Episode 92 Transcript

Read transcript alongside audio.

Welcome to the Fierce Fatty Podcast. I'm your host, Victoria Welsby and this is episode 92. Today, we're talking about what's up with the new jaw wiring and diet drugs.

I'm Victoria Welsby TEDx speaker, Best Selling Author and fat activist. I have transformed my life from hating my body with desperately low self esteem to being a courageous and confident fifth party who loves every inch of this jelly. society teaches us living in a fat body is bad. But what if we spent less time, money and energy on the pursuit of thinness and instead focused on the things that actually matter? Like if pineapple on pizza should be outlawed? Or if the mullet was the greatest haircut of the 20th century? So how do you stop negative beliefs about your fat body controlling your life? It's the first fatty podcast Let's begin.

1:18

Hey, Fierce fatty and friends. How are you? Hey, it's Victoria back from my four weeks of podcast break. Did you miss me? Or you didn't? Because you still had you still had her besides, but you probably missed me, didn't you? I have been. I've had my time off. I had, I took 10 days off and I did some napping and some swimming and some Netflix seeing and some biking and some yoga breathing and some napping and some eating and some good times were had by all so it's nice to it's nice to have that break.

2:06

And actually, you know what? Coming to record this episode, I just felt so much resistance and doing it I don't like normally I'm very easily happily able to bust out podcast episodes no big no big deal. No big deal. But I just felt like oh, you shouldn't record a podcast episode unless you've done like 20 hours of research. And I'm like, Well, I've only done like five hours. So. And yeah, all these those are coming up of all it has to be perfect. And I don't normally have those those thoughts. And so I was like, What is this and this morning? It's Friday. It's normally I would record podcasts on like a Wednesday or a Thursday. And so I've got to Friday, and this morning as I come in recorded episode versing. And I was like, Okay, well, first, I need to watch some YouTube videos on. Just true crimes yet. No, so, no.

3:11

So now I'm like, listen, just come and do it. People don't expect you to be perfect. And it's funny because I just finished a Brene Brown. So Brene Brown is a Oh, what is she? She's like a researcher. Anyway, she talks about she got a couple of TED talks, and she's got a few books. And she's very famous if you don't know who she is. And so I took a course that was hosted by my therapy, my therapists Company, which was like a Brene Brown course on shame. I was like, Yes, give me some of that shame. Shit. I want to know more about shame. And yeah, so it's interesting. Oh, Julie, she just finished that last week, eight weeks of that course of learning about shame and perfectionism. And I'm not normally one that suffers from perfectionism. And yeah, now I'm having this feelings about the one yeah, there's I really, yeah, as there's anything I learned about perfectionism and shame, and all that type of stuff.

4:16

So perfectionism is the fear of what people are going to think about you. And so perfectionism is externally motivated versus if you just want to do a good job, you know, you just want to have high standards. That's something that's internally motivated. And so if you ever weren't wondering, like, am I perfectionist? Or am I just trying to do a good job? And a lot of times perfectionists don't take action, because they're like, why it can't be perfect. And so I won't and I'll prove just procrastinate versus taking imperfect action.

4:52

Yeah, and shame. A big thing about shame is shame cannot be cannot survive being brought into the light and so whatever your shamed about if you talk about it, then that feeling of shame will dissolve and yeah, I can attest to that I can attest that the things that I felt the most shameful in my life when I've spoken about it. Now I don't give a shit. Like before I used to have really be so ashamed about having saggy tits and I'd be like, oh my god I can't handle the idea of anyone knowing that I don't have tits that look like I know a page three model or whatever. And so I thought you know what I'm just gonna start talking about my debtors Aggie debts and who fucking cares because most people have saggy debts. And now I just don't give a shit and so I don't feel any shame around it and I felt deep shame because I wouldn't my first boyfriend who was abusive, complained about me having saggy tits. And I just held that shame like it was something that I it was my fault and no, like, that's just a way to have a human body like what the fuck? What the fuck?

6:00

So yeah, talk about your sag eat it so your fat belly or whatever it is. It could be not not body related, that you feeling shameful about and it will probably dissolve that shame. Anyway, so in today's episode, while I've been off so much, it has been gobbling down so much juicy stuff. And I'm like, Oh, that is it. I need to make a podcast episode about this. And the first thing is that some quote unquote scientists have come up with a new way to torture fat people by wiring their jaw shut. Sounds like something that happened in the 60s 70s 80s 90s Yes, you're right. It is it didn't work then and it doesn't work now. And also a diet drug has been approved by the FDA for the first time in since 2014. And so people are like, Oh my god, this is it. This is this is what's going to save the fatties and so I want to talk about that as well. So University of Otago, which is in New Zealand.

