Why Smart Women Podcast
Welcome to the Why Smart Women Podcast, hosted by Annie McCubbin. We explore why women sometimes make the wrong choices and offer insightful guidance for better, informed decisions. Through engaging discussions, interviews, and real-life stories, we empower women to harness their intelligence, question their instincts, and navigate life's complexities with confidence. Join us each week to uncover the secrets of smarter decision-making and celebrate the brilliance of women everywhere.
Why Smart Women Podcast
Down the rabbit hole with Seana Smith Pt.1
Dive into an inspiring and thought-provoking episode where we unravel one woman's journey from the rabbit holes of conspiracy theories to the clarity of critical thinking. Shauna shares her heartfelt story of navigating the challenges of parenting a child with autism, revealing how misinformation can easily entrap even the most well-meaning parents. As she reflects on her past, listeners gain valuable insights into the complexities of decision-making and the vital importance of questioning the narratives that surround us.
Check out Seana's Book! - https://seanasmith.com/going-under-memoir-family-secrets-addiction-escape/
🙋♀️ Meet with Annie - https://go.oncehub.com/AnnieMcCubbin
Unfortunately, my development was not so good and I would probably say I spent about two years being deeply down a thousand rabbit hole, and how to make better ones.
Speaker 2:From relationships, career choices, finances to faux fur, jackets and kale smoothies. Every moment of every day, we're making decisions. Let's make them good ones. I'm your host, annie McCubbin, and, as a woman of a certain age, I've made my own share of really bad decisions. Not my husband, I don't mean him, though I did go through some shockers to find him. Not my husband I don't mean him, though I did go through some shockers to find him, and I wish this podcast had been around to save me from myself.
Speaker 2:This podcast will give you insights into the working of your own brain which will blow your mind. I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land in which I'm recording and you are listening on this day Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. Well, hello smart women and welcome back to the why Smart Women podcast. I'm your host, annie McCubbin, and today I'm talking to a very old friend. Oh, it sounds so terrible old friend, doesn't it? Shauna? Sorry, a friend of long standing, and then that's ages, isn't it Like? Yeah, okay, I'm talking to my friend Shauna, who I've known for a long time and our children went to primary school together and Shauna has a very, very interesting tale to tell, and that's what we're going to talk about today. So hello, shauna, from the South Coast.
Speaker 1:Hello. Yes, I'm on the South Coast. It's a lovely day down here. Yes, Beautiful.
Speaker 2:So for our listeners that are not in Australia, the South Coast of New South Wales is a very, very picturesque and beautiful place to live. And you'd come from Orange, which is a freezing place to live, and you'd come from Orange, which is a freezing place to live.
Speaker 1:It is a freezing place to live. It was too like Scotland and we thought, quick, better get back to the ocean once the kids had left home. So we're back here now.
Speaker 2:Good job, good job, well done. So, shauna, this is a couple of things and I thought we might start with. As this is a podcast that's based in critical thinking and scepticism, I thought we might start with the fascinating fact that you used to be a conspiracy theorist, especially around vaccines. Awesome, yes, so what did you think I did? That explains.
Speaker 1:Awesome, yes. So what did you think? Well, I was a bit. I actually look back now with a bit of horror, but with also compassion for my much younger self. So my oldest son was diagnosed with autism when he was three fairly early days of the internet. But I sadly went onto the internet. I think I am just not a very critical thinking person or a sceptic. I tend to be wildly enthusiastic about most things. I do have an ADHD diagnosis, but I think I was quite mentally unwell when that happened with Christian. I also had a new baby and had been diagnosed with postnatal depression, but actually what I had was mid-maternal hysteria. I think I just had too much going on.
Speaker 2:Is that a diagnosis, or is that your Scottish description of?
Speaker 1:it. It's my Scottish description. Okay, I love it.
Speaker 2:Love that. Say it again Mid, what Mid, mid-maternal hysteria.
Speaker 1:I just wasn't very well. You know, I had these two little boys. My oldest son didn't talk and I didn't know what was wrong with them, but whatever I tried to do sort of from my guts as a mother did not work with him. Anyway, I started Googling what causes autism, because I had never heard about it and I did not realise at that very early point that we absolutely had it in the family. So now I can look back and see a first cousin of mine was never diagnosed but he was probably autistic and he had all the symptoms and was similar to my son, I think. So I'm very glad that my son was diagnosed when he was three. I wish it had been earlier, but I was desperately looking for answers and I also wanted to try and cure him, and I'm sorry to say that I feel bad about that now because it's not something that needs to be cured.
