#235 | Solution or Sham? The Anti-Depressant Industry Exposed with Dr. Roger McFillin

Dr. Roger McFillin
If you have a license to prescribe medicine, it is your ethical duty to be able to understand the totality of the research. I'm a reasonable person. And so I ask reasonable questions. If an SSRI we don't have really strong evidence that it can outperform a placebo. If it's a pregnancy risk category, see if it impacts the developing fetus or is passed through through breast milk. How do you in a paper come to the conclusion that the benefits may outweigh the risks? If emotional numbing exists that can create distance and detachment from the needs of your own baby? How in any way? Can a scientist say the benefits may outweigh the risks? What are the benefits? My issue with this is your issue. They've taken liberty to say things that are not true.

I'm Cynthia Overgard, owner of HypnoBirthing of Connecticut, childbirth advocate and postpartum support specialist. And I'm Trisha Ludwig, certified nurse midwife and international board certified lactation consultant. And this is the Down To Birth Podcast. Childbirth is something we're made to do. But how do we have our safest and most satisfying experience in today's medical culture? Let's dispel the myths and get down to birth.

Dr. Roger McFillin
Hi, I'm honored to be on the program. My name is Dr. Roger McFillin. I'm a clinical psychologist, board certified behavioral and cognitive psychology, Executive Director of the Center for Integrated behavioral health in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and host of the radically genuine podcast. So a lot of my my work clinically is overseeing a large group practice and doing individual work in cognitive and dialectical behavior therapy. I work with parents, adolescents, and adults who are struggling with mood depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and people who are experiencing multiple problems related to emotion dysregulation I guess is the best way to say it, who may be chronically suicidal, just struggling in relationships, self injurious things of that nature.

Cynthia Overgard
All right. Well, Roger, I'm so excited to have you on the podcast. I heard you on Meghan Murphy's podcast a few weeks ago, and I started listening to your podcast. And I just think it's incredibly valuable. So thank you for making the time to come on our show. And on short notice. Would you mind starting our discussion by telling everyone what happened with you the little Joe Rogan detail?

Dr. Roger McFillin
Sure, it's a fascinating, yeah, fascinating story. gotten a lot of attention since this. One of my missions is to just try to promote research in order for people to make informed healthcare decisions, especially sensitive to young people. So I've had to resolve the the conflict that exists between what I see in clinical practice and what I've seen in clinical practice, over multiple decades, versus what is told to me as safe and effective or frontline interventions. So one of the things that I have done over the past seven years is really thrown myself into the research on what they are marketed as antidepressant drugs. I hate to say that word, because that word is powerful. And it does not represent actually what mechanisms of action or what the drugs actually do. So SSRIs, commonly known as antidepressants, done a number of just deep dives into the literature with both adolescents and adults, and just consulted with dieticians, researchers experts around the globe since there's such a large and growing community of harmed patients. But that information is not available, really to the American public. And in the allopathic medical environment that we're in where drugs or health care, they are inappropriately prescribed without informed consent, people are not aware of the risks of these drugs. And they they're passed out like candy even for young and developing brains, and there's so much risk associated with those drugs. So I started with that my practice just developing a position statement on anti depressant drugs since they were the most frequently prescribed. And within that research, it really took me so many different avenues into understanding how these drugs come to market and how there's just fraud in the clinical trials and how academics and physicians are placed on the payroll who become really pharmaceutical sales people disguised as psychiatrist physicians, clinical psychologist. And part of my mission was to develop the radically genuine podcast to be a Want to communicate this information to the general public. And I just recently started a YouTube channel as part of this. So we figured that we have to be able to get into the video aspect of this and create videos that are usually just around six, seven minutes, because that's kind of what the attention span is before you begin to lose people. And to make it research base and clear. So people have the information to challenge their doctors, or to challenge the prevailing narrative. So it was only a couple of weeks ago, we launched our YouTube channel with what I thought was my most critical video because it was about inflammation for antidepressants for children, children and adolescents, you know, who does not want to understand what the public published scientific literature is on antidepressants for kids. And many admit we're in a mental health crisis. They a lot of people attributed to COVID. And certainly that's a factor, but it was, it was on the incline way before COVID. And we're just prescribing these drugs more and more and more disproportionately to young girls. And then we see this increasing rate of hospitalization. So in the seven minute or so video, I had the research popping up on the screen, with conclusions from the scientist, very clear, over the past two decades, we have our YouTube channel up for less than 24 hours, and they terminate the entire channel. So if you look into YouTube, you understand that they have certain policies around community guidelines. And you know, they have the ability to flag you or take down a video if they believe it's concerning. They terminated the entire channel before it even started. So I have a growing Twitter community that follows me. And so I posted it, the entire video on my Twitter account. And that's where Joe Rogan retweeted it. And the number of other people in the in the large following community like Brett Weinstein, or Jordan Peterson. And so it got over a million views.

