EP. 45 — Dr. Seema Yasmin

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to another episode of I Weigh with Jameela Jamil. Have you seen the Britney Spears documentary yet? Because I can’t get it out of my head. I also then went further into a rabbit hole of how horrendously we treat women in the public eye and watched the Paris Hilton documentary–also extraordinary. Both quite triggering. Both deeply upsetting. Both likely to send you down just a thought toilet of every bad thought you’ve ever had about a woman in the public eye–anytime you’ve ever taken it as gospel that they are difficult, or annoying, or did something wrong, or behaved badly. It’s so frustrating to see how heavily we were indoctrinated and how little we knew how much they were being harassed. It’s just unimaginable, that existence. And so, you know, I talk about this a lot on my Instagram. In fact, if you go on to my Instagram home page, there’s a highlight sort of section on my gram of stories called “Gaslighting,” where over the last year I’ve been documenting not only how I have been harassed or taken out of context and framed to make me look unlikable, or vacuous, or ignorant, or problematic. But I’ve also chosen lots of other different women in the public eye who have also received similar treatment and broken down the system–the perfect system of build her up, build her up, build her up specifically just to rip her down. Throw her onto a pedestal that is secretly a trap door that will open into a gutter, where we will then laugh, and point at her, and call her a liar for not having been the saint that we told her that she was. And I’m talking about us as society. Not all of us have participated in the downfall of each of these women, but in some ways, we have enabled it by, I guess, the complicity of our silence. And in many of those cases, it’s because we didn’t understand–we didn’t know. And really until it all happened to me, I didn’t know. And having been in the belly of the beast–obviously, I’ve never experienced anything vaguely similar to what Britney had or Paris–I can say, even from my vantage point of what happened to me with the media, I now get it. I understand how that machine works, and it’s why I go on about it all the time. But if you haven’t seen those documentaries, I highly recommend them. They are harrowing, but they are excellent. And they’ve really, really, really woken every one up about the things that are enabled in the press–in the media–the way that we are just fine with categorizing, diagnosing the mental health of women in the public eye and then ridiculing them over it, and feeling as though because someone has power, or money, or privilege, or platform, they now owe you their literal life–that it’s open season. They have money, therefore it’s okay to be owned forever by the public. They cannot leave the house on their own. I just can’t imagine having been 16 and going through everything that happened to her–to Britney in particular but so many of these women. And I urge you, after looking at my Instagram stories–the highlight called gaslighting–to think about any woman in the past that you’ve ever thought, “I just don’t like. I don’t know why. I just don’t like her. She’s annoying,” or “She’s got a smug smile.” Ask yourself where that came from. Was it from an interview she did? Because I can tell you firsthand, our interviews are taken completely out of context. They reshape our paragraphs and put them into really problematic sentences and then use inflammatory headlines that are not what we were talking about at all because clickbait is the only way that most journalists can survive these days. It’s just a thought. And it is important because it’s not just about these privileged women who are famous. This culture bleeds down into our schools, even into our primary schools, where kids are six, seven, eight bullying each other, slut shaming each other, spreading rumors about each other. This is patriarchy. This is Misogyny 101. And it’s just fascinating. So that’s been my week; it’s mostly just diving into all of that and doing a lot of interrogation of, you know… I think for many women–and men and people of all genders–life can be an endless pursuit of just finding bits of internalized misogyny and plucking them out of you. And that happens via learning. And we’re all learning. And I don’t need to feel bad about yourself if you’re still learning or if you were someone who thought bad thoughts about those people in the past. We don’t know what we don’t know yet. And all we can ever do, as we say on The Good Place–the comedy that I was on, on NBC–is “All we can do in this life is try to be better tomorrow than we were today.” And that’s definitely how I live. Now, I am really, really happy I managed to get the following guest on this show because I know I’ve been doing a lot of kind of, like, upbeat, happy New Year vibes throughout January. But there is also a lot of really serious stuff going on on the Internet. And I wanted to bring on an expert. You know, I chat a lot of shit about how angry I am regarding the detox and the diet industry, the medical industry, the amount of opinions that are taken as fact online, how problematic I think influencers can be. And I was privileged to have Dr. Seema Yasmin on the show. She is an Emmy Award winning journalist. She’s an author, a medical doctor, and professor. She has written so many fantastic books: Muslim Women Are Everything, The Impatient Dr. Lange, and Viral BS, which I in particular really wanted to talk to her about, which came out this year. And Viral BS, which is all about smashing medical myths, which is out this year. And it’s a fascinating read. She is a fascinating woman, and she’s been a key member of standing up against misinformation regarding COVID. And so, we talked a lot about COVID. We talked about the vaccines, like how they work. If anyone out there is anxious about the fact that it feels like this vaccine is very new and therefore, how can it possibly be safe for us to take? She talks at length about that, and she’s so informed, and it’s so nice to have a scientist come on and talk to me about this. We also talk about the terrible sexism and racism in the history of the medical world and why people of color–in particular, Black people–are entirely entitled to feel distrustful of the medical industry. And even when they do trust the industry, the industry still is inclined to let them down. So, she talks a lot about that. She talks about the healthcare system having to own up to its troubled, racist past. And she talks all about fit teas and placenta pills. I mean, it’s just all in there. We go through a lot of the biggest subjects that are being discussed online by people who, frankly, do not have the knowledge or the credentials to discuss them. And so basically, I just wanted an hour of pure fucking fact. We are bombarded with nonsense so many hours of every day, and I just wanted clear, hard scientific fact. She’s so excellent. She’s really, really amazing at communicating information in a way that is unpretentious, very personable. And she is not looking to impress anyone or alienate the listener. She’s just great, and I really think you will learn a lot–I certainly did–from this episode. So please welcome the excellent Dr. Seema Yasmin. Dr. Seema Yasmin, welcome to I Weigh. How are you?

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:08:13] I’m good, Jameela. How are you doing?

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:08:15] I’m good. It’s nice to see you. You look lovely–for anyone who cannot see this right now. You look like you have a peaceful space that you’re working in.

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:08:23] I do. I live in the Bay Area. And it’s very quiet where I live, and I’m very grateful for that, especially in a quarantine situation.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:08:32] How long have you lived in the United States?

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:08:34] I’ve been in America for ten years–moved ten years ago, specifically for a job. I wanted to serve as an officer in the Epidemic Intelligence Service, which is the job that Kate Winslet does in Contagion if anyone’s that. And I moved here for that job ten years ago. Yeah.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:08:51] Oh, my goodness. So, this moment in time with this pandemic is something that you’ve been kind of somewhat preparing for for over a decade.

