The Truth About Dirty Hand Dryer and Germs | Dr. Oz | S9 | Ep 149 | Full Episode
Dr. Oz and Meredith Vieira debunk the viral myth of hand dryers breeding harmful germs, revealing only 1 of 24 samples showed trace coliform bacteria—far below food safety limits—and no E. coli, while 95% of users fail to wash hands properly. Richard Cohen’s FDA-approved adult stem cell trial for MS yielded mixed mobility results due to complications like a blood clot, yet the Cura Foundation’s Vatican-backed "Unite to Cure" conference highlights breakthroughs in gene/immunotherapy for chronic illnesses, offering hope after 16 years of struggle. Ethical sourcing and skepticism toward unproven treatments remain critical amid medical progress. [Automatically generated summary]
Plus, Narrative Fiera is here with an inside and very personal look at the groundbreaking stem cell therapy.
These are adult stem cells, which are far more effective because you're less likely to reject them.
Cutting the edge frontier medicine.
Coming up next.
Say some lives today.
Yeah!
I love you, Dr. Oz.
Dirty here this May, shedding light on the dirty deeds and even the germiest stories that matter to you the most.
And today I got a big story about this photo.
What is that?
It's pretty disgusting.
Look at the germs growing in there.
Where germs like this were supposedly from this.
That's right, a hand dryer.
Look at it carefully.
You all use them.
Imagine getting those germs from this seemingly innocuous device.
Pretty scary, huh?
Makes you think twice about how you even clean up after you go to the bathroom.
Well, that pic managed to scare a lot of people because it went viral.
Well, I mean, really viral.
Like, not the germ kind, but the image spread like a germ itself.
The original post got over 500,000 shares, then swept the blogs, local news.
It even got into the New York Times.
But we got suspicious.
I mean, the dirty hand dryer story was a big story, but was it, pardon the pun, overblown?
Is there more to the story?
To find out, we brought in the down and dirty investigative reporter, Jenna Wolf.
When you first saw the picture, thanks for being down and dirty, yes.
I love being dirty for you anytime.
When you first saw that picture, what came to your mind?
Did you think that those hand devices were filled with bacteria?
Well, I think what I first did was what most people did, we take the hand dryer at face value.
You wash your hands, you dry your hands, the hand dryer, you're done.
Then you saw the picture, then you called, then I got skeptical.
We cannot have a society of people that leave restrooms doing this.
Like, we are a bet, yeah, we are better than that.
So we got our medical team together and we decided to look a little deeper into what actually is going on here.
All right, so the backstory on the picture.
Just give us a little bit of the history and then we'll take a little walk to get into it.
Okay, so a microbiologist student was given an assignment.
Take a petri dish, put it in any environment, let it sit for three minutes, then wait for in a lab for two days and then see what the results were.
That was the whole assignment.
So it was a school assignment.
It was a school assignment at a college, correct.
All right, let's step into it.
A little closer look at what could grow in a petri dish.
Because that's what I always want to do.
Yes, this has been a highlight of my career.
Standing right here with you in muck.
So if you look around us, we're standing right in it.
This is a petri dish.
Scientists grow things in here like bacteria and mold and fungi and coliform.
Colliform is the bacteria in your colon, your gut.
You don't want that in the stuff that you eat, for example.
All this fuzzy, colorful stuff, right?
It seems cool from the picture, but if you're actually in it, it's pretty ugly.
So I need you to break down.
How was the experiment actually done?
What did they do?
Okay, so this is what happened.
She took a Petri dish, and you know those hand dryers where you put your hands down in it exactly?
That sounds exactly what it sounds like.
She put it at the bottom and she left it there for three minutes.
Then she took it, she covered it, she sent it off to a lab, let it sit there to be incubated for 48 hours, and then that's when we got to stand in this very romantic Petri dish of muck right here.
Well, it's pretty innocent sounding, but guys, the way science works is you report your results and other scientists all over the world try to poke holes in your argument to point out flaws in your methodology.
If they can duplicate the results, it's probably true.
And that's why science is cool, because you're allowed to argue and fight.
So we decided to do our own little experiment to see if there's anything dirty lurking inside public restroom hand dryers.
That's my medical unit there.
They're doing the experiment in this little tape footage, but they're standing by right now in the bathroom here at our studio with the results.
But before they say anything, while they're getting together to review, Jenna, walk us through exactly how the medical unit repeated what they thought this scientist had done.
So let me just say one thing, just students who did this experiment.
She took one Petri dish in one hand dryer one time.
So we decided if we were going to do this, we had to do this right.
So we went to, we flexed our muscles, then we put the shirt on.
We went to 12 public restrooms in the city.
All kinds, clean ones, not so clean ones, restaurants.
We wanted to get a nice sampling.
