Latest / Radically Genuine / 101. The FDA’s prescription for corruption w/ Kim Witczak

Transcript

101. The FDA’s prescription for corruption w/ Kim Witczak · Radically Genuine

• Welcome to the Radically Genuine podcast. I am Dr. Roger McFillin. We are so grateful for all our fans who are listening to this podcast. It continues to grow. If you've noticed, no ads, very clear. We are focused on a, on a mess, on a certain message. It's around medical freedom, informed consent, and certainly investigating all the cultural areas that are impeding our health, impacting our freedom. And I wanna just please ask everybody to continue to hit five star, share the podcast. This allows us to grow and bring attention to issues that I think are becoming more mainstream, but certainly feel like they still are on the fringe. We're trying to bring information to the listening audience, many of which they do not have when they're trying to make important healthcare decisions. And that... Brings us back to one of our favorite guests that we've had since we've started the podcast. I want to welcome Kim Witczak. She's a leading global drug safety advocate and speaker. She became involved in the pharmaceutical drug safety issues after the sudden death of her husband, Woody, due to an undisclosed drug side effect of an antidepressant. We had her on the podcast previously, episode 53 from last September, where she told that story. Please check it out. She co-founded Woody Matters. a nonprofit dedicated to advocating for a stronger FDA and drug safety system. She co-created and organized the International Multidisciplinary Conference Selling Sickness, People Before Profits Conference in Washington, DC. In 2016, she was appointed consumer representative on the FDA Psychopharmacologic Drug Advisory Committee and is on the board of directors of the National Physicians Alliance and MISSD, which is medication induced suicide prevention in memory of Stuart Dolan. She's an active member of the DC based patient consumer and public health coalition, making sure the voice of non-conflicted patients and consumers is represented in healthcare, FDA related legislative issues. This is the focus of today's podcast. We really want to hone in on her expertise. Kim Wizzak, welcome to the Radically Genuine Podcast. Kim Witczak (02:24.338) Thanks for having me back. I'm excited to have another great conversation with you. Kel (02:29.983) Yeah, the first time was, you know, it was kind of fun because we started to poke fun at my brother who was on here and we were talking about, you know, quacking like a duck, kind of like a sheep. But, you know, since then he is now a professional vacationer and he's missing this podcast. He takes the summers off. He's like a, he's like a teacher. Hey, easy. Kim Witczak (02:49.537) I was gonna say I was looking forward to the quack, the duck. Kel (02:55.86) I think like a lot of people globally, as he's become more informed, he's kind of become awakened to a lot of the issues we've all been sleeping on. And you have not been sleeping on them, unfortunately. It's been 20 years in the making for this. I want to start off by reading something from the FDA website. This is describing the FDA. I want to get your thoughts on this. The FDA, an agency within the US Department of Health and Human Services, protects the public health by assuring the safety, effectiveness, and security of human and veterinary drugs, vaccines and other biological products for human use and medical devices. The agency also is responsible for the safety and security of our nation's food supply, cosmetics, dietary supplements, products that give off electronic radiation. and for regulating tobacco products. With your vast experience in this area, is that an accurate representation of the FDA? Kim Witczak (04:00.557) Well, I found as you're reading it to me and listening to it versus reading, the first word I heard was safety. And I found that interesting that is the first word that they put up there is the safety because safety is not the first concern. And I'm not even sure efficacy is as well. I think it is about getting more products to market. And that's really what they do is, you know, that's the step, the hurdle that needs to happen. You know, where I know, obviously, I got involved in this work because of antidepressants, but I also now sit on the FDA advisory committee. And I have to tell you, seeing it from that side of things, safety is always a stepchild. It's not the top priority. And it just seems, you know, we'll see what happens once it gets on the market. But unfortunately, you know, what I've learned through this whole process is... The same people that approve the drugs are also the same people responsible for the safety. And that right there is an inherent conflict of interest, you know, just humanly, like not even talking about, you know, the FDA itself, but, you know, think about it. If you're responsible for something and then you find out it's hurting people or killing people, like as humans, you just, you don't want to admit it. You're going to do everything you can. So like in just in intuitively, that doesn't even make sense to me. So I have to say that I think it's ironic that they call it safety, because that is not my experience and what I've seen in the last 20 years of being the accidental advocate. Kel (05:41.599) And I do really recommend everyone to go back to that previous episode 53 to understand the story. We'll talk more about Woody as this podcast moves forward, but I wanna stay on what you've learned from the FDA approval process, especially when it's around psychiatric drugs. If you're willing here, I wanna be able to play a house and energy commerce clip. which was a six hour hearing on antidepressants in kids. And I'm not aware of the year, I'm thinking it was early 2000s. And I think there's. Kim Witczak (06:12.865) Yeah, it was 2005. Kel (06:16.511) Okay, it's 2005. And I think a lot of this information is going to be shocking to our listening audience. Obviously, it was shocking to me when I became aware of it at a certain point in my career, and this is why I'm so outspoken. But let's take a listen. It's about two minutes, and then we'll let Kim kind of speak to this. Kel (09:02.143) 15 randomized clinical controlled trials, 12 of them showed no efficacy. On behalf of all of us out there, what the fuck? Kim Witczak (09:15.477) Exactly. I have to say it's really hard really listening to that hearing that because remember when that happened, it was so soon after my husband, so I was in the room. I literally showed up to every one of those hearings. And so you know what? People didn't realize most of that was discovered that came out of lawsuits that when company, the lawyers went in and found all of these clinical trials that were sitting in their clinical in their database. in their files. And so as part of lawsuits, they were able to get and make that public, right? Because the FDA only requires, and which is what people don't understand, the FDA only requires when back in the day when we were doing the, you know, gold standard of two double-blinded, you know, control placebo controlled studies. Well, when you have 13, you know, 12 out of the 15, that the efficacy And the ones that they even used as we now are seeing come out all these years later, where the efficacy isn't even that great against placebo. You, I mean, this is something that deserved to have congressional hearings. And I applaud and I worked a lot with that House Energy and Commerce Committee, bringing them documents, helping them, because