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Tyson Popplestone is a Comedian from Melbourne Australia. Join him for a brand new interview each week.
Ray Dorsey (01:30.591)
Hey Tyson, can you hear me okay? Oh wait, I can't hear you. One second.
tyson (01:32.286)
Array, Loud and Clear, how you doing man? Oh, one sec.
tyson (01:58.144)
Is that any better?
tyson (02:03.594)
Uh, can you hear that? No.
tyson (02:17.558)
I'm not sure, one sec there. Testing.
Ray Dorsey (02:26.863)
Can you hear me?
tyson (02:29.099)
I can, I can.
Ray Dorsey (02:34.907)
Speaker.
Hold on, here we go. Say something now.
tyson (02:41.807)
Hello? Is that any better? Hello, hello, hello? Nothing.
Ray Dorsey (02:43.203)
Not yet. How about now?
Ray Dorsey (02:48.507)
Can you hear me now? Terrible! One second, hold on. There we go, wait one second, I think we might have something here. One second. Can you hear me now?
tyson (02:51.038)
I can still... No stress.
tyson (02:57.798)
Awesome, no worries. I got ya.
Ray Dorsey (03:01.685)
Oh good, I can hear you. I don't know my... Hold on.
tyson (03:04.494)
Oh, what a relief. I was looking at all the settings thinking, I'm not 100% sure it all looks good. Ha ha ha. How are you, man?
Ray Dorsey (03:08.283)
Thank you.
Ray Dorsey (03:12.939)
I'm good, I'm good. Thanks very much for inviting me. So you gotta tell me more about your audience and how you found me.
tyson (03:18.626)
For sure. So, well, it's actually an interesting little story. So my Nan was diagnosed with Parkinson's about three years ago.
Ray Dorsey (03:26.371)
Your dad?
tyson (03:27.878)
My Nan, my grandma. Yeah, my grandma. And so just through conversations with her, I'd sort of gone off and tried to do a little more research myself and just learn a little more about the disease to find out if there was any helpful, any practical ways I might be able to help point in the right direction. Also just the factor of curiosity, I realized apart from a couple of celebrities, Michael J. Fox, I really knew nothing about.
Ray Dorsey (03:29.92)
Okay.
tyson (03:54.418)
the disease, the side effects, the causes, the symptoms, apart from the tremors, you know, the shakes. And so I'm trying to remember where I first heard of you. I know one of the earlier, I'm not sure what the podcast was. I'm not a hundred percent sure, but it was a podcast of some form. I listened to a more recent one with you last night with Jesse on the Ultimate Health Podcast, just as a little refresher.
but it was well before that podcast episode that I heard of you, but say that again, sorry.
Ray Dorsey (04:25.815)
Maybe David Perlmutter or something like that. Maybe David Perlmutter or...
tyson (04:32.402)
Yeah, I really can't remember. It's sort of just all blurred into, they all sort of blurred in together, but for sure, for sure. But yeah, so I thought I'd reach out to you because obviously what I had heard was really encouraging and inspiring. You know, I think I always love hearing from professionals who aren't just like, oh, whoa, like this is the symptoms, this is what you can expect. Unfortunately, it's not good.
Ray Dorsey (04:34.395)
That's okay.
The cooler is here too.
tyson (04:59.338)
Do you know? And that's the end of the conversation. I like the fact that regardless of where someone's at, I guess in their journey, I feel as though your message offers at least a glimmer of hope, even for the worst case scenarios is some of the vibe that I've been getting. So I was really encouraged by what you guys have been working on.
Ray Dorsey (05:15.039)
Oh yeah.
Ray Dorsey (05:19.675)
Do you know why your grandmother has Parkinson's?
tyson (05:23.118)
No, I was gonna, I've been racking my brain a little bit because as far as I know, she was raised in Montenegro, Yugoslavia, back in the day. And I'm not 100% sure of her early days, access to water,
tyson (05:43.218)
Exposure to pesticides. I really I really am not a hundred percent sure. I know that from what I've learned About what you've said. There's there's certainly a number of things like exercise that she's never really done She also lost her son about she also lost her son about five or six years ago And I don't know I've never heard you speak about it, but I often wondered whether Grief had any part in triggering something like this. She's also 78
Ray Dorsey (05:57.304)
Yeah.
Ray Dorsey (06:11.727)
Yeah, I just don't think that Parkinson's is a natural consequence of aging. I think it's an artificial consequence of aging. Maybe we'll talk about that.
tyson (06:20.282)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Should we jump straight into it? Because I'm sure, I don't wanna throw all my goody. Oh, sure. Yeah, so a big foundation of our audience, from what I can tell, from what I know, very passionate about health, fitness, wellbeing. Truth is, it's not a health, fitness, and wellbeing podcast. It's a podcast.
Ray Dorsey (06:23.895)
Yeah, just tell me who your audience is. Who's your, who's your.
tyson (06:44.01)
with a whole range of guests from a whole range of backgrounds, attracting a whole range of people. But in saying that, I would say 70% of the episodes are around health, fitness, wellbeing. Seems to be a real interest in longevity. From what I can tell, the statistics are not super, super clear. About 70% male listeners.
Ray Dorsey (07:08.483)
I'm sorry, 70% or what? Okay.
tyson (07:08.902)
Um, uh, a male listeners. Yeah. And, uh, the age, the age range varies, but from, from what I can see, it's around about 25 to 45 seems to be the, seems to be the key component of listeners. Yeah. Awesome. Right. Awesome. We'll jump straight into it before it was before I do. It does an hour work for you. Is that okay? Yeah. Awesome. Right. All right. We'll jump straight into it.
Ray Dorsey (07:25.333)
Okay, I'm ready to go.
Ray Dorsey (07:32.943)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
tyson (07:36.882)
I was giving you a little bit of a background on how I first discovered you and the work that you were doing. And it was through, unfortunately, my grandmother about three years ago being diagnosed with Parkinson's. And at the time when she started to speak about it with the family, I realised how little I actually knew about the disease. Like with the exception of a couple of celebrities, Michael J. Fox, the Tremors, I realised that Parkinson's was something that was completely foreign to me, completely foreign to the whole family.
