Speaker 1: It's Night Side with Dan Ray. I'm WBZ Koston's new radio.
Speaker 2: I'm delighted to welcome back a guest who hasn't been
Speaker 2: with me for at least two or three years. Dr
Speaker 2: Marty McCarry and doctor McCarey, welcome back to Nightside.
Speaker 3: Hey, good to hear your voice. Good to be back.
Speaker 2: Thanks Dan Well, I remember you very well as one
Speaker 2: of my favorite guests. You've just written in a new book,
Speaker 2: which we will talk about, but we're here to talk
Speaker 2: about cell phones. The book is called blind Spots, When
Speaker 2: Medicine Gets It Wrong and what it means to our health.
Speaker 2: I do want to reserve some time to talk about
Speaker 2: the book, if you'd be so kind, But I also
Speaker 2: want to talk about the subject at hend, and that
Speaker 2: is cell phones in school. You're pretty clear on this.
Speaker 2: You believe that cell phones really should be banned from schools.
Speaker 2: I tend to agree with you on that.
Speaker 4: Tell us why well.
Speaker 3: Two thirds of teenagers say that they are distracted during
Speaker 3: class because of their cell phones, and there's a secondhand
Speaker 3: smoke effect. From the research, fifty percent of teenagers who
Speaker 3: are not using their phones say they're distracted by other
Speaker 3: people checking their phone. Constantly during class. Now, these are
Speaker 3: highly addictive substance devices, and we wouldn't allow addictive substances
Speaker 3: in class. It's stealing their attention by design. As how
Speaker 3: the phones work, the average kid is getting two hundred
Speaker 3: and seventy three notifications per day. There's no way teachers
Speaker 3: can compete with that. These absent phones are designed to
Speaker 3: steal their attention and hold on to it as long
Speaker 3: as possible. It is creating impulsive behavior in some kids,
Speaker 3: and the kids don't like being addicted to the phones
Speaker 3: if you really get down to it. A study found
Speaker 3: that forty four percent of children say that their phones
Speaker 3: make them anxious. We have an anxiety and depression epidemic,
Speaker 3: we have a mental health crisis, we have learning loss
Speaker 3: that's severe after COVID, and we have a teacher retention problem.
Speaker 3: And in part they are citing the culture around the
Speaker 3: cell phones and social media. So we can address all
Speaker 3: three in part by making doing this one simple thing
Speaker 3: that says, when you're in the classroom, you got to
Speaker 3: focus on the teacher and the learning.
Speaker 2: You know, it's funny. I'm sure you're familiar with the
Speaker 2: acronym fomo fear of missing out and I'm sure that
Speaker 2: secondary impact the fifty percent who are distracted by other
Speaker 2: students being distracted when they see the other student reaching
Speaker 2: for their cell phone and reacting in some form or fashion,
Speaker 2: they probably have a little fomo moment. They feel that
Speaker 2: they're missing something out at that moment because they're not
Speaker 2: using their cell phone, which is I can see that.
Speaker 2: I can understand that explanation. This seems to be a
Speaker 2: trend in schools as classes begin in high schools that
Speaker 2: that schools are now saying keep the cell phone separate.
Speaker 2: I guess they put them in some sort of package.
Speaker 2: The kids can drop them off pick them up at
Speaker 2: the end of the day. Do you think that that's
Speaker 2: a trend we're going to see happening more often.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so. And I don't know the perfect solution.
Speaker 3: There is no perfect solution. We've got these kids addicted,
Speaker 3: and forty percent of kids will have a mental health
Speaker 3: diagnosis by the time they turn eighteen. So the epidemic
Speaker 3: is already pretty bad. Of impulsive behavior, depression, anxiety, addiction
Speaker 3: to the cell phones, a lack of human connection. You know,
Speaker 3: some kids don't even know how to shake your hand
Speaker 3: or look at you straight so I do think we're
Speaker 3: going to see moving in this direction. Banning the cell
Speaker 3: phones in this classroom, by the way, in the ways
Speaker 3: that you describe locking them up or putting them in
Speaker 3: a palace or something, is entirely feasible. School districts have
Speaker 3: already decided to move in this direction. It's bipartisan. In
Speaker 3: the world of everybody disagreeing and the polarization of politics,
Speaker 3: both Governor Kathy Hoschel in New York and Governor Glenn
Speaker 3: Youngkin in Virginia have both made announcements saying they want
Speaker 3: this done. A matter of fact. Virginia, where the Youngkins,
Speaker 3: the governor and I have advised him, he assigned an
Speaker 3: executive order saying that he wants to move towards a
Speaker 3: self free, cell phone free school classroom K through twelve.
Speaker 3: So it's doable. This is something we can do, and
Speaker 3: I think hopefully we can move in this direction. Because
Speaker 3: kids meet help, they're begging for help.