this is information that, you know, you think about it, our doctors don't have. And then if you, as our doctors, are prescribing these pills and we're listening to the advertising that was out, you know, being heavily promoted at the time, we assume that these drugs that you're giving us are not only safe, as the FDA says, and effective, as the FDA says. So when you find out afterwards, and why is it taking Congress to have this? Like this is the stuff that the FDA... when they did have disinformation as well. They should have been telling the public, but instead they became promoters. And it was hard enough for them to put the warnings on in 2004. And if I have to say back and remind your listeners that the FDA first started looking at links between stuff in 1991. So. Kim Witczak (11:33.789) I think now we're at what, 2023, so it's really, really important that you're showing something that was at the time, my history and my reality, because back in 1991, it wasn't. So thank you for bringing up that clip, because I think that's really important for the public to understand, our doctors to understand, and parents, because prescriptions are rising. out, you know, off the hook right now, off the charts. Kel (12:09.447) Yeah, I think we can probably sit here and say, statistically speaking, that if a teenager or a young person, probably adults as well, but we'll just stay with young people right now, are probably more likely to have an adverse negative effect related to the antidepressant than any meaningful change in depression or anxiety symptoms. And here we are, I'm sure you're aware of this, Lexapro was just recently approved for children as young as seven. with presenting with anxiety, there was a six fold increase in suicidality compared to the placebo group. Let me repeat that again. A six fold increase in suicidality and we're talking about as young as seven years old. They used four outcome measures. Three of the outcome measures, the drug did not outperform placebo. What was the... Conclusion of the authors Lexapro is safe and tolerable for children and adolescents with anxiety Kim this is sociopathic criminal behavior Kim Witczak (13:23.513) Yeah, it's really when you hear this, you're like, you are lying and you're misleading the public. And first of all, like just this idea that we keep medicating when we know without informed consent, like parents aren't being told this information and doctors aren't. And so when you look at even when you start looking, and I'm sure that was in, was that in one of the journals? And then when you start investigating who were the authors. What kind of monies did they get? Was it being ghostwritten? Or even this recent, they reanalyzed, Dr. Healy and Peter Getchy had reanalyzed the original trials and protocols that were used for getting the antidepressants approved in kids. And when you start looking at that, and they didn't even, this information. Oh, so then what you see what the medical journals and how they, you know, wrote about it, it completely conflicts. And so, but you know, our doctors, they read the medical journals. It's so wrong. And they don't even understand about, I mean, don't get me started because now I'm going to go on my whole path of, you know, selling sickness, which is, you know, ghost writing and all the things and the ways that our medical system and our most importantly, our doctors who we trust, who they trust. And so the whole system is built on trust that has failed us and it's intentionally meant to mislead us. Kel (14:58.939) I am starting to lose my patience with the doctors who are making statements that since a drug has met FDA approval, that means it's undergone extensive evaluation and testing and it proves its safety and efficacy. What are the FDA committee members like? Obviously this is an unelected group of individuals. If you can give us some just insight into the character and the nature of FDA committee members and given what we know now, how are they able to bring these drugs to market with such poor safety and efficacy? Kim Witczak (15:40.885) Yeah, well, first of all, the FDA advisory board is a board that is appointed or voted in by the FDA. And their outside experts, they usually, when there's a controversial or a new drug coming, they go before the advisory committee, right? And so even if, and the FDA is not bound by the decision or recommendation of the FDA advisory committee. Now, the people that are on my committee, I am the consumer representative, so I represent the public. And there's also usually some, maybe a patient rep who might have the disease of whatever it is. But the other ones that are on there are academia, researchers, statisticians, you know, you might have a physician, but they're usually somehow aligned with academic institutions. And so I have found when we go in and you know, most of what is happening now, so we were talking about the two, the gold standard of drug approvals. That really isn't even happening anymore. So what's happening now is we're having a lot of breakthrough and accelerated approvals, which means that drugs are getting and coming to everything's an unmet need. So watch that word. It's a buzzword unmet need. Like, you know, one of the ones we just reviewed was Resultee, which is an antipsychotic on the market right now, but it just got FDA approval. for the Alzheimer agitation. And so this is gonna be a big drug knowing that the, and this drug has already been on the market. So it's very interesting, but it's an unmet need, meaning there's no drug approved. And so those advisory board committee members, you know, first of all, I always wanna say, remember when you come from, I've learned something that is pretty important, like academic institutions and understanding how, academia and the researchers. So even if these people, the individuals don't take money from industry, their institutions might, or their careers depend on getting grants from the NIH, these companies that are being reviewed. And even if they don't personally, if their university does, that could actually hurt them in their own career paths. Kim Witczak (18:07.189) So I find that interesting, you know, like for me, I don't have any skin in the game. I mean, I have a lot of skin in the game in that it, you know, these decisions have real life consequences. That's my skin in the game. But my career, my life doesn't depend. So I'm completely independent of the ties, the monies behind industry. And another thing that I think is really interesting to, you know, pay attention and I And I would suggest that everybody at some point go and listen to one of these advisory committee meetings, especially now that everything's on Zoom, because you'll really get an understanding of how the system works and the discussions. Safety is rarely discussed. And if it is, it's discussed in the understanding that it'll probably get caught by a REMS risk, Elimination Mitigation Strategies, which is a FDA program that the companies work with them, which basically says, hey, we're going to look at safety. So everybody assumes safety will be dealt with, even if the safety, if there's maybe some safety there, but we don't know what long-term safety is going to look like. It's a small number of people. And also the other thing with these advisory board committees, I have always said, where is the clinicians? especially like when we're dealing with stuff with kids, where's the pediatrician who's actually in the middle of the country who is actually working with these kids? Not somebody who's sitting inside academia and at that level