And naturally, I guess, whenever someone you love is, you know, given a diagnosis that you don't understand, the curiosity has, it sort of peaks. And, uh, that's how I found you. I started to dig a little bit, find out, Hey, what causes this? Is there a way to cure it? Is there a way to prevent it? Is there anything that we can actually do? And I was really inspired by the message that you share, both in the podcast, the books, the research that you're doing over there.
But I thought maybe as a way of introduction, there'd be a lot of people who are hearing you speak and this might be their introduction to the subject of Parkinson's disease. And I'm sure the foundational, the understanding that they have about it was very similar to mine just a few years ago. So perhaps I could hand it to you as a way of introduction and you could perhaps lay the foundation of when we're speaking about Parkinson's disease, what is it we're actually speaking about? What's taking place under the surface?
Ray Dorsey (08:59.311)
First of all, Tyson, thanks very much for having me. Second, sorry to hear about your grandmother as we're in the discuss. I don't think Parkinson's is a natural consequence of aging. I think it's an artificial consequence of aging. So third, Parkinson's is the world's fastest growing brain disease, classically associated with a tremor, usually in the hands, usually asymmetric, slowness and movement, stiffness and difficulties with walking or balance. Thought at a high level to be due to loss of
nerve cells in the brain that produce a chemical called dopamine. It was first described by Dr. James Parkinson in 1817 in London. He was 61 years old. He was a surgeon, been practicing medicine or surgery for 30 plus years. I think even his father was a physician. And he said he was describing something that had not been just not been classifying the medical literature, something new on the streets of London. And when he described
the disease in 1817, he described six people with the disease. 200 years later, the Global Burden of Disease Study estimated that over six million people have the disease. So we've gone from something that was likely very rare 200 years ago to something that's now exceedingly common. And I think environmental factors are the chief reason for its rise.
tyson (10:20.158)
It's a really interesting conversation. I'm not sure how much you get this response, but a lot of the time when I hear someone speak about a disease, and perhaps because of the statistics you just offered, often people go, ah, unfortunately this is just a part of aging. I know this is something that you've already said is not something that you believe is necessarily a strong or leading cause.
But it blows my mind how often people just take it as a way of life. Okay, Parkinson's disease has been around, my grandma's got it, someone I know's got it, hopefully I'll try and avoid it. But they feel almost as though they have no power to control how much influence they have over whether or not they're going to get it.
Ray Dorsey (10:59.875)
Yeah, I couldn't disagree more. I don't think these are natural consequences of aging. I don't think the baseline is that one, two, 3% of people over 65 are supposed to get Parkinson's disease. No more than I believe that one in eight women should have breast cancer or one in eight women have prostate cancer. We need to ask why so many people are getting breast cancer. Why are so many people getting prostate cancer? How could have early humans survived if one in eight women were getting breast cancer?
Um, you know, uh, in the U S no president has ever been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, no president until Ronald Reagan was ever diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. We've had longevity for long periods of time. Um, you know, in 1800s, there were, you know, Ben and the United States, Ben Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson living into their eighties into their nineties, and none of them were having these diseases. Uh, and I'm sure the same is likely the case in Australia. Um,
There are reasons why these diseases are increasingly common, and I think if you look really, really hard, we know that it's not genetics for the vast majority of individuals, and so that really leaves the environment as its main culprit.
tyson (12:13.382)
Yeah, and this is something that I've heard you speak on in a whole heap of depth. And this is something which is both incredibly frustrating, makes me incredibly angry. But I think the flip side of that is leaves me feeling relatively passionate and with a whole lot of hope that this can be a disease of the past inspired by yourself. And that's perhaps a nice little entryway into what I was hoping to form a lot of the conversation around, which is that the main causes.
but also what we can do to prevent it and what people with the disease currently can do to either slow the process of development or hopefully halt it, cure it. I'll let you be the guide. But I know the cause issue is one that's a really interesting conversation. I mean, the development of the disease, as you've just said, has been so rapid in that, what was it, 130 years? If I've got the dates.
Ray Dorsey (13:06.027)
In 200 years, we've gone from six to six million. Six to six million in 200 years. So what are the causes? I'll tell you what I think are the three most important causes of Parkinson's disease. I could be wrong, but this is what I think, and they're environmental. So number one are certain pesticides. There's a pesticide called Paraquat. It kills the weeds that round up the camp. It was created in the 1950s, commercialized in the 1960s.
It's considered the most toxic weed killer ever created. One sip can kill, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency. It's been used to commit homicide and suicide in over 30 countries, including China has banned it. But the United States, neither the United States nor Australia to my knowledge has banned it. So this pesticide is sprayed on corn, sprayed on cotton, sprayed on vineyards, including vineyards 30 minutes from where I'm sitting in upstate New York.
and my guess is it's sprayed on fields in Australia and perhaps it's growing seeds in Australia, probably being sprayed right now. And I think along with it, the seeds of Parkinson's disease. Paraclitic epidemiological studies and human studies is associated with a 150% increased risk of developing Parkinson's. A 150% increased risk of developing Parkinson's. Numerous researchers around the world have demonstrated that when you feed Paracrit...
Paraquat to laboratory animals, they develop the clinical and pathological features of Parkinson's disease. What's even more shocking is an expose from the British journal called The Guardian from a year ago in which they looked at records from the manufacturer of Paraquat, which is being sued in the United States and elsewhere, in my understanding, for Parkinson's disease by people who use the chemical and subsequently develop Parkinson's disease.
and they found out that the company knew about its ties to Parkinson's disease for over 50 years, for over 50 years and hid it. They knew in the 1960s that when they fed Paraquat in high doses to mice, to rats, and to rabbits, that they developed Parkinson's disease. So they knew before I was born that when they exposed three different, not one, not two, but three different species of mammals to Paraquat, they developed...