7:07

Apparently I didn't know this, but apparently New Zealand is fat phobic as fuck. Well, everywhere it is. But New Zealand is is apparently just taking it to a new level, they are perfecting their fatphobia I read an article about a I a person who had emigrated to New Zealand lived there for years and she was just getting her permanent residency or citizenship status. And she was denied because she was too fat. Because they don't want fatties in New Zealand and so she was told to lose weight or she was not going to get citizenship. So that's up and obviously that was in that was in a paper but that was reported about but I bet you were this happens all the time, right? It's just part of that policy to be like, Hey, are you too fat go away. So I don't know. I'm laughing about it. It's fucking horrible.

8:09

Anyway, so the good folks from New Zealand, University of taiko tweeted Ortego and UK researchers have developed a world first weight loss device to help fight the global quote unquote, you know, oh, epidemic, the fatness epidemic, which is bullshit and intra Oral Device that restricts a person to a liquid diet. Oh my god, this sounds amazing. have developed a world first isn't a world first. We've been doing all your work for many years weight loss device that restricts a person to a liquid diet. Have we really are we just uh, we're not past this yet. That liquid diet is like, every people who deny that diets don't work. Even they would say a liquid diet is not a good idea. You know, even people who were like, well, not all diets work but you know, some work. Even those people would say liquid diet. No, we know liquid diet is no good. Uh, but this is this is you know, they're really proud of this.

9:24

And so, a few incredible fat people have written about this. And something that came from Louise Adams. Louise Adams is Australian. And she is known as the person who created an trapped that's her website and trapped.com.au and she sent an email out and I just just devoured every word that she wrote. And she was she was making the comparison about this being like a dystopian Handmaid's Tale s Type torture device to shut women up. And so, the the title of this is the shadowy figures behind Denta lism. So I'm going to read excerpts from this, I'm going to link everything that I'm talking about in the show notes. And so you can go and read the whole thing because I'm not gonna read the whole thing. But that gives you a good overview of what we're talking about.

10:22

So, Louise Adams from untrap says, Life in the age of COVID, has felt increasingly dystopian, and the weight loss industry is apparently embracing this theme, with the launch of dental ism, a heinous dental contraption, ostensibly an improvement quote, unquote, on the good old days of jaw wiring the dental ism. So the jaw wiring device is called the dental ism. Like the dental ism uses metal brackets, magnets and bolts to shut the jaw. Once fitted, chewing or moving your jaw is next to impossible. You can only drink liquids through a straw. I won't repost the pictures of dental ism because they are legitimately traumatizing. It's hard to believe that a mild mannered group of New Zealand dentists not only dreamed up something straight out of The Handmaid's Tale, but then promoted it as a weight loss product. But on the surface that seems to be what has happened.

11:23

The lead researcher was Ortego his university Pro Vice Chancellor Professor Paul Brunton aka command at Brunton the recent saying commander Brenton there because IN THE HANDMAID'S maids tale, that's what the men I know not all of the men I think the the leaders are called commander. So say Paul Brunton aka commander Brunton, who claimed that the that the dental ism is a quote, non invasive, reversible, economical and attractive alternative to surgical procedures. non invasive, non invasive and attractive. If you've seen the pictures of this device, you'll know why this statement is terrifying.

12:08

The fact that bolting the jaws of larger people shirt and then starving them is seen as less invasive than weight loss surgery. And potentially a reasonable idea is really saying something. The pilot study itself was not groundbreaking seven naughty handmaid's, and that's crossed out fat white women were magnetically bolt muzzled and then sucked diet milkshakes through a straw for two weeks, there was no control group, and in brackets no control group equals b s alert. The paper mentions a safety feature to release the dental ism in case of an emergency such as a panic attack or where possibility of choking arises.

12:51

According to the trowel register information. This is a kind of metal mouth shoehorn, which you are supposed to use to apply your mouth open and disengage the magnets. I personally can't imagine having the presence of mind to practice, practice my mouth. shoehorning skills, make panic attack, smashed choke, but maybe that's just me. Louise continues over two weeks, there was an average 5% weight loss, which is not surprising giving the women were on a straw sucking liquid diet to women didn't finish the study. Two weeks after the torture device was removed, the women were reweighed and surprise, surprise of weight was returning. These kinds of results drive me around the bend. It is not news to find that if you starve people, they temporarily lose weight. We're already know this and we know that weight cycling is not good for human physiology, physiology or psychology. But this was not discussed, the researchers just celebrated the short term weight loss.