looking at maybe research or maybe have a few patients. But so these are all things that are in my mind, things that impact the ultimate decisions between what is really safe and effective. And I think- you know, most people will vote efficacy, because you know, we got to give people more tools in the toolbox. And what we people don't necessarily realize is more tools in the toolbox when it doesn't necessarily prove that it works, or that we know what safety is, how is that better for the public and better for patients? More tools in the toolbox, these are not the kind of tools that we should be looking at. Kel (20:34.747) Yeah, we're overseeing a system where we see a dramatic increases in chronic illness obesity cancer we're getting sicker and sicker and I think there's a large percentage of the American population that believes that we live under the beacon of Scientific supremacy and we have the best health care system in the world and so there's this mass conditioning that has I think infected all of us that we believe drugs are our health care. And a lot of these diseases that we accept to be clearly identifiable, discrete illnesses are kind of just conditions they make up so we can prescribe another drug. Kim Witczak (21:20.449) Yeah, absolutely. I like to call that disease awareness campaigns or we create, like I said, unmet need or all of these things. But are they actually diseases or are they results of medications and the side effects of something or is it the way we're living? You know, right now I think it's really interesting because my background, my professional background is advertising and marketing. And so I take on, you know, we have clients and so the way I look at business. So business is always kind of my lens. And so I look back at the beginning of 2023 when the JP Morgan had their first healthcare conference, in-person healthcare conference since the pandemic. And it's out in San Francisco, it's an invite only, it's the finance, the banks, the institutions, Wall Street and the companies. And what did JP Morgan's, their analysts say are the two big categories for healthcare and biotech and all of that is obesity and Alzheimer's. And you look at that and what are we seeing? We're seeing all these new drugs that are surprise, surprise to deal with obesity and Alzheimer's instead of going. Instead, do we ever go, and I actually just did a lecture to a bunch of, they're in the health policy scholar program, and they all live with their own disease, rare disease. They've had disease management since they've been kids. And they asked me, because they were under the assumption that there was research to help actually help people in curing. And I said... Oh, that's interesting that you say that because we're not going upstream and we should be going upstream to actually what is causing these things and what can we do to actually help people. But throwing more pills, more treatments, it's a business model. It is to keep us cradle to grave in the system. And we're seeing that and I have to believe, you know, until I was thrown into this world. Kim Witczak (23:36.713) I have to say I used to believe that too, that we are like one of the, you know, that we are the best country in the world. You know, everybody looks to us. And it wasn't until, which was a big insight, you know, obviously after my husband died, but I was at a conference in Amsterdam in 2010 called Selling Sickness, and it was put on by the Dutch government and attended by people all over the world. talking about different elements of disease mongering, how we keep people, create more customers and using examples of every example was from, every example was from the US and there was only 10 of us from the US. And I remember thinking, why isn't this conversation happening in the US? And I remember asking the, organizers if they would ever do one in the States and they said, no, it's not really their, you know, it's not their place. So ultimately that's what I did in 2013 is brought a conference to talk about these elements of the business model. And I think this is really important because this is the stuff that should actually be taught in med schools. Like what is ghost writing? How is the spider web of influence? really impacting their jobs as doctors. And so if they start learning about it in med school, but you know, we know the whole thing is infiltrated by the money in the system at that level. But I do believe that we need to start educating people and even doctors. But ultimately, I think if we can educate people, we're going to be the ones that are going to save ourselves and bring us back to health. when we start realizing the system has failed us. Kel (25:32.811) I totally agree, especially around saving ourselves. I do think that we have to now reconceptualize health. Health is an issue now of like freedom and liberty, because the sicker we become, the more dependent we become on the medical system, the richer these major institutions become, which can obviously what we've seen post COVID, throughout COVID. is how the medical authority can institute such control over the day-to-day lives of global citizens. I have a concern with physicians in the way they are now trained. I kind of did a deep dive on Substack recently about the medical authority and the type of personality that goes into medicine. And I'm not talking about the surgeon, those who fix us up in the ER. You know, we seem to do that really well. We're broken. You know, there's some excellent doctors that put us together, but we have all these separate other medical specialties, subspecialties that kind of act independent of each other as if the human body is a set of parts and the, you know, it's like a mechanic who specializes only on the brakes. And then you have a, another mechanic that specializes only on the exhaust system. And. They don't always understand how everything is working together and they have their own influence from the pharmaceutical industry. I put out a tweet this week that I think really encapsulates my concerns with the medical authority. And the tweet was quite simple. Please ignore that psychiatric drugs induce violence, mania, suicide, and self-injury in a percentage of users. Ignore how many schools and mass shooters were prescribed multiple-interacting, mind-altering drugs. There's nothing to see here. It's just the guns. That's my tweet, right? Now, obviously my tweets are designed to be provocative, but they're grounded in facts. Here's a, you know, here's facts. This is right from the FDA, and we all kind of agree that it's not like they are the most open about safety and efficacy, but this is 2007. The FDA itself acknowledges the substantial danger posed by SSRIs. Here is the quote. Kim Witczak (27:24.053) Hmm. Kim Witczak (27:33.665) Mm-hmm. Kel (27:50.623) Families and caregivers of patients should be advised to look for the emergence of such symptoms on a day-to-day basis since changes may be abrupt. All patients being treated with antidepressants for any indication should be monitored appropriately and observed closely for clinical worsening, suicidality, and unusual changes in behavior, especially during the initial few months of a course of drug therapy or at times of dose changes, either increases or decreases. The following symptoms, anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, aggressiveness, impulsivity, akathasia are all present, right? That's our own FDA. So what kind of response do I get? I get a response from a prominent child and adolescent psychiatrist from Johns Hopkins. And this is what she