Speaker 2:He's an absolutely delightful young man. He is Christian, is a beautiful, beautiful boy, and I think it's. If I can just interrupt for a minute on that, and that is to say that autism now and the autism spectrum and also the idea of ADD and ADHD and the whole spectrum, is very much in the zeitgeist, it's in the media, our comprehension of it is much higher and the notion of neurodiversity is much higher now. Um, but back then, and which is why I want to say to you, please don't give yourself a hard time, because we didn't know. And in those sort of early days of the internet, of course it's easy, and it's easy when you're very tired and you're very stressed and everything's new. It's very easy to be sucked into something which sounds like it's a solution, right, it sounds like a cause and a solution yeah, and a solution, that's right.
Speaker 1:It sounds like a cause and a solution yeah, and a solution, that's right. And and so. But even the library, you know, I went to the library and under the autism section and ADHD sections. There were books about how diet can cure your child or at least improve the symptoms. A lot, which I think is you know, I look back because I jumped head into that, because I was very, very impulsive. The ironic thing, looking back and thinking critically, is that um the year my son was born was when the MMR causes vaccine yeah, conspiracy started.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um my, we had been living in Pakistan. My son did not get the MMR. Oh, therefore, what. Therefore I am surprised that I jumped down that In Pakistan they didn't give the MMR. He got a single measles vaccine.
Speaker 2:Okay, so just if we can unpack that, so back then. So what year are we talking about? What was the year?
Speaker 1:2000. Oh well, he got the vaccine in 98 and he was diagnosed in 2000 in Australia.
Speaker 2:So what we know about the beginning of the theory that the vaccines, specifically the MMR, caused autism, and this idea was born out of the mouth of Andrew Wakefield who was a doctor in UK. He has gone on his own twisted journey saying that the measles mumps rubella vaccine is what caused autism. Now his study size we now know was nine children. Was that correct, shauna?
Speaker 1:I think it was 12. I can't remember, but he was a gastroenterologist. So with conspiracy theories there's often a basis of truth. So a lot of young children who are diagnosed with autism do have gastroenterological problems which can be causing them a lot of pain. But that was the kernel of truth. But I mean, he wasn't alone, because I went through many conspiracy theories and it's almost like when I realized one wasn't the issue with my son, I went to another one. So there was also the idea that mercury had caused it, sure, and lead had caused. I mean, lead could cause it.
Speaker 1:But anyway, all these things happen and I was digging myself deeper and deeper and deeper into them and doing some treatments with some doctors um here in Sydney what treatments which I really well, things like um vitamin b12 injections, yeah, which are actually not bad for you. Chelation therapy, I hate to say which is giving medicine, um. So I mean, he came out of it well because he's a cheerful little chap and he was always a delight. I think that we got on, you know, we got on well with Christian not realising that the early intervention he was doing was working directly on the brain.
Speaker 2:And what do you mean by early intervention?
Speaker 1:So early intervention. We did quite an intense period where we'd be teaching him language and teaching him play skills and doing a lot of things one-to-one with him, keeping him amused, and he loved running about, so he was often like learning how to say a word but jumping on the trampoline at the same time learning how to say a word, but jumping on the trampoline at the same time.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So he did improve because once we started teaching him in a way that worked for him, he could learn.
Speaker 2:Yes, 100%.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, he wasn't picking up things from the environment the way that a typically developing child would.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:So when my second son came along and I saw him just learning from everything around him, that was a shock, but with some, a lot of fun and a lot of direct instruction.
Speaker 1:Christian learned a lot as well. And then, of course, I sent him to a tiny, tiny school and he had all sorts of visual strengths and you know. So he's still got a massive language disorder, but he's living a good life, he's very happy. Yeah, he is. He's still got a massive language disorder, but he's living a good life, he's very happy yeah, he is, but he's still in contact with, um, yeah, my daughter currently each other yeah, recently and I have very um.
Speaker 2:so the school that sean is talking about is um. Could we say, yeah, john collett, which is on Sydney's Northern Beaches and it is very, very small and I think in their class there was only like eight children in the whole year wasn't there? I think it was really little. I think that first year it was tiny and because of my acting background I used to go in every year because they did Shakespeare from Kindy and I have very, very, very fond memories of um, of my daughter Lily and Lily's friend Sarah, and Christian in Macbeth. I have very clear memories and he was fantastic.