Cynthia Overgard
Did you read retweeted with the comments that YouTube took it down? Yes. I think that was key. And that's why Joe Rogan said let me let me step aside here. Yeah,

Dr. Roger McFillin
I really, I really posed the question. Why would publishing research for people to be able to make informed decisions? Why would that lead to terminating an entire chain? Why

Trisha Ludwig
Does that violate community guidelines? How is that violating Community Guidelines speaking truth?

Dr. Roger McFillin
Well, that's where we're at now, where actual speaking of truth will violate their standards, because there is an alignment with the pharmaceutical companies, their large, pharmaceutical industry is so powerful, that they really hold the purse strings for advertising dollars, and you you remove advertising dollars away from the legacy media or some of these technology outlets. I mean, it's, it's a, it's really powerful on there, and impactful on their bottom line. So I think what happens is when you start to speak out against the drug model, and you begin to bring attention, whether it's whether it's COVID, or whether it's in my field to psychiatric community, you begin to be identified as somebody who's a potential threat. And the only way they're going to be able to target you is through ad hominem attacks, and trying to, in some way discredit you. So that's why it's so important that I stick to what the published sciences because all this information is out there. And it's available. But 99% of physicians, they don't have the time, they don't do this work, they are relying on the messaging from the pharmaceutical salespeople, or from the published research in select journals. And they assume certain things to be true, because there's guidelines that are developed by the major medical organizations. So bottom line is that video went viral. And it's provided me even a greater platform, to be on your podcast to be on other podcasts. My podcast has grown significantly, it was in the top 10 of the apple charts for for not just mental health, but I think a number of categories. So obviously brought a lot of attention. And that's my platform. That's my goal right now is just to bring this information to the public, and that's why I'm so appreciative of this opportunity. But it's not just to talk about the drug model. It's also to talk about the conceptualization, the medical model of conditions like depression, or how, how many people kind of view their own mental health.

Cynthia Overgard
Tell everyone what happened when YouTube saw what attention your video got on other platforms.

Dr. Roger McFillin
Then there was a such a groundswell of support, that they reinstated our YouTube channel, kind of like an oops, we're sorry, we made a mistake, no explanation, no identification are any things that we violated just your back on. And they can do other things to limit your visibility and D monetize you. And you know that, that's kind of what happens, right? So even though that video has gone viral, it's very difficult for people to really get to my YouTube channel, unless I find different ways to direct them there. But hopefully, the more opportunities I have to speak, people are willing to go to radically genuine YouTube channel, the podcasts and have access to this,

Cynthia Overgard
I just want to comment on one thing that you said. You said, doctors don't have the time to do this research, I would say they don't have the interest. I think they're watching succession like everyone else. You know, I mean, I think you really know who you are in your field of work. When we look at what you're doing in your free time. And you're a doctor, you have a PhD, and you're doing this work in your free time. I know Trisha and I do this work in our free time. And I just will not ever say doctors are busier than anyone else. They have a career like everyone else. And if they had the interest to do this research, and frankly, I think if they had the self respect to do it, and many of them do, they would do it. And they wouldn't be turning to pharmaceutical reps. Yeah, how do we look to it? How do we look to a quote expert and say, Where do you get your information from? And they say, Oh, I got it from that person.

Trisha Ludwig
I think that's what that's really what it is. I don't think it's even that much about time. They're, they're busy, they probably don't want to spend all their free time doing research, but anyone who really values, you know, growing, evolving, being progressive, we'll, we'll do that. But it really is that you know, medicine, and especially in maternity, and really in all parts. But I know maternity best, it is not based on evidence it is based on consensus. It is based on what I'll do what you do, because you said that and I'll do that and we'll follow that. And we all just follow the same like like Lammers or whatever they are, we call it

Cynthia Overgard
rhetoric. It's just rhetoric, things take hold. And then

Trisha Ludwig
it doesn't get questioned until somebody wants to step outside the mold, and then they're the bad guy. And then they're at risk of how many people have been fired from practices for not following protocol and guidelines, their job then becomes at risk, because they want to practice differently. They want to take a holistic approach, they want to buck the system. they're few and far between because of that.