1918. SEEMA YASMIN [00:09:01] I’m not a knowing person who’s been like, “I told you we were going to have a pandemic” because when this was all kicking off last year, my friends were like, “Isn’t this that thing that you’re always saying? Like, ‘There’s going to be a novel pathogen. It’s going to cross over from animals to humans.’” And I’m like, “Yes, anyone in public health could have told you a coronavirus–it was possibly coronavirus or a flu–crossover was imminent.” I mean, we’re 100 years past the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. So, yeah, I used to be a hospital doctor in Hackney, East London, where I grew up. Brat Brat for anyone listening–hospital shout out. And then I left that job to be a disease detective at the CDC ten years ago.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:09:40] What was it about diseases that lured you in like that?

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:09:45] Oh, a disease is so alluring.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:09:47] So sexy. Yeah.

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:09:49] Says every weird person. So, I kind of got frustrated. Like, even though I think the National Health Service in England is the superior health system compared to the US, for example, I got frustrated that my people were coming–

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:10:01] It’s not really a health system here. It’s a bank. But yeah.

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:10:03] That’s a more accurate way of putting it. Yeah, definitely. But in the NHS, even though I think it’s a better system, I just got fed up because I felt like I was patching people up, so they were well enough to go home again. And then lo and behold, I would see the same person the next week. Except the next week they didn’t just have an infected abscess from injecting drugs into their groin, but they had HIV, or they had hepatitis C. And I was like, “This is broken. Why aren’t we dealing with the social factors that make you sick?” Literally, I lived so close to Homerton I’d walk home–like a 20-minute walk. I lived in London Fields, and I would walk past my patients, who were sleeping on park benches, and then I would see them in the A&E department the next day. I’m like, “This doesn’t make sense.” I kind of metaphorically get my hand slapped when I was caught on the phone trying to contact homeless services or whatever. And I’m like, “Why am I getting told off? They’re like, “You’re a doctor. You should remember you’re not a social worker.” And I’m like, “But we’re giving this man two weeks of antibiotics to take at home. He doesn’t have a house. Where is he going to keep the medicines?” And none of it made sense. And one of my mentors was American, and she was like, “You’re interested in public health. Actually, you’re interested in the root causes of health. Have you heard of this thing called the Epidemic Intelligence Service? Because you should come to America and serve in that.” And then I was told that not many non-Americans get into it because it’s part of the military. But I tried anyway because you’ve got to try. And then when I got into it, a lot of the work was one hot zone to another, doing epidemic investigations. But always, always the job was also to think about why did this disease outbreak happen here? Why did these people get sick? What is it that made them vulnerable? So, it was always going back to those root causes of sickness.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:11:47] Yeah, absolutely. There is such a training to only deal with the symptoms for all of my friends who are doctors because they’re almost taught that it’s too intimidating–the idea of finding the cause–or they don’t want to look at it because it would involve us dissecting class structures and helping the homeless. You know, the amount of times that I have talked about in interviews–and they just cut it out of interviews–that if we were to work on and fund mental health services, we would have far less homelessness. We would have people who are less prone to illness because stress can impact your immune system. And, you know, there are certain illnesses that are linked directly to stress. And I am certainly no doctor, and I don’t even have A-levels, so I’m not going to go too far into this. But I definitely think that there is a very, very clear link between mental health care and GDP in our society and how much of that would go up. I mean, it’s not even just about being a good human being, a good citizen, a good leader. It’s about just good business for each country. Fund mental health. Get people off the street. Fund homelessness. We’re in a humanitarian crisis. I mean, you’re up in San Francisco. It’s wild up there.

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:13:01] When I was a reporter at the Dallas Morning News, there was this organization in Dallas that was like, “If we really wanted to solve the problem of homelessness, we could. So, let’s just build cheap housing for homeless people in Dallas. And at the same time, let’s get them some not even health care, but let’s monitor their mental health.” And they were like, “Oh, my God. We gave these people who were homeless really basic housing, and their anxiety and depression levels went really low without health care.” And it was like, what do you know? You give someone a safe place to sleep, and all of a sudden, they’re a lot less anxious. Go figure. How clever are we? But yeah, I mean, I’m not making fun of them because I think it’s so good what they were doing. And you have to have evidence that backs it up. But totally–we could solve it if we really wanted to. And it’s like you said–even if you don’t care about being a good human or a humanitarian, even this whole idea of like COVID 19 festering in prisons and jails right now… Like if you were in California and you’re in a prison, you’re seven times more likely to get COVID-19 and twice as likely to die from COVID than a Californian who’s not incarcerated. Even if you’re like a horrible person who thinks we should not care about people who are incarcerated, actually, it’s bad for your health and it’s bad for public health.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:14:18] And why is that? Break that down. Why is that?

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:14:21] There’s this misconception that prisons are completely sealed off from the rest of society. I’ve done some work in prison clinics and can tell you prisons are completely porous. There are high rates of recidivism. We love to lock up the same people over and over again–they’re going from one facility to another. They go back into the community and back into prison. And guess what? There are hundreds of thousands of people who work in prisons–who are not incarcerated themselves–who take infections from there back into their communities. And we’ve seen really bad outbreaks of COVID-19 amongst wardens and amongst correctional officers. So, you cannot give a crap about poor people and not give a crap about prisoners, but actually you should because it impacts your public health. The person that cleans your house, the person that drives your car, the person that you may end up standing next to in line at Safeway, for example–we are much more connected, and prisons are far more porous than people realize.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:15:16] Yeah. And I mean, then that leads us to something you and I were talking about between ourselves recently is that a large portion of those people who are incarcerated are Black people or other people of color disproportionately so, especially in the United States. And so those people are being impacted. We’re also seeing those numbers of people being impacted worse around the world–that specific group. Can you please just give me an answer as to why that is? I’ve read numerous articles–but as something you and I will get into later, I also can never, ever be sure of what I’m reading. So, would you mind breaking that down for us?

