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Sept. 19, 2023 - Dr. Oz Podcast
42:43
Beyonce's Dad, Mathew Knowles, Announces He Has Breast Cancer | Dr. Oz | S11 | Ep 33 | Full Episode
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Time Text
Beyonce's father opens up about his breast cancer battle.
I saw something was wrong.
I knew that I needed to go and get a maverickland.
I didn't immediately tell my daughters.
And I would not let myself be a victim.
Plus, it's our next Candidate Checkup with Andrew Yang.
What does this math button mean?
It stands for Make America Think Harder, which is what we need to do right now.
Coming up next.
Are you ready for season 11?
- Yeah! - Today is shocking health diagnosis that no one saw coming.
Matthew Knowles is here opening up about his battle with breast cancer.
Matthew Knowles is the father to musical superstars Beyonce and Solange.
He's a well-known music executive and manager of the legendary music group Destiny's Child, where he catapulted his daughters into a wonderful career.
Thank you for being here.
I appreciate you speaking out.
It takes a lot to do that.
There are so many people whose relatives or themselves had breast cancer and who are men and who have never talked about it.
Why would you feel it was important to change that, to speak out about a sensitive diagnosis?
Well, I once, Dr. Oz, received a card from a nun from Mexico.
And I read the back of the card and it said, pray not for a life free from trouble.
Pray for triumph over trouble.
For what you and I call adversity, God calls opportunity.
So as soon as I found out, I kept asking, what is the opportunity inside of this?
Let's get into the specifics of what happened to you, and then I'm going to broaden it out because I think it applies to everybody.
The first sign that something wasn't right.
You're generally a healthy guy.
What happened?
So, just quick context.
I used to sell zero radiography for breast cancer in the 80s, which was the gold standard.
The Xerox radiology?
Yes, for eight years.
So, I have some knowledge and then MRI. So, I had just a dot.
A dot of blood on my t-shirt.
And that happened for three consecutive days.
Where your nipples were.
Exactly, where my nipples were.
And then it stopped.
And so I thought, well, you know, maybe I had just started exercising and I was really going hard.
But it stopped, so I didn't think anything else.
And then it came back, like the fifth day.
And then I said to my wife, that's this drop of blood.
And she says, guess what?
When I cleaned the bed sheets, there was a drop of blood every day.
And that's when I knew, just some knowledge of breast cancer, that I needed to, and knowing my family history also, I knew that I needed to go and get a mammogram.
Let's talk about that family history.
You actually took the opportunity, this was stunning to me, to write down your family history.
I'm going to show this to everybody.
This is a picture of what he wrote down.
Matthew knows his family.
And, I mean, there's a lot of stuff happening there around breast cancer.
What did you find out?
Well, we went back as far, and I called a cousin, and went as far as my grandmother's sister on my mother's side, and she died of breast cancer.
My mother's sister, my aunt, died of breast cancer.
Her only two daughters Died of breast cancer.
And then the thing that really got my attention for all of this, my wife, sister, died this year of breast cancer at 49 years old with three kids.
So it runs in my family history.
And I also know early detection is the answer.
You never want to fill it.
You want to get there when it's a microcalcification, not when you're filling it.
So with all the trepidation and the luggage of people that you've lost, you went off, you get the biopsy, and at some point someone says, Mr. Knowles, you have breast cancer.
Yes.
What went through your mind?
Well, I kept thinking about my wife first.
Because she's struggling with her sister and now her husband.
So I thought about her first, not myself.
And then acceptance.
I had gone through the process and I had accepted.
And I would not let myself be a victim.
And at the same time, hopefully...
Hallelujah.
And at the same time, hopefully help others with a stigma of men's breast cancer.
Nevertheless, as strong as you are trying to be, you do have to tell that beautiful wife of yours the diagnosis.
What did you tell her?
You know, I shared with my wife, and she's my strength, what was going on.
And obviously, she's extremely supportive and said, we'll get through this.
And we will.
And you called your daughters.
How does a father...
Tell your daughters, with all the love you have for them, that you just found something out that could take your life, that's taken the lives of their relatives, their loved ones.
Well, I'm gonna die of something.
I'm sure that comforted them.
Well, that's real.
But what happened, Dr. Oz, was there was a series of people, doctors, physicians, a great team.