Ray Dorsey (15:24.207)
pathological features of Parkinson's disease. They didn't seek to withdraw their product. They didn't seek to introduce a safer version of their product. They sought to double down under a campaign to freedom to sell, a freedom to sell this toxic pesticide in the United States, a freedom to sell this toxic pesticide in Australia. So that's the first one. Second, you get...
tyson (15:41.998)
I, yeah. Yeah, sorry to interrupt you there. Yeah, I was just gonna say I had a little Google, you're right, for Paraquat, it is still widely used here in Australia. Cause I heard you speak last night in the Ultimate Health podcast and was reminded that in the US, it was still commonly used. And I thought, oh, if I see this as used in Australia, it's gonna make my blood boil. I wish I hadn't have checked it just before I came on here because yeah, you're a hundred percent right. We are apparently, I've Googled right, it's still quite widely used.
Ray Dorsey (16:10.915)
Yeah, and if you just Google guardian plus paraquat, you'll find an excellent expose by journalists on the topic. The second most important, or second important environmental cause are dry cleaning chemicals, if you can believe it. One's called trichloroethylene. That's a really, really simple molecule. Your listeners know that water's made up of three atoms, H2O, two hydrogens and one oxygen. Trichloroethylene is made up of six atoms.
Two carbon atoms in black for those watching, one hydrogen atom in white and then three chlorine atoms in green Hence its name trichloroethylene. That and its sister compound, perchloroethylene, exactly the same molecule except it's having three chlorine atoms It has four chlorine atoms Are widely used in dry cleaning, degreasing and even decaffeinating coffee These chemicals were ubiquitous in the 1970s. It's estimated that
10 million Americans worked with these chemicals. Estimated that one in 12 workers in the United Kingdom worked with these chemicals. Akin to saying like everyone in retail working with these chemicals. These chemicals are associated with a 500% increased risk of developing Parkinson's disease. And when TCE trichloroethylene has been fed to laboratory animals, they too develop the clinical and pathological features of Parkinson's disease.
And you don't have to work with these chemicals. These chemicals contaminate the groundwater in the United States. They contaminate the groundwater in Australia. And I think these chemicals, not only can you drink them, but they like radon, they can evaporate from contaminated groundwater and soil, enter your kids' schools, your workplaces or your homes undetected. And you can breathe breathing these chemicals in. And the final major environmental risk factor, I think, is air pollution outdoor.
ambient air pollution. In the United States, some of you may know that we had the Canadian wildfires this past summer, which turned the Big Apple, New York City, orange. And that level of air pollution is what was apparent on the streets of London in 1800, when Dr. Parkinson is describing the condition. That London fog had little to do with weather and everything to do with air pollution. And air pollution that he was experiencing in 1800 London was akin to what New York City
Ray Dorsey (18:33.731)
was experiencing this past summer or what Delhi, India and Beijing, China experience on a daily basis today among the worst level of air pollution in the world and there have been increasing number of studies linking air pollution to Parkinson's disease. So the three major environmental causes one certain pesticides especially a pesticide called paraflot, two these dry cleaning chemicals known called trichloroethylene or perchloroethylene and outdoor air pollution.
tyson (19:02.074)
Yeah, you see, I hear you speak about those things. And with the exception of dry cleaning and degreasing, and correct me if I'm wrong, because I know that they do infiltrate a lot of homes, especially in New York, and I'm sure other places around the world. It sounds as though that the pesticides factor and the air pollution factor, they seem, from my own opinion, to be the most challenging ones to avoid. Now, I could be wrong, and feel free to correct me.
Ray Dorsey (19:27.355)
Yeah, so our health today, the health that you enjoy and that I enjoy today is largely a function of the environment that we've experienced in the past. So the health we enjoy today is largely a function of the environment that we've experienced in the past. Now, to what extent do we control the environment that we experience?
I don't think we control it very well, right? If you grew up on a farm, as a kid, you didn't have a conscious decision how you're gonna grow up on a farm, grow up on a farm or not. Conversely, mostly people who work with these chemicals had no idea, A, most people don't know that they're trichloroethylene, perchloroethylene. Two, don't know that they're known to cause cancer. I should have mentioned that trichloroethylene is a known carcinogen, according to the World Health Organization.
and known to cause cancer according to the U.S. Department of Environmental Protection Agency. And then air pollution, you know, is really hard to avoid. In China, air pollution is so bad that to allow kids, school-age kids, some fancy schools build domes over their schools so that the kids can play soccer underneath a dome. But I think largely these things are not dictated by, these aren't individual decisions. We should not be blaming the people who have Parkinson's disease for the disease that they have.
These are societal decisions, and I think are reflecting the actions of certain bad actors, many of whom apparently know about their toxic effects, but have sought to double down on a blockbuster product rather than introduce a safer alternative. So I think that the people to blame here are those who are producing these chemicals who know, allegedly know, likely know, or should know about their toxic effects and the
tyson (21:02.495)
Hmm.
Ray Dorsey (21:15.259)
The rest of us are subsidizing their sales by suffering the health consequences.
tyson (21:22.262)
Yeah, so with reference to pesticides, that was a question that I wanted to ask you. Is this purely a financially driven thing? If the data has been proven since I think the 60s or for the last 60 years, then obviously something's going on which is giving whoever it is that's developing, selling these products some level of confidence or arrogance to keep doing so. But it...
To the average person, you hear that and you think, oh, surely evil doesn't exist so blatantly in an industry like this. But it does seem amazing that when you have a team of people around you with the same goals, with the same quarterly reports that need to be developed to stockholders, shareholders, to the public, then all of a sudden it seems very easy to justify a lot of questionable behavior in the name of profits.
Ray Dorsey (22:09.463)
Well, you know, the pesticide companies can speak for themselves, but, you know, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. In the 40s and 50s, we had, and well into the 90s, we had tobacco companies deliberately obscuring the adverse health effects of smoking. Lung cancer in the United States, lung cancer deaths in the United States 100 years ago was almost zero.