Speaker 2: There was a time not so long ago when the
Speaker 2: advent of cell phones, when my children were young, and
Speaker 2: there was a lot of pressure because one kid would
Speaker 2: have a cell phone, or two or three kids would
Speaker 2: have a cell phone, and then all the other kids
Speaker 2: wanted a cell phone, and I think a lot of
Speaker 2: parents of my generation, baby boomers, felt like, well, we'd
Speaker 2: be denying our children access, and we made up excuses
Speaker 2: in our mind that, well, they have to have a
Speaker 2: cell phone in case they need to reach us during
Speaker 2: the day, all of which I think was phony and flawed.
Speaker 2: Do you agree that there was a period of time
Speaker 2: where parents allowed young children third and fourth grade children
Speaker 2: to make really important decisions that the parents should have
Speaker 2: recognized that the decisions that they were being i think
Speaker 2: forced to make were wrong.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do agree. I think there's multiple components. Number one,
Speaker 3: Big tech has been lying to us for decades. They've
Speaker 3: been telling us that more technology is always good and
Speaker 3: if there's a problem that it creates, more technology on
Speaker 3: top of that can fix those problems. And we've ushered
Speaker 3: in a giant mental health crisis. Suicide is increasing. We've
Speaker 3: got fifty percent of children now are obese or overweight.
Speaker 3: Some can't even run a couple of blocks. We've got
Speaker 3: a depression at an epidemic level. So big tech has
Speaker 3: been lying to us. The second thing is some parents
Speaker 3: don't want to be parents. They want to just give
Speaker 3: their kids a screen and not have to spend time
Speaker 3: with the kids. Kids don't want the screens, they don't
Speaker 3: want your money, they want your time. And so there's
Speaker 3: that factor in some cases. And then finally, the phones
Speaker 3: and the apps are creating a culture right now, and
Speaker 3: there's this sense of I need to do what everyone
Speaker 3: else is doing. I don't understand it, but it's everyone
Speaker 3: else is doing it. And so that peer pressure is
Speaker 3: creating the dogma out there that, oh, I have to
Speaker 3: give my kids a phone. You don't have to give
Speaker 3: your hit a phone. My sister did not give her
Speaker 3: kids phones. They're both in their early teens. They still
Speaker 3: don't have phones. They're doing great. They can shake your hand,
Speaker 3: they can talk to you. They're wonderful kids. They got
Speaker 3: great manners, they're engaged. And you don't have to do
Speaker 3: it just because everyone else is doing it.
Speaker 2: You know, everything that you said to me has just
Speaker 2: ring so true. It's funny. Last Hour during our first
Speaker 2: hour at night of the eight o'clock hour in the show,
Speaker 2: we now talked to four a different guests about various
Speaker 2: a wide variety of subjects, and two of our guests
Speaker 2: Last Hour, doctor Gregory Jans, research at Harvard University Graduate
Speaker 2: School of Education is found it's not adolescentines that are
Speaker 2: struggling most with their mental health, but college aged young adults.
Speaker 2: And then we talked to a doctor from Canada, doctor
Speaker 2: Rob Frasier, with a group called Molecular You Millennials and
Speaker 2: jen xers facing higher risk of certain cancers seventeen cancers
Speaker 2: than boomers, which means the boomers who were born in
Speaker 2: the late forties and into the fifties are theoretically more
Speaker 2: healthy in many respects than those regenerations that came after
Speaker 2: millennials and gen xers. And he ascribed a lot of
Speaker 2: it to the idea that a lot of the millennials
Speaker 2: in gen xers sit in front of screens, cell phone screens,
Speaker 2: do not get out, do not interact with other people,
Speaker 2: do not exercise, and their diet is also poor. So
Speaker 2: all with this, what I have tonight is a chorus
Speaker 2: of doctors who are all saying in effect the same thing,
Speaker 2: particularly as it applies to these cell phones. And by
Speaker 2: the way, as you say, a lot of big corporations
Speaker 2: Meta amongst most, they've made a lot of money off
Speaker 2: of cell phones and off of the misery that young
Speaker 2: people now are experiencing and isn't that iron.
Speaker 3: You're absolutely right. We've given kids the impression that they
Speaker 3: can get a dopamine surge if they swipe one more time,
Speaker 3: if they check one more time, there's going to be
Speaker 3: some amazing message. All your friends love you and they're
Speaker 3: going to throw a party for you tomorrow and they'll
Speaker 3: get to bite off these people. And so there's this.
Speaker 3: We've messed with their minds, right, We've played with the
Speaker 3: minds of these children. And it's not you and I,
Speaker 3: it's Meta and Instagram and TikTok and all these companies
Speaker 3: that have figured out the psychology of stealing their attention
Speaker 3: and holding on to it as long as possible.
Speaker 4: And if you think.
Speaker 3: About what we're doing, if you take a step back, Dan,
Speaker 3: look at what we as a society are doing to
Speaker 3: our children. We wake them up before they're Shircadian rhythm.