I wanted to wait until I definitively had more information.
So I didn't immediately tell my daughters.
I did immediately tell my former wife.
And I kept her informed all the way because I have the BRCA2 mutations So I didn't want to call them along the way.
I wanted to call them when I had something definitive to say and not frighten them through this process.
What did you say to them when you had to explain to them that you had a gene mutation that if they had would also predispose them to really high incidence of breast cancer and pancreas cancer and melanomas and some of the other issues that come along with it?
Well, they were very, very loving and caring about it, obviously, their dad.
But also growing up in our household, because I used to sell the equipment, they used to hear this all the time about early detection, early detection.
So they did go get the test, and they are okay.
Oh, good.
That's fantastic news.
That is the best news a dad could ever get.
It changes the holy question.
Up next, what Matthew's doctors found out about his family's risk.
Plus, he's gonna open up about his decision to remove both of his breasts.
Stay with us.
A beauty investigation...
We uncover the horror of human hair trafficking.
What is that?
Is that burnt hair or is that plastic?
That's plastic.
And personal stories.
Hair is just coming out.
On the dangers of straightening products.
I can feel my hair going down my back.
Plus, a nail salon whistleblower.
Is your manicure a health risk?
My main concern is the products that I use causing cancer.
That's coming up on Monday.
We are back with Matthew Norell's father to Beyoncé and Solange, who is opening up about his brave battle with breast cancer.
Less than 1% of breast cancer cases are in men, but they still happen, and they sneak up on us.
Let me explain what goes down.
So this is an image of what the breasts or chest looks like in the case of men.
If you just rotate the body to the side, you'll see that just like women, men have breast tissue.
There's fatty tissue.
We have nipples, obviously, and there's muscle back here.
Tumors can grow anywhere.
Once they grow, they sprout out these little limbs, which they can grow directly into the muscle, even into the chest bones, the ribs, and they can send metastases out.
So it can be pretty dangerous.
Now you decided to have your breast tissue removed.
Yes.
Which means they were able to take it off this bone and push forward.
What was it like having it done?
Well, I was, you know, in surgery.
I just wanted to have the procedure done.
I was fortunate to be stage 1A. Oh.
That's what I'm talking about.
Yeah.
And it hadn't spread.
Yeah.
And it hadn't spread.
So I, you know, initially I wanted both.
But we had not gotten, and at that time, I didn't understand when my surgeon said, well, we hadn't gotten a BRCA report yet.
Had I had gotten a BRCA report, I would have initially done, had a simple mastectomy on both.
Now, you're going back to have the other breast taken off.
Yes, I am.
I want to reduce the risk as much as I can.
And for me, that's important to reduce the risk.
Of course.
Come and have a seat.
The risk of recurrence, obviously, varies from person to person.
Thank goodness yours is very low.
And taking out the other breasts, especially when you have the BRCA gene, makes a difference.
Now, let me bring in Matthew's oncologist, Dr. Susan Domchek, world expert in breast cancer and the management of his diagnosis.
So thank you for being here.
Thank you.
So...
I would love if you would just walk us through how this affects the whole family.
And very specifically, first-degree relatives of yours, like your daughters and others, how much of a likelihood do they have of the BRCA gene?
Sure.
So as you mentioned, breast cancer in men is uncommon, but it still occurs, and it's really important that men know that.
And about 10 to 15 percent of the time when a man develops breast cancer, they have a specific genetic susceptibility, which is the reason their cancer developed.
And that means if your dad or your mom has this gene mutation, each of the kids, men, girls or boys, has a 50-50 chance of inheriting the gene mutation.
So it's really important to know this information because we can do something about it.
We can have early detection.
We can have risk reduction strategies to prevent cancers.
Like taking off both the breasts.
There must have been a lot of tension in the family while you're all waiting to get your genetic tests back.
Your kids are trying to figure out if you look like dad or not.
Well, that's why I waited.
That's why I waited before I let them know.
I let Tina know.
But then once I got the information, then I shared it.
And again, they are fortunate not to have the mutation.
Hallelujah.
If someone you love and were a blood relative of didn't want to get the testing done because they were scared, understandably, what would you tell them?
I would share with them the risk associated with it and hopefully that they will acknowledge those risk factors and do the right thing.
What have you done differently in your life now that you have this diagnosis?