Speaker 1:he was he was a great kid, yeah, and he was never. I look back and think that you know his developmental delays were there and he still has language disorder and so on, but but he was very capable of learning, especially if you did it in an active, fun way. And of course, we all still keep developing as we get older, but unfortunately, my development was not so good, and I would probably say I spent about two years being deeply down a thousand rabbit holes, and I still have on my computer all these files where I'd keep things, because I was only listening to people who were reinforcing my beliefs, which shifted from one thing to the other, shifted from one thing to the other, and eventually, though, I saw that all these people on it was before the days of Facebook, but on groups, when one thing was disproved, they just moved to another.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's right.
Speaker 1:And when that was disproved, they just moved to another.
Speaker 1:And at the same time I met some very kind medical people who, without rolling their eyes at me, just gently pointed out what evidence based medicine is and how it works and how they to believe that vaccines cause autism is to believe that all gps are part of a massive conspiracy. Yeah, and I think it is not the case and I liked my GP, you know, and I just think that I had this absolutely warped thinking and when I slowly let go of it, um, I became really quite anti-conspiracy theory. I have to say I'm not interested in people.
Speaker 2:I just find it really irritating when I, well as you know, well as you know, me and my fellow sceptics are on a constant quest to counter the claims of conspiracy theories. And you said some really interesting things about conspiracy theories. And what we know is that when people are under pressure and tired, overworked and they start to feel that the medical profession does not have the answers for them which, let's face it, in many cases they don't there is no cure for autism. And now of course we go.
Speaker 2:Well, we don't want to cure autism, and I do not diminish the terrible burden that a severely autistic child has on parents. I don't mean to diminish that at all but I do know a lot of people that are on the spectrum. You know very high functioning autistic people who make a great contribution to our society. So we don't want to cure it, right. But we know that conspiracy theories often offer things, are simplistic in their approach. So you do this one thing and it's not just going to cure you of autism, but it's going to fix your microbiome and it's going to cure you of cancer and you're never going to be anxious again.
Speaker 2:And that's a big red flag. As soon as you see one product that's going to cure a whole lot of stuff, you can know for a fact that it's a big fat lie. And I like what you said as well about you, like your GP, because I know with things that I've had in the past few years I had flu last year I'm an ongoing asthmatic and my GP is fantastic. He's so nice, he's very caring, he checks up on me.
Speaker 1:But this, this notion that big pharma, somehow everybody's in the pay of big pharma yeah yeah, insult to all these doctors isn't it yeah, that they're all yeah, and also and also, you would never go to emergency if you thought they were all out to get them. Get you that. That way it's really counterintuitive. So I was reading. I was reading about a little I hope a little measles outbreak in Texas. Oh, terrible Because people are not vaccinated.
Speaker 1:So anyway one in five of the children are in hospital. Right, but surely if you didn't vaccinate your child, you wouldn't take them to hospital, where those terrible doctors are out to get you.
Speaker 2:Yes, I know it doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1:But I was as mad as a cut snake, as we say in Australia in those days. But I was vulnerable and the people I know who get caught up in it tend to be vulnerable people.
Speaker 2:Which is why we should be compassionate. Don't you think you should be compassionate about yourself because you were vulnerable? It's a very, very distressing time, so of course you want answers, but the you know someone like andrew wakefield, um you know what a disgraceful human being, because you know that massive outbreak that was in um samoa was.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's right. I think it was Samoa. Yeah, because they'd gone in there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the kids died. Of course they did, and they'd gone in and said don't get your kids vaccinated. And now America has RFK at the helm. Unbelievable, unbelievable, I just words fail me.
Speaker 1:But look, the only way for things to change is that children will die, and it'll be mostly unvaccinated children who will die, and then things, hopefully, will swing around. You can't I can't spend too much time talking about it, and I had to keep my head well down during the pandemic because a couple of people I know were going on and on and I remember, I hope, how it was a conspiracy, the whole pandemic oh, it's, oh god pandemic.
Speaker 1:It's really. It was very desperate times and I remember my mentally just switching off. Somebody said to me well, I've been listening to a lot of podcasts and then and I would just switch my brain off because I find it so maddening that people would listen to clearly nutty, nut jobs, especially American men why is it that there are so many men who are conspiracy theorists?
Speaker 2:yeah, it's interesting, isn't?
Speaker 1:it. Listen to them.