Then we swabbed the air.
We didn't put a petri dish down.
We swabbed the air, both for three minutes like she did.
And then we called the manufacturers and we said, well, how long do most people dry their hands for?
Anywhere, believe it or not, from 10 to 30 seconds.
So we tried all of it.
So we were in restrooms for a good couple of hours.
So you did not want to have dinner with me that night.
Then we took the swabs, we sent them to labs where they were incubated for four to eight hours, and that's how we came up with the results.
And the results are in, the medical unit has them with Jenna.
The med unit actually standing by to let us know their findings as they finalize their results.
Are hand dryers germ machines or has it been blown out by proportion?
Stick with us.
Is it okay to eat red meat again?
Somebody told me that it rots in your stomach.
Plus, conned by a fake psychic.
A $10 sign in the window wound up costing me $100 as soon as I walked in.
Milking victims for thousands of dollars for all new eyes.
That's coming up on Monday.
We did a retest of the germ experiment that went viral, causing alarm all over the internet that hand dryers in public restrooms are just germ machines.
That was the accusation.
The results are in.
So Rangita from the medical unit, you can start us off.
We sent out 24 samples to the lab.
How were the coliform bacterial results?
Again, coliform bacteria are the ones that come out of your colon.
They're the ones you don't want to have near your fingers.
Now, coliform bacteria is a good indicator of cleanliness.
So we did test those 24 samples and only one had signs of that bacteria.
And they were low, only 10 units per gram.
We actually allow more than that in our food.
So this isn't something to worry about.
Good for you guys.
Nate, Roger said OD1 was contaminated.
How much was it?
And was there anything else you found that was concerning with potentially dangerous bacteria?
The one that was contaminated with coliform bacteria, again, very, very low levels.
But when we think about, you know, possibly dangerous bacteria, we're thinking of stuff like E. coli, right?
That's the poop one that we've all heard about.
And when it comes to those, all 24 samples, no E. coli.
They were all clean.
Hey, America, you hear that?
Hand dryers are not germ machines.
Thanks, MedUnit.
All right, so let me bring in Peter DeLucher.
Who better to get a hands-on expert than a hand dryer expert?
How are you, Peter?
Great to see you.
So, Peter DeLucher, health inspector, he tested for all this bacteria.
We didn't find what this scientist found, but she's a scientist.
So what would she find that we weren't finding?
How do you explain her results?
Well, you guys tested for bacteria.
And in a bathroom with a lot of moisture in all, what I'd expect to find are mold, fungus, yeast, things like that.
And that's what I think is in that petri dish.
It makes sense.
I got to point out.
The med unit did a great job on this one because they thought that might be the concern.
They purposely did not check for fungus because who cares?
It's all over us right now anyway.
It doesn't hurt us.
They check for the things that we should be concerned about.
So kudos to them.
All right.
So Peter is so worried about germs in the public bathrooms that he actually went to them.
He went all around the public bathrooms and looked at the areas around the hand dryer.
Here's what he found.
One reason dryers spread germs is because people have germs on their hands even after they wash them.
Why?
Because only 5% of people wash long enough to kill infection-causing germs and bacteria.
And only a third of hand washers use soap.
This means germs are often still on our hands when they go under the dryer.
You're probably wondering why I'm wearing this hazmat suit.
Well, to protect me from this paint, think of this paint as the bacteria and germs left on your hands after you wash them.
I'm going to put my hands in here and then we're going to go underneath the high speed dryer and let's see what happens.
All on my pants, all over the wall.
What a bacteria mess.
Gejeta's been with Natalie and Nikita from my audience at this makeshift hand washing station.
You guys have been scrubbing away.
I guess you dried your hands already.
Thank you for doing that hard work.
All right, so who thinks they have the cleanliest hands?
I think I do.
I do.
No, I'm pretty good at washing my hands, so.
Who would know?
You actually know, ask yourself this question, how well you wash your hands.
We put fake germs on both of your hands before the show.
And as you're washing your hands, you're trying to get off those fake germs, but they do sort of stick the way real germs do.
So I can actually tell who was cleaner.
Uh-oh.
Uh-oh.
Okay, I've got a white light here.
Come on over here.
Let's see what happens.
Put your hands underneath.
No cheating.
Oh, no.
Oh.
Oh, my goodness.
Oh, no.
Who's dirtier here?
How do I cover this?
You know, I gotta say, Natalie.
This is not good.
Yeah, Natalie, I think you got a little more, Natalie.
Oh, yeah.
I think so.
But you know what?
You both have a lot.
Peter, what does this mean to you?
I'm looking at this.
There's a lot of stuff here.
Yeah.
What's going on?
And it's pretty common.
People are not spending enough time washing their hands properly.
And as a surgeon, you know how important it is to wash your hands.