I was in the process of changing some of this already.
I said earlier I was working out.
That's one of the things.
Another one is diet.
We were in the process, my wife and I, we were on an intermittent diet anyway.
Intermittent fasting?
Yes, fasting.
We start at 1 o'clock in the afternoon and we eat up until 8 p.m.
and then...
Not after that.
However, I've gained five pounds because I haven't had the ability to get back on that diet.
Start, actually, I always like to set a time, so on Sunday I will.
One of the other things is the reduction of alcohol or stop.
I chose to stop drinking.
Those are the key things.
The beautiful part about all this is you have a man of your accomplishment, you're a college professor, raised a beautiful family, super successful daughters, in large part because of your, not just the management of them, but the values that you got through to them.
You have the ability to influence a lot of lives, and you decide to put yourself out there and make detection a big part of what you stand for.
So, Dr. Mdomchik, what's the best way for men to detect breast cancer?
We're not getting mammography.
Well, men need to know that they can get breast cancer.
That's the number one important thing, because there is a delay in diagnosis in most men, not Mr. Knowles, because he was so conscious of his body and of symptoms.
But most men let lumps and bumps get much too big before they go to the doctor.
So the number one thing is feel for lumps and bumps, changes in exams, blood.
And for men who are at increased risk due to specific genetic mutations, we do consider mammography.
So there are some men who do get screening.
But you made a very interesting observation in your travels that we shouldn't be calling this breast cancer for men.
Absolutely, Dr. Oz.
I've spoken to a lot of people, a lot of men and women, and almost the majority agrees if it means that a man will be more at ease, would not have guilt and shame associated with getting a mammogram, then...
You know, when we see commercials with men with their chests, we see men walking down the street with their chests.
That's just not a word that we as men use, breast.
And if that will solve and make it better, why wouldn't we?
I didn't feel comfortable going to a breast detection center, opening that door.
That just wasn't comfortable for me.
Come on over.
We got a whole group of men who have been watching.
They're all survivors.
They were diagnosed and have carried on.
Bless you all for being here.
I'm gonna introduce you to Michael.
You were diagnosed nine years ago, is that right?
Yes, Dr. Oz, nine years ago.
And I just wanted to tell you, thank you so much, because you having the courage to come out and make this mainstream media and let men know that they're possibly could get breast cancer has been huge.
My phone's been ringing off the hook since you came out and talked about it.
They should learn the early warning signs, and that's part of what we do at the Male Breast Cancer Coalition is we educate, we raise awareness.
We're a great patient advocacy organization, and we've been doing this for years, and you have put us mainstream, put us on front page, and you're doing amazing justice for this community in male breast cancer.
Thank you so much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Must feel pretty good.
It feels amazing.
I'm going to go one last person I want to thank.
I appreciate you speaking out, but thanks for catching me there.
This is Gina, who's the rock right now, Gibraltar.
Thanks for being here.
Has he been a good patient?
Very good.
You proud of him?
Very, very proud of you.
Very proud of him.
Yes, yes.
I'm proud of you, too.
He's become a better man.
I can't stop looking at him.
You keep looking.
In the meantime, there's a message out there that could save someone's life.
So whether it's your husband, your father, your brother, your son, you know, check out what this checklist we're going to put out on the early signs of breast cancer.
It's valuable for both genders.
We'll be right back.
Our new mysterious food allergy is on the rise.
Can you be allergic to meat?
What you need to know about a new allergy is the fact it's so new it's not even in most medical textbooks.
Today, an Oz alert.
Could you be allergic to red meat?
A mysterious rise in sudden meat allergies is being reported and it's affecting middle-aged adults everywhere and seemingly out of nowhere.
People who went through their whole lives with no food allergies are experiencing full-blown allergic reactions.
This allergy is so new that it's not even in medical textbooks yet and many doctors don't even know it exists.
But for those who have one of these, EpiPens, right, these Epidephrine pens, this meat allergy could be the number one cause of people going into anaphylactic shock.
Not nuts, not bee stings, but red meat.
How?
This allergy wasn't even first encountered in a lab.
It wasn't even identified the way we normally find these things.
It was brought to light because of you.
People who searched for answers when they started noticing an almost overnight change to their health after being bitten by a tick.
Take a look.
On Father's Day, I had a cookout with our family and ate a piece of hamburger for dinner.