Dr. Roger McFillin
Yeah, first of all, I totally agree with both of your statements. So let me kind of just rephrase what I said. Over 80% of the psychiatric drugs are actually prescribed in primary care centers. And primary care doctors routinely kind of disgust the environment in which they work in eight to 10 minute appointments at best, and having to follow these guidelines or their job is at risk. So as one doctor told me, pediatrician who was prescribing antidepressant drugs to teenagers, he said, Listen, if something happens to this girl, or this guy, who was reporting, depressed mood, suicidal thinking, and I didn't follow the guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics, my license is that risk? And I said, Do you know that there is more than a double risk of suicide in a teen taking an antidepressant compared to a placebo? So why would that be a frontline treatment for somebody who was talking about suicide? So think about that.

Trisha Ludwig
On paper, the, it's on paper, because the doctor prescribed the medication, they're protected from the lawsuit. It's the same thing with the C section, the risk to the mother and the baby with having a C section in birth is is much greater, but the doctor who doesn't perform the C section is the one who's gonna get sued. The one who performs the C section is always going to be protected even though the risk is greater.

Dr. Roger McFillin
Yes, yeah. And that is the problem. That is the problem with our environment. But I do agree with you. If you have a license to prescribe medicine, it is your ethical duty to be able to understand the totality of the research, but there is an illusion of consensus. So the information that is provided to them is filtered to them. They don't understand research methodology. Many of them don't even understand how the drugs come to market through the FDA approval, which is was the most frightening aspect of the entire process. For me, the assumption that if it has F DEA approval, and many of these drugs are also, you know, prescribed off label. But if the drug has FDA approval, then it means that the drug must be safe or, and effective. And so that's something I've had to speak out about that. Just because it, it achieves FDA approval, the FDA only requires two positive trials. Think about the insanity of this, you could have 20 trials that don't demonstrate an effect over placebo, and you find a way and they do they find a way to create a statistical difference between a drug group and a control group in order for it to meet the approval for FDA. The FDA doesn't even require long term research, most of these drug trials are like eight to 12 weeks at most. So people don't realize that there is an experimentation that has been undergone in American culture for decades. And you're what's been communicated to all of us are very carefully constructed marketing statements to influence how we think about our health.

Trisha Ludwig
I almost trust, I almost trust a doctor who uses a medication off label and has a ton of experience with it in his or her own personal practice and trust the result of it more than I would trust the drug that they don't have experience with that has FDA approval. True. True. Yeah.

Cynthia Overgard
I just wonder where people can really turn there's just so much manipulation in these things. And the partially informed client or patient we say clients were in our in our work, but the partially informed person thinks that they're actually like doing the work that they're supposed to be doing. You know, I mean, there was a, there was research on it's widely known that epidurals make labor, a little less efficient, and therefore longer and drive up the rate of C sections. Now, it's not to say it's the wrong choice in an individual case, but it's widely known by all sides that it does make labor longer and slower. And research came out recently. That was like great news. epidurals actually don't change the duration of labor. I was like, how can that be? So I looked it up. And when you read the study, every woman in the study had an epidural during her entire labor until she started pushing. And for half of the women, they just removed it right when she started pushing, and some of those women had their babies six minutes later, and others an hour or two later, and there wasn't a statistical difference, because all of their bodies were flooded with the anesthesia. Now they go into this with their intention, we need to show this how do we show this? Yeah.

Dr. Roger McFillin
John, I think is I indicted, says his name out of Stanford has been publishing work around this, where upwards of 50% of published research, the conclusions don't meet the data.

Cynthia Overgard
I've said that for years, I've noticed that personally, but I didn't know anyone actually took a look at that.

