctors and healthcare practitioners that attend the American Academy of Environmental Medicine, they are interested in this syndrome.
39:28
They do have expertise and they certainly can help people with this syndrome.
39:32
So we're talking to Barry Svelser, he is uh an expert in environmental medicine, he's a physician assistant, probably the brightest physician assistant I've ever met in my career.
39:42
And uh on the back side of the show, we're gonna highlight the upcoming conference and viral med 2026 in San Antonio.
39:51
It's gonna be at the JW Marriott March uh 12th through 15th.
39:56
But we're gonna go through the agenda and and the pre conference.
40:00
Sessions because some of you may want to attend them.
40:02
I'm going to attend one myself.
40:03
So I'll be there.
40:04
You're listening to the McCullough report.
40:06
Let's get real.
40:07
Let's get loud on America Loud Talk Radio.
40:10
This is the McCullough report and focal points substack.
40:13
We'll pause right here.
40:17
Let's get real.
40:18
Let's get loud on America Loud Talk News.
40:20
This is a McCullough report.
40:22
And focal points, Substack.
40:24
We're having probably, I think, the most helpful interview I think I've ever had on Substack with Barry Smelzer.
40:32
Barry's in practice as an independent physician assistant in San Antonio, Texas.
40:37
He's the executive leader of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine, AAEM.
40:44
That's an academy that I've joined.
40:46
And I hope all of you are interested in this area.
40:49
Those of you in the health freedom world, naturopathic doctors, uh allopathic physicians who are starting to look at things differently and other practitioners consider joining the academy and importantly, joining us in San Antonio because that's the time myself.
41:09
Joe is a former uh assistant professor at UCLA.
41:13
I was a full professor of medicine at multiple medical schools.
41:16
Uh, we have some big time heavy hitting academic physicians, but also practitioners who are innovative.
41:23
I've been enjoying some of the preview videos that are out on social media.
41:28
So follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter.
41:31
I'll put all the links uh in the notes of this show.
41:34
Now, Barry, let me get to the um agenda of the meeting here.
41:40
So I'm gonna have to navigate back to the top, you'll be able to go right to the there you go.
41:48
Environment.
41:49
Okay, let's go and uh here it is environment 2026, March 11th through 14th, because the 11th is the pre-conference.
41:58
Yeah, so let's go through the two pre-conferences that are available to us here.
42:04
Well, we're so excited about these pre-conferences, Dr.
42:07
Merculla.
42:08
This is the first time that our pre-conference workshop not only gives you a certification in one, but two separate game-changing immunotherapies that are not only safe, but they actually address not only allergy, but that immune intolerance we've been talking about from not a desensitization or a uh suppression, but actually a proliferation of the regulatory side of the immune response that has been so neglected, unless they start talking about it in cancer that the cancer starts to corrupt that regulatory side and starts to make it immune so we can't see the cancer.
42:55
But this is actually addressing it from a lack of regulation, which then allows the immune system to overreact.
43:04
So, what we're doing with both low dose allergen and low dose immunotherapy is they are two separate modalities that hit things from a little bit of a different perspective by addressing the regulatory side of the immune system.
43:19
And I can tell you from personal experience, and I help teach this course that has been the number one most impactful modality that I have had for my practice in a sense of addressing that inability of the body to tolerate its own environment, which then turns into chronic inflammation and autoimmunity.
43:42
So it's something that if if you have any interest in starting a very simple, very useful modality that can be a that can be utilized in any practice.
43:52
This pre-conference workshop is a game changer.
43:55
Wow, you actually get certified here.
43:58
This is important to, you know, I know at the wellness company where I'm the chief scientific officer.
44:03
This is something we're talking about at our chief medical board very seriously uh about the this big advance of a low-dose allergen and low-dose immunotherapy.
44:13
In a sense, putting control back on the system so it doesn't react to these um in many times ubiquitous antigens in the environment.
44:25
Yeah, it's been related to turning the traffic lights back on.
44:28
There you go.
44:29
Well, you know, I'm new to environmental medicine.
44:32
I'm an allopathic doctor.
44:33
I had certainly trained in medicine and cardiology, maintain my certifications.
44:39
And um, you know, in the last six years, really uh dedicated myself to becoming an expert in the in the pandemic.
44:48
So I want to start out with the introduction to environmental medicine.
44:53
So this is what I signed up for, Barry.
44:55
Yeah, tell us a bit about this one.
44:58
This is something that we have brought on by popular demand.
45:02
We have so many people who come to our conference and they feel like they are thrown into the deep end because we have experts in all these different areas talking about these complex situations.
45:18
And a lot of the people that are attending kind of look at us, say, this is great, but where do I start?
45:25
How do I take a true environment, environmental medicine history?
45:30
How do I learn about these different exposures versus just infections?
45:35
So what we came up with is an introduction into environmental medicine, but it's not just an introduction, it is a comprehensive overview of what environmental medicine truly is, how to utilize it effectively and how to incorporate it into your practice.