Speaker 3: We have them sit in a sedentary classroom for hours
Speaker 3: on hours. We give them screen time as the enjoyment
Speaker 3: for or break from that classroom time. We give them
Speaker 3: food that's highly addictive, ultra processed foods that's got all
Speaker 3: sorts of chemicals. It messes the microbiome is deplete of nutrients,
Speaker 3: and then we're wondering why we have an epidemic of
Speaker 3: childhood depression and fertility is going up, and chronic diseases
Speaker 3: and pcos. So it's not hard to figure out. It's
Speaker 3: just somebody has to stand up for kids.
Speaker 2: And it's almost when you think about it, it's almost Pavlovian.
Speaker 2: We know what their reaction will be, just as when
Speaker 2: the dog that has been kicked is going to cower
Speaker 2: in the room, when someone walks in the room that
Speaker 2: does young people just want that hit, that additional hit
Speaker 2: from the cell phone. My guest is doctor Marty McCarey.
Speaker 2: His new book is called blind Spots. We want to
Speaker 2: talk about that when medicine gets it wrong and what
Speaker 2: it means to our health. But if we like to
Speaker 2: talk about cell phones. I hope you'll take a few
Speaker 2: phone calls from my listeners. Doctor you bet, okay, we'll
Speaker 2: open up the phone line six one, seven, two, five,
Speaker 2: four ten thirty six one seven nine three one ten thirty.
Speaker 2: That'll get you through. We were talking initially about cell phones,
Speaker 2: and then I do want to get to this book,
Speaker 2: blind Spots, When medicine gets it wrong and what it
Speaker 2: means to our health. I have watched doctor mcarey for
Speaker 2: many years. I have had him on my show previously, UH,
Speaker 2: and he is an independent thinker. If you look up
Speaker 2: the word independent thinker or the phrase independent thinker in
Speaker 2: the dictionary, his picture is most likely going to be
Speaker 2: there back on night Side right after this. By the
Speaker 2: by the Red Sox have just one three zip. They
Speaker 2: they finally snapped out of their their slump with Toronto
Speaker 2: great pitching performance tonight by Bao their young pitcher. We'll
Speaker 2: be back on night Side right after.
Speaker 1: This now bet to Dan Way live from the Into
Speaker 1: World Life Side Studios on Dumb and Bzy News Radio.
Speaker 2: My guest is doctor Marney McCarry. He's been a guest
Speaker 2: on this program UH in the past. He is an
Speaker 2: independent thinker, and I hope you understand, Doctor I I
Speaker 2: cannot offer higher praise to anyone than to call them
Speaker 2: an independent thinker in this UH day, and I hope
Speaker 2: take that as the ultimate compliment trust me, UH, because
Speaker 2: there are too few independent thinkers in my opinion at
Speaker 2: this point. Let us get to the phone. It's gonna
Speaker 2: go to Bud, who is in onset. I assume that's onset, Massachusetts. Right, Bud.
Speaker 4: Oh, I'm sorry, Todd.
Speaker 2: It's it's what Hello, Hi is Todd Todd? Okay, Bud,
Speaker 2: but but it's written Bud, but it's Todd. That's no.
Speaker 2: We're gonna make you Todd what you are? But you're
Speaker 2: an onset? Is that down the cape?
Speaker 4: Yes? It is, well not quite the cape? So all right,
Speaker 4: well you're on with Talktor. We don't cross the bridge.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's why I don't know it. Okay, you're you're
Speaker 2: on with Talk to Bonnie maccari and mccarrey excuse me.
Speaker 2: And we're talking about basically having kids go to school
Speaker 2: the old fashioned way, sitting in class, listening to the teachers,
Speaker 2: interacting with the teachers and fellow students. Yeah, no cell phones,
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. What do you think?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Yeah, so I am forty six years old. I
Speaker 4: believe like my generation, if you want to call that
Speaker 4: was on the cusp of that technology. You know, when
Speaker 4: I was in sixth seventh grade, eighth grade, there was
Speaker 4: no such thing as cell phones. Maybe the occids from
Speaker 4: person had one of those old fashioned car phones, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: You were born in seventy eighth then if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, fine, yeah, yeah, seventy eight. So while I
Speaker 4: graduated in nineteen ninety six, okay, and I felt like
Speaker 4: I was an old soul. I was one of the
Speaker 4: last of my friends to use text messages. You know,
Speaker 4: why would you text message somebody when you could just
Speaker 4: talk to them? You know, I couldn't understand that.
Speaker 2: And then over the years, weekly, weekly, do you have
Speaker 2: a question or that Doctor McCarry might want to respond to?
Speaker 4: So, so, okay, I'm sorry. So I believe we can
Speaker 4: fight this. I think that's this is a technology that's
Speaker 4: just going to always be a part of our lives.
Speaker 4: And I totally agree with the doctor about, you know,
Speaker 4: getting these phones out of kid's hands and trying to
Speaker 4: like listen to human beings. But I almost thinking we're
Speaker 4: shooting ourselves in the foot because I don't see how
Speaker 4: this would ever change. This is the future. It's it's
Speaker 4: almost like we don't Okay.