13:56

The office holders had a stab at evaluating what they called the tolerability ie how awful was it of the dental ism. The woman listed all sorts of harrowing consequences including battle oral hygiene, trouble pronouncing any words pain and finding their life's less satisfying. I counted 17 reported negative aspects to write directly caused by the dental ism but commander Brunton had the nerve to tell the media The fact is there are no adverse consequences with this device. Continuing the history of jewel wiring is quite literally the history of shutting women up. Interest sparked during the late 1970s. Not longer after The Stepford Wives the movie was released. A cluster of male commanders that's crossed out dentists don't lead with it and there was a mercifully brief flurry of research articles published. I read most of them Yes, I went down that rabbit hole across Five studies totaling 214, jaw wide humans 210 of them were women. And then talking about the links of the studies.

15:10

These articles make for really alarming reading reading. The list of side effects is long, including severe hair loss, acute psychiatric decompensation. In several papers, they were descriptions of women resorting to wire cutters in a desperate bid to open the mouth. Most of the flee the trend did not last as researchers realized that the dramatic weight loss was almost always followed by just as dramatic regain. And the experience was so downright unpleasant that even the super sexist even in the Super sexist 1980s, it was all but abandoned. And then the rest of the post goes on to link the creators of this device as being those who conducted the study, which is something the ethics committee should have known or spotted before being given the green light to this study.

16:00

So the issue here is it's no conflicts of interest was stated in the paper. Yeah, it's just, it's just fucked up. And something so, so so. So take a breath. I know this is traumatizing. This is far. Yeah, it's not good. And so he's student doctor on Instagram, Jess, from Hayes, student Doctor, I'm gonna link in the show notes to their account. Who is a obviously a student doctor has got in her saved stories about jaw locking about this thing. And so she's gone through the paper and pointed out some glaring problems. So the first thing here is method. They've, they've said they've used they've they've done the study with seven, seven and remember to dropped out. So five, five people in a study? How am I God is groundbreaking. It's great. And the study was two weeks long. Two weeks long.

17:15

Anyway. And so the first thing that they say in the in the in the study is Method Seven healthy, oh, word participants. So seven healthy fat people were recruited. And so just says, Well, what what will it be despite the author's agitations regarding the Oh epidemic, where we have the team recruiting and acknowledging the existence of healthy fat people time to name it. This isn't about health. This is weight discrimination under the guise of medical research. And so we've got healthy fat people, but you know, they're healthy and everything, but it turns out, they're fat, so we need to do something about it.

17:54

So Jess says, let's start with this concluding sentence sentence because I don't know am I reading the same paper and so the paper the conclusion that our participants tolerated the device for two week period with satisfactory weight loss and were further motivated to continue their weight loss journey. So their conclusion so the conclusion of the paper was, everything's great, they lost way they loved it, they're gonna continue losing weight. It's amazing. And then you look at the paper and the results and you're like, what, how are they drawing that conclusion from five people who had terrible adverse effects whose life satisfaction was reduced? Who then went on to obviously because this is what happens put the weight back on after

18:52

and so what what why how how is this good? And so theoretically for people to not put back the weight on they would need to have this this jaw locking device on for the rest of their lives. But even then I'm and that is just you know, you can't wire someone's jaw shut forever. And you know, imagine and no don't even imagine but even then the body would begin to fight back right so even if you were just having a liquid diet the body at some stage would be like okay, well fuck this is fucking terrifying like it does on any diet. And just because your your jaw is wired, your body is going to be doing some remarkable beautiful things to make sure that you get enough food and that food is turned into energy for you.

19:45

So and so something that that just points out is the the participants were all women and so she just says Don't, don't let this pass you by misogyny is alive and well in medical research. And even in the paper they show What people weighed. And then when they took the device off that they started regaining weight again, surprise, fucking surprise. And that's only after two weeks. Imagine if they followed them for two months, two years, the chances are these people will weigh more, two out of three will weigh more than when they started because that is what our bodies do. And then just as someone has just pointed out that there's coffee groups with more participants, then it's trial lit.

20:36

Legitimately. Like imagine if you were just like, Oh, I'm thinking about, I don't know. Making a new coffee for my coffee shop. Do you like coffee A or B? If you just ask five people you would know that is not good enough data, right? is obvious, but five people and then it's a world world class, groundbreaking study, really? Okay, so just goes on the the summary and interpretation of results per the team who wrote the paper. The the participants had trouble pronouncing some words and felt tense and embarrassed. Only occasionally, the participants hardly ever reported a change in taste sensation or felt uncomfortable drinking. However, participants indicated they occasionally had discomfort and felt their life in Jeonhwa granule was less satisfying.

21:41

Participants were happy with the outcome and were motivated to lose more weight and just as motivated to move away from weight stigma and towards the thin ideal to avoid abuse like this. Yeah, exactly. So and then they talk about the the tolerability and so they have a baseline of of, you know, how how good it you are pronouncing words or you know, how much pain you're experiencing exactly, you know, etc, etc. And, and then they show 24 hours after the device fitted seven days, 14 days, and then 2422 weeks after the removal. And pretty much everything is worse, right? So we've got trouble pronouncing words, taste changes, pain, uncomfortable to drink, self conscious because of the device felt tense.