Went to bed, didn't think anything of it.
I woke up after midnight in anaphylaxis.
My heart was racing.
I couldn't catch my breath.
I thought I was going to die.
I was bitten about a year ago on the playground while I was on duty as a third grade teacher.
I went and I had a stay.
And then I woke up that night around midnight and I really thought I was dying.
I couldn't eat beef, pork, lamb, venison anymore.
But I also had to omit dairy and cheese from my diet.
Going out to eat, going to the dentist, going to the doctors, traveling, all these things have really become an ordeal.
When I was pregnant with my daughter last fall, I went into anaphylactic shock and had to be transported to the hospital.
Just a physical exhaustion that you can't even explain.
I don't want to stay home and I don't want to be a hermit.
This story is very personal to me.
I was at a wedding of a good friend a couple years ago, and a gentleman next to me wouldn't eat any of the meat products or any of the dairy products.
And he claimed to have this weird allergy he had developed as an adult to meat and dairy, which I know was impossible.
And then as I probed more and more, I realized he was a doctor and had learned a ton about this, and he was right.
And over the summer, it reached a crescendo with potentially tens of thousands of people being affected by this allergy.
And that number keeps growing.
It's gotten so big that I've decided to cover it on the show because we can save some lives today.
Dawn is one of these sufferers.
She discovered she had a meat allergy almost two years ago, and thanks for being here.
Thank you.
How did you figure it out?
What were the symptoms?
A lot of it was my own research.
I was tracking everything that I consumed, the number of ounces of meat that I consumed with each meal, and I was noticing that it was sort of a roller coaster of what was happening.
For like three or four days, I would eat beef, and then I'd switch over to chicken.
I would be up and down with how I was feeling.
So you basically diagnosed yourself by being an experiment?
I did.
I did.
We had one night where a group of friends were going to go out to dinner, and so I knew we were going to a steakhouse.
And sure enough, I went home that night.
I was in a real desperate situation.
I woke up at about 2 in the morning.
I didn't know what was going on.
I couldn't breathe.
I was so uncomfortable.
And I was alone.
I didn't know what to do.
Your story is so typical.
Big meal, seems to be fine, and then you can't figure out that six hours later you have these weird conditions that aren't associated.
Right.
But you somehow got it figured out.
And part of the reason for that is this researcher who's been leading the way in this new allergy.
His name is Dr. Scott Cummings and he's here in person.
First of all, congratulations.
Thank you so much.
For bucking the orthodoxy and connecting the pieces of the puzzle.
If it wasn't for smart patients who actually were able to figure this out for themselves, we wouldn't have even had the clues.
But tell us more about this newly discovered allergy.
So alpha-gal allergy is actually due to a sugar.
Say it again.
Alpha-gal.
Alpha-gal.
It's a sugar.
It's found in red meat.
And so anything that has four legs and hooves is potentially a risk.
So why is it so hard to identify this allergy?
Why is it that so many very smart patients have to figure out themselves?
Absolutely.
It really starts with patients.
But it's difficult because the reactions are delayed.
It makes it incredibly difficult to put the story together if you have a hamburger for dinner and hives at midnight.
When you put this together for your doctor, what do they say?
They were shocked, and they doubted me big time.
I had to beg for this blood test, and they did the alpha-gal test, and I was positive with a 16.7 positive reaction.
Here's the thing.
Because you were able to do that and persevere, and because leaders of Dr. Cummins are getting ahead on this deal, I think we can change the health of America.
When I mentioned that it might be the most leading cause of people dying of allergies, it's because they don't realize it, so they have that big seven-ounce steak, and it caused a problem.
So let me show you all what Dr. Cummins is talking about.
Come on back here.
So, it all starts with this darn tick bite, right?
The tick bites the subject and injects saliva, which contains this alpha-gal molecule, into the blood system, right?
Not into the stomach, into the blood system.
Alpha-gal is floating around in there.
Now, four to six weeks after you get bit, which is a long time, which makes it really confusing for doctors, patients, everybody else.
The body makes antibodies against this alpha-gal to try to block it off, right?
But it cross-reacts.
It's the same thing that's in all that red meat.
So when you take a big bite of the red meat and put it in your mouth, your body reacts to the alpha-gal that's naturally found in animals that have hooves, four-legged beings, and then you can go into anaphylactic shock.
