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Aug. 18, 2025 - Conspirituality
05:13
Bonus Sample: The Naturopaths Are At It Again

In preparation for this Thursday's episode on PragerU, Derek looks at one of the propaganda organization's videos featuring naturopathic practitioner, Joseph Pizzorno. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Time Text
Is it more harm than good, these sunblocks?
So let me quote Dr. Michael Hollock.
So he's one of the guys who've done a huge amount of research on vitamin D and has published a lot.
And he made a statement that made the conventional medical community quite angry with them.
He said that for every death we save from skin cancer by putting these lotions and potions on people's skin, we cause 55 cases of breast cancer, colon cancer, prostate cancer, and lung cancer.
Because deficiency of vitamin D hugely promotes many kinds of cancer in the body.
So by putting all these blocks on, we're decreasing people's vitamin D levels.
Oh, fuck, here we go.
You know what though?
Michael Hollick has done a lot of research on vitamin D and he has gotten in trouble with the medical establishment.
Let's think about what he's done.
He had a paper retracted for suggesting vitamin D could treat COVID-19.
It's the very paper that many conspiritualists and wellness influencers have used to shit on vaccines.
But it turns out that there was a lack of information provided on how patients died in his study, which is pretty important if you're claiming that a vitamin staves off death from a virus.
The medical establishment also didn't love Holleck receiving $163,000 from pharmaceutical companies over a four-year period, including from companies that make vitamin D tests.
They didn't love it when he defended child abusers in court by saying that their baby received injuries from a connective tissue disorder instead of being beaten, even though the parents were later indicted for beating their child.
Shortly after this, Holleck was barred from evaluating or treating children at Boston Medical Center.
And yeah, he's in Boston because he's a professor of medicine at Boston University Medical Center, yet was asked to leave the division of dermatology for promoting sun exposure and accepting money from a tanning bed company.
The head of that department called Hollick a, quote, poster boy for the tanning industry.
He might be friends with RFK Jr.
I don't know.
This episode isn't about Michael Hollick though.
This Thursday, we're all going to do an episode on Prager U, the right-wing media organization that's really a propaganda vehicle for Heritage Foundation and Conservative Christians and Zionism, because the whole company basically fantastically rewrites history.
You might have caught my Instagram post clipping a video from a Prager U-Kids show in which an animated Christopher Columbus says slavery?
Actually, it wasn't all that bad.
Yes, I'm serious.
Go check out our Instagram feed.
While watching too many hours of their content in preparation for Thursday, I stumbled across their show, Real Talk, and it's titled Natural Medicine Pioneer Dr. Joseph Pizorno on how Americans can avoid chronic illness.
It's hosted by Marissa Straight, whose latest show, I should note, is a puff piece with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
So I guess she's taking part of Tucker Carlson's playbook here.
Back to the opening clip though.
There's no reputable scientific basis for the claim that preventing one death from skin cancer causes 55 deaths from other cancers due to vitamin D deficiency.
In fact, while sunblock does lower vitamin D synthesis and production in your skin, it does not cause a deficiency.
Multiple studies and clinical reviews have found that regular sunscreen use, even at the maximum recommended amounts, does not lead to significantly lower serum vitamin D levels, nor does it cause deficiency.
That's because it's usually not applied thickly enough to block all the UVB rays out, and most people generally get enough incidental sun exposure to meet their requirement, which is as little as five minutes a day depending on your melanin level and depending on what time of year it is.
General guidelines are 10 to 30 minutes two to three times per week.
Yet, as with everything on this wellness beat, they take it to the extremes, which Pizorno does repeatedly throughout this episode.
I'm Derek Barris, and you're listening to a Conspirituality Bonus, The Natural Paths are at it again.
Let's get into it.
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