Speaker 2: So you think that you think we've lost the war.
Speaker 2: Not only have we lost the battle, let's say, yeah,
Speaker 2: we lost the war.
Speaker 4: We we we want to hold on and fight. And
Speaker 4: I get.
Speaker 2: If doctor McCarry has a less dystopian view of the circumstances,
Speaker 2: Doctor McCarey, can we can we turn this around?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 3: I appreci Todd's comments because I'm also from that generation
Speaker 3: where we went to school, we interacted with people, we
Speaker 3: had a human connection, and when the teacher was teaching,
Speaker 3: we would listen. Today it's very different, and I do
Speaker 3: think there is a recognition that the promise of big
Speaker 3: tech has failed us, and that the idea that free
Speaker 3: internet and free information with unlimited apps and constant access
Speaker 3: would be good for child development and learning has backfired.
Speaker 3: And they don't need more internet access. What they need
Speaker 3: is more human connection. So there's a lot of parents
Speaker 3: now who are saying we've gone too far and we
Speaker 3: go back, and people have said it's not possible, but
Speaker 3: I'm encouraged.
Speaker 4: And then then I'm telling you we can't go back.
Speaker 4: There's no going back. There is no way that whatever
Speaker 4: can go back. I don't believe that there is only
Speaker 4: going to get more and more invasive. It's going to
Speaker 4: make more and more easy. It's you to go back.
Speaker 2: God, I'm telling you we got to fight it. To
Speaker 2: come on.
Speaker 4: I get it. I agree, I do. I have so
Speaker 4: and this is this is if you got a minute
Speaker 4: so I again, I grew up like that. I I resisted.
Speaker 4: I like to think that I'm old school. I have
Speaker 4: older friends. Anyways, I was the last one of my
Speaker 4: friends to join. And now I'll be honest. And my
Speaker 4: son's eighteen. He just graduated high school. He made it,
Speaker 4: but I'm telling you it was fighting with the phones
Speaker 4: and the homework and everything that doctor said is absolutely correct.
Speaker 4: And and I'll make one more other comment, which really
Speaker 4: kind of bothers me, as my sons are very responsible,
Speaker 4: like very lucky with this young man. And I noticed
Speaker 4: and more and more he's doing the text whay he's
Speaker 4: driving and I try to remind him that he can wait.
Speaker 4: And I'm that is just a whole other issue. I
Speaker 4: believe that, Oh God, yeah, absolutely. And you know what,
Speaker 4: it's happened in more and more these young kids, they
Speaker 4: really the whole don't texted drive thing is just not
Speaker 4: getting them, you know what I mean? Just like that.
Speaker 4: You know, I'm finally scared to drink in less than driving,
Speaker 4: thank god. But I don't know what's worse. I mean, well,
Speaker 4: I know it's worse, but you know what I'm.
Speaker 2: Saying, Immortality when you're eighteen is a lot stronger.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, and you know he's always responsible, So
Speaker 4: there's a lot of We're going to.
Speaker 2: Have doctor mccarrey in here for one second and let
Speaker 2: me try to have him try to pick up your
Speaker 2: mood here, because you can't. You can't quit here, doctor McCarry,
Speaker 2: What would you say to Dodd here?
Speaker 3: Well, I think I look, I appreciate what I's saying,
Speaker 3: because there are there are times in human development in
Speaker 3: modern history where we thought there's no way we'll be
Speaker 3: doing things differently. We thought there's no way we'll go
Speaker 3: back to a shared economy where people share a ride
Speaker 3: like with an uber or lyft. We thought there's no
Speaker 3: way people would stop subscribing to cable. Now we've got
Speaker 3: a record number of cord cutters. So I am optimistic
Speaker 3: because ultimately the truth prevails. And when people see the
Speaker 3: terrible consequences of cell phone and app addiction, the mental
Speaker 3: health epidemic of anxiety and depression induced by TikTok and
Speaker 3: Instagram and Meta and all these companies, people will say, hey,
Speaker 3: we want to have a school that restores human connection.
Speaker 3: So we're starting to see that, and I'm gonna be
Speaker 3: optimistic and hope that things improve.
Speaker 2: All right, Todd, I appreciate it. Stick with us, don't
Speaker 2: give up. You've got a great eighteen year old son.
Speaker 2: Emphasize to him all the things that you believe in.
Speaker 2: He deserves that. Okay, thanks, Todd. I think we met
Speaker 2: a lost Todd there, down and down. I'm sorry you
Speaker 2: didn't respond. Uh, doctor McCarry, let's we gotta take a
Speaker 2: quick news break. We'll take another call or two, and
Speaker 2: then I want to talk about your book and I'll
Speaker 2: let you go at nine forty five, I promise.
Speaker 4: Okay, sound's good.
Speaker 2: That's a deal. Great, Okay, take a break. Coming back
Speaker 2: on Nightside right after the news at the bottom of
Speaker 2: the hour.