I'll say that again, lung cancer leading cause of cancer death in the United States leading cause of cancer death in the world almost didn't exist a hundred years ago. It wasn't until the advent of cigarettes in the early 1900s in the United States that 25 years later you see a corresponding rise in the rates of lung cancer death. One of the great public health achievements, Surgeon General reporting United States 1962, smoking causes lung cancer. Smoking peaks decreases.
and 25 years later, the rates of lung cancer decrease. If you think it's just not lung cancer, I mean, look at the opioid epidemic, which I'm sure is effective in Australia, as well as it has the United States. If you wanna look at modern things, look at social media. I mean, look at the reporting from the Wall Street Journal indicating that companies, some of these social media companies knew about the toxic, know about the toxic effects of social media on the mental health.
of teenagers, especially teenage girls, one third of whom are depressed in the United States. And they continue to engage in this behavior. If we know that according to reports from the Guardian that a pacified manufacturer is doing this repair plot, we should ask what other environmental toxicants is this applying to for Parkinson's disease? And what other environmental toxicants is this applying to for other diseases, prostate cancer, breast cancer, heart disease, and many other conditions?
tyson (23:59.886)
I'm sure there's a lot of people listening who go, okay, well, paraquat, it's something which is used on farms. It's something which is used, as you say, to kill the things that roundup can't kill if I've understood you correctly. And so a lot of people hear that and they say, okay, well, I'm not on a farm. I'm in a coastal town. I'm not on a farm. I'm in a city. I'm nowhere near that. But I guess the use of these pesticides is far and wide and can be quite deceptive in the way that it finds its way to you. So how is it that people through...
or people who are nowhere near where something like a pesticide like paraquat is being used are being impacted by it. My guess is obviously the fruits, the vegetables, the things that we're eating are being heavily sprayed or at least copying a little bit of the offshoot of sprays. Farmers, I mean it makes sense. I think I've heard you speak about the extent of farmers and their the rates of exposure to these pesticides and the rates of increase in Parkinson's disease.
But could you talk to that a little bit because it sometimes seems that people consider themselves separate from where these sprays are actually being used.
Ray Dorsey (25:08.171)
Yeah, so at a high level, if you look at rate, if you look at Parkinson's disease, there are numerous studies in numerous parts of the world that show a near perfect correlation between the rates of Parkinson's disease and the amount of pesticide used in rural areas. So in Canada in the 1980s, this guy, Bairbeau, showed a near perfect correlation between rates of pesticide use in rural parts of Canada and rates of Parkinson's disease. That same kind of study has been replicated in France and vineyards.
and replicated in Israel and other parts of the world. Now, so in rural areas, I think pesticides are a big issue. I think in urban areas, I think trichloroethylene, these industrial solvents and air pollution, big issue. But we should be mindful, as I said, early childhood exposure could be what's laying the seeds for people developing Parkinson's disease 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years later. So even though you may now live in Sydney, you may now live in Melbourne, I can't.
How do you spell, how do you pronounce Melbourne? Melbourne. You could have been growing up on a farm and you may not have even grown up on a farm, you could just been growing in a rural area and they spray the pesticides, paraquat for example, is sprayed and you could be inhaling it. And we've been warned about this. Rachel Carson in 1962, she wrote Silent Spring, not because she was against pesticides, she was against the indiscriminate use of pesticides.
tyson (26:06.647)
No, you did pretty well, Melbourne.
Ray Dorsey (26:35.127)
especially DDT in this class of fat soluble, fat dissolving pesticides called organochlorines. And it turned out there's another new condition. So I mentioned that Parkinson's disease first major descriptions in 1817. There's another Parkinsonian disorder called dementia with Lewy bodies. It's basically really bad Parkinson's plus really bad dementia mixed together. And the first report of that condition was 1976.
So the first report of these conditions was estimated to affect up to a million Americans is in 1976 in Japan by a Japanese psychiatrist who was wondering whether this was a new disease, even has that question in one of the titles of his paper. So I looked back and I said, well, what's in the water and the food in 1960 in Japan around this time? And it turns out after World War II,
Japanese start spring DDT and other pesticides called organochlorines on the rice patties and these the pesticides dissolve in fat and so if you they looked at the fat levels of these pesticides in the fat tissue in the Antipodes tissue of Japanese of the population and you can see in Corresponding rise in the rates of these fat soluble pesticides in people's fatty tissues like, you know subcutaneous fat
They see the rise of these pesticides, probably because they are consuming it, probably in their food because it's fat soluble. And then it correlates with the appearance of a new disease. And as soon as Japan bans DDT and other pesticides in the 1970s, you see a corresponding decline in the levels of this. And we see this in Europe, we see this in the United States where you stop using these pesticides, levels of these pesticides and their metabolites and people's fatty tissue drops.
And I think that's a hopeful silver lining that as these things drop, you could see in the future lower rates of Parkinson's disease, lower rates of dementia with Lewy bodies. Now it's a hypothesis. It needs to be tested and needs to be proven, but there's a lot of hope here that if we stop using these environmental toxicants and stop using them indiscriminately and stop using them in increasing amounts, we can stop, uh, have create a world where Parkinson's disease, dementia with Lewy bodies and other diseases are increasingly rare.
tyson (28:53.902)
Yeah, I live in a relatively small coastal town here in Victoria, Australia. I'm not sure of the population, but it's not big. There'd be a few thousand in the town that I'm in. And part of the reason I moved out here is because I've got two young boys. I've got a three-year-old. I've got a one-year-old. One of the factors was a lifestyle factor. We're in the city. We love the city. I still love to visit the city. But in terms of just letting my boys be out and about and run around, I thought it'd be a fun environment for them to grow up in.