Well, as a general public, it's very important for us to wash our hands because we're going to potentially contaminate the food we eat or contaminate our friends and things like that.
So we don't want to do that.
So keep in mind, it's 20 seconds of rubbing vigorously your hands under the water with soap and really rubbing and getting in there to get your hands clean.
That's singing the happy birthday song to yourself twice in your head.
It's longer than you think and people don't take that time.
You don't have to actually sing the song, just that much time.
No, but they can sing the song.
You can sing it.
You know, if you can make friends in a public restroom by saying, how about the blow dryers?
We looked at all these different ones.
Does it make a difference what kind of blow dryer you use?
How do you dry your hands?
Well, I'll tell you, when I see the choice between a blow dryer or the paper towels, I choose the paper towels.
And there's a few reasons why.
First and foremost, we just talked about rubbing your hands vigorously.
The action of taking those paper towels and rubbing them on your hands to dry them, that removes more of the bacteria, viruses, germs that you've left on your hands.
Secondly, once again, I'm concerned about what other people do in the bathroom.
They don't wash their hands.
They don't wash your hands, right?
I use that paper towel.
I get them first.
I use them to shut the faucets off, and then I use them to open up the door, whether it's a pull or a push to get out.
Because if someone didn't wash their hands, who knows what they're depositing on that door?
I use it to also shake people's hands, say high fives, and then I wrap my hands and throw it at people when they're wet.
So we're on the same page.
Kind of like Sheldon.
You've got to keep those hands covered all the time.
That's it.
The internet spreads information.
Oh, yes.
And false information spreads six times faster than true information.
We just learned recently.
In this case, this wasn't purposely done to make it false.
It just was information that probably wasn't as accurate or accurately interpreted.
Correct.
So what does this tell you when we repeat the experiment and we see that it's false?
What does it tell you about how the internet sends us information and how we perceive it?
Well, one, don't believe everything you read right off the bat, which is advice we should all take anyway with absolutely everything.
And two, science works best when experiments are done several times.
So with the internet, we're in this like quick to judge, rush to like make a decision.
So we see a dirty picture that goes viral.
We assume it's fact.
That's just sort of what we do.
And we can't do that.
So I tell people, ask questions, be skeptical, do research, look elsewhere, talk to people.
And if all else fails, call me and I will go to 12 restrooms for you and I will figure it all out.
All right, we come back.
The one place you expect to be germ-free and toxin-free is your own home.
But up next, there's an Oz quiz to find out if it really is.
You guys nervous?
Yes.
After your hand experiment, I would be there.
Please don't touch me.
We'll be right back.
Take a makeup.
The mysterious death of stay-at-home mom cat West.
We got to start with that double watch.
He didn't mind his wife posting simulated pictures for other men to see.
How does she end up dead in her own driveway?
That's coming up on Tuesday.
We've been talking about dirty hand dryers in public bathrooms, and now we've got a quiz to see if your everyday habits could cause nasty germs and bacteria in your very own bathroom at home.
You might not even know about it.
Let's get to it.
The first question: How often do you wash your towels after you use them?
Jojena's going to help us with the answers.
The options are: A, every day.
Yes.
B, every week.
C, every two weeks.
I don't think I've ever washed my towels.
Ever.
No, I'm kidding.
Well, that's why we keep ourselves four feet away from each other at all times.
So I know the answer to this, so I'll speak second.
But we did a whole research bit on this.
Correct.
Do you want the answer?
Yes.
The answer is every week.
I know you wash yours like every couple days, two or three days.
I wash it every three times it gets wet.
So I assume I'm showering every day, it's three weeks.
You can't do all that math, Dr. Ross.
For most people, it's every week.
Because the towels are wet and moist and they house mold and you don't want to wrap that around you after a shower.
Yes, that face exactly.
So the answer is every week.
And one little tip, dry your towels out.
So when I, my kids, I don't know, they put them on the floor in a pile and they pick them up the next day and use the same towel.
It's still wet.
Or when you put it on a hook, sometimes they all bunch together.
Just spread them out a little bit.
That's so smart you do that.
Genius.
Next question.
Where did I put it?
Where else would I put it?
In the shower.
How often?
How often should you change your body sponge?
These body sponges are so popular these days.
The loofahs.
The loofahs.
Lufas.
You wash them, you know, and they caution this, by the way, is it once a month?
When it starts to fall apart, which it will after a while, or do you never, ever wash it?
Because why body can't clean it anyway?
Jenna, the answer is, please hold that.
If your answer is never, then washing this sponge is not your biggest problem.
So there should be nothing that you don't replace ever in your bathroom.
The answer is once a month, right?
Because that's when you really should.
Rosy Tone Restoration00:09:57
Because look at this.