Speaker 1: You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on w BEZ,
Speaker 1: Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: My guest is doctor Marty McCarey. He's with John Hopkins.
Speaker 2: He's a brilliant physician, written a book, Blind Spots When
Speaker 2: medicine gets it wrong and what it means for our help.
Speaker 2: But we're going to take a couple more calls here
Speaker 2: on cell phones in schools, in school Robert in Wellesley,
Speaker 2: You're on with doctor McCarry. Go right ahead, Robert.
Speaker 5: Could he mean Dan could even to your guests, Doctor
Speaker 5: Marty McCarry, I hope I'm pronouncing the name correctly.
Speaker 2: You are correct, go right ahead.
Speaker 5: Well, I have a comment which could also be a question,
Speaker 5: and I think that I one thing, I'm sympathetic and
Speaker 5: a respectful the knowledge of comments of doctor McCarey, and
Speaker 5: also sympathetic to the comments of your color Todd. And
Speaker 5: I think that there is already made solution that that
Speaker 5: may well have been overlooked, something that exists. I think
Speaker 5: it's a solid idea, and that is that cell phones
Speaker 5: are a special purpose two way radio and they fall
Speaker 5: in the under an actual science subject, the study of
Speaker 5: radio and and two way radio. It was actually a
Speaker 5: prototype for cell phones were developed by amateur radios operators,
Speaker 5: as you maybe may be aware, the and this can
Speaker 5: my feeling is that faculty and students and family parents
Speaker 5: included really need to be trained in the in the
Speaker 5: study of of radio needs there needs to be a
Speaker 5: curriculum approach to it.
Speaker 2: I get, I get the idea I got doctor McCarry's time.
Speaker 2: Doctor McCarey, I think that could be a subject in school,
Speaker 2: but I think it has to be a subject that
Speaker 2: is designated, you know, Junior year senior year as one
Speaker 2: portion of a curriculum. Go ahead.
Speaker 3: Robert's comments. Because communication is not that communication is good.
Speaker 3: It's the highly addictive nature of some of these notifications
Speaker 3: and apps. So some alternatives that parents have used are
Speaker 3: phones that don't have apps, that don't have internet access,
Speaker 3: or where they can control remotely whether or not the
Speaker 3: child who they can call. So some phones are set
Speaker 3: up so they have no internet access, they have no
Speaker 3: social media apps, but they can call nine to one
Speaker 3: one and they can call their parents. For very young children,
Speaker 3: that may be a reasonable option. What's not working is
Speaker 3: when the kids are checking their phone every five seconds.
Speaker 3: And look as adults get in this scenario too. There's
Speaker 3: a lot going on, there's information, you're waiting on a
Speaker 3: call or a text, and you find yourself more jittery.
Speaker 3: That doesn't make sense when a teacher is trying to
Speaker 3: teach math or English.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Robert, appreciate your calling, your observation. I just got
Speaker 2: to get one more in here before I have to
Speaker 2: let you doctor McCarry go. Thanks, thank you, Robert, thank
Speaker 2: you much, thank you. I would go to ed and
Speaker 2: Wooster Edward tight on time with doctor mcarrey. You got
Speaker 2: a question or comic right head ed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Mike comments.
Speaker 6: And I've been saying this for several years. I think
Speaker 6: the smartphones are the cigarettes of our era, and they
Speaker 6: even look that way. Fifty years ago you would have
Speaker 6: seen people holding a pack of cigarettes and lighting up
Speaker 6: a cigarette, and here you see everybody with a smartphone
Speaker 6: in their hands, tapping away.
Speaker 7: And I think apps are the cigarette vending machines of
Speaker 7: our era, and I think we've got to start by
Speaker 7: curving those and getting the getting.
Speaker 6: The tech CEOs up in from of Congress. I don't
Speaker 6: know if you remember thirty years ago. I think in
Speaker 6: the early nineties there was a hearing where they got
Speaker 6: all the tobacco CEOs up in front of the sent
Speaker 6: of hearing at the same time, and that was really
Speaker 6: the beginning of the end for the tobacco company that
Speaker 6: a year ago.
Speaker 2: They did that a year ago with Zuckerberg and Adam
Speaker 2: Maurici of Maressi, the head of Instagram. Yeah, I remember
Speaker 2: that clearly was last summer. I don't think it resulted much.
Speaker 6: Well, you got to keep after it, and I think
Speaker 6: instead of just studying it in schools, why don't they
Speaker 6: just have technology that disables the signal in schools.
Speaker 2: Let's get a quick comment from doctor McCarey. Doctor, that's
Speaker 2: not a bad suggestion.
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, most of these big tech CEOs
Speaker 3: don't let their kids on some of these highly digative
Speaker 3: apps and devices. That should tell us something. And I
Speaker 3: do think there's a real issue here that we don't
Speaker 3: talk about, and that is, if they're so highly addictive,
Speaker 3: why do we believe all things are okay in moderation.
