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Lifestyle Medicine Getting Cancelled

There's an idea going around that cancel culture isn't real, and the only people being "cancelled" are racists and alt-right types and conspiracy theorists. How do you know this is correct? Why, their opponents and the media outlets that deplatformed them tell you so! It's circular logic. 

Likewise, people looking down their noses at "Dr. Google" and their warnings--"don't get medical advice on social media!" Consider the source, though: doctors and media companies, both of whom (in many cases) take money from pharma. There's no conspiracy theory here; rather, it's realizing that trying to cure yourself by listening to people selling medications meant to be taken indefinitely is worse than asking a barber if you need a haircut. 

Some doctors promoting effective lifestyle changes--not quackery--have been deplatformed. Dr. William Davis, the Wheat Belly author, has said in online meetups that TV shows no longer have him on as a guest. The only major difference in his approach in the past few years is the emphasis on gut health--hardly an unusual focus these days, certainly more mainstream than low-carb and wheat avoidance were ten years ago. Well, the only other difference is a lot more pharma advertising on TV.

Dr. Davis has treated thousands of patients. In online meetups, he cites studies and their limitations and admits when he doesn't know something. He doesn't offer medical advice on off-program matters, the program consisting of a low-carb, grain-free diet and taking certain supplements and prebiotic fibers. The problem: it's very effective at getting people off medications. It got me off of acid blockers several years ago and more recently helped prevent me from ending up on disability. Without low-carb, I'd be obese, diabetic and on diabetes medications for life; if I'd gotten standard of care for my thyroid problems, I'd probably still have thyroid problems. 

Dr. Suneel Dhand, a more conventional internal medicine physician, makes videos where he reads news, talks about studies, and offers opinions that indicate he's a decent, reasonable person. Yet YouTube removed the video below because misinformation, and LinkedIn banned him for his content. I haven't seen all of Dr. Dhand's videos or read his work on LinkedIn, but this video is typical of the many of his videos I've seen. He discusses the Massachusetts COVID outbreak (widely reported in the news), observes that the vaccine doesn't offer perfect protection (obviously), and recommends high-risk people get the vaccine anyway. Misinformation--or obliquely suggesting that low-risk people don't need the jab? It probably doesn't help that in other videos, he promotes lifestyle changes for better health. Dr. Dhand is still on YouTube, but he just started a channel on Locals, where he won't be censored for such videos. 


Alex Berenson is a journalist, not a doctor, but he's been reporting on COVID. He ran afoul of Twitter censors for accurately reporting that Pfizer's six-month COVID vaccine study didn't show a difference in deaths and he was permanently kicked off when he observed that the COVID vaccines were basically just symptom relievers. Which they basically are--"rare breakthrough cases" have been in the news every day. He was recently on Joe Rogan's podcast, but you can see a shorter talk below. At one point in the question and answer session at the end, he says if he caught a bad case of COVID, he'd take monoclonal antibodies, not ivermectin, because we don't really know whether ivermectin works. To someone concerned about childhood vaccines, he says he's not as convinced of the safety of childhood vaccines as he was a year ago, but his kids are going to get the rest of their shots. Alex Berenson is not a wing-nut, though there are plenty of those still on Twitter. 



You can't rely on the media to tell you they got it wrong and you can't rely on people to act against their financial interests. If you're getting news and commentary from activists (most of the media) and interested parties (i.e., shills), you're going to hear news and opinions in their interest, not necessarily yours.
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