It stays moist most of the time.
Bacteria and mold and all kinds of interesting things can live in here.
You start scrubbing yourself every day.
That can lead to skin irritations and rashes.
You do not want that.
So try to change this.
Keep it dry if you can.
Don't let it sit underneath where water could drip on it all day.
These are hard to clean, so just change them.
All right, up next, my friend, comedian Chuck Nice, isn't always so nice, it turns out.
He's got a question for you.
Hey, Dr. Ross, do you put the toilet seat down when you flush?
I actually like to leave them both up because my wife really appreciates it.
All right, I gotta go now.
Do that.
Chuck, chalk, chalk.
Not nice, Chuck.
Not nice to your wife.
The new show, Chuck, everybody else, why you need to close your toilet seat.
Listen, at least close this part so your wife doesn't sit.
My wife hates that.
It happens all the time.
She falls right in.
Why do women fall in there?
It's just part of it.
It's blindfolded when she comes to the house.
No, at night when she gets up in the middle of the day, it's dark out.
And she's dark and she sits out.
I hear the scream and then I quickly run.
So this doesn't work either for a very important reason.
Because when you flush the toilet and you leave the seat open, the germs from the inside of the toilet, they escape.
Right?
The little plume of those babies go away.
Let me show you how far they've been proven to escape.
So you hold this, count them off.
That's one foot away.
Keep going.
Two feet away.
No.
Three feet.
Yeah, she should she stop?
This is upstairs.
Four feet.
More?
Five feet.
My bathroom isn't this big.
Six feet.
Stop right there.
That's as far as they go.
And they get on the walls.
They get on you.
They get on your brush, your toothbrush.
Six feet?
Yes, most toothbrushes in America have e-colt, this kind of these bacteria on them because of this.
How many people's toothbrushes are within six feet of the toilet?
Just think about it.
This is half my apartment, Dr. Oz.
Everything in my apartment now needs to be replaced.
Well, close your seat and you won't have to worry.
This is a gift from me to you.
The least I could do, your own deep bag.
Don't say you never did anything for me.
It's the absolute least I could do.
Literally, you could do nothing less.
Thank you, Jen.
We'll be right back.
Woo!
We're gonna eat red meat again.
Somebody told me that it rots in your stomach.
We may have gotten it all wrong.
The case for eating red meat again.
All nuance.
That's coming up on Monday.
Anything about your skin feeling dull?
Now, on the inside, you feel beautiful and full of life.
But on the outside, your skin is gray and washed out.
Well, you might be able to fight that look and feeling because here to tell us more is Dr. Gottio Rivera on behalf of my trusted sponsorship partner, L'Oreal Paris.
I love having you here.
Thanks for visiting us.
Thank you, Dr. O'Hara.
So why do so many of folks watching right now feel like their skin is dull and washed out?
Actually, Dr. Oz, it's more than just a feeling.
It's not like you're too tired or too busy to take care of your skin.
There's an actual scientific explanation behind it.
Around 50, your skin starts to lose its natural rosy tone, becoming more pale and thin, making your skin look washed out.
And this natural rosy tone is actually present in youthful skin of every ethnicity.
Actually, after that, what happens is that your natural blood circulation also slows down, and this really affects how rosy and youthful your skin looks.
So every skin color, black, white, doesn't matter, it has a little bit of rosiness to it.
Everybody's standard tone has that rosy pink.
You know, when we blush, when we have those emotions, or when you go out for a run, you blush.
That's what goes away a little bit over time.
Well, a lot of you don't run very much.
I'm just going to point that out.
All right, so we built a little demo here to help you understand why you feel dull and washed out on the outside because it all really starts on the inside.
You mentioned the blood vessels.
So there are lots of them down there, all these red things, and there's some fat down there.
You also lose some of that as you get older.
Just beneath the skin, there's a subcutaneous material and this dermis, and all that is part of the game.
But fundamentally, what you're seeing is this sort of grayness, right?
And that's because dead skin cells build up as we age.
So the skin loses that natural pink rosy color.
Yes.
When you add products, if I get this right, as an example, lipohydroxy acid, with that ingredient in particular, remember it, so those LHA, it gently exfoliates the skin.
And as it does that, it accelerates the surface cell turnover, which helps reveal smoother, more even skin.
There it is.
It also gives you a lot of hydration, which these skins really need because we lose 40% of our natural oils as we age, so we need more hydration as we go older.
I also like the fact that as you gently exfoliate, you allow ingredients to penetrate into the skin so the stuff that you're trying to give your skin can actually get there.
Now everything's clean, so you can get those hydrating ingredients.
You can also get microscopic pink pigments, which also actually restore that rosy undertone of your delicate skin because the skin is delicate.
Delicate, it needs the rosiness now I'm learning.