Speaker 3: That might be okay for cupcake, but it's not okay
Speaker 3: for cocaine. We would never say cocaine and moderation is okay.
Speaker 3: And so we're not seeing the cardiovascular harm of cocaine
Speaker 3: with social media apps, but we are seeing the same
Speaker 3: addictive potential. And when school is designed to keep the
Speaker 3: kids' attention on learning and growing and developing, we've got
Speaker 3: to recognize that these distractions are taking away from their
Speaker 3: human connection.
Speaker 2: Perfect, perfect answer, and as always, thank you. I'm just
Speaker 2: a little bit crammed on time here. We will talk
Speaker 2: again soon, my friend.
Speaker 4: Okay, thank you, thank.
Speaker 2: You, Good night. Doctor McCarey. Blind spots when medicine gets
Speaker 2: it wrong, and what it means to our health. That
Speaker 2: is that that book has just recently been published. I believe.
Speaker 3: It's available for pre order. I'm very excited about it.
Speaker 3: It comes out in three weeks.
Speaker 2: Oh and okay, so we're run the cusp of this.
Speaker 2: We're ahead of the curve. I always like that. So
Speaker 2: tell us what the thesis of the book.
Speaker 3: Well, in modern medicine, we have giant blind spots. Issues
Speaker 3: we're not talking about that we need to be talking
Speaker 3: about that are central to health. Maybe we need to
Speaker 3: treat more diabetes with cooking classes than just throwing insolent
Speaker 3: at people. Maybe we need to talk about school lunch programs,
Speaker 3: not putting every six year old on ozepic when we
Speaker 3: diagnose obesity. Maybe we need to treat more high blood
Speaker 3: pressure by talking about sleep medicine and stress management, not
Speaker 3: just throwing anti hypertensives of folks. We need to talk
Speaker 3: about food as medicine, general body inflammation, and the underlying
Speaker 3: problems that cause disease, not just the whack a mole game.
Speaker 3: On the tail end of treating, operating and medicating, we
Speaker 3: have the most medicated generation in the history of the world.
Speaker 3: Pharma has a tight grip on American medicine. They are
Speaker 3: funding most of the research going on on disease management.
Speaker 3: They are essentially very tight with regulators. Now some say
Speaker 3: they've captured regulators at the FDA, and we saw the
Speaker 3: very cozy relationship just in the last few years. So
Speaker 3: we've got to recognize that our performance as a medical
Speaker 3: establishment is atrocious. Fifty percent of our kids have obesity
Speaker 3: or overweight, twenty five percent have pre diabetes in childhood
Speaker 3: or diabetes. Seventy five percent of Americans have some chronic
Speaker 3: disease or diagnosis. And we're seeing all these conditions. Cancer
Speaker 3: and young people, autoimmune diseases, autism, learning disabilities are all
Speaker 3: going up. At what point do we stop and ask why?
Speaker 3: And I'll tell you I love being a doctor. I'm
Speaker 3: a busy physician at Johns Hopkins. Nowhere, at any point
Speaker 3: in our training or education does anybody stop to ask
Speaker 3: what is going on? We take care of pancreatic cancer
Speaker 3: in my research team at Johns Hopkins and in our
Speaker 3: clinical work we take care of more pancreous cancer patients
Speaker 3: than any hospital in the United States. We've got great experts,
Speaker 3: I'm one of them, but at no point has anyone
Speaker 3: stopped and asked why is pancreatic cancer doubled over the
Speaker 3: last two decades. Maybe we need to look at the
Speaker 3: environmental exposures that cause cancer, not just the chemo therapy
Speaker 3: to treat it. And I think doctors are good people. Nurses,
Speaker 3: anyone in the health field is attracted to the profession
Speaker 3: out of a sense of compassion. These are good people.
Speaker 3: But we're working in a bad system. And what we've
Speaker 3: done to American doctors, in my opinion, is terrible. We
Speaker 3: put them on a war path to stomp out disease
Speaker 3: at the very end of a patient's journey, and we
Speaker 3: treat and medicate and operate, and we don't give doctors
Speaker 3: the time and the resources to actually dig deep into
Speaker 3: the root causes that bring people to care. Instead, we
Speaker 3: only talk about the care itself. We put doctors on
Speaker 3: these treadmills where they're supposed to build and code and
Speaker 3: diagnose as much as they can, and then we evaluate
Speaker 3: them at hospitals by how much they bring in revenue wise,
Speaker 3: and how high their throughput is and how many diagnoses
Speaker 3: they've assigned or how many operations they perform. And that
Speaker 3: is not healthy for a good system. We spend four
Speaker 3: point five trillion dollars on healthcare. What are we getting
Speaker 3: for it? We have the worst health outcomes. We're seeing
Speaker 3: cancer rates go up, infertility go up, mental health diagnoses
Speaker 3: go up, and so we've got to stop and zoom
Speaker 3: out and ask what are we doing, what is going
Speaker 3: on here, and start looking into food, is medicine, seed oils, microplastics, toxins,
Speaker 3: heavy metals. What are we doing in the environment that's
Speaker 3: affecting health? And I think right now there's a renewed
Speaker 3: interest in these topics like we've never seen before, and
Speaker 3: there's strong sentiment among young doctors and medical students who,
Speaker 3: let's be honest, they have more of an anti corporate mindset,
Speaker 3: who are saying, we don't want to have anything to
Speaker 3: do with traditional medicine of just diagnosing, treating, diagnosing and treating.