writes. And this is somebody who's been trolling me for quite some time. And then when I try to get her on the podcast or call her out publicly, she deletes her entire account. This was her response. This is such dangerous rhetoric from someone with absolutely no medical training. Medications do not, capital N, capital O, capital T, cause violence. This is absolutely false. They do not cause suicide. or self-injurious behaviors. Guns are capital A, capital R, capital E, a public health issue, and absolutely kill people. If a child and adolescent psychiatrist from a prominent academic institution is unaware of these facts and prescribes these drugs to developing young, vulnerable children as if they are medicine. If this person doesn't even know what is happening all around the United States and how did they get to this place of ignorance? Kim Witczak (29:51.045) Well, yeah, it's funny. I remember when that letter was issued, that warning from the FDA, because we were really involved in making sure that all ages were warned about it, right? You know, I'd love to know that I'd love to have that chair or whoever that person is from the academic, because if she actually looked back and understood the history, she would find 1991 when the FDA Kim Witczak (30:20.717) link between Prozac and the emergence of violence and suicide. It was both in 1991. And then if she would have looked even further, when they looked at the advisory committee, every one of those advisory committee members took money from pharma. So of course they all said, Nope, we don't see anything. The FDA, the FDA said we're going to study it. And eventually we got to some of these warnings. But I think right now we have turned into such a system of like, well, that's not true, that's not true. Without going, if the information that they're getting, right, I always say that if this, our work back in 2003, 2004, would have been today, like in the COVID vaccine injury era, with all of the ghosting as well as censorship. I don't think we would have ever gotten anywhere. I mean, it's surprising that we even got what we did because you had to actually show up to things, right? It's really easy now when everything is almost as if, because if you go back, so back then we were able to Google and I actually have to say a lot of good information came up with Google. Now it's being, it can be like things wiped out. Like I never in a million years thought that could happen. So even if somebody was curious, If they were to, which this person doesn't sound like they have any interest in it, because if they were, they would go see it and you could provide all the information. But if they were to go back and Google, if somebody was interested, are things just going to not be there anymore? Thank God I have so much. I always tell people, even in this era today, make copies. I know we don't want to keep the hard copies of paperwork, but I have files and files and files. of data because you can't find it anymore. And at the time I didn't know about keeping it for that reason, but I certainly am glad I have it now. So the system, you know, I don't know when that person graduated, but does she even understand how she's been part of the system? Like, you know, she's been captured. And also, I mean, she seems a little bit more outspoken. But Kim Witczak (32:42.685) even ones that want to say something, I think this whole environment that we don't really talk about with academic institutions and all these societies, professional societies and patient and consumer groups being funded by industry is either they become extensions of the marketing department as I say, right? Or they self-censor themselves. And so those who might be more wanting to say something, find themselves not saying it because I don't wanna get involved, I don't wanna lose funding, I don't wanna... So, I mean, from the evil side of things, it is actually pretty brilliant when you can literally capture everything and have your fingerprints and monies tied and it all going in every aspect of medicine. Kel (33:38.623) I want to bring in my producer here, Kel. We were just talking about this before you came on. I think the two of us share a genuine concern for the cultural divide that exists in the United States. And I don't necessarily look at it on terms of a left and right issue. Right now I'm looking at it in terms of there is a group of people who trust government and government appointed medical authorities. And then there's a large group of people who have significant distrust of government and medical authorities. And there seems to be a clash right now where those who have distrust of the institutions and the systems that are creating so much harm are being outcasted in provided names like anti-vax or COVID or, um, just all ad hominem attacks. All ad hominem attacks. And so like, I'll look sometimes, I try not to look too often at my Twitter comments, but I do want to engage with people and you'll just see things like, oh, he's, he's an anti-vaxxer or he's an anti-psychiatry. It's not even really, it's not even really arguing the, the merit of, of the debate, it's just simply just trying to devalue the individual. Um, Kell, are you, I mean, are you as concerned as I am about where we're going culturally? Cause it feels like the fabric of. the constitutional Republic of the United States is certainly kind of deteriorating. So Kim, I mean, I follow you on Twitter and you know, I get a lot of my news, so called the anti news or against the narrative from Twitter because those are the facts and many people just don't know the facts. Like you'll post things like, did you realize how under reported medical harm is on these drugs and they still got passed by the FDA? That's a fact, right? That is a fact that you know to be true. And yet when you bring that up to people and you say, go back and reread some of these medical journals and how they were passed and reread how much dangerous, serious harm this drug will do to people. And it's not just going to be small portions of people. It's going to be a large portion of people. That is a fact. And I said to Roger, knowing all of this in the back of my head, I wake up with so much like just anxiety every day thinking, how does the world not want to see the truth? And Kel (36:03.599) it wouldn't do anything other than help the world to know this truth. That's it. The only people that would be hurt by this would be big pharma, very wealthy people that have a lot of power and control. And that's it. And we could all agree. Most people, at least on the one side of the political spectrum, want to eliminate that they don't want those people to be successful because they realize that I am so just, it's such a dangerous society right now because the facts that you put forth, the facts that Roger puts forth, Everybody just wants to attack them. And I'm really trying to grasp as to why. Part of it might be the educational institutions, raising kids just to say, well, that's a doctor and you must listen, you must obey authority and you don't question them. And I'm sitting here as a teacher saying, no, we should be teaching people to question authority. That's the whole premise of our country. That's how we got to this. And I'm just, so I am, we had a great conversation earlier. I am really nervous about where everything is headed. Why is this happening? Kim Witczak (37:05.589) Yeah, it's Well, I've been attacked, you know, I saw that way back in the beginning, you know when we were going up against Psychiatry and getting you know, the warnings put on antidepressants I was