But it's not happening immediately.
The bee stings you, and you have a reaction, so it's not hard to put the pieces together.
But with this, it happens hours after you've eaten the meat.
So, it's no surprise we've had a tough time figuring it out.
Is that a pretty good summary?
Absolutely.
All right, so when we come back, could this mysterious meat allergy be in your body and you not even know it?
Stay with us.
A betrayed wife secretly records her husband, then kills his girlfriend.
She took my husband's way.
Before killing herself.
All new Oz.
That's coming up next week.
We're back investigating the mysterious rise of a new food allergy.
Could you be allergic to red meat?
That's right, red meat and other four-legged animals, because they seem to be causing a problem that we're now discovering is huge.
Dr. Scott Cummins is back along with my viewer, Melissa.
She's actually worried about this allergy.
So what is it about what's going on in your life that makes you think you might be allergic to meat?
So, I was by a tick a few months ago.
Within the last two months, after eating meatballs specifically, my lips swell up to the point that I'm in so much pain.
Wrinkly eyes, eyes tearing, eczema, no matter what I do.
Intestinal issues at all?
No.
So, Doc Cummins, thoughts about this?
You're the world expert.
Is this what it looks like to have alpha-gal?
It certainly could be.
The idea of swelling, which we call angioedema from the medical side, but swelling of your lips and tongue would be consistent with an allergic response.
So would an itchy rash, which might be hives.
But we can do the test to know.
Yeah, you don't have to guess.
Are your lips more swollen than usual now?
They are.
I think it's because I put on a lipstick that I haven't worn in a while.
A lipstick?
Yeah.
Is that possible that a lipstick could cause this?
It is possible.
Actually, some cosmetics contain mammal ingredients.
Oh, so you don't have to eat steak.
You could have, in this case, lipstick that happens to have a little bit of animal in it.
Correct.
You could have a reaction right at the site of the application.
Oh my goodness.
Wow.
Have you been bitten by a tick that you know of?
Yeah, back in April.
Oh my goodness.
Come on over here.
Let's see what these little insects look like.
These cause huge problems despite their size.
I think everyone's going to recognize these little babies.
Since you've become a world expert on ticks as well, describe what we're looking at.
What's on the right there?
So on the right is the larval tick, or sometimes called a seed tick.
That's the very first stage of ticks as they hatch.
And then when it grows up, Then it grows up, it becomes an adult, this is an adult female Lone Star tick which we know because of the distinctive white spot.
But the baby, the mom and the dad can all infect you?
The risk is universal.
So in medicine, crazy as it is, sometimes patients are hurt, individual patients, but we learn from that experience and can save millions.
This might be a great example of that.
What are the two big threads of opportunities that this illness is opening up for us?
The two big things that we're learning now relate to food allergy.
We're learning that you can develop a new onset food allergy to a food you've tolerated for years, and it can happen as an adult, and it doesn't have to happen in that two minutes to two hour window.
It can be delayed.
Secondly, we know red meat is bad for us.
Study after study shows correlation to heart disease, obesity, diabetes.
We're concerned that alpha-gal could be a piece of that puzzle.
Dr. Cummins, thank you very much.
Right now, everybody, I got a favor to ask you.
We need you to help because this is so new that researchers like Dr. Cummins need your help to be disease detectives and to report.
Grab your phone right now, and you can take a photo of the screen.
It's a new thing we're doing this season.
I want you to stop what you're doing, snap, and share.
Right?
Snap, snap, share.
Do it real fast.
These questions will help you spot the symptoms of this new allergy.
So, after eating red meat, do you have repeated and unexplained itchy skin, shortness of breath, and upset stomach?
If you want to especially monitor, by the way, yourself after visiting a place where ticks are.
Share this with your friends, and if you have a meat allergy story, go to my website so we can collect more of these information, more of these stories on the emerging issue.
I'll be right back.
Coming up, how this hero pilot made an emergency landing saving 148 lives.
She felt the presence that helped her.
Find out how she navigated even the most turbulent times.
That's next.
April 17, 2018. It was a routine morning flight from New York City to Dallas, Texas.
20 minutes after takeoff, the plane, filled with 144 passengers and five crew members, was cruising when suddenly...
There was a deafening boom.
The plane started to vibrate.