19. SEEMA YASMIN [00:15:57] Yeah. I can break it down into a word, maybe two words. “Structural racism.” That’s what it is. Whether it’s in the UK–whether it’s here in America, where we’re both living at the moment–there are systems of oppression kind of baked into the way that we live that make it so that a Black person, an indigenous person, is so much more likely to contract COVID-19. And not only that, but they are more likely to die from the infection, sometimes twice, three times the rate of their white peers. And this is what frustrates me because, like, Public Health 101 is learning how the outside environment–where you live, the air you breathe, all of that–impacts your health more than your genetics. But we love to point the finger at people. “You shouldn’t eat that.” “You shouldn’t eat salt.” “You shouldn’t eat fried food.” “You should work out more.” Well, sure, let’s all live healthy lifestyles and have movement in our lives and good diet. First, people live in food deserts. They don’t even have access to good food. But second, you point the finger at people instead of at the institutions and the built environment that makes us sick in the first place. And this is why your zip code is such an effective predictor of when you will die and why two zip codes ten miles apart in the East Bay in Dallas–you can do it across the country–will have life expectancies where someone in a poor neighborhood will live until 70, 75 and somebody in a wealthier neighborhood will live until 80, 85. And we’re seeing this now with the vaccine rollout–that Black Americans are being vaccinated, at some cases, half the rates–half the speed–of white Americans. There are all these things that factor into our well-being and your genetics. And your exercise can’t always exercise you out of that.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:17:41] And there are two sides to this discussion around, specifically, if we look at Black people and people of color not being able to get access to the vaccine. You believe that that is also partially down to structural racism–that they are not being offered, or it’s because they are living in areas where we are not making enough of an effort of outreach towards those areas to give them the vaccine. Because we’ve read numerous articles over the last couple of weeks that they are the group least being vaccinated.

19. SEEMA YASMIN [00:18:12] Yeah. And so many states are not even reporting that data, so you can’t even say, like, overall, at what rate are Black Americans or people of color being vaccinated? 17 states and two cities are providing vaccination coverage data by race and ethnicity. And in all of those 17 states and both of those cities, Black Americans specifically are being vaccinated at much lower rates. I’ll give you one example. In North Carolina, Black people make up 22% of the population and actually 26% of frontline workers–so, those most exposed. But of everyone who’s been vaccinated so far in North Carolina, only 11% of them are Black. So, it does not match up with what proportion of the population Black people make. It doesn’t match up with the exposure that Black people are disproportionately represented on the front lines in jobs that mean that their lives are more at risk of contracting COVID-19.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:19:07] And the air quality in the areas that they are predominantly given to live–the water quality–but also the fact that they are living often in, you know, high rise buildings where they’re just, like, right on top of each other. They don’t have these spaced-out bungalows that you find in Beverly Hills, etc. And so, there are so many ways in which they’re being exposed. But then also you and I were talking about the fact that there are now some reports coming out complaining that Black people are not coming forward for the vaccine trials or coming forward for vaccines. And there’s no discussion as to why perhaps that may be–again, talking about the symptom rather than the cause. Would you be kind enough to tell me what you believe is the reason behind less Black people in America in particular, but possibly in other places, coming forward for the vaccine?

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:19:57] There was this one vaccine company that was doing clinical trials for COVID vaccines–I think on the East Coast primarily. And at one point they were kind of bragging about the inclusion of Black participants in their clinical trial. And this advocacy group spoke up and said, “Yeah, that’s because we told you we needed to do that. And it was two weeks before your trial started, and you hadn’t thought about it until we approached you two weeks before.” It’s like trying to take the credit. And even then, we don’t see adequate representation of Black people and people of color in clinical trials. Some of this is historic for sure, and I will talk about that. But I don’t want to take away from the fact that this isn’t just a historic issue–that medical racism, for example, is very much a present-day problem, and that you almost can’t educate your way out of it. And I say that because we talked about living in crappy areas, pollution, all of that. But in my book, there’s a chapter that’s called something like, Is It More Dangerous to Be Pregnant in America Than in Any Other Part of the World? And the answer is yes relative to many other developed nations. And one of the stories I tell in that is of my colleague Shalon, who was at the CDC when I was there. And she was a public health worker–a lieutenant commander in the Public Health Service in her early thirties–a Black woman who studied racial disparities in health care. She died after having her baby because healthcare workers did not take seriously her concerns about her pain and her blood pressure. So, you think about what level of education she had–that she was an officer in the Epidemic Intelligence Service. She was in the United States Public Health Service. She was an employee of the CDC–a Black woman, highly educated–who studied this thing. She died. She should not have died, but she died as a young Black woman.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:21:50] She couldn’t have had a more qualified opinion, honestly.

2021. SEEMA YASMIN [00:21:53] Right. And still her pain–her concerns–went dismissed. So that medical racism? Very much a real-life problem. Black people’s pain in America is often underdiagnosed–not believed. It’s under-treated. That plus this history we have of unethical experimentation on Black people, queer people, disabled people, Jewish people, kids, immigrants, incarcerated people have really, really hurt those communities and built so much legitimate distrust in the medical establishment. Tuskegee is coming up a lot now. A study that happened from the 1930s–only ended in 1972 after a whistleblower said, “Excuse me, there are doctors at the CDC that are tracking this group of poor Black men in Alabama who have syphilis. But they are lying to them and not telling them that they have syphilis and not giving them the treatment to cure their syphilis.” Some of the men died. Some of them passed it onto their spouses. Some of their kids were born infected with congenital syphilis because the government deemed that to be okay to do that kind of experimentation. I’m glad we’re talking more about Tuskegee, and I’m glad we’re saying that we’re very much living with the consequences of that experimentation and so many others like it. But we have to also address the fact that medical racism is very real in 2021.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:23:08] And it’s incredibly distressing for anyone to even contemplate. But there are people who might be listening to this podcast who do not know the history of, in particular, Black people with medicine. And I wondered if you would be kind enough to break it down because I think it is such an important part of understanding the grief, the pain, the fear, the inequity, the injustice, and how that line of discrimination runs all the way through to the most basic humanity of your well-being and health as a human being. So, would you break down the history of it briefly?

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:23:45] Yeah. So, Tuskegee is one example. But let me also tell you how that affects us now because a couple of years ago, there was a really bad tuberculosis outbreak in Alabama–one part of Alabama. Really high rates of tuberculosis that people were like, “What’s going on? Why would there be a TB outbreak in the 2000s in the U.S.?” And some public health workers obviously had gone there to do an investigation. They were scratching their heads. They were saying, “But we’re giving cash incentives to people to come get tested for TB. We’re offering free treatment. Why aren’t people coming forward?” And it’s like you just look on Google Maps. Where the TB outbreak is is, like, a 90-minute drive to where the Tuskegee experiments happened. Like, it’s not coincidence that there would be a terrible TB outbreak and that people would be disenfranchised and distrustful of the medical establishment right there in the same state where doctors with white coats and U.S. government ID badges did these terrible things to Black Americans–to poor Black male sharecroppers. But it goes through so many parts of medicine. You think about how the speculum that every person has encountered, when they go for gynecological checkups, or some pretty common gynecological surgeries and procedures were developed by a racist man who experimented on enslaved Black women without giving them anesthetics because he felt that they weren’t human–that it was okay to experiment on them like that. Those legacies ripple all the way through. We still use that speculum. I think we shouldn’t. But we should understand the history.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:25:18] I fucking hate the speculum. I’d love it if another woman could perhaps come up with a safely-tested–ethically-tested–way of looking inside our cervix and the uterus because it’s horrifying still. I cannot imagine all of the versions that did not work or that were not safe that were tested on people. And it goes all the way back to the reasonings behind why slavery even was possible is because of the complicity of white people, looking at them as animals–as not human beings. There are some reports that say because they were muscular, they therefore deemed them to perhaps be a bit stronger or have a higher tolerance for pain. The utter to-the-bone dehumanization of these people that had already been kidnaped and brought here just enabled people to do the most unfathomable things to these people–to these Black bodies–in pursuit of the health and well-being of white people. They were using those bodies to find the cure for everyone else. And it is heartbreaking.