attacked and actually like in a pretty big way by one of the big mental health organizations Nami who called my and called me an Scientologist don't believe a word she's saying I'm like what like that doesn't I'm like So I kind of laughed at it at that time. But now, so I was already used to it when it all sudden, because I think it really the last couple of years is where this big divide, because I think it's where the crack or the light, you know, where the crack happened, and now the lights in there shining what's been going on for a long time. And I think, you know, there might be some people with cognitive dissonance, right? Like, oh, I can't, I can't do that. I think there is some where. there might be, oh my God, I've been, and I remember saying this, even with the antidepressant reporting, I go, when we would get somebody who would be super pro antidepressants and then they would say, it saved my life, it saved my family's life, it saved that whole narrative. And I remember thinking, and I said, there's so many people on these medications that they don't even wanna admit that maybe, in their head it works, right? Or they don't wanna admit that they're wrong. But I think it's a brilliant, evil, brilliant strategy to keep people divided and this attack, because it's, but what it does is it causes us not to have conversation, right? And share real information. And I find it really interesting right now, watching everything and they're talking about it's misinformation and like saying it's these doctors that are creating, I'm like. Who's really creating the misinformation campaign or disinformation? And you know, the FDA is all concerned about it. That the commissioner, we had a meeting with the commissioner and he said that's his number one challenge is trying to fight this miss and disinformation. But look at what's coming out of their offices. And so I really think this, and I like you too, Kel. Kim Witczak (39:20.753) I can get really full of anxiety and then I'll be like, oh my God, where are we going? Like this is just, and then I'll go down a rabbit hole. And I have to realize that I've had to take sometimes a step back and say, you know what? Maybe we should reposition this, Kim, because it's, you know, I can't control the outside, right? I can only control my own thoughts. And maybe I have to. maybe this is an opportunity or maybe I can be grateful for the fact that this has caused everybody this light to be shined, right? So I'm just trying to flip the switch in my head, but maybe it's an opportunity for us to now look at creating another system, because this system's gonna fight until the end because there's too much money. So then do we put our efforts in that, or do we start saying, here's our vision of what health looks like. What is it? You know, like, And so I feel like there is this opportunity and especially because I've seen some of your things, Roger, where you talk about, you talk about, how you've talked about how we can rethink about resilience and what does resilience look like? What is, and should we be treating, teaching people resilience? Should we, Kel, to your point. in school, should we be teaching, you know, like critical thinking? Because critical thinking is just as individuals, we come into this world as individuals. And so I think there's a lot of opportunity for transformation work. And I think it's start and transformation, like, really starts with us as individuals, right? It can't start on the outside, it has to start with how do I see the world? And what is my like, I'm gonna look in the mirror and where did I come up with this belief that doctors are smarter than everybody, you know, and start challenging our own beliefs and be curious about where we got that from or, or this idea in psychology, you know, psychiatry, especially and looking at the mental health crisis. I mean, I'm looking at it right now. And then of course, I like to follow the money and I know there's a ton of money going into mental health right now because it's a global crisis. Kim Witczak (41:38.421) Well, it just means more money being thrown at things. But are we really helping people, are we creating a false narrative of fear and hope and also suffering? Suffering is part of being a human. So anyways, I know I packed a lot of stuff in there, but I think it all starts with this idea that we have to face ourselves and sometimes we don't wanna face ourselves and what we've been told or sold. and we don't want to know that maybe we've been lied to. And then I think there's gonna always be a set of the population that is just gonna always think the government has your back. Kel (42:21.039) Yeah, I think you made some good points about there's certain structures and institutions that have to be reclaimed, rebuilt. And, you know, I kind of think about the story, you know, there's a time where, you know, hats didn't exist. And then somebody walks down the street and they cover their head because it keeps them warmer and then they call it a hat and then they design that hat. And before you know it, there's hat stores everywhere. So somebody's idea became claimed into truth, right? And. This is what happens with a lot of the institutions that exist within American culture and Western culture is that someone's idea, which is really to serve their financial best interest, creates something and then manifests it as a form of truth. And then generationally, we kind of grow up under that and we believe it to be true. And we assume it to be true, we know nothing else. So it is our reality. happens if there's evidence or a person tries to discredit that idea when it's something you know to be truth there's dissonance that's created there's anxiety that's created right you tell me that this here in front of me is a desk and someone else tells me that's not a desk that's a that's a lamp right you just think they're crazy because you've been told it's a desk over and over and over again so there's a lot of these ideas that we have to reclaim and rebuild One of them is health, around health, physical health. We're told certain foods that we should eat are gonna make us healthy. We should go to the doctor this many times. We should get this many shots. We have these pills. We're kind of conditioned to believe things in this diseased mind state, not knowing that all of this provokes fear. And fear affects the body. It affects the mind, it affects the body. I have no doubt there's going to be a day in human evolution where we're able to access the ability to heal ourselves. Before there was a time where telephones didn't exist and now we have cell phones and now we have Zoom calls and all these things. There's things we haven't been able to tap into. But when systems create mass harm, Kel (44:35.943) It is up to the individuals, the people who are really probably the bystanders, those who are on the side who have not been harmed, but they're witnessing it, they observe it, they know it in their gut, they know it in their heart. We need bystanders to be the ones to stand up against the authority because the harms people will and then they'll just be devalued by the large authority. It's the large group of people on the side. I'm always concerned about in authoritarian countries or if we look historically that people's fear and self-preservation leads them to go with the majority at the expense of those who are harmed. And it is until those who are on the sidelines, good people stand up against these type of ideas that are harmful, that's when change occurs. And I think... On a positive note, Kim, I do think that there