Passengers thought they'd never see their loved ones again.
The engine was failing, and the plane was coming apart.
A window shattered, sucking a passenger out of the airplane as others jumped to pull her back in.
Inside the cockpit, Captain Tammy Jo Schultz was planning an emergency descent.
Southwest 1380 has an engine fire descending.
Amid chaos, Captain Schultz was unshakable, communicating with air traffic control.
Okay, could you have the, uh, medical meet us there on the runway as well?
We've got, um, injured passengers.
Injured passengers, okay, and are you, is your airplane physically on fire?
No, it's not on fire, but part of it's missing.
They said there was a hole and, uh, someone went out.
Oh my goodness, part of the plane's missing.
Someone went out.
So as you just heard, it took nerves of steel to prevent what could have been a tragedy that day.
This hero pilot, who saved 148 lives, was once told girls couldn't fly airplanes.
Today, pilot Tammy Jo Schultz is here, opening up about how she used the Power of One to save her when she needed it the most, and how we can all navigate through turbulent times.
Please welcome, Kami Jo Schultz.
In the flesh.
How are you?
Good, sir.
Congratulations.
Oh my goodness.
Come have a seat.
Thank you.
So before I get to the airplane heroics, you were doing things that were truly unique way before that.
You were one of our nation's first female fighter pilots, I understand.
Well, I was one of the first to fly F-18s.
The Navy was really pretty open with women in flying, so there were some ladies that were flying in a fighter role, not combat, but aggressors in the 70s and 80s.
So, let's move on to this plane.
You're in the plane, and you hear this commotion behind you, right?
And take me back to that moment of what was going through your head.
Well, it wasn't just that we heard a commotion behind us.
It really felt like we'd had a midair with another aircraft.
The airplane made a snap roll to the left.
And then just in a slice of a moment, the cowling of the engine had kind of peeled back like a banana peel and stayed attached.
And then chunks were torn out of the wing.
So, understandably, plane full of passengers, they're all panicked.
I will be panicked.
But you say, and I was listening to your voice on that recording, incredibly calm.
You said it was God's presence that helped you maintain some semblance of order.
Well, and you know, I just remember thinking, I don't think everything's going to stay on this aircraft that we need to get to a runway.
And that would, you know, it kind of took me to that, through that thought process that, to the cliffs of what if.
And that is, it may be the day that I meet my maker.
And that's when I stopped the run and just stood still a moment mentally and realized I wouldn't be meeting a stranger, that I meet with them every day.
And I stepped away from that thought process and looked.
That was the bad news.
The good news is we're still flying.
By some miracle.
Exactly.
And so I felt like I stepped away from there with a calm that's reflected in my voice.
And I just needed that for some good decision making on the way down.
I want to talk about the one woman who did die.
So that open window we just showed everybody was large enough with the pressure, the suction, that she got pulled out.
And although passengers ran to her and tried to hold on to her, she was killed by the blunt injury that resulted.
Do you think about her?
Oh my goodness.
What day don't I? First of all, it hadn't happened in commercial aviation in the U.S. for nine years.
There had not been any such thing happen.
So, I wanted to give you a little gift back.
It's actually a gift you gave yourself.
But we looked around, it wasn't hard to find people who wanted to say something to you.
So, take a look.
My name is Christopher Johnson.
I was a passenger on Southwest Flight 1380. If it wasn't for Tammy Jo and her Her ability to fly that plane, I wouldn't be here talking today.
Tammy's nerves of steel, as you would say, have definitely impacted my life.
She didn't want to be put into the spotlight, but she did a great job.
So Tammy, thank you very much.
Without you and all your support with our group, we wouldn't be here today.
Well, you definitely have nerves of steel.
I'm glad you put it in writing so we can all understand more about what makes you tick.
Congratulations for it.
If you or someone that you love has a story that defines the power of one, go to dros.com, share your story with us today.
We want to share it with everybody else.
And Tammy Jo's book, Nerves of Steel, pick it up.
It's a wonderful read by a wonderful woman.
We'll be right back.
Up next, our campaign checkup with Democratic candidate Andrew Yang.
He shares his vision for healthcare and also his secrets to all its energy.
Do you drink coffee?
No.
I'm so proud of you.
Well, thank you.
And lots of other secrets, though.