Speaker 2:It's ridiculous do you think there's more men, conspiracy theorists, at the head of these sort of cults? You do, and why do you put that?
Speaker 1:down? Yeah, absolutely, why Put it?
Speaker 2:down to men being maniacal, egocentric, maniacs Only some men, not all men, not our husbands, they're all right. Yeah, I know, look at Alex Jones. You know Alex Jones in the States and Joe Rogan, I mean they're just nuts. And now you've got, I mean, rfk. We have a lot of American listeners as well, so you're all over it. But I don't know if the Australian listeners are as cognisant of the American politics as we are. And RFK, who's a member of the esteemed Kennedy family and who is a mad anti-vaxxer like mad.
Speaker 1:I read something saying that he did vaccinate his own children, but I don't know if that's true.
Speaker 2:Yes, he vaccinated his own children. They're horrible people. Also, besides anything else, he's an ex-heroin addict. I mean, he looks 100. They're awful, awful people. And now I mean Elon Musk has gone and has virtually sacked the public service. I don't know what they're going to do. People are going to die. Yeah, they will, they will, They'll die.
Speaker 1:It's the only way that things will turn around. You know they'll go back to the 1950s. I can remember my mother talking about um polio and telling us how terrible it was. My mum had an auntie who died of polio, pregnant with her fourth child. You know that was real. So when it becomes real for people, then they will turn around. Well, the only one that's not.
Speaker 2:I find it really upsetting. Oh, it's dreadful. At the moment, our friends, we're constantly talking about the fact that we need to remain sort of abreast of the latest developments but also simultaneously need to remain sane, and the whole thing about the conspiracy theorists actually having positions, prime positions in the American political system just makes you feel mental right. And now you know Pete Evans, the mad. Pete Evans, the conspiracy theorist.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:With his paleo stupid paleo diet.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, you know now that the actual, real people with science degrees, of course, have looked at the Paleolithic era and think they didn't just eat meat. Okay, so that's all crap. Anyway, they didn't even know it's a fruit.
Speaker 1:I know as much as you could Nuts, berries, everything as much as you could Nuts, berries, everything, everything, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And also, if we're talking about longevity, I mean Paleolithic human beings. I don't think they actually lived very long lives, right? You know, you only need one cut or one angry person in your tribe and you're dead, right? So this notion that you know the Paleolithic time we we were only eating meat and living these long productive lives, of course is stupid, but you know, you can't stop it. Right, it's out there. It's like the paleo diet is everywhere and he touts it and he's apparently talking about going over to America and releasing his stupid cookbook. Honestly, it's so depressing.
Speaker 1:Good plan. I think he should go over to America and roll for Elon Musk going to Mars as well. Excellent plan.
Speaker 2:They can get them all right. So how did you what happened? How did you get out of it?
Speaker 1:It was really the kind friends. So first of all, I was in a group of people doing early intervention and I knew the early intervention was working.
Speaker 2:With autism.
Speaker 1:Yeah, with an autism early intervention group and I really loved a couple of the women in there who I knew were super smart. You know they are very, very smart. So one's a professor at a university, the other one now runs an autism charity and they weren't doing any of it, so they just weren't doing any of what any of the alternative things.
Speaker 1:They were just doing the early intervention and living their lives. They weren't. They didn't have their child on a gluten-free diet, they weren't spending hundreds of dollars on supplements. And I used to look at these women saying they're really smart, like, like I. I want to be smart like that. So that sort of nobody was lecturing me about it. That was helpful. And just slowly, slowly, I realized that other children were doing fine. Some of the kids who did all the alternative stuff got better, some didn't. Some of the kids who did all the alternative stuff got better, some didn't. Some of the kids who didn't do any of it did really well and some didn't. You know, it was a very individual thing and probably all the hoops that I was jumping through were really not helping at all, and all the dietary stuff, I think, was making me go mad. It's so stressful to try and do it Although it does feel like I can see why I did it because it's something you think you can do immediately.
Speaker 2:I'll stop giving a milk and things will change a lot, and I think that's interesting because, like doing, you want to be able to action something because you feel like you're impacting on it right.
Speaker 1:Otherwise, you've got no agency. That's right, but I was doing so many different things all at the same time that who knew. But what I did know was that if we jumped on the trampoline and said jumping, jumping, that he would say jumping. Or famously, once I showed him a picture of a man balancing on a tightrope, yeah, and then Christian got onto the side of the bath and said balancing, you know so I could see that that was working. It was a. How clever was he?