So how do you get that rosiness back?
What do you recommend?
I recommend the L'Oreal Paris Rosytone Moisturizer.
It's a daily facial moisturizer, so for your entire face.
It has those ingredients that we discussed: LHA and microscopic pink pigments.
It's a moisturizer that's been created for that skin that's lost its natural rosy tone to restore healthy, youthful-looking skin.
And it's dermatology is tested to be gentle on skin.
So we're going to take it one level further.
We want to conduct an experiment.
So guess what we did?
We sent some of our viewers inside the L'Oreal Research and Innovation Center to test their skin's rosy tone before and after using the product.
And look what came along with the viewers.
I'm here at the L'Oreal Paris Research and Innovation Center where I'm getting to check out the latest and greatest in beauty technology.
Oh my goodness.
Dr. Rivera, can you tell me what the heck this thing is?
It's a chromosphere.
It's a L'Oreal developed system and it analyzes the slightest changes of color on your skin.
Wow, can I put my face in here?
Absolutely.
Go ahead.
Ooh, I love the acoustics.
All right, Dr. Rivera, I actually brought some ladies in who might need some help, okay?
So you think we can put this thing to work?
That's what we're here for.
All right.
Hello, come on, New.
Hello, hello.
Okay, you're in the lab today.
So tell me about your skin.
What do you want us to help you with?
It's getting a little bit sallow, I think.
I don't feel confident.
Oh.
It just doesn't glow now that I'm in my 60s.
What?
I'm finding that the rosiness in my cheeks have disappeared.
You're at the right place.
We're going to take a before picture with the chromosphere.
We're going to help you with science.
Okay, take my hands.
We're going to the chromosphere.
Let's go, girl.
Let's take a look at that skin.
So now we're going to take a look at your skin.
Dr. Famio is going to give us a little diagnose of what's going on.
What do you see?
Well, so based on the data, it looks like her skin's lacking in some rosy tone.
Right now, her skin's here.
We wanted to move up here.
So it seems like all of these ladies are lacking one thing, and that's rosy tone.
What does L'Oreal have that can help them out with that?
We have the right product, Renata.
We have L'Oreal Paris Rosy Tone Moisturizer.
It will bring that rosy tone right back in just when used.
So we're bringing rosy back.
Oh, yes.
All right, ladies, let's see if we can get that rosy tone back in your faces.
Good news is it works immediately.
So don't take it from me.
Let's take a look at the chromosphere.
And now we're going to get your after picture.
Does it look nice and rosy?
Oh, honey.
Yes, I see it.
Directly in her cheek area.
A huge difference in the pinkness of it, much like a natural blush.
When you look at the data itself, you see that it increases in pinkness.
Oh, that's a big data.
And it looks less blotchy, too.
It looks much rosier than before.
Absolutely, I can tell.
I'm going to give me some of that too.
Yes, because it works in every skin tone and ethnicity.
So, Renata, this is for you.
You gotta love Renata.
All right, so this is a before photo.
And over it there is an after photo of our volunteers using L'Oreal's rosy tone moisturizer.
There's before, there's after.
And so I got a lot of reviewers involved in this.
I asked one of my viewers, Amy, to try out L'Oreal's rosy tone moisturizer for a few weeks and report back.
I just want the honest feedback, personal experience.
What was your skin like?
Describe it before you started this little experiment.
And what is it like now?
Well, dull, absolutely.
Dull, which make me look tired all the time, too.
So not only older, but tired.
Skin was kind of dry too.
So after using this, first of all, the hydration is amazing.
It's really great.
And I definitely see an improvement in the color.
And I'm not a person who wears a lot of makeup.
So when you're dry and look tired, you kind of want to use a little bit more.
And this actually solves that problem.
I need to wear very old.
Wow, I love it.
Great.
It looks very bright and rosy to me.
Thank you.
Thank you for trying it out.
So what does it cost?
Where do you find this?
Give us all the goodies.
You can find it at Walmart for just under $20.
Oh.
So here's the deal.
This audience is so dedicated and we want everyone to be putting their best face forward.
So I figure, how many bottles do we have to give away to the audience?
I think we have at least one per person.
You do?
We can get a bit.
Well, thanks to L'Oreal Parish Road Decoy Moisturizer.
You're going home with a bottle of it.
Enjoy it.
Pull yourself up.
We'll be right back.
Solving Beauty Problems00:05:40
I'm here with Meredith Fiera and she's sharing the medical breakthrough that's given her family hope against all odds.
She says someone that everyone knows is also studying up on this new type of medicine.
That's right, the Pope.
Want to hear more?
It's Frontier of Medicine you need to know about.
It's bringing hope for those who are up against the hardest of medical odds with cancer and autoimmune diseases, even neurologic disorders.