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:26:30] And in case anyone is thinking that kind of dehumanizing– “Oh, it’s awful, but it’s historical.” It’s not historical because a couple of years ago, there was a study done at the University of Virginia where white medical students, and white residents, and doctors who are already practicing were asked particular questions about Black people. They were asked things like, “Do Black people have thicker skin than white people?” “Are Black people more fertile than white people?” “Do Black people feel pain differently?” “Are their nerves different?” “Does their hearing work differently?” Clearly not. Hello. We are humans. But so many of these medical students and doctors held magical, absurd beliefs about Black people.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:27:16] Who was asking them these questions?

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:27:18] Researchers at UVA. They were studying specifically the attitudes. I am not a Black woman. I am a South Asian woman. We have some of our own issues around how we’re treated in the medical system. But were I a Black woman, and I had perhaps known about this research or just in like lived experiences–why do we in the medical establishment think it’s okay to just say, ‘Trust us, roll up your sleeve, get this vaccine,” when the system has dehumanized people, and experimented on people, and earned the legitimate distrust of people? And so, I say it’s BS when you were saying earlier what’s happening now because now, we’re having conversations around vaccine hesitancy. I’m very glad we’re talking about that. It’s what I study, and I wish we’d had more conversations before the pandemic, right? But what’s happening now is kind of the finger being pointed at Black people, and people of color, and indigenous people, for example. “Oh, they’re not coming forward to get the vaccine because they’re vaccine hesitant.” Well, okay. Some people might be. Black people are not a monolith. Hello. No community is monolithic. So, there might be some groups of people of color who are anti-vaccine or are vaccine hesitant, but there are many who just want the damn vaccine and are not being given equitable, easy access to the vaccine.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:28:38] No. My timeline is full of people of color, and Black people, and indigenous people asking where they can possibly access this vaccine. And then I’m disproportionately seeing people I know who are white and upper middle class–I don’t know if that really exists here, but it’s just very privileged–who are somehow being able to access the vaccine. They have all the tip offs of places you can go to volunteer–like, where someone has, you know, too many vaccines and they’ve been thawed from the freezer, so they have to go that day. And it seems to me all of the white people that I know are able to now access the vaccine–and these are young people, people in their thirties and forties. It’s just blowing my mind.

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:29:21] It’s the same thing! Yeah, over, and over. We saw this ten years ago, 11 years ago, with the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic–on a national level, too. We saw vaccine nationalism play out at large then, where there were wealthier, predominantly white countries that had a surplus of vaccine and poorer countries of brown people who were like, “We are dying because we don’t have enough vaccine.” So, you see it on a national level, then you see it on a smaller level. I think the L.A. Times had an article about South L.A. saying, “Trying to get a vaccine there is like The Hunger Games.” And in poorer neighborhoods, white people are descending on those neighborhoods to try and get vaccines that are supposed to be for the people that live there.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:30:09] So what would your message be to anyone who is a Black person or indigenous person–a person of color–out there who is feeling reticent or vaccine hesitant, as you say? What advice do you have for them about the vaccine? As a doctor–as someone who exists within this space and is so informed–what would you say to someone like me?

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:30:30] Yeah, I have a lot of say. People who look like me, Black, indigenous, people of color–I want to start off by saying that we’re asking individuals to do a lot of work. And it’s institutions that need to do a lot more of this work–like building the bridges, atoning for, acknowledging for racist histories, right? We need the government to come forward. It took the government so many decades to say sorry for Tuskegee, for example. That really hurts. We’re starting to see a bit in journalism. Nat Geo, The Los Angeles Times came forward and said, “We apologize for our role in upholding white supremacy. Here’s how we used to cover lynchings. Here’s how we made okay really terrible, racist things that happened in history. We apologize. We’ll do better.” That’s the bare beginning. We haven’t even seen that in medicine. We just keep seeing more diversity and inclusion committees at medical schools, which basically do nothing. So that’s first off–that the institutions need to take responsibility, do their work, instead of just saying, “Please, people of color, trust us. Come forward.” To people of color who are like, “What do I do now?” I’ll say that we’ve kind of not been given a lot of context around the vaccine developments. Like, one thing I hear a lot is people are like, “Oh, Seema, you’ve been reporting on vaccines for a long time, and you’ve long said on average it takes ten years to develop a vaccine–sometimes a lot longer, like three decades. And now you’re saying I should just take something that was studied in ten months, and there weren’t even that many people of color included in the trials?” And there was somebody on Twitter who was like, “Listen, everyone.” This is a Black woman saying this. She was like, “This ain’t like the past. This is a vaccine that white people are running to, so therefore we should be running to it as well.” Like, that’s almost a marker. “It must be safe. The way people want it.” But I would say that, yes, it was developed in a really quick time, but I don’t think corners were cut when it came to safety. I’ve looked at the data, and I’ve looked at the fact that even though the coronavirus is new–even though the vaccine scientists only started working on COVID-19 vaccines last January–there had been scientists for years working for a situation like this one, working for what we call pandemic X, when something like this comes along. So, they’d done the groundwork–laid the groundwork over years–so that you have a vaccine almost ready. And all you need is that final information about whatever the new pathogen is. So that helps speed things up. The fact that we had a SARS outbreak in 2000 to 2003 that was very similar to this SARS-coronavirus as well–and we’d been working on the vaccine for that–also accelerated the development of these vaccines. And then, of course, because wealthier nations were affected by this pandemic–because global economies have hurt–we have therefore seen governments put tens of billions of dollars into vaccines to end this pandemic. And that’s also why we’ve seen an accelerated timeline. I’ve seen multiple people in my community, lots of Muslims, lots of South Asians who are like, “Oh, I don’t know. I think it seems dodgy because it’s developed so quickly.” But those are some of the reasons why I will get this vaccine as soon as I’m eligible–because I think it’s safe and I think it’s been developed well. Could they have included more people of color in the vaccine trials? Hell, yes. And they better do as we move forward.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:33:33] Yeah. And you and I have been talking about the fact that it’s frustrating that–considering all of these different universities, all of these different companies, all of these different industries, governments, everyone who started working towards this vaccine last January–we’ve had one year to develop vaccine literacy, to find simple and accessible ways to break down and explain the vaccine, the history– I mean, even just then, hearing you explain to me how much previous work has been done towards this, even if it wasn’t for this specifically–how so immediately comforting you instantly changed my own reticence, my own feelings of anxiety, just in hearing that. If they’d fucking told us that a year ago and started building those bricks of trust with the people–and with all people. You and I, again, have spoken about this before–that I find that when we have medical experts outside of maybe Fauci, who’s one of the only accessible doctors who will talk about COVID in a way that we can understand, that everyone can understand, even if we don’t have medical backgrounds or we aren’t super educated– Most of the time they bring on experts who use words that have a few numbers and letters in them, and they talk about everything in their kind of everyday, highly educated medical lingo in a way that just doesn’t really make sense to most of us. And so, then we leave feeling no more informed. And then maybe you have a journalist who also has no medical experience, sort of jumbling together what they have made out the scientists has just said, and then they inform us through their own kind of jumbled jargon way, and then we kind of get what we can from that, and then we pass our jumbled phone down to our children. So, it’s just a clusterfuck of misinformation.