Speaker 1:I thought that was clever, clever and the thing that helped him a lot was doing a lot of showing him things on video, showing them lots of language on video, because he would really pay attention to that yeah, but the other thing was I met a lovely friend of mine that I wrote the autism handbook with and she is a pharmacist and her husband's a GP and her son's a little bit younger than mine but and she can be very, you know, skeptical of people doing alternative things.
Speaker 1:But she wasn't mean to me. She just kindly pointed out a few things and I met her husband and clearly they're not part of a vast global conspiracy. They're actually just understand science. You see, I wasn't set up for it. I did classics and then old and medieval English at university, so I was only good at sort of learning things and applying things. I wasn't ever taught the scientific method, about being sceptical.
Speaker 2:And I think just around that you're clearly a highly intelligent person, shauna, and, as we say on this podcast with monotonous regularity, high intellect is not a protection against flawed thinking and it's very, very easy to get caught up in these cognitive flaws. And, as you said before, you were vulnerable. You have a need and someone has come into that space and said it's okay. And someone has come into this space and gone. Okay, we can fix it for you. And just on this notion of supplements, I don't know if you listen to this podcast, but if you get a chance, listen to last week's episode where the girl that I spoke to, the woman that I spoke to in Canada, talks about the fact that she didn't want to take steroids for her asthma. So she went to a herbalist and he said and he gave her these tablets I think she was taking five of them a day and her asthma got better, like that. She was like woohoo, but she began to have these other sort of terrible symptoms.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah. And what it was was she was taking the equivalent of 108 prednisone tablets a day in this herb. Because you don't know what's in a supplement.
Speaker 1:You don't know what's in it.
Speaker 2:It's not regulated, they can do anything. It's terrible and she nearly died from it. I'm an asthmatic. If I get very sick I will take one tablet a day and then they have to wean you off it because it's a miracle drug with terrible side effects. So she's been ruined, ruined. She has no adrenals left, she can't drive a car, she's got no reaction time. So her thing is and her mission is to explain to people and get the story out there that supplements come out of factories. They're not, you know, dug out of the organic ground by small dwarfs with little buckets. You know in some sort of dreamland where it's all beautiful next to you know, tinkling streams. They're just in a factory and, unlike pharmaceuticals, they're not regulated.
Speaker 1:And there's big vitamins as well, like they've got a lot of money being made out of vitamins. A lot was made from me, but very little is made now did.
Speaker 2:Yes, I don't take it. I take vitamin d because, um, I've got a little deficiency but, um, so what vitamins were you giving? Do you remember were you doing the vitamin c protocol, like they like to call it, protocol?
Speaker 1:I was doing. I was doing a lot of everything. I was mixing up extremely noxious um vitamins into pear puree and trying to feed it to the poor kid in the morning, definitely was doing multi-vitamins, magnesium, all sorts of things, which he didn't particularly enjoy, but he, he's always been a good eater, so he wouldn't put it down. But anyway, I mean, I have to say, but you know, with food again, though, there is that fact that we are a lot of people, most of us, are eating far too much food, which is shit. So it's good to change the diet, but it's better to change it to food that actually does grow in the ground yeah, there's nothing wrong with eating fruit and vegetables.
Speaker 2:It's fantastic. We know it's much, much better that you cannot actually replicate the vitamin content of a carrot. They don't know how they can get a bit of carotene out, but they actually can't. So of course we know that. However, this fixation number one, organic, is a shocking scam. Of course they use pesticides. Gmo is really really really good because you use less pesticides if the product is GMO. So we've got these biases that come out of the bits of our brain which are very, very easy to influence. Like organic has got to be better. No, it doesn't. It's just more expensive and still uses pesticides. It's nonsense. And if you want to eat frozen vegetables because it's all you can afford and it's more convenient, fine, fine, fine, fine. Let's just try and get fruit and vegetables in. Just eat normally. We don, we don't need to be. You know, oh my God, the dietary stuff, and all it does is encourage disordered eating. And you know terrible things like anorexia, doesn't it? Yeah?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, yeah, but it is difficult in this modern age where there's so much food available, like it's quite understandable that people go off track, especially young people. I do feel sorry for young people, I have to say and you know, I've got three sons they eat a lot of junk food, so they could definitely do with improving their diets. But anyway, that's on them now, because they've left home so they can sort it out for themselves.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's on them, that's right. So I liked what you said before, shauna, about the fact that the people that counted your arguments did it kindly, very kindly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, they did. They did and they were invested in me. They knew my family. I respected them because they were invested in me. They knew my family. I respected them because they were very smart people and I respected how they were bringing up their children. And you know, it became very clear to me that the people who stayed on the alternative route were the ones who were. Their children tended to be worse and they were always looking for something that would do something quickly yeah so that was when I say worse.