22:34

Oral Hygiene is unsatisfactory speech problem difficult to relax, embarrassed. So JSA is basically all reported to occur more frequently in the presence of jaw lock. This isn't rocket science, and continuing what really what's really interesting is that instead of describing or interpreting the these results in a meaningful way, here's what was stated in the results section. And in the results section, they've done a ton of minimizing, as shown in table two, there was minor negative change between baseline and follow up appointments for most of the items evaluated. However, speech feeling tense and unsatisfactory oral hygiene steeped critting steeply increased during baseline and 14 day follow up. And then it says pain objectively reported to occur more frequently, but you know,

23:28

pay more objective objectively reported to occur more frequently, but you know, and that's what's just saying like, whatever that people just says, so far we've had minimizing negative findings. Deflecting perceived failure to participant behavior or adherence feels a bit like the principal investigator wants to blame the participants. And the reserve research assistant is say the results aren't favorable. And other things that came up as problems as being irritable, difficult doing your job, and that was a big one. Life in general, less satisfying and totally unable to function. They all increased overhead and then there's another bit here just says, This is telling this is academic Speak, speak for I hate fat people. And so the paper says one patient admitted to quote unquote cheating consuming melted chocolate and fizzy drinks. This was not surprising, as studies have shown that.

24:32

Oh word patients fat patients usually have an addictive personality, and an impulsivity for sugary foods and suffer from binge eating disorders is fucking bullshit. And just as body weight associated with personality is a trope and perpetuates bias and just as now Here's for the clanger. This paper draws a number of parallels to the literature on jaw wiring and its applicable applicability to is to its magnetic version of jaw wiring. In that, well, it doesn't work describing historically that there are short term losses for the length of the time the jaw was wired shut, followed by a period of weight gain as as normal as weight normalizes back to pre intervention weight once wires removed and yet failed to recognize or do but don't speak of it the same pattern here with the magnet lock.

25:37

Yeah, and so Jess, as well points out this study didn't investigate the impact of the device on dietary restraint, nor did it make any assessment of relationship with food or eating distress, nor any mention of screening for eating disorders at baseline or follow up. You Yeah, and then the paper goes on. Like we're saving the children we're gonna protect all the fat children and so just points out that because they're mentioning the children, even though the study was undertaken in adults, it's a signpost for who is next door wiring children. And so the the authors of this got a ton of shit online.

26:26

Thank fuck, Thank fuck. Normally, you know, they wouldn't people would just be because people are so fat phobic, they'd be like, amazing. You're so amazing. So, yeah, so, so that's, that's good. But so, the office said after the backlash to clarify the intention of the device is not intended as a quick or long term weight loss tool. Rather, it is aimed to assist people who need to undergo surgery who cannot cannot have the surgery until they have lost weight. Yet, the paper says a device Oh, they talked about what it is a device which contains magnets to provide a novel approach to the treatment of fatness and can be used in the short term, medium, or long term either continuously or intermittently.

27:25

So basically, it's for Reagan chest pains, Reagan chest, Dean's take on it. Bolting fat people's mouths shirt is not health care. She says too long didn't read is wrong and horrific on every level. And it would be wrong and horrific, even if it actually like, even if it was actually likely to lead to significant significant long term weight loss, which it is not. First of all, I can't believe I have to type this it's not okay to bolt people's mouths shut. There are certain situations in which wiring someone's jaw is medically necessary. But bolting someone's mouth shut for the express purpose of not allowing them to eat open it to eat isn't is not now nor will ever be a humane healthcare in divine intervention.

28:18

Based on their article, they are launching this based on the belief that the long term weight loss fell so often is that fat people can't submit to long term starvation for long enough if we can't open our mouths, except that's not remotely valid research so shows again and again that low calorie dieting does not lead to long term sustained weight loss for more than a tiny fraction of people at best. They're also launching this based on the results of a two week study. That's not a typo. Two weeks. If I had turned this in for our freshmen level research methods class, I cannot overstate how hard I would have rightly failed the assignment. So the fact that it passed both passed, but it both passed approval for human subject testing, and was published is a testament to the amount of weight stigma in healthcare.

29:10

This is a grim reminder that many of the people who are impacting fat people's health care believe that life as a fat person is less than human existence. And there's any amount of inhumane treatment including risking our lives is worth it for even the smallest chance that we might get a tiny bit thinner, even for a short time. Finally, weight stigma in healthcare tells us to blame fat bodies for health issues. But that completely ignores the deleterious effects of weight stigma, which is perpetuated by the idea that fat people should have our mouths bolted shut wait cycling, which is the research which the research tells us will be perpetuated by this device and staggering inequalities. In health care access, which include being told that rather than supporting our health in the bodies, we have its healthcare to bolt our mouth shut.