Dr. Roger McFillin
Yeah, what happens is people end up reading kind of the abstract, or just the final conclusions, and they don't really understand the entire methodology, or what actually, you know, was conducted, what's poor research, which not poor research was randomized, controlled trials, what's not, and a number of things. But if you just come to the read to the conclusions, and boy, the author's take liberties, in being able to assume things that are just not evident in the data. And that's where we have to be real concerned about the role the pharmaceutical company has with influencing academics. So there's one of the things that they've done is they've had academics ghost write papers, so they're not involved with the trials, but they write the papers. And that gives it the air of scientific legitimacy. And they're on the payroll, and they can go out to conferences and speak about the drug and support the drug. And that's just part of the the entire system that has flourished within the pharmaceutical industry since the 80s. And that's why they are so powerful. That information is just communicated to general public and the doctors as if it is sound scientific data.

Cynthia Overgard
That's how it's done. Case closed. I think I heard on your podcast that 93% of studies are low quality.

Dr. Roger McFillin
Yes. Yeah. That was also from the iron Titus research.

Trisha Ludwig
This leaves us in quite a predicament with, with practice, like putting putting this information into practice, because we don't want to follow medical rhetoric. We don't want to practice consensus medicine, we can't turn to the evidence because the evidence half the time is garbage. Garbage in, garbage out. Yes. So how are we as clinicians? How are women as consumers supposed to pray, practice appropriately and receive appropriate care?

Dr. Roger McFillin
It's always a challenging question, because I get that often, but here we are. We're all sitting here and we have all awareness of this. And so it's not like this, the research that I talked about, or what you talked about doesn't exist out there. I think you're seeing a global awakening take place. And there's a lot of ethical scientists outside the system. And there is a lot of strong science being published on so many different areas around health, including, you know, just mind body experiences and the ways that the body can heal itself. Or we're returning to some more common sense understandings about the role of nutrition, and managing stress and environmental toxins, and learning and parenting and connection, connection with nature. There's so many interesting studies that are just burgeoning. And one of the things that's feeding it is social media, and podcasts, it's like we're starting to move outside the limitations of legacy media, and the pharma system and allopathic medical system. And we're just opening our eyes to new ways of thinking about things. And we're experimenting too with our own bodies. The common sense, coming back to all this is what, how am I living? How am I How am I sleeping? What am I putting into my body? What have we known from centuries of wisdom, and we find like minded people, and we find like minded health practitioners, and we begin to communicate with them. Like, I know, my family works with functional medicine doctors, now we've just removed ourselves from that system, unless you have like a broken bone or something that they can clearly see and fix. And we think about things in terms of functional medicine, and nutrients, and health and exercise and stress and management. And my kids aren't, you know, my kids are teenagers and young adults. So, you know, they shouldn't have to be in our health care system, they shouldn't have to see doctors, if they're getting sick, and they're not feeling well, there is something wrong within the way that they are living, there's something wrong with their immune system. The same thing applies, I think, in a lot of ways to our own psychological health. Like we have to understand more of the role of our lifestyle in the way that we're living and understanding our emotional experiences differently. So just the idea of talking about clinical depression, as like a medical illness in itself is problematic, because they're going to try to treat it in the way the allopathic medicine medical system treats it SSRIs antidepressants, and as we speak here, SSRIs are listed as a pregnancy risk category C, which means animal reproduction studies have shown an adverse effect on the fetus. And there are no adequate or well controlled studies in humans. So we're going to provide women who are pregnant, a drug that is going to put their own baby into with drawl. And a number of other things. And we can get into this, which I'm really concerned about is what antidepressants actually due to the body, and how that can affect things like bonding, and the experience of emotions that are necessary for being attentive to your newborn.

Cynthia Overgard
Roger, I'm really glad you're bringing this up, because I run a Postpartum Support Group every week. And what they have found in studies of women who are suffering from a perinatal mood disorder, I don't even like to call it a disorder. I don't know your opinion on that. But I feel it is a completely normal response, to have a baby and to have literally, every single component of your life change. Every relationship in your life just changed, your entire body just changed the things you're familiar with, like your habits, your wardrobe, they just changed. This is assuming a normal birth that doesn't leave you traumatized. You have someone dependent on you 24 hours a day, and you're sleep deprived. I mean, who's to call it a disorder. When you're like, well, this doesn't feel so good, even though I even though I'm bonded and attached to my baby. So I really have trouble getting the word disorder out of my mouth. When I say I'm trained in perinatal mood and anxiety disorders. Your thoughts? Yes,