Television icon Meredith Fiera is here with an inside and very personal look at the groundbreaking stem cell therapy that's been helping her own family's health struggles and how her journey of faith is bringing her all the way to the Vatican.
Now, please welcome my dear friend, Meredith Fiera, and her husband, writer and journalist, Richard Cohen.
I admire you for many reasons.
Thank you.
Many, many reasons, but probably foremost among them is your dedication, both of you, to family.
And there are so many great ways to enter into that discussion.
But the marriage covenant is one way, but there's also always the story of how you met, which I would love.
I'm going to hear both sides, by the way.
So Meredith, you get to go first.
It's so romantic.
I was 1983, and I was a reporter for CBS News, based in their Midwest Bureau, which was Chicago.
And Richard showed up with Leslie Stahl because they were the big shot New York people and they were coming to do a story in Chicago.
I think I'm the governor's race, if I'm not.
I believe that's right.
And he said something obnoxious to me.
He walked in, he said something obnoxious, and I, this is so true.
I kid you not.
I looked at him and I thought, you are such a jerk.
And then the next thought was, I'm going to marry this guy.
Why?
I guess I'm a jerk too.
I don't know.
I just, there was something.
You know how you, I don't know what happened with you and your wife, but there was just this moment of a clarity where I thought, this is the one.
I don't know what it was.
I decided the moment I met my wife as well.
I didn't think she was a jerk, though.
Oh, okay.
You may have thought I was a jerk.
Actually, what did you think of Meredith when you first met her?
But, you know, our relationship really was contempt at first sight.
Yeah.
It was sarcasm.
It was sarcasm at first sight.
It really, the humor.
What's interesting is that the humor that lives in our house, that lives on in our house, was really born instantly.
Yeah.
It really was.
And it's been a lifesaver for us, actually.
That's how we connected.
Yeah.
The humor is important, but I think the honesty is as well.
I know it was only your second date, Richard, when you shared with Meredith that you had MS. Well, you know, you learn to get it on the table early.
And I thought, let's get it out there.
And, you know, maybe I'll save the price of dessert if she leaves.
That's right, if she leaves.
But he was giving me an out.
He really was.
But you didn't take the out, huh?
No, I just like the guy.
And my attitude has always been: you don't know what's going to happen to any one of us.
You know, you can walk outside, as they say, and get hit by a bus.
So I wasn't going to end a relationship based on a diagnosis.
But I didn't know what the road ahead was going to be.
Shortly afterwards, we went to visit a doctor.
Was it in Queens?
Who was the doctor?
He was at Einstein.
And we walked into the waiting room, and there were so many men, Richard's age, in wheelchairs.
And instead of looking at it and saying, oh my god, that could be our future, I thought, we are so lucky.
There's always somebody who's worse off than you are, so be grateful for the situation you're in.
And after 45 years of diagnosis, Richard walked in here, walked in here.
This book that you've just written is called Chasing Hope.
It's very provocative.
He discusses MS, but you also talk about something much deeper, which is the fact that the disease doesn't just attack your body, it attacks your mind.
It's a war on your mind as much as on your body.
Well, it's on your spirit, really.
It's a disease defined by what you used to be able to do that you no longer can do.
And I could give you a long list, I won't bore you with it, of things that meant a lot to me that I used to do hiking, playing basketball, running, on and on and on, that I can't do anymore.
And it's really a blow to who you think you are.
You know, it really chisels away at your view of yourself.
And it's slow motion, the way it works.
That's right.
And so the challenge is to stay strong in spirit.
And I think you do that by learning to be good at what you can do.
You know, when you're.
As you, obviously, as partners go through the struggles, how does it affect you as a mom, as a wife?
How do you cope with all that?
Well, you know, we try to take it one day at a time.
And with our kids, we've been open and honest.
True.
And, you know, I really think we both came to believe that if you want to have strong, secure kids, tell them the truth.
You know that line, Jack Nicholson's line.
Yeah.
Jack Nicholson's line, you can't handle the truth.
Kids can handle the truth.
Here's the kid.
You both have found hope.
And part of the reason I was so passionate about having you on today, not just because I adore your approach to all this, but you have looked, you've hunted, you've pecked for solutions.
Cells' Astonishing Reserve00:04:50
There are a lot of Americans watching right now who are struggling with chronic illnesses where they haven't seen hope alive.
But you've searched and you've found something that you think is going to help.
And I'd like to talk about that.
Again, I want to give false promise, but this is really breaking new stuff for me.
And I think it's changing my perspective of a lot of these chronic illnesses.
So whoever feels more comfortable, take it away and talk a little bit about stem cells.
Well, I will.
We were invited to go to the Vatican for an adult stem cell conference.
And it sort of came to both of us out of nowhere.