And naturally you come down, you get out of the car, you smell the ocean air, you can smell that it's fresh. And so I go, okay, well, this is good news. But even recently, I live in a little place in my town, it's called The Point, and it's a relatively small community. But recently I saw the Melbourne City Council, the Geelong City Council, a guy came along, he had the full hazmat suit on, he had the mask, and he was walking around our suburb on behalf of the council, spraying off weeds with...
a particular gun, I don't know what it's actually called, the formal name for it. But it blew my mind that somehow, I don't know what the actual pesticide that was being sprayed was, I assume it's a roundup of some sort, but it blew my mind that a council in the name of keeping a particular town clean or free from weeds were comfortable because there's a lot of young families, kids playing around, kids digging in gardens. It frustrated me that there was such a level of ignorance.
or lack of knowledge around what was actually taking place that this was approved. Like give me weeds. I, who was the chick who sang that song? Don't worry about spots on my apples. Give me the birds and the bees. It was a little bit of, it was a little bit of that filling going on. I thought, Hey, don't, don't stress about the weeds. We can take care of that, but still, um, it seems like big council, a lot of the time take the easier option or the financial option with a complete disrespect for the health of those that they're claiming to, to protect.
Ray Dorsey (30:48.363)
And so let's pick up on that. So DDT was created, was first used in World War II to prevent malaria. Okay, you're like, I'm gonna prevent thousands if not millions of people getting malaria. Okay, I'm gonna take a little risk on DDT. But am I gonna do this for my kids' soccer fields so they don't have weeds? And this is not a theoretical risk. There have been three studies in England.
in Scotland and Spain and Italy that have shown that soccer players are at increased risk for ALS, motor neuron disease, Lou Gehrig's disease in the United States. Three different studies, three different parts of the world showing that soccer players are at increased risk for developing ALS. And I'm like, well, why is that? And I thought about, you know, head trauma obviously is one, but the other thing is they're exposed to pesticides.
And so they're playing on soccer fields, pitches, football fields. I forgot what you would say in Australia. Soccer and they're playing on it all the time. They're coming into skin contact. They're breathing it. They play with their cleats. They bring their cleats home on their cleats or pesticides. The pesticides get into their indoor air and people are breathing it in. And it's not just ALS, you know, cancers have been associated with certain pesticides and other things.
tyson (31:49.02)
Soca, yeah.
Ray Dorsey (32:10.011)
So we're doing all of this on golf courses, on utility poles, on our yards, all in the name of not having dandelions. I think we're paying a really, really high price for that. I told you about these chemicals, which are used per chloroethylene, is still used in Australia, is my understanding, for dry cleaning. Also, our closed zone shrink, we're exposing ourselves to a chemical that likely causes cancer and is associated with an increased, 500% increased risk of Parkinson's for dry cleaning.
tyson (32:19.434)
Hmm.
Ray Dorsey (32:40.647)
If we just apply some sanity checks to this, we can live longer, healthier lives. You mentioned the point, I'm ready to come out for a visit. But if you've seen the Netflix series Blue Zones, they go to all these different areas of the world that all have super long longevity. People in their 90s, 80s, 90s, and 100s. And watching the whole series, I only saw one person with Parkinson's disease. That's why I ended up spending less.
and none with Alzheimer's, right? No Alzheimer's in any of those videos. And I saw one person with Parkinson's disease and the director of it focuses on the environment. He focuses on the social environment, but all these places are pristine. They all had very clean air. They all had clean water and they all had clean food. If you have clean air, if you have clean water and you have clean food, you can live long, healthy lives. I think lives are largely free of many of these neurodegenerative conditions like ALS.
like Parkinson's disease and like Alzheimer's.
tyson (33:42.402)
Yeah, a really great documentary. I have seen it. I read the book a couple of years ago and you're right. The thing we keep coming back to is, okay, we've made the decision, we wanna make a difference. Obviously we want the umbrella of people, the decision makers, the farmers, that whoever actually allowing these things to take place, the things that are leading to bad air quality, bad food quality, and straight pants, or unshrunken pants for lack of a better explanation. We want that to be improved. We want it to be changed. But
Like anything like this, it's gonna take years, I imagine, before we see people in control or people in charge actually making those changes. And so in the meantime, we sit here and we say, okay, well, what can I actually do? What is within my control to make a change to my own life to hopefully prevent something like this kicking in? And I've heard you speak, perhaps we could start in regards to diet nutrition, because I've heard you speak about this a little bit.
I made a move to eating organic food, you know, almost solely about five or six years ago. Lucky for me, there's a great, pretty reasonably priced place here in Melbourne called Terra Madre for any locals, which serves in bulk certified organic food, which I thought, okay, hey, this is a great place to start. Now, I would love to hear you speak to that, like the benefits of organic or lack thereof. Is that a move that we should make?
But even with the organic food that we do have access to, obviously that's not completely free of these pesticides. So once we've made that move, what is it that we can do to even better our chances of an actual organic food?
Ray Dorsey (35:16.179)
Yeah, so let's start with food. Since writing the book, we wrote this book, Ending Parkinson's Disease, available on Amazon or a lot of other booksellers and libraries. I buy organic. I wash in the United States. Levels of pesticide organic produce isn't pesticide free. You still find levels of pesticides on organic produce.
so I wash all my fruits and vegetables with water and a Vegetable wash just like you know, you've bathed with water and soap you want to get Water to wash away dirt soap to get rid of oils some pesticides dissolve in fat and your brains fatty So you want to get those pesticides off? so we just went got apples from the grocery store yesterday and Before they get put in the bowl. I've washed them with put them in a glass bowl with water and a pesticide wash
I think all these things are even more important if you have Parkinson's disease because by time you're diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, 60% of those nerve cells that produce dopamine have died off. So you want to protect those remaining 40%. So everything I say here, I would apply even more to people with the disease. Water, I used to think the water we drink is safe and I don't necessarily think that's the case anymore. If you get your water from a well.
I would have it regularly tested for pesticides if I lived in a rural area and for these chemicals trichloroethylene and perchloroethylene if I lived in an urban area. I put a carbon filter, you know, from Pure or Brita or whatever you want to do. I put that on my water at home and that's the water I use to drink. And then
Air, it depends on where you live. You might live in a beautiful area with really low levels of air pollution. So that's fantastic. And so you may not be a major issue. If you don't, if you live in a major urban area, I would think about air purifiers for like your home. You can put those like in your bedroom, in your kitchen. My parents live in Southern California where air quality is not necessarily optimal. And so that's what we got them for Christmas last year was air purifiers.