Dr. Roger McFillin
I'm part of a larger movement about trying to de pathologize the normal unexpected human responses as if their psychiatric conditions. So I am right on board with that you just spoke to the complexity that exists in the human experience and what would happen normally, when you have an infant and that's imagine you have multiple kids that are all demanding your attention, or you have economic problems and you don't have a husband who's around or a partner that's around in any way to support this. There's sleep deprivation, every aspect of your experience is being provoked your own insecurities, your challenges, whether you're good enough, the changes in your body that occur after a pregnancy and birth, the adaptation process, so we would have to say that something like that is Somehow deemed disordered, like you went off track in some way. And that leads to a judgment of your own internal experience, instead of understanding it in context, with deep connection and awareness to it, and using it to support your growth and your adaptation. So, I've, I think it's much more normal than not to experience the wide range and intensity of emotions. And if we are not supporting people who are struggling with their mood to help solve some of the problems that do exist, then what what are we doing where we're actually probably exacerbating the problem through other means of actually even conceptualizing it.

Trisha Ludwig
You have children, correct? I do. Okay. So you are familiar with how the system works. A woman gives birth, she goes home, she has her life completely transformed. She maybe has her husband, partner for support, maybe some supportive family, she doesn't talk to a doctor again for six weeks. She doesn't talk to anybody involved in her care and her pregnancy and her postpartum for six weeks. She goes in, she has a 20 minute, maybe 30 minute visit, if she's lucky, primarily focused on her physical body or physical changes her physical recovery, checking the boxes of the exam, she may fill out the Edinburg postpartum depression scale, and it may be looked at for 30 seconds. And if she has the right number, she's offered a prescription for postpartum depression and anxiety and sent on her way. And that's basically how it goes for every woman.

Cynthia Overgard
It's like a scapegoat. It's like we're telling her and her entire community of support and her life, if she's lucky enough to have, you know, a partner in the family or friends around her in this chapter of her life. It's like, oh, she has depression. Ah, she was zapped with it. Oh, darn. Right. But if we were to say, No, she doesn't have a disorder. She's really sad. She's really anxious. She's really stressed. She's really overwhelmed. And if we don't point to blaming something, we just might say, hey, what can we do to fix this? Oh, how do we get her more rest? How do we get her more support, who's making sure she's eating breakfast in the morning? It's kind of like, trying to convince the public that cancer is genetics, and we just get zapped with it. Rather than saying, actually they found it's like over 90% of the time, not genetics at all, its lifestyle. So there you go, I guess you've got some best, the good and the bad news. You've got responsibility here. But it worries me when there's a diagnosis because the family and her partner can immediately if you if they're so inclined, can just say, Oh, well, she's got this. Well, what about you, you're living in the house with her? How can you be different, potentially here?

Dr. Roger McFillin
Exactly, all outstanding points. And you know, you become labeled as mentally ill, that label doesn't go away. And that's another thing that I'm really, really concerned about. So how one labels your own experience is really problematic. So if I would, if a if a woman was labeling what she was going through as an illness, imagine then how that impacts how she copes with what's going on in her life. She's now broken, she's now disordered, all conceptualized in her own mind and by the environment around them. And if somebody is disordered or ill, that changes the way everyone interacts with you. So we have to be aware of the complexity of this. Now, there's something scary, intimidating about you, you can't be trusted. And if you can't be trusted, then you have to be watched, you have to be monitored, you'd have to be given a drug, how does that impact how she develops and how she relates to her own child, and how everyone around them relate some I think it's criminal negligence, and some of how this is being treated in our health care centers. by professionals who have no expertise or background or understanding of this, it's almost like they become detached on what it means to be human. And this is a cultural problem as much as anything, because we are not aware of what traditionally it has taken for to be able to support that new child into a home and how important it is that that mother is taken care of in all the areas that you've spoken about nutritionally, sleep breast support time with that child, there's there's so many factors.