is an awakening. We see a lot of podcasts like mine that are flourishing right now. We see social media has a powerful impact globally where we can all connect. You know, there was a time where we wouldn't even been able to meet each other. Now we can have this conversation. And so this is part of kind of a global reclamation and it takes really good people who I think view life in a very unique way. And it's my transition, 20 year anniversary just recently happened at the death of your beloved husband. And I can only imagine that going through such a traumatic incident changes the way that you view life. When you look back now 20 years of your story, what have you learned? How have you grown? Kim Witczak (46:03.882) Hmm. Kim Witczak (46:12.912) Mm. Kel (46:30.759) I just want to get into your mindset on how you view life now after dealing with such a sudden and abrupt tragic loss. Kim Witczak (46:39.225) Thanks. It always gets me emotional because I know it's been 20 years and I've grown beyond anything. But I think it's changed me profoundly because A, I always, that's why when you just said innocent bystanders on the side, I don't know that I would have ever woke up without having this extreme pain and having to learn this, right? So I learned through my grief, which it will always be there. Like that's a part of my life, right? But it's not necessarily who I am. And I say that I've learned so many things that Woody has been my greatest teacher. And I'm looking at what has come out of it. Doesn't mean for me personally, like, you know, obviously I had, or I should say he's gone, but I have learned how to stand up, challenge. I've learned that through suffering. growth comes. I have learned, you know, I am ever since Woody died, I had butterflies that always circled me, right? And what I've learned, and that was kind of the symbol that I started using like, Oh, that's, you know, like Woody. And then I realized, no, that's actually grief and life, Kim, that you don't just become a butterfly, you have to go through the extreme darkness. And so I think it's taught me that I am not my circumstance. I get to choose every single day how I am going to talk about the story, right? I get to choose my thoughts. That's the only thing that we actually ultimately get to control, our thoughts, how I live my life. So these are all the beauty that has come from really deep pain for me personally. And I always like to say, you know, people shouldn't have to wait until something happens, but sometimes it does take the personal for somebody to wake up. And that's some of the gifts that have come out of it. I you know, I wish I always think as what he was the one that loved to take on things like this. And I feel like he's still there because it's just my belief that he's just on the other side of the veil working on it. But I wish I could have these conversations. Kim Witczak (49:03.617) that he already saw and I intuitively have now tapped into. And we ourselves as people are more powerful than we ever give ourselves credit for. And I used to never think one person could make a difference. I would always make kind of fun of Woody when he wanted to take on the cell phone companies in our neighborhood and get people to sign. I'm like, what, you're never gonna fight, you're never gonna beat city council. And I remember him saying, and I literally was like, I'm not helping you. And I remember him saying, well, I'd rather try like hell and lose than do nothing at all. And I think that is what I've learned is the power of the individual when they tap into this greatness that we all have. It's not just some, we all come into this world with this. We have trauma that happens, yes, but we can use that trauma to like, catapult us to make change or we can let it be what makes us into a victim. So anyways, I think I've thrown a lot out there, but these are all things that I have thought a lot about in the changes and what I've learned personally. Kel (50:21.427) Reminds me of one of my favorite books, Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, who was, for those who are unaware, he was a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II and chronicled a lot of what he went through psychologically under such tragic and fatal conditions, I think losing his family members and so forth. But he spoke a lot about finding purpose even in the most tragic of circumstances. Kim Witczak (50:25.259) England. Kel (50:50.787) Ultimately, that's what I know I believe in. I believe in the ultimate courage and strength of humanity to be able to stand up against evil when it exists. And there's no doubt about this. A lot of the things we're seeing with people in positions of power are psychopathic. There is a percentage of the human race that is what's considered anti-social personality, psychopathy. It's the lack of empathy. for another human being. And we're in this transhumanism kind of place where there's mass experimentation being done on human beings and some of it's being justified in terms of climate change or medical innovation or trying to protect future generations potentially, but we're gonna have to call it what it is. It is mass experimentation. on human beings. I think when you're unable to protect the most vulnerable of the human population, that's pure evil. The most vulnerable of the human population are those who are sick, those who are elderly, those who are children. And we're just seeing a disregard for human life that is absolutely astonishing. And it's frightening. It's absolutely frightening. And we see it. I think a lot of... Kim Witczak (51:57.89) Hmm. Kel (52:18.399) good people see it. Kim, I think you saw it way before COVID, obviously. But now with COVID, I think people are starting to see how quickly things can change, how you can lose your freedom, how government can lie, how medical professionals can lie, or at least distort truth. One of the questions I have you on here, I wanted to get to it earlier, so it feels like maybe we're all over the place here, but I... The one question I know that you have knowledge about is the approval process. And I'm completely confused. So doctors seem to have the right to prescribe drugs what's considered off-label. So they haven't been approved for that condition, but they have the freedom to be able to prescribe a drug off-label. Can you explain, or do you have any understanding of the... the government, the FDA's viewpoint on this, if their job is to protect and it's about safety, how can they allow the freedom of doctors to be able to prescribe drugs that are outside any investigation? Kim Witczak (53:30.665) Well, it's funny. So that term off label has always been on, you know, because Woody got the drug Zoloft off label for insomnia, right? So I've always paid attention to off label and off label can be a lot of extra money for companies. It could be, you know, look at a lot of, especially in the psychiatric areas where a lot of these drugs are being used off label. Now it was interesting when, and so sitting on my committee, There's a lot of times where I'll look and see one of the drugs was nuplazid, which was an unmet need for Parkinson's psychosis. So it was interesting when I went and did my research, I saw all the analysts talk about this drug having the potential to be a two to three billion dollar a year off label drug. So I brought that up during my advisory committee. I'm like, how do you, you FDA, help so that we don't... have what the Wall Street analysts are saying for this drug to be a two to three billion dollar a year off label, what can you do? And