Find out what he really does to power through the campaign trail.
Before you vote for the next president of the United States, it's time to do a candidate checkup.
I'm sitting down with candidates one-on-one to find out where they really stand on the health issues that matter the most to you.
It's the interview you haven't seen.
How will their plans affect your wallet and your health?
And what makes them fit to lead this country as our next president?
He's known as the Internet's favorite candidate and for promising to give $1,000 a month to every American adult, no strings attached.
You like that, don't you?
You're excited.
Entrepreneur and Democratic candidate Andrew Yang is here for a campaign checkup to share what he thinks is the real future of medicine.
Please welcome Democratic candidate for president, Andrew Yang.
Thank you, Damian.
I thought you were going to crowd-search.
Oh, my goodness.
I'm going to make an announcement.
Andrew just raised $10 million for your campaign.
Yes, thank you.
Exceeded a lot of people's expectations.
I mean, this could actually happen.
What is the path?
Oh, it's happening.
What is the path to you beating the candidates who are leading the pack right now?
Well, the great thing is most Americans are just tuning in to the 2020 election now.
I think there was one poll that said literally only 10% had decided and 90% had not.
So our campaign is growing just as Americans are tuning in.
And what we're saying is making sense to the American people, that we need to build an economy that actually works for us.
So I see you crowd surfing like you almost did with my audience there.
I wouldn't have done that.
Yes, you would.
There you are crowd surfing.
The best part was his dancing.
He's got some moves.
How do you keep your energy up?
What is your health regime when you're on the road?
Because you don't get to eat at home and pick your meals and cherry pick your beds and all the things most of us get to do.
The toughest part about running for president is definitely being away from your family, because I've got two young children at home.
But I'd say second or third would be trying to stay healthy on the road.
And we have a mutual friend, Daniel Lubetzky, who talked about how he had a hard time finding healthy food on the road.
This is a guy who found the Kind Bars, by the way.
Any of you like the Kind Bars?
So I have to say, I owe Daniel a great debt, because I must live on Kind Bars on the trail.
I probably eat like half a dozen a day.
So thank you, Daniel.
Many of the Democratic candidates are considering releasing their medical records.
You're young and seem healthy.
Are you generally healthy?
I am generally healthy, yes.
So why would you not want to release your records and just get ahead of everybody else?
What's the thought behind that?
I mean, we'll release my medical records very shortly.
In part, right now, we don't want to make it a political issue.
I think that Americans right now are increasingly sensitive to the health of our candidates, and that's probably a good conversation for us to have.
You mentioned your family a second ago.
Your older son is autistic on the spectrum.
Yes.
And you've talked about that publicly, which I commend you for doing because it's a challenge for so many families right now.
What are the resources that you might be able to help families who have children with special needs obtain, especially if they have autism spectrum children?
I talk to parents around the country and their struggles are heartbreaking very often where they have a hard time figuring out that their child is on the autism spectrum and then after they realize that they have a hard time getting resources from their school district.
So in my mind, we have to federalize that set of resources and make it so that parents aren't on their own on an island fighting with school districts for resources that the school district may or may not have available for kids on the spectrum.
Take a step back.
To me, being neurologically atypical is the new normal.
And we need to start recognizing that in our society.
If I can just take the big package of healthcare.
You spend a lot of time studying our healthcare system.
What is the number one challenge you feel we have that you could fix if you were president?
The number one challenge we have is an incentive problem, which is that our system is designed to maximize revenue and activity and not necessarily our health.
And this isn't to say that doctors don't do great work every day, because they do, but unfortunately, Right now, they wait until you're unwell, you show up, and they do something to fix you.
And if there was a way that we could prevent you from getting to a point where you needed that operation or that doctor's visit, then that would be an enormous win for society.
But the incentives right now are not there.
So how do you adjust that incentive?
What's actually doable?
Well, we have some pilots in what's called value-added medicine, where people are trying to identify what actually keeps us healthier.
And so if we can tie the incentives to community helpfulness and people staying out of the doctor's office, then that's a win.
And that sounds far-fetched, but we can do that.
This is one reason why I believe you do need public health care, because the government is better able to adjust the incentives in a way that the market right now will not.
So would you be in favor of Medicare for All?
I am for a public option that's available to all Americans, but I would not do away with private insurance.
So, I'll brag on the fact that you were in the technology sector.