Speaker 3: They want to do something larger. They want to spend
Speaker 3: time with people and dig deep into the underlying issues
Speaker 3: that bring people to care, not just the care itself.
Speaker 2: I count wait to read this book Blind Spots, when
Speaker 2: medicine gets it wrong and what it means to our health.
Speaker 2: I just want to take one more minute and run
Speaker 2: a theory that I have by you, and I'm going
Speaker 2: to really be interested in what your response is. And
Speaker 2: I am convinced that we need to open more medical
Speaker 2: schools in this country, that in a country that has
Speaker 2: an an expanding population, more kids are going to qualify.
Speaker 2: Kids are going to offscore, offshore medical schools, and they're
Speaker 2: coming back doing their internships and becoming doctors. But I
Speaker 2: believe that somehow, some way, the number of medical schools
Speaker 2: and the number of seats in medical schools. For example,
Speaker 2: at the University of Massachusetts. We're a state with seven
Speaker 2: million people, there are one hundred and twenty seats every
Speaker 2: year at UMass Medical School. And it seems to me
Speaker 2: that that is insane. Now we have other medical schools
Speaker 2: in Massachusetts. Don't get me wrong, but do you at
Speaker 2: any in any sense agree with me that there are
Speaker 2: too many of our young people who want to become doctors.
Speaker 2: We talk about the shortage of doctors in rural America,
Speaker 2: and sometimes even now in urban America, it's tough to
Speaker 2: get a PCP these days. Am I way off based
Speaker 2: on that, doctor McCarry, And if I am, please tell me,
Speaker 2: because I firmly have advocated for more medical schools and
Speaker 2: have been critical of the MMA because I think they
Speaker 2: have a role, either direct or in direct in keeping
Speaker 2: medical schools the number of medical schools suppressed. If I'm
Speaker 2: way off based, I'll take the.
Speaker 3: Criticism now, Dan, what you're saying is entirely logical. But
Speaker 3: we don't just need more doctors. We need a better
Speaker 3: geographic distribution of doctors. We need doctors in rural areas
Speaker 3: and doctors caring for poor and minority communities. We need
Speaker 3: high quality doctors. Right now, we do something atrocious in
Speaker 3: modern American medicine. We take these highly creative, bright, altruistic
Speaker 3: young people and we beat them down and tournament into
Speaker 3: robots with this rote memorization be forcing them to recite
Speaker 3: the names of every molecule in the CREB cycle for
Speaker 3: an exam, even though you never need to know that
Speaker 3: on the fly, you can look it up. We beat
Speaker 3: them down with rote memorization and regurgitation. And we have
Speaker 3: all of our medical education controlled by one private company
Speaker 3: called the Double AMC. Nineteen board members and an executive
Speaker 3: director who's been there for a long time decides what
Speaker 3: every medical school will teach and teach for the exam
Speaker 3: that they write. That's not good. It's not good to
Speaker 3: have central planners like that because I'll tell you what.
Speaker 3: Some of them are dinosaurs. I hope the new batch
Speaker 3: is different. But we're not training doctors to listen, to
Speaker 3: connect with individuals, to ask why diseases are on the rise,
Speaker 3: to get into the underlying drivers of illness, to see
Speaker 3: the connectedness of all eighty specialties. Turns out a lot
Speaker 3: of things cause most of our chronic diseases. Insulin resistance,
Speaker 3: the lack of micronutrients, metabolic dysfunction, food, and so we're
Speaker 3: missing the big picture here, and what we have are
Speaker 3: people passed around in the system like a hot potato.
Speaker 3: No one's in charge sometimes, and we're not seeing the
Speaker 3: forest from the trees. If you can't be diagnosed and
Speaker 3: medicated in a quick ten to fifteen minute visit, sometimes
Speaker 3: we don't know what to do with you. In the
Speaker 3: healthcare field, that's not right. So we're seeing a revolution
Speaker 3: in medicine to say we're going to do this entirely differently.
Speaker 3: We're going to spend time with people. Call it medicare, advantage,
Speaker 3: relationship based medicine, concierge medicine, employer based primary care, direct
Speaker 3: primary care. There are many ways this is now being
Speaker 3: offered for people who can and cannot afford it at
Speaker 3: different levels medicare and non medicare. And it's exciting because
Speaker 3: now we're spending time with people and they're getting deeper
Speaker 3: into these issues. But we need the NIH to fund
Speaker 3: research on these blind spots of modern medicine. For example,
Speaker 3: the microbiome is the lining of bacteria in the gut,
Speaker 3: and I get into this deep in the book Blind Spots.