the FDA said it's not in their, you know, their requirements or their congressional ability to actually control doctors in how they use medications. So that was kind of their standard answer. Like once it's on the market, we can't... we're not in the business of controlling how doctors use it. And then that's when you can also see it being manipulated where you get, you know, the companies that are coast writing and they might put a trial or do a trial and it gets put into a journal, right? But then it was interesting because I saw the complete opposite thing happen during COVID with the use of ivermectin and the FDA all of a sudden came out and said, Kel (55:21.279) Yes. Kim Witczak (55:23.525) you can't use it, even though now they're saying because they're in legal court down in Australia, now they're saying, well, we never said that, but yeah, you did kind of say it and you sent letters out. And so that was always like a little red flag. And there's an example of something that you know, had it been available. And the reason why a lot of times they don't want it to be available, and especially in this circumstance, but if there was a drug that was viable on the and get another product approved, right? Like you can't use the rushed, whether it's breakthrough therapy or it's emergency use. So that was one of the reasons why I think they demonized it. But so that, I don't know if that answered your question on off label, but it's this idea that the FDA says it is outside their purview to control or regulate the practice of medicine. And so that is a fear when you start looking at, you know, when we have another pandemic and the idea that you're gonna tell doctors how they can or cannot do. And I think that's just another example of freedom, you know, and that's, and between you and your patient to decide whether or not you wanna use a product or not, as long as you know it. And I always say informed consent is super important if you're getting a drug off label. Kel (56:35.996) Yes. Kel (56:51.059) Yeah, regarding informed consent. So I just got a hold today of this open letter to the managing editor of the journal, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the editor at JAMA psychiatry. And this is, this includes you as a, as a, um, as having a signature on as an author of this, as well as Christina Kaiser, who lost her 19 year old daughter Natalie, and she came on. our podcast. She's a wonderful woman and an advocate because she was prescribed sertraline for OCD tendencies and the dose led to akathisia and ultimately her own loss of life. So there is a call right now for the retraction of three fraudulent trial reports of antidepressants in children and adolescents. Now going back to opening up this podcast where we played the video. 12 of the 15 trials did not demonstrate a response. They did not outperform placebo. They were never published. So they just disappear, right? It's called publication bias. And they try to find something that they can write up that shows that it has some form of efficacy. In this, three of the antidepressant papers for children in adolescence were actually fraudulent. And so Peter is a goat or goatee. And I always get you. Yeah, he's a professor, Emeris from Copenhagen, the Institute for Scientific Freedom. So in, he, a specialist in internal medicine with expertise in clinical trials and 10 people who each lost a child or spouse to suicide as a direct consequence of being prescribed an anti-. Kim Witczak (58:24.981) Yep. Catch ya. Catch ya. Yep. Kel (58:48.587) antidepressant drug for non-psychiatric conditions, call for a retraction of three fraudulent trial reports of antidepressants in children and adolescents. The trial reports seriously underreported suicide attempts and other suicide events and precursors to suicide and violence on the active drug and exaggerated the benefits of the drug substantially. We know this because independent researchers have compared the published trial data with the data in the clinical study. Reports of the placebo controlled trials the drug manufacturers submitted to the drug agencies to get approval for their drugs for use in this depression and adolescence by retracting these reports You can be able to actually Provide a much-needed service to the scientific community, but here's a fact Kim they're actually fraudulizing trials they are removing data of violence and suicide and then pushing the drug to market for kids. Kim Witczak (59:50.345) Yep, exactly. I mean, this letter, because, you know, we all know what happens the damage of when these articles get written into the journals, that's what the doctors are looking at. That's, or they're getting educated by the pharma, right? But when you look at the original clinical trials and protocol that they use to get approval, not the ones that are sitting that never saw the light of day, right? These are the ones that were used. And you look at what when, so this reanalysis of that was done by Peter Getzsche and Dr. David Healy. And when they looked at it, they saw that what was being reported in the journals does not match what the data was that the FDA used and that they left out very important suicide. And then they also, you got to remember what the company said, they renamed, you know, instead of saying suicidal ideation or something like that, they might have called it emotional ability, like whatever that means, right, for the average person. So this means that the entire, so why we're saying retract it is because it's not accurate. Go back to what the data, the original data that came, that was used back in the day to get these drugs approved. So that just goes to show you that our journals are even corrupted and are not giving the actual facts as well. Kel (01:01:20.223) So given this case, and I know a lot of people and parents and family members have kind of just asked me, well, what do we do? There seems to be a catastrophic crisis of trust in the medical community at this point. If we can't trust our medical doctors, who do we turn to? What do we do in these situations? Kim Witczak (01:01:40.137) Yeah, it's, well, first of all, I think we have to find, you have to really find the right kind of person who is actually there for your child versus just quickly trusting. And I think that idea of quickly trusting, and I always tell people, don't even necessarily believe what I say, go do your own research, right? Go be critical, be willing to sit in something that makes you uncomfortable. But you know, I think at some point we do need to figure out, is there other ways, like I look back at the antidepressant, there are a lot of things that we can do that are non medical or pharmaceutical that we should be trying first. You know, just the fact of, hey, like we've been at lockdown for these kids, lockdown, like of course it's not normal, right? Like we need to instead of trying to medicalize everything and throw a pill. I would actually, if I was a parent, I'd be challenging those. And I would also be challenging another whole thing that we did not talk about is kind of that middle layer of the mental health associations or the suicide support groups or any of those, the mental health that are at the schools. We should be looking into that too, because I think that needs to be exposed. But I think ultimately we have to realize that... Some of this is normal, what we're experiencing right now. And I think it is important to push back if the, and if you are going to get it, make sure you have all the information because I don't think parents know that are being prescribed that in