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:35:24] And it could be avoided!

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:35:25] It could have been avoided. Also, they’ve had so much time to build up our trust and explain to us, “Don’t worry. We’ve been working on this since 2002. We just need the strains in particular and some of the plasma from the antibodies to figure out a way to design this vaccine.” They had so much time. Whereas what it feels like is that we heard this vaccine was coming–we kept on being told it takes at least four years for a vaccine to be viable anyway–and then we didn’t really hear anything else about it other than the fact that they kept on saying it was coming, and then it never did. And then suddenly it was here, and they just told us to sign up for it, and they gave us no information. And then you have people with big profiles being given platforms to speak nothing but bullshit about these vaccines and about COVID-19. And they are spreading their conspiracies. And I know that you are currently working towards a project in which you will break down to people how to develop, I think you said, “antibodies” against… What was it? “Intellectual and…?” What was it you said?

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:36:36] Mental intellectual antibody.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:36:38] That was it. I loved it so much. Mental intellectual antibodies.

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:36:42] It’s not my idea, and it’s not a new idea. This is the thing that’s so frustrating. There are so many silos in academia–doctors just want to listen to other doctors. They don’t want to think about what social psychologists and communications scholars are doing. So, here’s the thing. The whole time that the scientists were in the lab racing to find a vaccine, we should have been in our other lab, developing the logistics to roll out the vaccine, so that everyone could get a vaccine once they’re available, and also developing the communication–the communication strategies. The fact that we don’t have a lot of good communicators in science and medicine is because we don’t get taught it because we don’t think it’s sexy or important. Really, it’s so dumb because even as a clinician, communication is one of the most used techniques and procedures you will ever, ever use. And things can make or break, depending on how you communicate them, right? And so, we just didn’t see that investment. It’s like the science is sexy. You work on the vaccine and it’s like, “Okay, now we have vaccines. Oh, I guess we should do some messaging around the vaccines being safe, or maybe we should explain how they were made, or maybe we should have, like, more centralized systems for rolling out the vaccines.” Like, how is that okay? So right now, we do a lot of debunking because the thing you’ve heard–it’s not true. Vaccines don’t cause autism. The vaccines don’t have microchips in them. Bill Gates didn’t do anything nefarious with the vaccines. There’s a thing you can do called pre-bunking. And we could have done this.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:38:03] That sounds like a sort of foreplay. Pre-bunking.

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:38:10] It does? I don’t know what kind of foreplay you do.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:38:11] Yeah. I don’t know why. Bunking. Bonking. I think I have that in my head.

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:38:19] Oh, bonking! That’s so funny. I was like, “Wait. What?”

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:38:21] Pre-bunking. Let’s get away from my brain and back into yours, which is much more sensible and helpful.

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:38:27] Honestly, being in America, I haven’t had the word “bonking” in a very, very long time. Very British.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:38:32] Bonking means shagging. Shagging means sex. Sorry. Doctor, please continue.

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:38:40] Now I’m going to slip up and say pre-bonking every time. Probably when I’m on CNN. Thanks a lot.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:38:47] This will be your Bridget Jones “tits pervert, tits pervert, tits pervert” moment.

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:38:53] “Pre-bunking, bunking, not shagging.” So, the idea is with pre-bunking, what you do is you say, “Oh, heads up. There’s some BS–some misinformation, disinformation–coming your way. We could have predicted this because you already know what people are going to say about vaccines. I’m going to give you a heads up that it’s coming in.” And basically, what it does–and this was developed by a Harvard social psychologist in the 60s and 70s, William Maguire–is it gives you time to develop counter arguments to the incoming BS. So, it gives you a heads up, you build counter arguments. And how he described it is basically, you know how with a vaccine, you’re giving someone a small, weakened dose of the pathogen to protect them? You’re exposing them to a smallish dose, so you don’t get sick from the vaccine, but you get exposed, and you develop antibodies. The whole idea is with pre-bunking, I’m going to give you a small, weakened dose of the misinformation and disinformation. And instead of having antibodies in your blood, you’re going to develop mental intellectual antibodies to the BS. The next time you hear it, you’re like, “Oh yeah, somebody already warned me about that. And here are six reasons why that is not true.” We could have done that. We didn’t do that. I’m very frustrated.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:40:07] So now going forward because I mean, look, there’s another strain now–some super strain–that’s apparently hit L.A. County. It’s all over the U.K. It’s apparently 70% more fucking contagious. This shit isn’t over. And that means the misinformation war is not over. And this is not the last time, unfortunately, this is likely to ever happen or something like this could ever happen. I mean, with just the unbelievable amount of ways for people to travel nowadays and the frequency of travel. It just is so hard to contain anything in any one country. And so, going forward, what can we all do, considering we are bombarded with so much information? How can we protect ourselves? How can we get those mental intellectual antibodies? Aside from the fact that we do not yet have the powers-that-be being responsible in that way, how can we guard ourselves?