Cynthia Overgard
And when they have done the research on perinatal mood disorders, what they found everyone has in common is isolation. And the one thing they have found is significantly useful is a professionally moderated support group. Why because of community because of connection. Yeah, that's usually what we're missing in life. That's life changing. Even one single friendship is life changing. I just wanted to bring up one more thing and have you comment on this, and I think it's important I think it's on Topic. I was listening to the Tara brach podcast a few weeks ago. And she had a psychiatrist speak on it. He was really into meditation, it was pretty impressive. He sounded terrific. He has his professional degree to prescribe drugs. But he said, Actually antidepressants, the number needed to treat ratio was 5.2. What that means is after doing the basic math on it, that means 19 for 19% of people, it's effective. For 81% of people, these drugs are not even effective and can potentially make them even suicidal, more depressed, less able to sleep. It there's so risky and so rarely effective. Do you have any knowledge about that? Do you disagree with that is does that not sound true to what you've learned?

Dr. Roger McFillin
19% is high. So yeah, it's high. I've spoke out about this, I think the number people are talking about his 15% or so. And the reason that they're saying that is there has been some research where there is a small percentage of people who tend to respond larger than the placebo response. So I think his name is Eric Turner. Eric Turner was a psychiatrist. And he was a drug reviewer from late 90s, early 2000s. And this was a gentleman who was appalled by his exposure to all the negative studies around antidepressants that were not published. So it's publication bias. So they're only going to publish the studies that yielded their result. And so when he put all the studies together, and published it in the New England Journal of Medicine, I believe, maybe 2007, there was a very small percentage of people who responded to the drug above placebo. I think there's, there's good reasons around that because of the methodological flaws. But just based on that research, you're you're going to put nine out of 10 people at risk generally, for a serious adverse drug reaction for the maybe the one person that helps, so I decided to actually do a video I constructed a video on why some people state that the antidepressant drug has saved their life for something that's somewhat hyperbolic about how they need the drug in order to to live and I, there's an entire video at radically genuine my YouTube channel that kind of goes over the complexity of this, here's what I think has happened and why I think it's even less than 15% is in order to create a difference between the drug group and the placebo group and the clinical trials. The the drug companies did some very nefarious kind of behaviors. So one of them was that they withdrew. They withdrew participants from the current psychiatric drugs they were on in order to put them on a placebo. And so that induced drug withdrawal, if you remember, if you go back to the early throughout the 90s, and the 80s, they used to talk about these drugs as non habit forming. We know now that the drugs induce withdrawal. And so when people stop their drugs abruptly, it's potentially life threatening, or they even taper too fast. They have a return of all these symptoms that are withdrawing from the from the drug and the doc unsuspecting doctors say, Well, this is your depression returning or this is your anxiety returning. So I don't trust the methodology of the of many of the randomized control trials. There's other factors that are involved with this too when you take an SSRI, it's a psychoactive substance that acts on the brain. Everyone knows there, they took the drug once they've taken it so blind is broken. So you're no longer in a blinded situation when the researchers and the participants know they have the drug because they can experience a feel it it does change our physiology. Now the one thing about an antidepressant is it induces in this emotional numbing effect, upwards of 65% will report a like an emotional detachment or an emotional numbing the problem which I think a lot of your listeners have to understand because there's a so critical there is a condition called post SSRI sexual dysfunction PS S D, and it's potentially permanent. So the numbing includes the numbing of the genitals, inability to orgasm, losing all attraction and the lack of any positive emotions, and it's debilitating. So there is a large group of harmed patients who are trying to bring this attention to doctors. Now, even if you don't permanently lose sexual functioning, the detachment or numbing emotionally is really problematic. Now the question is if somebody has an intense emotional pain, can that at least temporary emotional numbing be viewed as a relief. And so maybe for 10% of the population or even less, which I would think, who take the drugs, maybe they consider that emotional numbing as an antidepressant effect. But that is absolutely not aligned with anything we know about actually overcoming a depressive episode or struggling, it's actually feeling the emotions is necessary for us to be able to overcome the condition. In fact, being able to experience the wide range of emotions is necessary. So we would think that they are very evolutionarily adaptive, and very necessary for us to be able to feel fear, sadness, loss, concern, emptiness, but also to be able to experience you know, love from somebody, or empathy for one another connection, all these things that are just natural and necessary for us to be able to evolve in groups to take care of each other. These type of human experiences get blunted from an SSRI, I'm a reasonable person. And so I ask reasonable questions. If an SSRI we don't have really strong evidence that it can outperform a placebo, if it has all these adverse consequences. If it's a pregnancy risk category, see if it impacts the developing fetus, or is passed through through breast milk. How do you in a paper come to the conclusion that the benefits may outweigh the risks? If emotional numbing exists that can can create distance and detachment from the needs of your own baby? How in any way? Can a scientist say the benefits may outweigh the risks? What are the benefits? And wouldn't I mean, my reasonable mind says this would increase the likelihood that someone would suffer from postpartum depression, it wouldn't be protective. It's not neuro protective. There's so much insane comments that are stated by by physicians. And this is I think, my, my issue with this as your issue is, they've taken liberty to say things that are not true. They pass it around to each other, they say it, it becomes truth, that you're not experts in this area at all. They don't know the research, they don't know there's any of the negative impacts. And they dismiss, they dismiss people in the system that you must be crazy. If you're experiencing this type of side effect, it must be something else. Let me give you a new diagnosis. Let me give you a new pill. And that's the kind of gateway into this entire mental illness paradigm and the system in which we treat people who are struggling.