30:09

This is Bob Banach, Barrick and I think every medical professional who willingly participated in this should be banned from the healthcare field for our bar. So that's fun. And so it was New Zealand and the UK team. And yeah, not only is it fucking awful barbaric doesn't work. But the people who did the study created the device have so many financial in so many conflicts of interest, they it's all over the place all over government look at READ THE END OF Louise's post there, and it's just just unethical as fuck all over just what the fuck is what? What are we doing? Come on now. So, okay, so the next part of what I want to talk about is the fact that there is a new America weight loss drug, oh, my God, all the fat is it going to be saved? The world is going to be amazing, because we're going to have this drug, and we're not gonna be fat anymore.

31:30

Yeah. So the first thing that I want to talk about is a post an article from Ed Carr for Gizmodo, titled a so called game changing weight loss drug is here. So what happens next, doctors and potential patients are hopeful about we go V that's the name of the drug, but is but is it really the miracle it's hyped up to be and it will it can contribute to medical fatphobia. So this article, I wouldn't suggest necessarily reading it because the person who's written it clearly has a strong level of internalized fat phobia. It's not aggressively fat phobic. And so if you're feeling like you want to have a look, just you know, there's, it's fat phobic, but it's not kind of like foot fat people and you know, they'd rather be it'd be better if they were dead, then you know, them fat. But yeah, so just keep that in mind.

32:30

There's lots of keywords in there too. So, okay, so we go v is the name of the jug, we go V, we go V will go V, we go v. So it's a way first weight loss drug that's been approved by the FDA, the Federal Drug Administration in the US since 2014. And it costs $1,300 per prescription. super affordable, then anyone can go out and get it. So I'm going to pick a few things here about the history of diet drugs here. So Ed car for good, Gizmodo says there's also precedent for this issue showing up with weight loss drugs, when he says this issue, the issue that there's little research, there's little long term research, the drug is approved. After a while of fat people taking the drug turns out, it kills us. And so they're like, oh, whoo oopsie and then it's taken off the shelves.

33:31

Okay, so just last year, the FDA successfully requested that Japanese pharmaceutical, isI who pull his appetite suppressant drug Belviq, from the US after post market safety to date, safety data suggested that those on it were more likely to develop cast cancer, past treatments like Fen fen and the two for DNP were pulled from the market for their dangerous sometimes fatal side effects. DMP, in particular could cause heatstroke by raising the person's core body temperature too high. Okay, so continuing. So basically, this is what happens historically, with these new miracle weight loss drugs that have been approved that people start taking them and then it's like, oh, that's a bad problem. And he died a little bit and a little bit thinner. Okay, so continuing in late June, Mercedes, so I'm going to be talking about Mercedes.

34:39

I'm gonna be talking about Mark easily Mercedes, also known as Mikey Mercedes, who wrote a piece about this for her Patreon, which is now public. But anyway, this guy interviewed Mercedes, Mikey for this. So in late June, Mercedes wrote a detailed criticism of weego V's approval and the praise surrounding it. Among other things, she noted that the trials used for approval were funded by Novo Nordisk Novo Nordisk the manufacturers Novo Nordisk the creators and that many of the top researchers behind these studies are promoting the success of weego V had gotten research funding or outside payments from Novo Nordisk in the past. industry funded research is an all too common practice and these studies tend to provide rosier results and non industry research research.

35:34

Mercedes also pointed out that the company Once settled a lawsuit from the federal government and was forced to cough up 60 million over his attempts to downplay the possible risks, risks of thyroid cancer from another of its drugs. Its anti diabetic drugs, so So this drug was, is a part of a diabetic diet diabetes drug, and they what's in the diabetes drug they have in this new drug we go V. It's that same drug but a way higher concentration. So they've downplayed the possible possible risks from another anti diabetic drug, Vic Tozeur. That's an image drug, and it's marketing to doctors. At the same time, FDA has endorsed Victoza for added benefits in reducing the risk of heart disease and stroke in type two diabetes patients.

36:34

Aside from these arguments, the underlying premise of weight loss treatment that Mercedes and other others in the fat acceptance and body positivity share with these movements criticize that is something that absolutely has to be treated, maybe on shaky ground the most thing and so they're saying here like, why are we treating fatness? So, continuing quote, this is quote from Mikey. There's this assumption that runs so deep that if you are fat, it's going to be bad for your health. End of story. Like it's not even questioned.