45:53
But what we've done is we've created this kind of introduction, but it's really a foundation.
45:59
It's a foundation of environmental medicine that you understand to be able to utilize, then what that does is you can use that as you know, kind of something that you can incorporate into your practice, incorporate into seeing you know, certain patient populations for sure.
46:17
And I think it applies to everybody, but I'm biased because I love it and I've been such a fan of it for so long.
46:24
But the key to this is that if it sparks a passion, it sparks a need for more.
46:33
This pre-conference workshop is actually the first module of our pathway to fellowship.
46:39
What?
46:39
And this is something that the academy has had over the decades, but we're revamping into something that is now kind of made for prime time, made for this situation that we're in now where you can't just talk about the immune dysregulation.
46:57
You can't just talk about the allergies anymore.
47:01
We have to start addressing everything affects everything.
47:05
So we now have 12 different modules and you know, go through all the different aspects of environmental medicine and their full courses that are self-paced because we know how busy our practitioners are.
47:20
This isn't academic anymore from a standpoint of being able to just go to a university and go through the year.
47:26
We all are working, we are all having to do this in addition to our practice.
47:31
So the AAEM has been very respectful of that and said, let's make it so that it can be done while you also have to keep your practice going.
47:42
So we have made it self-paced.
47:44
We get a you know, a new module gets released to the to the practitioner every month, but that's just part of it, and that's something that we will be doing more and more information on.
47:54
Definitely follow us on Instagram and Facebook.
47:58
Definitely follow Dr.
47:59
Mercola because he's gonna have information on there about our pathway to fellowship and what that entails, because that's gonna be not just from the conference itself, but that's gonna be going forward to make you a specialist in environmental medicine and actually earn that fellowship title so that you too can be what we've been preaching for so long is that we need more practitioners that understand this level of what the body is going through so that we can help more and more people.
48:32
But to be honest, Dr.
48:33
McCullough, we need to teach more.
48:35
And it's not just the practitioners, we need to be able to teach our patients what they're dealing with so that they can make the necessary corrections and empower them to heal themselves versus us, they come to us, we just give them a pill and they go.
48:51
That type of medicine, as you are so well aware of at this point, is not happening anymore.
48:58
Yeah, well, it's certainly not, it's certainly not uh working anymore.
49:03
Yeah, it's not helpful to the patient or to the community.
49:06
So I'm so excited.
49:07
What I do very is I went ahead and joined as a member of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine.
49:13
So I got the reduced rate.
49:15
And uh, you know, I want to emphasize this is such a structured legitimate pathway to a fellowship certification.
49:25
And in this time where so many people in the medical freedom uh community have not felt welcome by so many of the traditional organizations who, in a sense, are very much ignoring this entire field.
49:38
Um, yeah, this will be the second time I've attended the conference, and I can tell you, every seat is packed.
49:45
People are serious.
49:46
The interchanges are meaningful.
49:49
I I agree with your comment, Barry.
49:50
That um, when I went, I felt overwhelmed because this wasn't my area, and that's the reason why I decided to start out uh here and I'm
50:00
Glad you you recognize that because if you're not in the field, um it's overwhelming.
50:06
So uh physicians, nurse practitioners, yeah.
50:09
This is the other thing too, Dr.
50:10
Mercola.
50:11
I've never been a part of an organization that has ever been so welcoming and inclusive.
50:16
We have all different kinds of practitioners.
50:20
We have all different types of of um specialties.
50:24
You know, these people are coming from uh everything from immunology to rheumatology, allergy, cardiology, internal medicine.
50:33
They're all coming because this specialty encompasses everything.
50:38
It just gives you a fresh perspective to allow you to then revisit some of these hard cases and see it with such a fresh set of eyes that it opens up all sorts of options and possibilities that have been so meaningful to moving them forward.
50:56
Fantastic, absolutely terrific.
50:59
There's myself and Surgeon General Joel Ladapo.
51:03
Um there again.
51:08
You are in a such a dynamic speaker.
51:10
Everybody needs to sit and watch.
51:12
Well, you know, terrific faculty.
51:14
We don't have time to go through all the the faculty member members, you'll you'll recognize some of these uh names, but uh the schedule um after you know the first day, Wednesday, which is the pre-conference meeting.
51:27
So you know, you I'm sure they'll be in two separate rooms.
51:30
Yeah, then we move into the the major sessions on Thursday, March 12th, and you can see that there.
51:38
Yeah, we've got everything from um Dr.
51:41
Amy Offitt, who is actually the president of the International Lyme and Associated Diseases uh Academy.
51:48
Uh, we have Dr.
51:49
Elena Villanueva, who's talking about specifically different detox solutions.
51:54
Um, know Dr.
51:59
Bojani, he's a pioneer when it comes to immunology and testing.
52:03
So, I mean, just just great, excellent speakers, Dr.
52:07
O'Brien talking about different autoimmunity in the blood brain very soon.