Cynthia Overgard
We hear that with we hear that with lots of things, including vaccine reactions. Well, we know it's not that it can't be that, well, how can you ever make that claim, so unscientific? It is and but also to say the benefit outweighs the risk. I remember once years ago, flipping through channels on the television, and it was some very famous person at a doctor, considering getting Botox like a young woman. I was kind of horrified. But I saw I guess that's why I paused and watched. And she looked really scared, but she wanted to do it anyway, for some reason. And she said to the doctor, what are the risks? And I was like, let's hear it. Let's let America hear it. And he said, they're very, very minor. I mean, the benefits far outweigh the risk. And I was like, wait a minute, what? First of all, there is no benefit. We're talking health, the risks are health matters. The benefit is superficial, what it's like you can't even call it a matter of risk and benefit. We're not talking health compared to health. The only health matter involved is on the side of risk. I just, I couldn't believe he got away with saying that. But, you know, it's on TV, no one complained. This is how it goes.

Dr. Roger McFillin
And this is the consequences of a medical training system and an American educational system, that overvalues rote memory, and repeating back things that were told to you versus critical analysis and critical thinking. And so, we all know that, that science is an evolving process that requires critical analysis, replication of the data, you know, just think about what's thrown out there in American culture. Now, trust the science, as if it's some agreed upon consensus, and we all know, trust the

Trisha Ludwig
science that's wrong more than 50% of the time. That's inaccurate. I mean, what what, like,

Cynthia Overgard
and how about the science that actually demonstrates these things aren't working these things are causing harm, people are ending up with sexual malfunction and they can experience happiness Again, how about that science,

Dr. Roger McFillin
we told you it trust, what we tell you is what they're communicating. It's a provocation of fear as a way to influence and control. And that's why, you know, I just think it's so important that we actually communicate to our entire culture about what it means to be human, our, I don't know, if it's in some way, it's like a detachment from religion or spirituality, that we that fear controls us. And we get so grounded to this, this moment, that we begin to actually see people as, as enemies. The truth of the matter is, is that things like like our own individual freedom, and compassion, and community are so necessary for us, in order to be able to live well, there has to be a sense of purpose. And that purpose usually is around service of others. So even our discussion today, you know, I think part of our collective mission is that we serve others, and we serve others through through empathy and caring, and we, we care about what happens to them. And we feel inspired and passionate around that, the moment we start creating people as as enemies and put them in in groups and out groups, then we start experiencing more of that isolation, and that detachment, and that collective distrust. And when you're in that state, it's very easy to be controlled and manipulated, because you're relying upon the authority figure, in order to be able to feel safe again. And that's why we saw the virtual virtue signaling because it was to say, Hey, I'm in the good group, you know, they're in the bad group. And that is just so nefarious and manipulative. And I'm so shocked that people weren't able to see it.

Trisha Ludwig
You know, it's also because so many people doubted their decisions, they had to latch on to what was most popular so that they can feel safe in their decision, because they were unable to make decisions for themselves. I mean, I think so many people who went one camp or the other, did it, you know, with a lot of inner conflict, and maybe didn't even trust themselves, but it was like latch on to the thing that everybody's going to accept, so that I'm not the socially isolated person, because that's everybody's worst nightmare is to be the outcast.