Ray Dorsey (37:34.203)
you're driving through heavy traffic you should roll up your windows and circulate the air within your car so you don't bring in air, heavily polluted air that you're passing through like for example through a tunnel. And then I tell people to think about dry cleaning. It turns out that these dry cleaning chemicals are off, they're released from it. So if you put the dry cleaning into your car when you
going home, you are breathing in that chemical. You put it into your closet in your bedroom, you are breathing in that chemical, perhaps while you're sleeping. It's so bad that if you live in an apartment building above a dry cleaner in New York City, for example, they have found toxic levels of perchlorethylene, this chemical is still widely used in dry cleaning in the United States and in Australia. Toxic levels of the chemical in apartment buildings above dry cleaners in New York City.
And because it's fat soluble, when you open the refrigerator and you take out the butter and the cheese, you'll be eating per chloroethylene. If you take your daughter to the dry cleaner and she's got an ice cream cone with her, when she leaves the dry cleaner, she's gonna be eating per chloroethylene. So I would be really mindful of it. There are dry cleaning alternatives. I ended up using a dry cleaner that doesn't use a per chloroethylene. I suspect those things are available. So I would think about that too.
I think about do I need to be putting spring pesticides in my yard? Do my kids need to be or do my kids schools have pesticides being used? In New York State they've put limits on the use of pesticides on kids playgrounds. What's going on at the golf course? Do I live near a golf course? There are studies that have shown that people who live downwind of golf courses might be at higher risk. So I think there are tons and tons of things that we can do on our individual lives.
But ultimately, these issues are societal.
tyson (39:34.01)
Yeah, sure. And so a number of the other ways that I've heard you speak about, at least addressing or trying to prevent Parkinson's disease from coming on is that in regards to exercise. Like a lot of aerobic exercise seems to be one of the key features. But before I start speaking about that, I wanted to ask you about things like sauna. I know sauna has been a relatively hot topic over the
recent months and in my mind when you sit in a sauna, you're sweating out all of these bad particles. I'm not sure of the science behind that or the accuracy behind that statement. But I was keen to hear you talk a little bit on that.
Ray Dorsey (40:09.743)
So I don't have good evidence on saunas. We live in Rochester, New York where it's cold. And so two Christmases ago, our family Christmas gift was a hot tub. So I'm in the hot tub most many nights. So I love the hot tub and I like a sauna, but I don't know if there's good evidence for its use in Parkinson's disease. The problem in Parkinson's is that these chemicals likely lead to misfolding of a protein called alpha-synuclein.
and that misfolding can spread from nerve cell to nerve cell and then into the brain. And so I think it's really, really hard to undo that misfolding. I think it's good to stop people from getting ongoing exposure. Just like, you know, first thing a doctor's gonna tell a smoker who's diagnosed with lung cancer is to stop smoking. First thing that we should be telling people with Parkinson's disease, or one of the first things we should be telling people with Parkinson's disease, is stop getting exposed to environmental toxicants.
But I just don't, I know there's no great evidence to my knowledge about sauna, for example, no great evidence about chelation, for example, if that's going, if we're going next, there was a study looking, it showed that people with Parkinson's are known to have high levels of iron in their brain. And we didn't really talk about that, but how does that iron get in the brain? I think the iron might be getting in from air pollution. So when you look in the sky and you see like, you know, Los Angeles, you see air pollution, you see smog, you see little pieces of dirt and soot.
And those little pieces of dirt and soot, some of them hitchhiking on those pieces of dirt and soot are iron from breaks, lead from leaded gasoline, platinum from catalytic converters. And most of them we sneeze out and cough out, but some are so small that they go up into our nerve responsible for smell and back to the smell center in our brains. And I think they might be bringing the iron into your brain.
There was a study looking at iron chelation therapy for people with Parkinson's disease. Not only was it not helpful, it was actually harmful. People did worse with Parkinson's disease. So I think the key thing is to prevent these things from happening in the first place. If you already have the disease, prevent ongoing worsening of it. And then as you alluded to, touch on, we'll touch on more, is exercise can be a super great thing to help improve.
Ray Dorsey (42:25.987)
help decrease your risk of ever getting Parkinson's and benefit people with the disease.
tyson (42:30.706)
Sure. I ask this next question with a little bit of caution, because I think sometimes even asking these questions frames people in a particular way, and I definitely don't want to come across as that, nor put you in a position to suggest that you've ever said anything that is in line with this. But just in regards to the increase in Parkinson's disease, that's six to six million, it's unbelievable. And the rate of vaccination over the last 30 to 40 years has also
increased rapidly. Now I've heard people on both sides of the spectrum who both seem a lot smarter than me. One person saying no it's completely safe and effective. The other side of the argument saying no okay well we've got to be careful that there's not metals within this which is crossing a blood brain barrier. I'm not sure has there been any research done into the links between things like that or are you relatively confident or you know happy with the current way that we're
Ray Dorsey (43:30.011)
So I said that those are the three major environmental causes. It turns out that there are viruses that we know likely produce Parkinson's disease or Parkinsonian disorders. The big one was this something called a sleeping sickness following in the late, late 19, 20, likely due to a virus, something in the influenza virus from 1918, something a separate virus that caused people, young people.
to develop Parkinsonism. Any of your listeners who watched the movie, Awakenings with Robert De Niro and Robin Williams, highlight the development of a medication called levodopa for Parkinson's disease that brought these people who were catatonic, were frozen in time and brought them back to life. And that wasn't because they were exposed to pesticides, for example, these were likely people who got it as a consequence of
likely a viral condition, likely the sleeping sickness that affected the same regions of the brain, not exactly the same structures, but many parts of the brain that we know are affected in Parkinson's disease. So it's possible there are other environmental causes, there's metals, there's other things that can cause it, and there are certainly there are likely unknown things that can cause it. So you don't dismiss anything there.