Speaker 1:They were more impacted by usually with a global developmental delay. So you know, they had all sorts of different delays happening, um, and they would do?
Speaker 2:is that because they weren't giving, they weren't doing the day to day?
Speaker 1:No, they were still doing early intervention. Some people, some young children, are very disabled there's no other word for it and some things help them and some things don't. It's a bit of a lotter. It feels like a bit of a lottery sometimes. I know from my own experience that if children do start copying and they do start learning, then they can keep going. Generally like that, yes, although also children regress sometimes.
Speaker 2:Yes, the brain is very complicated very, very, very complex yeah, and tumer's not going to fix it right no, although it makes a nice cup of tea though. But does it though? I think it tastes. I think turmeric scent tastes like mud. I think it's disgusting. But anyway, david likes it, he loves it, stirs it into things, and also it stains everything gone.
Speaker 1:That is true, that is really annoying, and so so then then I remember my friend Benison O'Reilly, who, she and I, wrote the Australian Autism Handbook, now in its fourth edition.
Speaker 2:Wow, well done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she talked about believing or thinking that complementary things were all right. So you go down your path or medical, but you also can do other things on the side that are complementary. But she always said not alternative. This is not an alternative.
Speaker 2:I think the notion of complementary and alternative. They often get intertwined. So what we would say is something that is complementary, would be something like maybe doing some yoga or maybe doing some meditation. Right, something like that, you would say, is complementary to a condition which is fine. The problem is and this is where we come across it as sceptics all the time is everyone goes. Well, what's the harm if people want to try some alt-med? Well, there's a lot of harm. Number one it takes you away from the science path. It takes you away from evidence-based practices. Number two some of the things, some of the products themselves, can be really, really dangerous. That's true, yeah.
Speaker 1:But, look, I feel grateful that I did learn the lesson you know, so that if, for example, I haven't had cancer, but if and when the day it comes for me, I won't be rushing down that route, you know. And in fact, some of the friends of mine who didn't go down the um alternative route with their children with autism, it was because they'd seen a parent go down that route with cancer so, and they thought no, no, that did not help.
Speaker 1:That was a waste of money and I'm not going to do that, whereas I've had the alternative, where I do think now, um, that I would go down the medical route with whatever illnesses are coming for me in my age which isn't to say that I will do everything that's, you know, suggested, but I will always talk, always talk about to the experts about it, because I and I'm quite fond of doctors also and I like specialists and so me too, I love them say that I would necessarily do everything, or if the kitchen sink was thrown at something, I might not do all of it, but it just depends on my age and my stage.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:But I would always talk to them first and I would always go for a massage too.
Speaker 2:Which you would say is complimentary, because you feel relaxed. Of course, at the moment, we've got Apple Cider Vinegar on which is the story of Bill Gibson, which is absolutely awesome. It's awesome viewing and I can remember it happening so well.
Speaker 1:the whole Bill Gibson. Can you remember it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and do you remember Jessie Ainscough? Do you remember her that died of the sarcoma on the arm? And it's so insidious, this thinking. So she's um, you know, that's why I would never go on a retreat, on like a spiritual retreat because she's gone on a retreat, she's got this terrible sarcoma. This is what actually happened to her. Oh no, I don't know if the retreat happened. It does in the series and it's, I think it's quite um representational of often what happens. Yeah, well, on that sort of journey, if you want to call it that. And she's been diagnosed this is not bell gibson, this is just um ainsco this terrible sarcoma. And if they had removed her arm which of course is devastating, devastating at age, that age, but she would have lived, it had a very, very good survival rate. But she goes on a retreat and she starts thinking it's because she ate badly and drank too much alcohol and so she's detoxing and having enemas. They've done it very, very well in the series Apple Cider Vinegar. Very well in the series um apple cider vinegar.