Dr. Roger McFillin
Yeah. And I saw that fear in clinical practice. And so somebody who is a psychologist working directly with people, I saw the negative impact that that fear has, on the way they think and the way that they live, we saw just an increase in turning to substances, alcohol abuse, really increased drug abuse really increased, think people generally got more unhealthy. Unfortunately, when we needed to refocus on our health, that we become very critically aware that there probably will be another pandemic at some point. And the most important thing, even in protecting ourselves from a novel virus was our own quality of life around health, right, you were just more at risk, if you were obese, or had multiple health conditions, or you had a diet that was processed, or you didn't get enough vitamin D, there wasn't enough sun exposure and exercise, all the foundations of health. So if you're going to commit yourself to a healthy lifestyle, which I think is critical, when it comes to talking about mental health, you're certainly going to be very hesitant, and very protective of your own body, because you cherish your health and you cherish how you feel. And you're not going to put anything into your body in a way that could potentially have an adverse reaction. And so the so, you know, that was the other piece to this is that you start seeing, you know, this collective group of people that, you know, are certainly much more focused on getting information out there, that is outside the mainstream, that is focused on health. And that's the awakening of all this is that I think people are more aware of how we were manipulated. And now we're open to new ways of thinking about living. And that's, that's the benefit, I think of such a difficult time that we just kind of gotten through.

Cynthia Overgard
Roger, this has just been such a great discussion. We got so much out of talking with you. And I'm sure we'd love to have you back in the future. Can you tell us just a little bit about exactly what you do. I know you're in Bethlehem Pennsylvania, tell us specifically what you do, and how people can reach you and why people might want to reach you who should be reaching out to you if anyone wants to

Dr. Roger McFillin
I'm sure that you all get the sense that I'm part of a movement to depathologize normal human responses, we are medicalizing all aspects of the human experience to the detriment of our own health and well being. And so I'm part of, I think, a greater movement of, of physicians to which psychologists mental health professionals and just you know, everyday parents and people who are trying to move away from this drug culture. So although I'm a practicing clinical psychologist, I'm also a researcher. And I am doing a lot of independent research to try to understand how the medical system has really been hijacked by the pharmaceutical company and trying to provide people more information in order to consent in the mental health field. So to do that, you can, you can follow a number of the things that I'm doing on Twitter, I'm at Dr. McMillan, so I'm very active on Twitter. But two areas that are critical for my ability to kind of disseminate this information one is the radically genuine podcast with Dr. Roger MC Filon. I have also started a substack, where I'm doing a lot of writing. And so you can see like one of the recent articles where what informed consent should look like for antidepressant drugs, or where I'm just sometimes just talking about greater issues in society and culture? Or a recent article I talked about, you know, no, not everyone has ADHD, you know, it's just about being able to communicate how these psychiatric labels and DSM diagnoses have infiltrated our culture in a negative way. So substack is, is doctormick villain, radically genuine. So you can you can find me on substack. I've also had a YouTube channel, as we mentioned earlier, which is originally was terminated That in itself should I think, have you be a little bit curious about the videos that we're creating, again, that's radically genuine. It's this radically genuine brand. Also, we just recently started our Instagram. So we know the value and importance of social media and trying to get the message out. And I think there's a growing and large community of people like us who were talking today on this podcast, who want to return to a sense of sanity, no pun intended, and common sense in how we approach our lives. And to be able to present a free flow of information that's outside of the drug model. As a clinical psychologist, I'm you know, I'm doing a lot of direct work. I'm also a leader in my in my center, and we're trying to, we're trying to promote a group here where we are helping people, you know, learn again, what it means to be human and how to cope effectively with the challenge in suffering is real. Going through an episode is real. So if you're depressed or anxious, we're not denying that exists or postpartum depression, we're not denying that exists, we're reframing it though, or reframing in a way that can be much more helpful and can move you in a direction where you can overcome the challenges that exists and so to that we have to be aware of what the problems are and we have to sometimes make some really hard changes in our life and I hope that message came through on today's podcast.

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Dr. Roger McFillin
The moment we start creating people as as enemies and put them in in groups and out groups, then we start experiencing more of that isolation and that detachment and that collective distrust. And when you're in that state, it's very easy to be controlled and manipulated, because you're relying upon the authority figure in order to be able to feel safe again. And that is just so nefarious and manipulative and I'm so shocked that people weren't able to see it.