I chaired the first panel, and I knew nothing about stem cells.
I just knew a lot about the disease experience.
And when we got to Rome, well, when we prepared, and then when we got there, I was astonished at how much stem cell work was already going on.
I thought it was a futuristic sort of concept.
And it's happening everywhere and for all kinds of diseases.
And people are growing organs with stem cells.
And we're pretty close to the starting line with this technology.
But I'm telling you, I think it's the future of medicine.
Well, on that note, I think you probably want to know more when we come back.
All you need to know about this new pioneering stem cell therapy.
Stick around.
Eat red meat again.
Somebody told me that it robs in your stomach.
We may have gotten it all wrong.
The case for eating red meat again.
All nuance.
That's coming up on Monday.
We're back with Mary Vera and her husband Richard, and they're opening up about a cutting-edge frontier of medicine that's giving their family hope against all medical odds.
Could appeal to your family as well.
And it's stem cells.
And one of the biggest challenges I think we face is folks have very mixed perceptions about them.
They don't really understand them.
That's why the Vatican conference was so important.
It's sort of opening people's eyes.
When the Pope's talking about stem cells, you got to take a step back and figure out where the ethics are.
Well, that threw us for a loop, too, because most people, when they think of stem cells, I think, still think of embryonic and the controversy surrounding embryonic stem cells.
And when we were invited to this conference at the Vatican, we both were the Vatican.
Why would they be doing this as embryonic, presumably?
But no, it's not.
These are adult stem cells and often your own stem cells.
So that's one big issue: where do they come from?
Are they coming from babies?
No, coming from adults from you, usually.
The second problem is, and we've done a bunch of shows on this.
There are scammers out there, often physicians, unfortunately, who are taking advantage of vulnerable patients who are desperate.
Richard, you've been bringing that alive to us.
You want anything to get better, and that allows false hope to reign supreme at times.
And these stem cell treatments that you see out there, and this is, I think, you know, it might be even a majority of centers now are not legitimate centers.
But what Richard received was different.
He got a legitimate FDA-approved therapy.
And I want to dig a little deeper into what this is.
Let me explain to you all what stem cell therapy is.
And your body again is made of very different kinds of cells, but they all originate from a basic single type of cell, a stem cell.
It's like the seed that gave rise to you.
And it turns out there's a special reserve of them found in us, in adults, especially in your bone marrow.
Our body stores it there just in case you get really sick and it needs some help.
There's reinforcements there.
So here's how stem cell therapy works: you take a needle and you go into, let's say, the sternum.
It's a bone, right?
Easy to get to.
You can pull bone marrow out.
You then isolate the stem cells in there in that syringe, right?
And you use special factors to make them grow.
Then you select the ones that are neural stem cells, one designed for in this case, in Richard's case, for his nerves.
This process takes weeks, by the way, and you grow these little baby cells.
And then these cells are injected into the fluid surrounding the spinal cord.
There's a spinal cord in through the spine.
You've had a spinal, you know what they are sometimes.
You go up the spine all the way up to the brain.
They are programmed to repair things.
As they travel up to the brain, they seek out damaged nerves which are giving off the signals.
They need help.
And then here they are.
These adult stem cells are releasing their own signals that encourage repair and reduce inflammation of the nerves, soothing all the inflammation.
And that can lead to an improvement in nerve function.
So, for example, you might be able to coordinate your fine motor a little better, or you maybe have bladder control that you didn't have before.
These are the kinds of improvements that are aspired to.
But, Richard, what have you seen in real life among other patients who you know who have received this adult stem cell therapy?
Well, I was part of this phase one trial, which was really just testing the safety.
And people got up out of wheelchairs.
Surprising Stem Cell Cures00:07:56
It was astonishing, really astonishing.
My goodness.
As a matter of fact, the FDA approved a phase two trial instantly.
My results were far less dramatic.
And I think one reason for that was that I had a life-threatening blood clot in my lungs one month after the first stem cell infusion.
That would mess it up.
I think it messed it up big time.
So, I mean, I'm still glad I did it.
You know, I'm a strong, I'm stronger.
I walk a little bit better, a little taller.
Definitely.
Much taller.
They're not great headlines, but I'm thrilled that other people responded so positively.
And I think.
And you know, supposedly MS is not a genetic disease, but Richard's grandmother had it, Richard's dad had it.
And we have three children who, and I'm sure it's lurking somewhere in the back of their mind, may I be next?
So for Richard doing this and being a pioneer, he's doing it for his kids too, and for all those people still to come, because if it doesn't work for him necessarily, who knows where this research will lead.
You know, in Chasing Hope, this wonderful book that Richard's written, you talk a lot about that very issue of mindset, of staying positive.
And this is something that I would think would periodically tug on you.