Speaker 2:And she talks a lot about um how she can feel that the traditional, proper medicine, science-based medicine, is not for her. She knows what her body needs, she can feel it right. And it's the same as um. I've had mothers say to me I would not vaccinate my children because, as a mother, I know what they need. Well, no, you don't. You know you might be a mother, but you're also. Your brain is absolutely open and available to whatever. Whatever's going on in the zeitgeist, we're absolutely influenced by the externals. So this notion that your intuition is always right is just wrong. It's wrong.
Speaker 1:It is wrong, I have to say, with with the vaccinations. I I feel very strongly about this now. Um, I feel it is the last bastion of white privilege. You know, anybody who's grown up in austral, the UK and says I don't want to vaccinate my children is it's slapping the global south in the face. It's saying to people who don't live in a developed world 100%, what you're doing is stupid and you know. And who would say to me oh, you know, people die of measles because of vitamin A deficiency? Well, possibly that that's part of it and it might make it worse, but the fact of the matter is that we live in the most privileged society, not I know that there are many people who are living on the poverty line but living on the poverty line here.
Speaker 1:It's not like living in Pakistan, like we did when Christian was a baby. You know they would be so grateful to have access to the health care that we have and people can't help it if they've never traveled. And I understand how lucky we are that our children live for as long as they do that we don't know maternal mortality in the figures that we have. I'm not saying everything's perfect here. It's not.
Speaker 2:Well, it's pretty close.
Speaker 1:I mean, I would never complain, Comparatively it is pretty bloody close, and so the people who choose not to vaccinate their children are just relying on the herd immunity. And we will see that breaking down. It is breaking down in parts of the US now and possibly it will break down here as well.
Speaker 2:And when some children start dying of measles and other preventable things, Well, our vaccination rates are high, though here I mean that's what I'm people I know have dropped off in terms of their COVID boosters, although the lung specialist said to me last year after I'd had the flu and I had been vaccinated and I was really sick so you can't imagine how bad I would have been if I hadn't had the vaccination um, but he said the flu at this point is also really important that we get the flu shot. But this, these, these voices of these conspiracy theorists because for my sins I follow them all you know and they've got. I, I mean RFK also believes in chemtrails, which is so nuts. You know that the planes have got some weird the thing out the back of the plane.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. They're all poisoned and half of them have got COVID, and long COVID, because they weren't vaccinated. And talking about how the government is poisoning us, it's so mad. And yet I think, shauna, it ends up being an identity. You know we want to belong.
Speaker 1:I think it does become an identity, yeah, and also people love to be in groups, and so some of the people I know who really believe genuinely that vaccines would have harmed their children were brought up in very difficult situations with unreliable adults, and they have, understandably, don't take what anybody says yeah at face value and you know, and, and are scared of being sucked in and dominated and controlled.
Speaker 1:I think that is the issue, um, but it so it does, and and do you know what I like? I go to visit my little sister in Scotland in a place called Nairn, and on the street in this little village in Nairn there are always flat earthers and there's a whole group of flat earthers. But I like a flat earther, you know, because they're just so. They're not. They are trying to persuade people, but that seems a very tight little community of people who.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is. They're not causing any harm. Well, it's that once you believe in one conspiracy theory, you are more likely to believe in others, to your point. That what you were saying at the beginning when we talked about if, if one thing you know, they'll go on to the next thing and next thing.
Speaker 2:So it's conspiracy theories, but flat earthers are just a classic. The way they keep posting pictures of a horizon, it's like what did you not also with the whole? This is what gets me about people with disease that they don't believe that there's viruses and they don't believe in covid. And if you have a um, that it's all just the way we live now and if we, if you have a really strong immune system and you're fit and healthy, then you'll be fine. It's like have they heard of the spanish flu? Have they? Do they know that the spanish black death?
Speaker 1:I mean, it was very bad it was very bad.
Speaker 2:They were walling people up. You know, they were putting walls in and then just shutting doors and nailing them shut and people were just dying in their houses because they didn't know what to do about it. Like, have they not read a history book? No, I don't think they have. I think there's, and I think that's the problem with America is there's very, very low levels of education as well.
Speaker 1:I think that's true. I think that's true. Yeah, and you know, everybody wants to feel safe. Yeah, and to belong, you know everybody wants to feel safe, yeah, and to belong, and to belong. So I want to belong with the smart people who believe in evidence-based medicine, which is not to say that there wouldn't be some medications that big pharma would be loving to push 100%. You know, sometimes I look at those new drugs that you inject and they make you not want to eat.