Yes.
And you were successful in that space.
So, there are some fantastic programs out there.
Microsoft, Sharecare, Amazon have programs now that could dramatically change the efficiency and improve the quality of healthcare.
How does the government support these initiatives, which I think ultimately will provide a coach in our hands, but only if all of us join up?
Yes, and only if the incentives are there.
So first I want to go towards the negative.
Right now we have a mental health crisis in this country, particularly among teenage girls, and that's tied to technology, where right now smartphone use and social media apps are actually directly tied to an increase in anxiety and depression among teenagers.
So this is something, to me, that's a healthcare issue that we need to attack immediately.
So that's the negative.
What's the plus?
So the plus.
The plus around technology, and you've worked in this space.
So number one, telemedicine can help make healthcare available to rural areas and places that right now live in primary care deserts, and unfortunately that's a lot of the country.
Number two, Artificial intelligence and other software tools can improve diagnostics to a very, very high level.
And in some instances, they've even outperformed human physicians in terms of being able to identify, for example, tumors on a film.
All right, we've covered healthcare, but when we come back, we'll talk about your buzziest promise of all.
One that got an applause earlier, $1,000 a month to every well-bodied, actually every American adult, period.
Every American adult, that's right.
How do you think it's gonna make you healthier?
Stick around, you'll find out.
At Beauty Investigation, we uncover the horror of human hair trafficking and personal stories on the dangers of straightening products.
It started just coming out in patches.
That's coming up on Monday.
We're back with our campaign checkup with Democratic candidate Andrew Yang.
One of his buzziest campaign promises is giving away $1,000 every month to every adult in this country.
I mean, how's that gonna improve their health?
How will it not improve their health?
Because if you think about $1,000 a month means in the hands of Americans right now, it would mean healthier food, it would mean lower stress levels, it would mean more time spent with your kids, and we know we would use that money to make our families stronger and healthier.
And it actually makes perfect sense when you think about it.
If you imagine a society where all of us were getting $1,000 a month as a right of citizenship, Then you would be able to breathe easier, and positive social indicators would go up, negative social indicators, including health, would go down.
What does this math button mean?
It's obviously not arithmetic.
Yeah, it stands for Make America Think Harder, which is what we need to do right now.
It's also the case that...
Also, one of our big campaign taglines is, the opposite of Donald Trump is an Asian man who likes math.
Come on over here.
Let's do a little math.
Oh my gosh.
A little math challenge for you, right?
Some of my favorite foods out there.
I know you eat healthy, right?
The question here is how many of these products could you buy for $1,000?
Are you ready?
Oh my gosh.
This is fun.
How many punches of kale for $1,000?
Yell it out.
What do you think?
493, someone said?
We have a very smart audience, I should tell you.
They seem very smart.
I'm going to say 250. That's half, but it's close.
500!
Oh, no!
I said, trust the woman!
She yelled out the right answer!
I do need to trust you!
All right.
We're going to do this again.
How many...
My favorite snack...
I love nuts.
What do you eat?
Almonds.
A lot of almonds.
Almonds.
That's why you like the Kind Bars.
Yes, I get the almond-based Kind Bars.
You ever soak them in water?
The Kind Bars?
Yes.
No, no.
They're nuts.
Uh, no, I haven't done that.
Does that improve them?
Soak your nuts in water.
It really matters.
All right.
Oh, he's a doctor.
How many pounds of walnuts for $1,000?
What do you think, audience?
Show it to him, guys.
150!
140 pounds!
Yes!
You got that one!
I did some math!
He's good at math!
And finally, for all the marbles, all the marbles, How many bottles of apple cider vinegar, which is the most common home remedy offered right now, for $1,000?
Oh my gosh, how much is apple cider vinegar in a bottle?
Audience, help them out now!
I'm gonna say it's $8 and it's 120 bottles!
You got it right again!
I'll toast to you, it's 130 bottles.
That's pretty good.
You are a very good mathematician.
Toast!
Mmm!
Ah!
It has been a pleasure having you on.
He's healthier already.
Andrew Yang, wonderful candidate.
Pay attention to some of the things he's saying.
Listen, the vote is up to you.
It's the power of change.
It's the power of you.
One person with one voice speaking the truth.
So look around, pick someone you love, and vote for them.
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