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:41:08] So just one thing before I talk about the intellectual antibodies. You know, we talk a lot that globalization–we’re so connected more than ever–crossover from animal species into humans, whatever. All of that is totally accurate. It’s relevant. One thing I want us to talk about more is social vulnerability schools–social vulnerability indices. Because, you know, when we talk about pandemics, it’s like, “Oh, how do we stop a pathogen coming, and how do we protect ourselves?” Actually, you have to make sure there’s not as much poverty as there is right now–that there isn’t homelessness–that people aren’t so marginalized and vulnerable. That’s what pandemics really exploit. And when you look at L.A. County–you look at California–we’ve been hit really hard. And it’s not a coincidence that we have one of the highest poverty rates in the country. L.A. County also has one of the worst social vulnerability scores–lots of people living paycheck to paycheck, poor welfare, safety net systems, high rates of homelessness. That’s what you have to actually tackle to stop a next pandemic being this bad or even worse. It’s not just about globalization. It’s not just about travel. It’s not just about animal crossover incidents. It’s about how crap we are at looking after each other and how crap we are at building safety nets. That’s just one thing. With the intellectual antibodies, this is what I study because I think, you know, we talk a lot about Black people, and POC, and indigenous people being disproportionately affected in the pandemic–higher rates of disease, higher rates of death. What we don’t talk about as much is the fact that there are communities that are more vulnerable to the misinformation and disinformation as well. So, the thing that I’m working on in my scholarly work is this map of the US that looks at where news deserts are–that’s places where you have really crap access to accurate information, communities that don’t have good broadband internet access, lost their local newspapers–and how that overlaps with health care deserts, places where people don’t have a good doctor, don’t have good access. Information equity and inequity is so important for protecting your health. It’s not just about your access to a doctor or nurse. It’s about your access to information that’s legit and will keep you safe. You know, you can’t build the intellectual antibodies without that information and without giving people access to stuff that’s credible. And you know what? Also localized information that speaks to you, your community, your particular fears and concerns because, I think, what we do a lot in medicine and public health is, like, a one-size-fits-all message for everyone.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:43:43] Yeah.

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:43:44] As opposed to saying– You talk to six different people who are vaccine hesitant, they’ll give you six different reasons as to why they are worried about vaccines–why they have certain cultural beliefs or religious beliefs. So, you can’t have a one-size-fits-all message. You need to have localized messaging that really specifically speaks to the fears and concerns of particular communities. And the anti-vaccine groups are doing that amazingly so. That really bad measles outbreak in Minnesota a few years ago that was very much affecting Somali kids–sent so many Somali kids in the Minneapolis area to the hospital. That was because the anti-vaccine groups flew into Minneapolis, said to the Somali parents, “Hey, we’ve heard you’re worried about high autism rates in your community,” which they were worried about. They lied to them and said, “You’re right. Autism rates are higher among Somali kids because you get the MMR vaccine at such high rates.” Over the course of a few years, MMR vaccination coverage in Somali kids went from about 92% to 42% because the anti-vaccine groups were speaking so specifically to the concerns and fears of Somali parents. And then you have the worst measles outbreak in 30 years.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:44:53] Yeah, and there are long term impacts as well to having measles that we don’t talk about enough. I mean, really, really long term and really, really devastating. The anti-vax argument–especially when people with large platforms get involved–it makes me so emotional and upset. And the ableism that is steeped in it needs to be addressed. I mean, listen. I have no idea. Is there a link between vaccines and autism? I have no idea.

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:45:19] No. And the idea that you’d rather your kid have autism–

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:45:23] Exactly. And you’d rather roll the dice–die or make another child sick. That child dies. Just the idea that you would choose death over any disability…

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:45:38] It’s so horrible.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:45:39] Horrifying. It is horrifying. It is ableist. It is shameful. And it’s been a masterful effort by those who have tried to push this agenda.

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:45:54] They’re preying on fear. They’re exploiting anxiety and uncertainties.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:45:58] And ableism.

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:45:59] Yeah. So much ableism. And we’ve seen that play out in the pandemic, too. But it speaks to your point that if you don’t have good communicators who are the actual experts, it leaves a lovely bigger gap for non-experts to come and take up that space and be like, “Yeah, 100%. Vaccines cause autism.” No, they don’t.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:46:16] Where did that start? How did that start? How did that link specifically with vaccines and autism start?

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:46:23] Yeah. So, I explain the whole story in the book, but it goes back to a lovely British doctor, actually–Andrew Wakefield in London–who in the 90s did this awful, unethical experiment where he was saying that kids who get the MMR vaccine, the combined one, end up with gut problems, end up with developmental disorders like autism. He did really unethical experiments, like going to a kid’s birthday parties and taking blood from them, doing colonoscopies, like, putting the camera up kids butts in a very medically inappropriate way. It wasn’t warranted.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:46:54] Hopefully not at those birthday parties.

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:46:57] I don’t know if the colonoscopies were at the parties, but the blood taking was. I mean, it was all terrible for those kids. And then not only that, but he fraudulently says there’s a link between the combined MMR vaccine and autism and then publishes in The Lancet, which is one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world. Finally, we get people who were like, “Nah, this don’t make sense.” And also, Brian Deer, a very dogged investigative journalist, who was like, “Uh, this Andrew Wakefield guy has investments. He stands to make money out of single MMR, measles, mumps, rubella, separate vaccines. So, it makes sense for him financially if people are like, ‘Oh, I don’t want a combined one. Let me give my kids individual vaccines for those diseases.’” It took the Lancet 12 years to retract that fraudulent study, even after people were like, “What the heck?” The GMC–the General Medical Council in England that regulates our licenses–took his license away. So, Andrew Wakefield, no longer a doctor in England, moves to America and starts up an organization–this radiant anti-vaccine organization saying all sorts of false things. They have loads of money behind them. They have loads of celebrities and politicians behind them, who just love their message and love peddling not only the lie that vaccines are unsafe and cause autism–but also people like Jenny McCarthy who peddle cures for autism that are essentially… I don’t know whether she pedals these specific ones, but at conferences that she’s done–like, these autism summits–they have kids drinking bleach. They call it “miracle cure.” It’s actual bleach that they tell people cures autism. It doesn’t. Nothing does. I have a list of the kind of quack cures that they peddle.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:48:45] Camel milk I once read. And I was like, “Oh! Bloody hell. They’re becoming very exotic.”

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:48:52] At least it’s not bleach. But still, yeah, it’s a lie. And like you said, it’s so ableist. It’s so hurtful to people who live with autism.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:49:01] For sure! I mean, it makes absolutely no sense. It makes no sense. I cannot imagine carrying a child or adopting a child–raising a child–and being willing to roll the dice on their life in that way just because I am so fearful, because our society has erased autistic people or made us feel as though there was something so wrong with them. There are plenty of autistic people that I know that live perfectly happy and healthy long lives, and their lives are worth everything.