37:08

Actually, that's this is Harriet Brown. Harriet Brown, an author and journalist who has written about the science of weight loss told Gizmodo Gizmodo in the past, she's argued that diets and other true and tried methods of weight loss are both ineffective and counterproductive to helping people stay healthy. But it at least brings up the possibility that being fat the words in of itself, isn't the death sentence is commonly portrayed to be.

37:35

Some researchers have even called for BMI to be abandoned as a primary screening tool for health. And if that's the case, then maybe we go V isn't the answer to our prayers, not because it doesn't work as attended. But because it's trying to solve a perceived crisis of fatness that might not be as dire. It might not not might not be dire as many think it is. And then here's another quote from Harriet Brown, my question would be, does this drug does it actually make people healthier? And I don't think we have the answer to that.

38:12

So that's a really good point from Harriet is that it's treating something that you know, it's like, why are we taking this drug to for aesthetic reasons? Or are we taking these drugs to be healthy because they're two completely separate things? And I mean, with the history of what diet drugs have done, is they have caused a lot of harm to people have killed people, etc. So yeah, so mock easily Mercedes mock, easily mercedes.com I am a member of her Patreon and also goes by Mikey, she wrote about we go V and then she put it for her Patreon and then shared that same

39:17

post on her website. And so it's called we go V isn't a game changer. But an update Okay, so here's a little quote from it. While the consequences that corporatized science has on public health are always unfolding, fat people are particularly vulnerable to harm when capitalism and science mix. There is plenty of uproar from scientists when tobacco companies for example, attempt to meddle in research for profit, but the antics of diet industry players are comparatively accepted. This is because of weight stigma in science meshes incredibly well with profit seeking behaviors of companies like Novo Nordisk the creator or manufacturer of the drug. other majors major stakeholders in the quote unquote war on Bo word. Many scientists are often encouraged by corporate sources of general research, funding to promote stigmatizing ideas about fatness. But ultimately, corporate influence usually just reaffirms the biases that already shaped science.

40:21

Unless researchers face their deep seated biases against fat people, then corporations will continue to influence the bedrock of public health. It's evidence base and the well being of people everywhere. So Surprise, surprise, surprise, fuckin surprise. Mikey does tons of research into where the money is. Who's funded this? How much people have been paid? And exactly what the previous article says basically, when people who are funding the studies when they fund the studies and they're involved, basically, then there's going to be way more favorable results. Versus if it's, if it's not like that. And something is out so I'm going to talk about not just we go V but you know, just diet drugs in general. There's a really interesting article from Jessica Wagner, the deadly internet diet drug that cooks people alive. And so I got I found this from Reagan chastise website and Reagan Chasteen says about diet drugs. Many, many diet drugs get approved based on short term studies and then are found to cause great harm. The argument that killing some fat people is no big deal.

41:46

If there is a chance that we could become thin is made by people who are our doctors and who claim to be our advocates. Let's say you're a doctor who learns that in World War One munitions workers who were exposed to too for dying a trophy funnel, also known as DNP, began sweating profusely, profusely experienced stomach pain, weakness, diarrhea, yellow skinned, yellow skin, weight loss, fevers at over 104 degrees Fahrenheit, confusion, agitation, unconsciousness, and then death. In a normal world, the response would be, wow, let's keep the let's keep people that hell away from DNP. But in 1933, overcome with diet culture, a bunch of doctors, including two physicians at Stanford, heard about this and responded, wait, did they say weight loss?

42:43

So, Jess Wepner goes into the story about DNP. And it's, it's great. Now now it's behind a paywall. But I've got the link to the article where it's free from the paywall, so you can read it. And basically in a nutshell, people on the internet know about this DNP and so they have been selling it illegally to people to help them lose weight. And obviously, people are getting sick. I can't remember if people died probably. But it's really interesting because people will do anything to lose weight. Right. And yeah, and it's just the same thing over and over. And now you might have heard of something called fin fin. I mentioned it before Fen Phen Fen fen is like the most notorious one. And so, Fen Fen This is from Wikipedia was shown to cause potentially fatal Pullman words, pulmonary hypertension and heart valve problems which eventually led to his withdrawal and legal damages over 13 billion. So a little bit about Fen Fen. So Fen Flora mind, which is a single drug was first introduced in the 1970s but was not popular because it only temporarily reduced weight, I guess while other people were taking a 1984 study found a weight loss of

44:15

muscle going to say how much in 24 weeks as compared to less under a placebo. It's old modesty until the 1990s when it was combined with phentermine, which is where the fen fen and it's spelled Fe N PHE n. So it was combined with phentermine and heavily marketed. A similar drug had caused severe lung damage and provided reason to worry that similar drugs could increase the risk of a rare but often fatal lung disease, pulmonary hypertension in 1994 wife official Fred Wilson wife is the people who created it and marketed it, sold it manufactured it.