Chronic illness is often very detrimental to relationships.
It's a family affair.
Family affair.
So how do you stay positive when Richard's having a bad day?
Well, sometimes if he's having a bad day, like for a while we had a lot of anger issues in our house, and I made a decision to call him out on it because I could see that it was.
From the cancer mostly.
Yeah.
I had calling cancer twice.
This poor guy has had a lot of stuff.
I remember what I did wrong.
So yeah, but, and I think that's important.
If you see that it's hurting the family dynamic, it's important to, even though that's sometimes hard because you know that person is in pain, sometimes, well, the truth hurts, but sometimes it's necessary.
But our kids also, for all these years, saw us dealing with my illness with a sense of humor.
And if you were fly on the wall in our house, you would have seen a lot of joking around.
You would have heard a lot of laughter.
And I think humor is a wonderful weapon to use to keep yourself positive.
Well, laughter makes you happy, but what's going to happen next is going to make all of us happy.
Meredith's going to help me pull off a surprise for another family.
They are backstage right now.
They have no idea they're about to get the biggest surprise of their life, because guess what?
They're going to Rome.
And I'm going there also, and so are Meredith and Richard.
We're all going to the Vatican to meet the Pope.
Stay with us.
The mysterious death of stay-at-home mom Cat West We've got to start with that double watch.
He didn't mind his wife posting semi-nude pictures for other men to see.
How does she end up dead in her own driveway?
That's coming up on Tuesday.
We're back with Mary LaFierre and her husband, Richard Cohen, who have been opening up about how stem cell therapy can help more families, lots more families.
And one of the doctors who changed Richard's life is here, Dr. Robin Smith, the founder of the Cura Foundation, who's doing a worldwide event called Unite the Cure in Vatican City.
It's actually hosted by the Pope.
And I get to go.
Yes.
You've already been there.
We just heard about how it changed you.
But Robin, first of all, tell us about this worldwide event.
And then I want to dive into a treatment that might benefit a lot of folks watching right now.
They don't even know it's out there.
So the idea is to create a forum for collaboration.
We bring physicians and researchers and journalists and philanthropists and patients and their advocates.
And we work together to advance cures, to improve access to care, and look at how these emerging technologies not just affect health, but also society and culture and even the environment.
It's like Davos for healthcare.
So how close are we to really helping folks with some of these devastating diseases?
MS being an example, but there are many others I could list off right now.
We've seen extraordinary advances the last few years, especially in cancer, autoimmune disorders, and even rare diseases with gene therapy, immunotherapy, and cell therapy.
But just recently, we've seen incredible results at Northwestern University on MS and using adult stem cells to treat those patients.
So I think it's just around the corner.
We've seen advances in autism and cerebral palsy and the weekend warrior cartilage repair that's needed.
And I think it's going to be a very exciting future and not that far away.
So this year the Unite to Cure Conference has been asking families to share their stories of hope for a chance to win a trip to Rome.
You have to actually come and attend the conference.
here's a look at one of the finalists when you look at a photo of my family you would never suspect that strange sounding autoimmune diseases hover over the four females in the picture My daughter was diagnosed with lupus when she was just 11, and her diagnosis was followed by the unfolding of other autoimmune conditions in her sisters as they went through their teens and 20s.
When I was first diagnosed with chagrins, I couldn't understand why my body was attacking its own cells.
But somehow I landed on a sense of gratitude for all that my body is still doing for me.
I wish I could say that someone in my family has experienced a life-changing outcome from an immunotherapy drug.
It hasn't yet happened.
The very thought of using stem cell therapy to reverse autoimmunity is very exciting to me and promising for the future of my daughters.
My family's journey with autoimmunity may not be typical, but yet we know we're not alone.
We have each other, we have hope, and we have promise for the future.
So we got the family here.
Liz, what would it mean for your family to be able to go to the Vatican, meet the Pope, all that fun stuff?
But more importantly, hear about these cures.
Dr. Oz, it would mean so much to me.
I'd be so happy and excited to have our family be able to travel to Rome.
And it's the first time I've really had hope in my life and in my family in the 16 years that we have been living with it in our household.
So I know you all think you are finalists.
Yes.
But you're actually the winners.
You're actually going to Rome.
The Cura Foundation is sending you there.
So, thank you.
Thank you.
So, since you're kissing your daughters, I think...
I know that it means a lot to them.
But what does it mean to you specifically, Liz?
I am, I'm just overwhelmed.
There's really not much I could say.
I hoped against hope that I was the winner, and I prayed and I thought, and we got here today, and then I was thinking, maybe we're not the winners.
Surprise.
Surprise.
That was a big surprise.
That was a big surprise.
Michael, you happy?
God bless you all.
For more information on the Cura Foundation, go to droz.com.