Speaker 3: It is one of the giant blind spots of modern medicine.
Speaker 3: It's an organ system basically the GI systems microbiome, that
Speaker 3: is the millions of different bacteria that live in a harmony.
Speaker 3: They digest food, they produce serotonin involved in mood, They
Speaker 3: train the immune system. So it does so many things.
Speaker 3: And we know that when we alter that microbiome with
Speaker 3: giving say an unnecessary antibiotic, some of the bad bacteria,
Speaker 3: if you will, will overgrow and that may cause more inflammation,
Speaker 3: it may cause different diseases. There's a study that just
Speaker 3: came out sound showing that the colon cancer and young
Speaker 3: people that we're seeing go up was associated with individuals
Speaker 3: born by C section. Where we know that the microbiome
Speaker 3: is different when you're not born through a vaginal delivery.
Speaker 3: With a birth canal bacteria seed your microbiome. So the
Speaker 3: microbiome is something where we need a lot of research.
Speaker 3: So Mayo Clinic has a study that a kid takes
Speaker 3: an antibiotic early in life, it's altering the microbiome and
Speaker 3: the kid is more likely to be obese and have
Speaker 3: a learning disability. Farmers have noticed this in animals for
Speaker 3: many years. That's why they give antibiotics to animals. So
Speaker 3: we're starting to understand the central role of the microbiomes.
Speaker 3: And it is one of the many blind spots of
Speaker 3: modern medicine where there's amazing new research. And when I
Speaker 3: would share this research with my colleagues at Johns Hopkins Hospital,
Speaker 3: they would be like, Wow, Marty, this study is amazing.
Speaker 3: I had no idea, and I thought, well, why not
Speaker 3: share the amazing new research on medicines blind spots with
Speaker 3: both the medical community and with the general public in
Speaker 3: this book. And that's what I tried to do.
Speaker 2: So the book is available for pre order. Blind Spots
Speaker 2: When Medicine Gets It Wrong and what it Means to
Speaker 2: our Health by Dr Marty Macarry. I'm looking forward to
Speaker 2: reading that I'd love to have you back at some
Speaker 2: point later on next month and talk focus on the book,
Speaker 2: because there's so much that you just hit, all of
Speaker 2: which I've heard different people talk about. But to have
Speaker 2: you put it together in one book, it may have
Speaker 2: it may be tremendously impactful. I thank you so much
Speaker 2: for it's been too long since you've been on my show.
Speaker 2: I now remember how much I enjoyed you as a guest.
Speaker 2: I hope to have you back soon.
Speaker 4: Well, it's good to be with you.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
Speaker 6: Dan.
Speaker 3: We'll talk more absolutely.
Speaker 2: Doctor Marty mccairy, Johns Hopkins, and we're going to take
Speaker 2: a quick break here a little bit late on commercials,
Speaker 2: but that's okay. And if you want to offer a
Speaker 2: quick opinion on whether or not cell phone should be
Speaker 2: banned in schools. Some schools, private schools do it? Why not?
Speaker 2: Should why not all schools. We'll be back on Nightside
Speaker 2: after this.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan ray Mine from the Window World
Speaker 1: Nights Night Studios on w b Z News Radio.
Speaker 2: We will be changing topics next hour. Last week, I
Speaker 2: think I guess it was on Thursday. I had during
Speaker 2: the eight o'clock hour. Actually it was Friday, excuse me.
Speaker 2: Friday the twenty second, I had an amazing guest, Scott
Speaker 2: Alan Curley. He's an ex convict with nine convictions. He
Speaker 2: talks about you thought you were having a bad day.
Speaker 2: He served nearly a decade behind bars. His life is
Speaker 2: a roller coaster fill with drugs, abuse, incarceration, and homelessness,
Speaker 2: so he's had many bad days. He's going to join
Speaker 2: us after the ten o'clock News to share history of
Speaker 2: how he turned his life around upon leaving prison and
Speaker 2: became a self made millionaire. If you're thinking you're having
Speaker 2: a bad day or a rough patch, Scott has some
Speaker 2: encouragement for you, and I hope you'll want to call him.
Speaker 2: I think he would be an amazing guest, just as
Speaker 2: doctor Marty McCarey was an amazing guest. So stay with
Speaker 2: us a little bit later on tonight. I don't know,
Speaker 2: I may do some open lines where I may talk
Speaker 2: about Bill Belichick's comments about the millionaires tax here in
Speaker 2: Massachusetts and how is affecting our Major league sports teams
Speaker 2: in their apparent inability to attract high aid free agent superstars.
Speaker 2: Back on Nightside, my name is Dan Ray. You have
Speaker 2: our number six, one, seven, two, five, four, ten thirty
Speaker 2: and six one seven, nine, three, one ten thirty Scott
Speaker 2: Alan Curley, What a story, coming back right after the
Speaker 2: ten o'clock news on Nightside