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:49:35] Yeah.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:49:36] Never mind. I’m gonna just move off it ’cause I’m gonna burst in tears.

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:49:38] He was one of the major architects of it. And then there’s been many more. And then many have jumped on his bandwagon as well.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:49:50] You’ve written an entire book called Viral BS: Medical Myths, in which you just basically slam myth upon myth upon myth upon myth. And that has been borne of your frustration with how much nonsense– I mean, social media has been so incredible and so connective–and, you know, without which we wouldn’t have so many important and powerful movements, so much important and powerful information that spreads so far. But Christ, have we used it for evil. And so, I was wondering if you could tell me some of your favorite viral bullshit that you have gone after in your book.

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:50:32] Maybe the one about eating your placenta because that’s been hot for a minute. A lot of celebrities–Kim Kardashian–said that eating her placenta after she gave birth helped her recovery, which it doesn’t. And January Jones said that it helped with postpartum depression, I think, and with recovery after. So, your placenta is an organ that you make during pregnancy to nourish your child. And then after that, it doesn’t really serve a purpose. So, to deliver it and to eat it–and there are recipes for placenta smoothies and lasagna, placenta truffles…

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:51:04] Oh, fuck off. Sorry, but no. I heard someone say placenta capsules, where you put them in capsule-form. Where the fuck did that come from?

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:51:14] So the people who defend it– There’s no evidence to say that eating your placenta does anything. It’s considered medical waste really. Like–great–it nourishes the child in utero. But now you don’t eat your organ or your child’s organ. It comes from people, I think, saying that it happens in nature–like, “Monkeys do it, therefore we should do it.” That’s one argument I’ve heard. But I talked to some zoologists who are like, “Yeah, the other monkeys and other wild animals eat their placenta because otherwise it attracts predators.” I don’t think you have that problem in the maternity suite. So, you don’t need someone to come and feed you your placenta to get rid of it in case a wild animal comes after you. But you know what? In medicine, we’re quite bad, I think, at dealing with things like postpartum depression–dealing with a lot of stuff to do with gynecology and obstetrics. And I think into that chasm–into the gap that we leave–people come along and are like, “Let’s talk about postpartum depression.” Maybe they’re talking about it in better ways than the doctors are. But at the same time, they’re peddling stuff that they’re making money off–like, “Eat your placenta, we’ll turn into these freeze-dried capsules.” What worries me then is two things. One, and I talk about this in the book, there’s a kid that very nearly died–this newborn–because the mum ate the placenta, didn’t realize it had a bacteria in it, which can happen, and then passed that bacteria through breast milk to the baby. And the baby got a very, very severe infection that the doctors linked back to the mothers eating the placenta. But the other thing is, if the labs are saying to you, “Eat your placenta, it cures postpartum depression,” you may not get the healthcare you need for your postpartum depression. And that’s really serious. You need proper professional care for that. You can’t just be eating your placenta, or drinking it, or something and thinking it’s going to cure it.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:52:58] You put me right off my lunch.

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:53:01] You don’t fancy a placenta smoothie?

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:53:03] No, I’m good. A placenta burrito. Oh, fuck me. Like, I’m trying not to be too judgmental, but some shit is just too far for me, especially when steeped in so little science–so little, like, evidentiary backup. And listen, I make space for the fact that there are some old practices. We come from South Asian backgrounds where they have their own ways of dealing with certain things. And there is a lack of medical support there, so they found their ways around towards health–whatever that may be. And I do make space of the fact that sometimes perhaps there just hasn’t been enough research in order for us to have an evidentiary answer that is 100% one way or the other. But I tend to–just for my own safety and I suggest everyone does this… Until that research has been done, don’t fuck around with it. Really, just wait for the research. If the research doesn’t exist yet to contradict the current narrative, just wait for that research to be done because you can risk so many issues–so many problems–by jumping in based on kind of old wives’ tales.

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:54:14] It’s tough, though, because obviously I am a scientist. I’m very critical of science and the scientific establishment.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:54:20] Rightfully so.

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:54:23] So again, I think the onus is on those establishments to do the research that women want. For example, do more research around maternal health and maternal mortality. But I just worry that there are people who don’t have access to great information or haven’t been given the tools to appraise information properly. And those are the people that might be the most vulnerable to believing stuff that could actually be really harmful to them and block them from getting the actual care that could help that they really need. Like, just be careful what you hear celebs say in terms of what made the skin firmer and cured their depression.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:54:55] Oh, my God. Yeah. I was talking recently to Dr. Joshua Wolrich about the fact that there is this kind of new movement online for people who are saying certain foods can cure mental illness. And I think that it’s always good to eat intuitively and eat well. And if that makes you feel a bit better, that’s great. But I think it’s so detrimental to all of the work that we all need. You know, as someone who struggles and has struggled most of my life–I’d say almost all of my life–with mental health issues, I cannot imagine trying to cure anything with any kind of a juice, or a superfood, or a new, trendy, like, exotic fruit.

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:55:35] But you can see how people might be–

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:55:37] Oh, for sure! But also, like, it’s cheaper than going to the doctor if you can’t get health insurance. I completely understand how something like that would become just sort of rampantly prescribed to people who just, you know, have lost faith in the medical system. I’ve been failed many times by the medical system. I’ve definitely almost fallen prey to– You know, I remember having eczema for 20 years and then falling into very briefly–and I’m very embarrassed–the celery juice phase and, you know, was promptly told by doctors, “This is bullshit.”.

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:56:13] You wanted something to work.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:56:13] Yeah! I wanted to try. So, I kept trying anyway, just in case. And it didn’t fuck all. Fuck all! It’s not real. That man is a charlatan.

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:56:26] Yeah, people make money off this stuff.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:56:27] Any other ones that you particularly want? You know, we have a lot of young women in particular–I mean, women of all ages, actually–and non-binary people, indeed. But anything else you want to warn people off just before you go– before we lose you?

1. SEEMA YASMIN [00:56:41] Yeah. Cleanses are a con. Please repeat that after me, everybody. Cleanses are an expensive con, but they are a con. And in the book, there’s a chapter about the flat tummy teas that you see on Instagram–and I kind of strip the facade away to show you the inner workings of how that whole flat tummy tea industrial complex operates. But the fact that people make money off of the self-hatred that we are taught–the way that we’re taught healthy only looks one particular way. “And by the way, drink this tea and you’ll have a quick fix.” Actually, what these teas often contain are laxatives and diuretics for your peeing. You’re pooping a lot, and that may just sound inconvenient and not very nice. People have landed in the ICU because they’ve become so severely dehydrated. Those laxatives are not intended for use for that long. The diuretics can plummet your blood pressure. And there’s even a story I write in the book–and there’s more out there–of a woman who died because you know how a lot of these teas and cleanses are like “natural,” “herbal?” Well, guess what? Herbs do things to your bodies–and some of them are toxic to your liver and your kidneys. And there’s one instance of a woman, she’s taking this tea that was a detox tea–had lots of roots, and herbs, and leaves in it. Couple that with a glass of wine in the evening–and the doctors think what killed her liver and eventually killed her.