Listen, the greatest accomplishment, I think of the 20th century, was an increase in life expectancy by 30 years. In almost every part of the world, humans went from a life expectancy of about 40, 45 to 75 industrialized nations. How did we get there? Well, we got clean water, clean food and clean air. We started cleaning some of these things up. Air pollution was a little problematic, but I think vaccines have really changed the course of diseases.
use of vaccines have gone up. So it's like watching television too. I don't think we think that watching television is causing Parkinson's disease. But think of the things we don't have. Like no one, almost no one dies of, no one dies of smallpox today. Not because we have a cure for smallpox, but because we prevent it. Way fewer people are dying of COVID today, not because we have a cure for COVID, but because we can prevent it. Fewer people are dying of polio, nearly eradicated.
tyson (45:28.074)
Yeah. Sure.
Ray Dorsey (45:52.683)
not because we have a cure for it, but because we can prevent it. Think about how many millions of people don't get HIV, not because we can cure it, but because we can prevent it. And so I think there are huge things that we can do on the prevention front to change the course of diseases, just like we've changed the course of other diseases, just the reason why we have longer life expectancy in 2000 than we did in 1900. We're giving that back in the 21st century, at least in the United States. But I think vaccines are unlikely to be a major reason for...
at Parkinson's disease and I think vaccines on a whole have been one of the great public health achievements of the 20th century.
tyson (46:29.65)
Yeah, in regards to big, what's it called? I guess it's big agriculture. Have you had much personal challenge thrown your way because of the message that you're putting out there? Has there been much that you and your team are having to navigate your way through? Because I can imagine it's upsetting a lot of people who are trying to make money.
Ray Dorsey (46:50.49)
Um
Ray Dorsey (46:54.127)
Listen, we wrote a piece called Parkinson's Paraquat and Agnotology. So when I shared that Guardian piece with one of my colleagues, he's an English professor, and he says, Ray, this is agnotology. And I go, what the heck is agnotology? Well, science is the production of knowledge, ideally for the public's good. Agnotology is the deliberate production of ignorance, often for commercial gain.
And we've seen that with the tobacco industry. We saw they had doctors advertising about the health benefits of it. We've seen it with opioids. You know, you could not become addicted. I was taught in medical school at the United States of America's first medical school. I was taught that it was really difficult if not impossible to become addicted to opioids if someone was in pain and it couldn't be more false.
So we have had, and we now know that the company's marketing, the things we're hiring people to change the way doctors perceived and the public perceived the use of these things. We talked about changes in social media. Some of these companies are engaged in agnotology, the production of ignorance for commercial gain. It is according to the Guardian, the company knew about some of these studies and against the law, refused, did not disclose them.
to regulators and at the same time, the same people who did not disclose it, did not disclose it, go on to say it's never been proven that Paraquat causes Parkinson's disease. Let me say that again. The same company that has violated the law according to the Guardian in not disclosing studies linking their product to Parkinson's disease now have the audacity to say that there have been no scientific studies showing that Paraquat causes Parkinson's disease.
Because you buried it all. They've known far more about the dangers of Paraquat and Parkinson's disease than academic researchers. They were doing the experiments 30 years before academicians. And now they have the audacity to say, there's no scientific studies showing that Paraquat causes Parkinson's disease because they buried it all. It is unbelievable in this agnotology, this deliberate production of ignorance continues to go on and on and on.
Ray Dorsey (49:17.355)
And until wrongdoers are held accountable, until wrongdoers are made to pay for their activities and their actions, this will continue to be perpetrated, not just for Parkinson's disease, it'll be done for ALS, it'll be done for Alzheimer's disease, it'll be done for breast cancer, for prostate cancer, it'll be done for lots of people, and it'll be done at our expense. They don't wanna pay for the health costs of their actions. They view those as something that other people should be paying for.
but they will take their profits, they'll privatize their gains, they'll socialize their losses, and we should view that as completely unacceptable.
tyson (49:51.811)
Yeah. Do you think in 50 years time, we'll look back at these people in the same way that we do look back now at the doctors promoting the health benefits of smoking?
Ray Dorsey (50:00.299)
Yeah, I don't think there's any doubt this has been going on and on and it'll go on Listen, we all believe breathe cleaner air think about this in los angeles We breathe cleaner air in los angeles today than we did in 1970 The number of people in los angeles has increased over that time The number of drivers has increased over that time and economic productivity in los angeles has increased over that time So we have more drivers driving, um greater distances
with greater economic productivity and we breathe cleaner air. The only false, the false trade off here is that, who wants to live in a heavily polluted area? You moved away from a heavily polluted area. No one wants to live in a heavily polluted area. There's an economic cost to having pollution and there's a health consequence to doing so. If someone hired you to go to Beijing, they'd have to pay you more to go there because you know there would be a health consequence to doing that.
We should make sure that we stop socializing, stop subsidizing the polluters, make them pay for their products, just like we make tobacco companies now pay through taxes for the cost of their products, and then we will all live longer and healthier lives because of it. Rates of lung cancer are plummeting. We can live longer, healthier lives, free of Parkinson's disease, free of breast cancer, free of prostate cancer, free of ALS, free of Alzheimer's disease.
if we just take actions to improve our environment and hold wrongdoers accountable.
tyson (51:30.758)
Yeah, yeah, really well said. I'm really interested, and especially with reference to Blue Zones, which you mentioned just a few minutes ago. Obviously, you look at the similarities in a lot of regards, whether it's to diet, to the exercise routines, to the social aspects, to whatever else it is that you wanna mention. There's quite a few factors that Dan Buettner mentions throughout the Blue Zones documentary. But one of the things which seems to be fairly prominent is cultures with relatively low meat consumption.
And if it is, if they are consuming meat, it seems to be organic or self-raised meat or from at least a place that they know how it was raised. I heard you say that since finishing the book, you've adopted a Mediterranean diet and at least gone vegetarian, if I'm not mistaken. Can you speak to the idea of a more beneficial diet, if not the ideal diet for someone who is trying to prevent the onset of Parkinson's?