the FDA, there's med guides that have information that could be life saving. for a parent if they decide to put their kid on these medications. But they certainly should have, as I always say, an exit strategy. And exit strategies are never discussed. It's just kind of like a daily vitamin, like, oh, and yep, you'll be fine. So. Kel (01:03:50.995) Yeah, there's this popular meme that's being going around there on the internet where it says if your doctor doesn't ask you about the food you eat or your sleep or your exercise, you don't have a doctor, you have a drug dealer. And unfortunately, that's what's occurred is we really just have drug dealers that we don't necessarily can trust on face value. So we have to vet our doctors and we have to ask them. Kim Witczak (01:04:14.473) Yeah, I think, yeah, I was just gonna say one more thing and sorry to interrupt, but this idea of that we are physical, mental, spiritual beings. And I think that has to be a driving factor for everything because that does impact, you know, when you're saying the foods we put in, like we don't want all just drugs and we gotta stop looking at things as if it needs to be medicalized and being pushed because there are a lot of things that are like. socioeconomic, even looking at all the postpartum depression, the new drug that they just approved at the FDA. This is stuff that we're, that first of all, people don't know the whole history on that, but people really do need to take a step back and ask about what other things like sleep, like you said, sleep, the foods, the fact that some of this is just normal. Kel (01:05:12.447) Yeah, we've lost our sense of what it means to actually be human and also how to take care of our bodies. And there's so many other areas to talk about when it goes down, when we talk about physical and mental health. But I wanted to end on this because I think there's a lot of people like me and Kel out there where I'm probably more libertarian. You know, I've always kind of been in the middle of the path. I can't say I was a Republican. I can't say I was a Democrat. I, you know, on either side of the spectrum, I could probably, um, feel like I can get connected to certain issues. The one thing that really is most important to me is, is around freedom. I I'm kind of a limited government person and have concerns about the overreaching of, of government into the private lives of the individual. But when it comes to things like, uh, medical freedom, and safety and protecting us against the pharmaceutical industry. Is there one side of the political spectrum or aisle? Is there one political party right now that you would say is more protective of those rights? And then I kind of want to transition into maybe your thoughts on Robert Kennedy Jr. Kim Witczak (01:06:30.717) Sure. Well, it's funny, I used to for many years, I was kind of in the liberal side of things, you know, just, and then what I have seen is that party is no longer represents, it seems like there's the ones that have put on the mandates, there's the hypocrisy. So I have now feel pretty homeless, meaning I don't know, I think the Republicans. have done a really good job at trying to expose some of the corruption and also the freedoms that you know, you can't, and censorship and all of the, so I feel like the Republicans have done a better job too. But as I've always, you know, what I've quickly found out is both parties really, when it comes down to it. It depends on who's in power because we've seen, you know, when I first got involved with Republicans, it was Democrats that were helping us. Now it's Republican. I mean, it doesn't matter. As I always say, we're people, we're purple, meaning it's kind of where the intersect comes together. So that's what I like to think about is purple, who's going to be purple. And, and so I don't know if that's kind of where I'm leaning at this point. Purple. Kel (01:07:48.767) So I've voted traditionally Republican due to those kind of issues around personal freedom. But I'm really intrigued by Robert Kennedy Jr. I just feel like he is just a good man and has kind of a career that kind of demonstrates standing up for issues that he felt. and had evidence to suggest were harmful either to the environment or to the individual. He's brought a lot of attention to the concerns about the vaccine trials and a number of other things around COVID. Have you have any, do you personally, have you had any experience with Robert Kennedy and what are your, what are your thoughts as we start approaching the 2025 election? Kim Witczak (01:08:36.373) Yes, I have had some interaction with Robert Kennedy. Mostly, you know, my attorneys worked with Robert Kennedy with the Roundup and Monsanto case. So I've always seen Kennedy from a legal kind of perspective who's been able to get into the files and actually has made real change. He has seen the corruption. He has fought the corruption. He understands how it's all kind of connected. And so I actually really like the messages that he has been talking about, especially in the regulatory capture and also the fraud. And he's an attorney, like he's got a very well pedigree background with how he even protected the environment. Now, what I think is unfortunate and they're doing to him what they're doing to everybody else. is this idea of labeling. And for all the people I know that have said, oh, he's anti-vaxxer. I'm like, do you know that? Or have you just believed something? And so I'm always trying to encourage everybody, go listen to what he says. Before you just quickly tell me what the New York Times told, said about him or his family members. I mean, do you not understand it's being played? And so when I look at And then looking at the fights that he's taken on for us as Americans with the censorship and looking at our social media companies, you know, that is somebody who I know is going to stand up for freedom, because ultimately, we do not need government who and somebody who says the science telling us what to be putting into our into our bodies, when it's not even vetted, when there's all these other influences that have gone into. the science. Kel (01:10:37.351) Yeah, great. Thank you. Listen, we've held you long enough. What are you up to right now? What are some of the things that you're that you're that you're doing? Is there anything that you want to promote? Or how can people get in touch with you or find about find out more about your work? Kim Witczak (01:10:51.949) Sure, I've been, actually one of the fun things that I'm working on is getting invited to med schools because I'm offering another perspective and doing a presentation called Selling Sickness, Big Pharma's Web. And it's really fascinating because it took a brave person inside the medical schools who said, I am not gonna be the one that's gonna be able to do this work, but if I bring in outside guests that bring a different perspective. So that has been an amazing area that I'm trying to work on. And of course, I'm still doing the selling sickness work and they can find me at Acceptable Collateral Damage Substack and at Twitter. I do most of my like stuff on Twitter, just cause it's easy for me and because I'm still working in advertising, so. Kel (01:11:47.171) I love that going into the medical schools is where we can start trying to change hearts and minds. It's got to be a grassroots effort. Kim Wissat, grassroots effort. Yeah. I want to thank you for a radically genuine conversation. Kim Witczak (01:11:54.081) Grassroots. Kim Witczak (01:12:01.685) Thanks for having me, I always love to talk with you guys.