44:54

Official Fred Wilson Wilson expressed concerns about fenfluramine labeling containing only four cases of pulmonary hypertension when a total of 41 had been observed, but no action taken till 1996. And so this whistleblower was like, Hey, man, like, we should maybe tell people that if they take it that the bad shit could happen. And so in 1995, y is introduced dexfenfluramine, which it hoped would cause fewer adverse effects. However, the medical officer for the Food and Drug Administration, Leo Lutz, whack, insisted upon a blackbox warning of pulmonary hypertension risks. After lot wack refused to approve the drug, the FDA management had James Milton Bill stat, an FDA senior drug evaluator sign it and approved the drug with no blackbox warning for marketing in 1996. So basically, a whistleblower was like, Hey, this is what's up. And so they're like, Okay, fine, we'll, we'll put some other shit in it to reduce the risks.

46:01

FDA were like, we need to not really, let's put a blackbox warning on it and say, Listen, there's risks of this. And then then a senior at the FDA, who knows? Who knows why, who knows why was like, listen to me, don't worry about it. Just let it go out. And, and so continuing in 1996, a 30 year old woman developed heart problems after a month of using Fen Fen. And she died in February 1997. And then, basically, you know, shit happened continued to happen. And they had to pay out $13 billion dollars, which is probably not enough, right?

46:54

Obviously, because people are dying, it's not enough, right? It's not enough. It's not enough. It's not enough. Just stop fucking trying to make fat people, Finn. Why not look at Fat people, like people whose health is independent of their weight. Wild I know, instead of just being Oh, and killing us and just killing us. Ah, and I can imagine. It's almost someone said to me when I was deep in fatphobia. If someone said to me, Listen, there's risks to this drug. But you know, it helps you lose weight. In fact, actually, that did happen. I remember when some guy when I work with when I was getting out of diet culture, but I was still in it.

47:42

A guy that I worked opposite he had these vials of, I don't know what it was, I think it might have been steroids, but he was like, Hey, listen, take this drugs, and then it will make you thinner, you know, the sun was coming up, and you probably want to look really good. And I was like, oh, and then I was like, No, but I can see easily how people are like, well, I'll just take it for a little bit. And then have these consequences. I'll just take it because you know, I have an event coming up. And you know, I want to be really thin. And, and people are people die, right? And obviously not everyone dies who takes it, but takes diet drugs, but to what end? Right? So with with the with the we go v $1,300 a prescription when you stop taking the drug, it stops working. Right?

48:37

So theoretically, you would have to take this drug for the rest of your life. And for some people, like if I were, you know, when I was in die culture, and I had to take a drug for the rest of my life to be thin, I would have like, you know, eating shit to have been sitting. So that wouldn't have bothered me. But you know, and then 1300s of dollars a prescription who lost I don't know how long a prescription last probably 30 days. And so. And at this point, insurance companies in the US aren't paying for it, because there's a new drug. And then we don't you know, like Reagan Chasteen points out, we don't know the long term effects. It's like, the FDA is like Wolf slug something that is making fat people less fat, no long term studies, whatever. And sometimes, you know, that that needs to happen, right?

49:28

Like, for example, the COVID vaccine, we can't have long term studies, the risk of waiting for long term studies outweighs the risk of, of what could be a potential side effect. And, you know, there's lots of research about drugs like that, suggesting that side effects usually are pretty minimal. Right? And but then with diet drugs, recent history has shown that turns out that often often They have to be pulled. Because they don't work and people get sick. You know, it's like, imagine if the COVID vaccine and it's like, Well, every time we've made a vaccine like this, was it, people have died, loads of people have got cancer, loads of people have had heart attacks.

50:17

Some people don't. And it's fine. You'd be like, oh, oh, I'm not so sure now, whereas like with the COVID vaccine, it's like, vaccines of that ilk have shown to be historically fine. Obviously, not everyone, you know, some people will die. Just because, you know, that's that's the way that we, you know, the risk of this, but you know, it's pretty small. But with these diet companies, and diet drugs, that risk is a lot bigger.

50:47

So, time and time, again, we see healthcare providers trying to come up with ways to shrink fat people. So one, we have this new jaw wiring magnetic device that looks like a medieval torture device, which forces participants to not move their jaw and only have a liquid diet, causing a plethora of unwanted side effects. And also means that when the device comes off, the weight comes back on because that's what happens, just like it would with any diet. And even the most ardent diet supporters would say, on liquid diet isn't the best way to go about losing weight, there is no diet to to that, that effectively helps people lose weight long term.