Speaker 1:Um, oh my god, yeah, yeah, yeah so I mean, I I think that would be a massive money spinner, those types of drugs for people, but it would really be better if they more carrots or well, I think that's a very if there was more, because no drug company is going to be spending millions of dollars pushing stopping eating ultra processed food, but really there has to be governments that do that. So that I do think of that and also really worry about people who take those injections because their bodies are being starved, their brains are being starved. That's why they're losing weight.
Speaker 2:It cannot be good for your brain to starve yourself well, do you know what I'm going to counter what you're saying? Because, okay, please do okay. I think we have a very um intuitive response to something where people are taking a a shortcut, like we know that people with clinical obesity and obesity should be eating better.
Speaker 2:Now, why people aren't eating better is highly complex, and we know that. You know big food. You just watch the obesity rates in the 70s. There's much more processed food, high-calorie, high-fat, high-sugar food available right, so people are eating it. So I don't think that obesity is ever about the failure of an individual personally. No, no, no. No. It's societal and cultural.
Speaker 1:It's societal and cultural. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2:Absolutely 100%. So if we go back to this notion of a Zen pick because I have been reading a lot about it and there's no two ways they don't know what long-term risk is right because they haven't had a chance to study it and also can have terrible side effects. However, they are beginning to see with some people that other medical issues, comorbidities, are actually improving with it. So blood pressure. And also they know that with dementia, Alzheimer's, you know, all the research has now gone haywire with it.
Speaker 2:right, we thought it was all to do with the amyloid tangles, and now they're not so sure anymore, and now they're calling it diabetes 3. Okay, yes. All right that makes sense.
Speaker 1:And I said just then, you know, on a gut level, I think surely it's not good to starve yourself which is what you're doing when you take that and stop eating so much. But in fact, people who don't eat enough calories tend to live longer, don't they? So what I need to do in this situation is not worry about it and find somebody who actually knows what they're doing. And if I'm worried about that, talk to them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that's an interesting point because I have had a very, very negative response to it and quite a sort of I realized I was coming from quite a moralistic, quite a judgmental place around this. Like why don't you just like meet myself? I'm a mad exerciser and I don't particularly have trouble with my weight. Well, a lot of.
Speaker 2:That is just, it's the luck of my genes and I also have the sort of brain where, um, I'm like the opposite to ADD, I'm very habitualized. Once I get onto something, I just do it. So I don't have to think about it, I just put my shoes on and I do it. So I'm lucky in that regard. But no, I think the whole a Zempic question is highly, highly complex, so we will keep our eye on that. Now I am aware that we've been talking for a while, and there's another part of your life that I would very much like to talk about, and I'm wondering if you would come back in two weeks' time. Oh yes, or is that going to work for you?
Speaker 1:No, no, it's fine, because I'm around for the next five weeks so I'd love to.
Speaker 2:And then, where are you going in five weeks?
Speaker 1:I'm going to Scotland actually for a trip.
Speaker 2:Okay, awesome, all right. Well, shauna Smith, it has been an absolute delight to talk to another highly intelligent, extremely smart woman who has found herself in a vulnerable position and has deep dived into some pretty dodgy rabbit holes, but has come out and is now fully for evidence-based medicine. So brilliant work on your part and thank you so much for talking to me today.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's a pleasure. I love your podcast and keep it going. It's important, thank you. Thank you, shauna. Thank you, see you later, bye, bye.
Speaker 2:Thanks for tuning into why Smart Women with me, annie McCubbin. I hope today's episode has ignited your curiosity and left you feeling inspired by my anti-motivational style. Join me next time as we continue to unravel the fascinating layers of our brains and develop ways to sort out the fact from the fiction and the over 6,000 thoughts we have in the course of every day. Remember, intelligence isn't enough. You can be as smart as paint, but it's not just about what you know, it's about how you think. And in all this talk of whether or not you can trust your gut, if you ever feel unsafe, whether it's in the street, at work, in a car park, in a bar or in your own home, please work. Car park in a bar or in your own home, please, please, respect that gut feeling. Staying safe needs to be our primary objective. We can build better lives, but we have to stay safe to do that. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast and share it with your fellow smart women and allies. Together, we're hopefully reshaping the narrative around women and making better decisions. So until next time, stay sharp, stay savvy and keep your critical thinking hat shiny.
Speaker 2:This is Annie McCubbin signing off from why Smart Women. See you later. This episode was produced by Harrison Hess. It was executive produced and written by me, annie McCubbin.