JAMEELA JAMIL [00:58:04] Oh, my goodness. Yeah, 24,000 teenagers, I believe, a year are admitted to the hospital for using diet and detox supplements. I’m actually currently working towards a bill over in Boston that would make it illegal for underweight teens to be able to access these products. You know, finding out about the fact that in the weight gain products–you know, the muscle building products–they sometimes have really, really toxic, dangerous, heavy metals. And Viagra! They’re putting Viagra in the boys’ shakes. I mean, I’m saying boys, but they tend to be the biggest market for muscle gain because women are told to not look strong and not take up any space. And they’re trying to look like, you know, the kind of fight club body eight-pack that we see on Instagram because there is a huge uptick in men’s kind of… I’m using the word “vanity” for lack of a better word. But men’s insecurity, I suppose, is what I would say. And so, you know, these young growing boys are ingesting muscle gain, heavy metals, and Viagra. Girls have speed sometimes in their weight loss products and laxatives, and they can develop lifelong problems with their digestive systems. I have three friends who developed rectal prolapses from abuse of the diet detox teas. And there’s nothing they can do about that. I have one friend who has–and there’s nothing wrong with this, and many people have that–a colostomy bag from their use of that. But the problem is the fact that we aren’t advertising on any of these products–that these are the life circumstances that you may well be dealt. And if you are to live with that, you are still a worthy, beautiful, wonderful person. But you should at least be forewarned that is possible–not just a picture of a perfect, happy, photoshopped celebrity standing next to the product that’s probably been photoshopped into the fucking picture. Don’t get me started. Don’t get me started, Seema!

1. SEEMA YASMIN [01:00:03] Listen, there was an outbreak of severe hepatitis–and even deadly hepatitis–a few years ago, I think 2014, linked to a dietary supplement that was supposed to boost your metabolism, help you drop weight, and put on muscle. People died from taking this because the dietary supplements are not a medicine and they’re not food. So, they fall into a regulatory black hole. And you can get away by renaming things, like, “natural,” and “root,” and all of that. You can get away with putting really toxic things in there, like you said, including things that are actually amphetamines. So, the funny thing is–kind of funny–when I wrote this article, I’m like, “People, be careful. Guys in the military–in the army–have dropped dead in training camp because they’ve taken these dietary supplements.” The military has banned them, but they’re still available in health food stores. Women have died. There was a big outbreak in that year. People emailed me so angry, Jameela, because they were like, “I love that supplement. It makes me feel so high.” And I’m like, “Yeah, that’s a sign that there’s something in there that’s not good for you.” Like, there is speed in there. And yeah, it can help you lose weight, but it’s really, really bad for you. Watch Requiem for a Dream to see just how bad it could be. But they’re not regulated in the way that people think. I’m getting something off a shelf–it’s got to be tested and fine. Sorry, if it’s a dietary supplement–no. You know, buyer beware. It could cause serious problems.

JAMEELA JAMIL [01:01:22] Yeah, I took them all when I was younger, and I’m still paying the price in my health. So, I feel very, very strongly about that. Thank you so much for coming on and speaking so frankly, so clearly, so accessibly. I wish we had more people like you.

1. SEEMA YASMIN [01:01:36] I feel like I just sounded annoyed for an hour.

JAMEELA JAMIL [01:01:38] Well, you should fucking be annoyed!

1. SEEMA YASMIN [01:01:40] I know. I am. I am, but still… I am annoyed.

JAMEELA JAMIL [01:01:42] This is a safe space for angry, like, annoyed women and people. I think that, you know, we’re all afraid and we’re all annoyed. And I definitely had some questions and feel so cleared up on them thanks to talking to you, especially around the vaccine and stuff. It is so underestimated how much knowledge is power, and you are empowering us with all of these books that are coming our way. And where can people find you online?

1. SEEMA YASMIN [01:02:12] Seemayasmin.com. All my books are there. And I’m on Twitter and Instagram as DoctorYasmin and drseemayasmin.

JAMEELA JAMIL [01:02:18] Perfect. So, Dr. Yasmin, before you leave, would you kindly tell me what do you weigh?

1. SEEMA YASMIN [01:02:25] Truth teller. I’m just going to leave it there. Truth teller–in every sense of the word.

JAMEELA JAMIL [01:02:31] Oh, I love that. I loved having you on this podcast. Thank you so much. I think people are going to find this so helpful and informative.

1. SEEMA YASMIN [01:02:39] Thank you! Hope so!

JAMEELA JAMIL [01:02:39] Thank you so much for all of your books. And it has been such a pleasure and honor to get to chat to you and pick your brain.

1. SEEMA YASMIN [01:02:45] Thank you. I just don’t want people to be exploited, and I have a BS detection kit at the back of the book–just to make us more resilient not just to disease but all the disinformation and the crap out there about diseases.

JAMEELA JAMIL [01:02:57] Amazing.

1. SEEMA YASMIN [01:02:57] Thank you for chatting to me.

JAMEELA JAMIL [01:02:59] Thank you! Lots of love. Bye bye! Thank you so much for listening to this week’s episode. It is edited by Andrew Carson. And the beautiful music that you’re hearing now is made by I Weigh with Jameela Jamil is produced and researched by myself, Jameela Jamil, Erin Finnegan, and Kimmie Gregory. my boyfriend, James Blake. If you haven’t already, please rate, review, and subscribe to the show. It’s a great way to show your support. I really appreciate it, and it amps me up to bring on better, better guests. Lastly, at I Weigh, we would love to hear from you and share what you weigh at the end of this podcast. You can leave us a voicemail at 1-818-660-5543 or email us what you weigh at iweighpodcast@gmail.com. It’s not in pounds and kilos, so please don’t send that; it’s all about your– Just– You know. You’ve been on the Instagram. Anyway. And now we would love to pass the mic to one of our listeners.

I WEIGH COMMUNITY MEMBER [01:03:56] I weigh my loyalty, being a good friend and partner. I weigh being a teacher to ten humans. I weigh my education, my student loan debt, and the pride I feel when I walk into my classroom. I weigh the I Weigh movement and all of the good it has done for my mental health. I weigh my journey into self-love and my recent discovery of self-acceptance.