51:52

And but even people who don't believe that would say liquid diets aren't great. And that's what this jaw wiring thing does is it forces people to have a liquid diet. And as soon as it's removed, the body is like fuck this and then puts the weight back on, presumably more, because we've got really shoddy data from this job wiring device, only two weeks and five people in the study. And so it's been heralded at this as this groundbreaking thing. And it's just not, it's an embarrassment of a study. And it is a torture device, not to promote health, but to shrink people temporarily. And, you know, in the most barbaric and fucked up way.

52:43

And then also, we have this new, quote, Game Changing drug approved by the FDA, called we go V, where there's conflicts of interest. Left, right and center in regards to funding, diet companies, and the junk drug manufacturer have basically paid for this drug to come to fruition and the study to be more favorable than if they didn't pay for it. And the history of diet drugs is horrifying. They're approved on short term studies. And then long term, generally speaking, it turns out that they have these awful side effects and adverse effects, including death. But at least you died and you were a little bit thinner, right? At least you died. And then your casket people were like, oh, did she lose weight?

53:42

Oh, wow, it was all worth it. Because she looks fabulous. Right? Because that's amazing. That's a lot, right? It doesn't matter that you did, but you're gonna look so thin in your packet and your friends and family are going to like why she likes a murderer. Also, this drug is $1,300 a prescription. And it is a something that you will need to take for the rest of your life and injection you'll need to take for the rest of your life because if you stop, guess what? You're going to be fat again. And this is solely to reduce body size. This is not to make people healthy, right? Because health and weight are two different things. So we have to always keep in mind that you can be fat and healthy. If this was about health, then people would just pursue health. Right? They would work out okay, how can we help fat people be more healthy? And they would realize that adverse health conditions associated a bad word they're associated with being fat, have been heavily linked to weight stigma.

54:59

Hey, fatphobia and weight cycling, aka yo yo dieting, which is dieting, basically dieting, and then he put weight back on because that's what our bodies do on magnificent bodies. And then you brace yourself until you got another diet because back home, those two things have been heavily linked to adverse health conditions that people in bigger bodies can tend to experience. Another thing is being thin, that doesn't mean that you are healthy. And so even if someone was to wear this jaw wiring device for the rest of their life, and their body didn't rebel and make them not. And their body didn't rebel and put the weight back on anyway. It doesn't mean that they would be healthy.

56:00

Think about it, if you have a liquid diet, do you think that that is health promoting? Do you think walk around life without being able to open your jaw is health promoting, and the stigma around that and the shame around that that that person might be feeling and finally, using torture devices and drugs with unknown side effects is not health promoting. And history has shown us that they don't make fat people thin anyway. Oh, even if they did, even if this jaw wiring thing. And even if this new wonder drug, quote, wonder drug made people thinner, it's still not necessarily health promoting, it's still all kinds of fucked up. And if these researchers and scientists really did want to help fat people, then they would do things like continue researching in how we can support people with different body sizes.

57:11

With their health, I also want to say that I get it, I get the the overwhelming fatphobia that we experience in the world and depending on how depending on your body size, experiencing more. And also depending on if you have other marginalized identities, how difficult it is to move through the world with those identities, as well as being a fat person. And so, if you choose if you decide that having the jaw wiring is the best option for you to try and reduce that weight stigma temporarily, then I understand and if you choose to find that drug to see if that works for you, then I get it like living in this fat phobic society is fucked up. It's awful, it's difficult and whatever people do to try and alleviate that, then I understand.

58:18

Now, you know, I personally wouldn't do it because of everything that I've just spoken about that you know, we don't know if this diet drug is is gonna make people thin long term, we don't know the long term side effects. And with the jaw wiring, we know it's just like any other diet as soon as those jaw wire that jaw wiring device comes off it's going to mean that the view you'll put weight back up so unless you want to have a jaw wired for the rest of your life and even then it probably won't make you fit in because your body will rebel and if you want to take this injection drug the rest of your life is probably not going to work to make people healthier because yeah none of that stuff sounds health promoting to me in my eyes anyway.

59:15

So but I get it I get it I get it right this this this fat phobic world is fucked up and so yeah, I just want to just want to point that out that people who do decide to do this do any of those things any any diet? It doesn't mean those people are a bad or stupids me know, awful people, it just means that they are in pain. And they are trying to find a way to alleviate that pain. So I get it. I get it. So yeah. It doesn't mean that these things aren't any less fucked up though.

59:59

Just FYI All right, well I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thanks for hanging out with me today. I'll see you on the next one. So first fatty and I'll see you in a while alligator goodbye

1:00:18

thanks for listening to the episode and if you feel ready to get serious about this work and want to know when the doors open to fears fatti Academy which is my signature program, where I teach all about how to overcome your fat phobic beliefs and learn to love your fat body, then go to first party.com forward slash waitlist again that is phase fatty.com. Forward slash waitlist to get your name on the waitlist. For when first party Academy my signature program opens