52:11
We're really digging into what triggers this chronic disease epidemic.
52:17
Right.
52:18
Barry, I want to emphasize that one of the challenges in this whole field is the complexity of the testing of both the blood and urine testing uh and other forms of diagnostic testing.
52:32
So I think what I'm looking for, and a lot of people are looking for is an interpretive framework.
52:38
So when we order a heavy metal screening study or a mold uh toxicity uh you know exposure study, getting an interpretive framework.
52:47
And I think that's what so many of these uh sessions are gonna bring us.
52:52
And and there's no substitute for being there, asking questions, all the curbside discussions at the you know, at the coffee stand.
53:01
Um I know that's how I learn as I talk to an expert.
53:04
Such a huge component is being there, and then that's one thing that we very much pride ourselves on is the community, but also you know, speaking to the testing and the different um, you know, uh exhibitors and sponsors, the wellness company is going to be there.
53:20
I cannot wait to talk more about it from your expertise and your uh staff.
53:26
That's one thing that we handpick all of our vendors and all of our exhibitors because we want them to be bringing their A game.
53:34
So when it comes to these different complex testing, we actually have experts in their field at their different booths so that they can go through specifically what the nuances of their testing is, the nuances of their product, so that it really becomes a useful interaction versus hand me a pamphlet and I walk to the next station.
53:57
We have had so many people come back to us saying the people that were at the booths were so knowledgeable.
54:04
I actually got better by just listening to them talk about what their product or what their testing is actually looking for.
54:12
So it is important.
54:14
So Barry, I wanted to mention and just face the reality here.
54:18
A lot of people will ask the question well, well, what about conflict of interest or you know, what about industry influencing things?
54:26
Well, let me tell you as a doctor, doctors don't make their own supplements or medications, they don't.
54:32
So they actually have to be supplied from somewhere.
54:35
So we actually do need industry partners for supplements, medications, other products.
54:41
And you know, doctors don't do their own in vitro diagnostic testing.
54:45
The laboratory companies have to do that.
54:47
They have to seek various uh certifications and qualifications for the tests and normal ranges.
54:54
So the only way to learn how to do this is actually to interact with these industry experts.
54:59
You know, they have to stand behind their products.
55:01
You know, as a cardiologist, people have always said, well, you know, well, what about conflict of interest in cardiology?
55:07
And and the example I use is cardiac pacemakers.
55:10
So when we put in a cardiac pacemaker in the electrophysiology lab or the operating room, the person in the room who knows the pacemaker the best is the person who works for the pacemaker company.
55:21
Yep.
55:21
The representative who's there with us in the room.
55:24
And orthopedic surgeons will tell you the same thing.
55:27
I was in orthopedics and it's the exact same thing, and you count on their expertise.
55:32
You don't you don't get biased by it.
55:35
You need that expertise because they have that knowledge of knowing the variations of what their product can and can't do, what it's good and not so much useful for.
55:47
So, yeah, so those are all things that we we have great relationships with our with our sponsors and vendors, and it has nothing to do with what you can do for me.
55:56
It is everything is about education.
55:58
Right.
55:59
So, Barry, we're gonna have to wrap it up.
56:00
We only have about 30 seconds left, but my wife's excited to go to the diamond gala.
56:10
It is a semi-formal, it is gonna be a blast.
56:13
We're gonna have music, we're gonna have um appetizers, drinks, it's just gonna be a celebration of what AAEM has been able to accomplish in this time.
56:24
Then on Saturday night, so people don't have to leave empty-handed.
56:28
We got games, we got the Spurs, we're doing amazing this year, and everybody wants to do the river walk.
56:34
We actually created a an event so people can actually do a river cruise.
56:39
Oh, how fun is that?
56:41
So that's absolutely terrific.
56:43
Uh, if you haven't been to San Antonio, you've got to go to Riverwalk.
56:46
In fact, uh, you know, take the cruise.
56:49
People love the San Antonio Spurs.
56:53
We've been talking to Barry Smeltzer.
56:55
He's a physician assistant.
56:56
He's in practice in San Antonio, Texas, and we've comprehensively covered uh the American Academy of Environmental Medicine, Enviromed 2026 conference, March 12th through 15th, San Antonio, Texas.
57:11
I hope everybody listening, you got time to sign up.
57:14
Um, in fact, there's some promotional specials out there on social media.
57:18
Sign up, be there.
57:20
Let's get better educated about this important field.
57:23
It's not going away.
57:25
I can tell you, the patients I see now more and more uh bring these issues up.
57:31
I'm seeking more expertise.
57:32
I want to get smart like Barry Smelzer.
57:35
Barry, thank you so much for being on the program.
57:37
You are amazing, Dr.
57:38
McCullough, and it is just an honor to be here.
57:41
Well, let's get real.
57:42
Let's get loud on America at Loud Talk News.
57:45
This is McCullough Report and Focal Points, Substack.
57:47
I'm Dr.
57:48
Kita McCullough, your host.