Ray Dorsey (52:29.791)
Yeah, so it turns out that animals are not immune to the toxic effects of pesticides. So animals eat plants, often plants that have pesticides, and then they concentrate these pesticides, especially the fat soluble ones, in themselves. And then when humans consume them, for example, consume fish, you're consuming not just the fish, but everything that the fish
And so there's another class of chemicals called PCBs, polychlorinated biphenols, that some studies have linked to Parkinson's. And these chemicals, which were used in the electronics industry, made their way into the food supply. And then you could find these chemicals in the fish that people were eating. And some areas of the world, I think in the North Atlantic.
rates of Parkinson's have been a little bit higher and they've been tied to the consumption of these fish. There have been studies, for example, that have linked milk consumption to Parkinson's disease. There were lots of possible explanations. I don't think it's milk per se. I think it's what the cows have in their milk. And there could be other reasons, but I think I'm more concerned about what's in the cow's milk. So it turned out in Hawaii,
tyson (53:51.17)
Hmm.
Ray Dorsey (53:53.743)
They petitioned the Pineapple Growers Association of Hawaii petition to have the use of this pesticide called Heptachlor. It belongs to the same class of pesticides as DDT, these Organic Chlorines, dissolve in fat. And they sprayed them to protect the crop of the pineapples. The pineapples did fine. But they sprayed the top of these pineapples, you know, the green part is called the chop. And then they fed that chop to cows soon after being sprayed.
Well, the cows liked the chop and they ate it, but the pesticide that they ate on that chop was fat soluble and so where did they concentrate it? They concentrated it in the milk. And then that milk makes its way onto the shelves in Hawaii. And it turns out researchers just by coincidence were doing a study on aging there. And so when the local officials found out that, the
Milk supply was contained with heptachlor. They had to pull the milk from the shells. These researchers then found that high milk consumption was associated in this area with Parkinson's disease. And when they looked at the brains of people who drank lots of milk, they found fewer dopamine-producing nerve cells in the parts of the brain. What else did they find? They found metabolites of heptachlor in the brains of people who drank high levels of milk in Hawaii.
who had Parkinson's disease. They found the smoking gun. So all from because people were spraying pesticides on pineapple chop as being fed to the cows. So I think if we pay more attention to what the animals we eat are eating, as you alluded to, organic meat products, I think you could have.
lower rates of a Parkinson's disease. Just like we told you about in Japan, when they start spraying these pesticides on the rice paddies, it made its way into the food supply and you can see levels of these pesticides in human fat tissue and the tissue from our own fat rising, the same thing can be happening there. So there have been studies that link Mediterranean diet, lower in animal products to a lower risk of Parkinson's disease and potentially benefit for people with the disease. I'm not sure about the reasons for that, but to me,
Ray Dorsey (56:14.159)
I get really concerned about what is or is not in that meat, what is or is not in that fish, what is or is not in that chicken. And so if we can get rid of these pesticides, especially indiscriminate use of these pesticides, we can eat healthier food, regardless of your preference, and be less likely to develop a whole range of health conditions.
tyson (56:37.094)
Yeah, the two supermarkets in Australia that have a stranglehold on the market, our equivalent of Walmart, I guess you could say, it's Coles and Woolworths. And both Coles and Woolworths have their own version of organic food, which is now available. So you could go in there five years ago and you could find organic food, but it was found in the version of other brands. And one thing that I suspect, they've seen an opportunity, and especially with the rise of people eating organic food here in Australia, is that they could get more of a stranglehold by producing their own product.
When you see this food on the shelf, it's labeled organic, you look at it and you go, okay, well, surely this is good. But I know that, especially with regards to what we've been speaking about with, you know, big agriculture, these pesticides companies, wherever a corner can be cut. And now I don't know if this is true. This is pure speculation. So I'm not a hundred percent sure whether this is true, but I look at that with a level of skepticism knowing that if there is a corner that can be cut, that corner will be cut in the production of that organic food. And so,
Maybe you could speak about it with more regard to American supermarkets, but how stringent is the process in getting that organic label? Am I still just eating the standard sprayed food and they've somehow figured out a way to label it in a way which is more appealing to people like us?
Ray Dorsey (57:54.271)
I think it's good to be skeptical. Again, I knew nothing about this. And again, I'm a neurologist, I'm not an agricultural expert, but when we looked at studies, it turned out that organic produce still has pesticides on it. And you're like, well, what's up with that? And my understanding simplistic is that sometimes organic produce is, for example, grown right next to produce that's sprayed with pesticides. So you can imagine that there's drift onto it.
I think there's a study done of French wines that looked at pesticide residues in French wines and almost every French wine had residues of pesticides in it, even organic ones, albeit at lower levels, or at least they could detect it. So I think we need to be much more demanding. I think we need to be concerned about the influence of big industry. I think on regulators and on regulatory bodies.
I think we need to hold law firms accountable for their actions. The same law firms that are defending pesticide companies today are exactly some of the same law firms that defended big tobacco. And you know, that's not exactly in their byline. We're going to represent corporate misconduct and misdoers wherever they are, anytime, anywhere. That's what they're being held to hold themselves up as. If that's what they want to do, fantastic. But then say it. Say it. We're just here to represent corporate interests.
And regardless of corporate misconduct, we're going to defend them even if it's costing millions of people lives, even if these companies are spraying chemicals that they know are harmful to the public's health, then just say it. But don't like, you know, hide behind this veneer of, you know, truth and justice. We need to hold all wrongdoers accountable and be really, really mindful of potential conflicts and something called regulatory capture, where whereby regulators get controlled.
by the industries that they're seeking to regulate.
tyson (59:51.314)
Yeah, well said. Hey, we've got about five minutes before I let you go. And I thought maybe we could just dedicate that last five minutes to a brief conversation just around exercise. I know your own habits around exercise have changed. And I was just curious to hear about the benefits of aerobic form of exercise on the prevention of Parkinson's.
Ray Dorsey (01:00:12.639)
I think the root causes are these environmental toxicants, air pollution, certain pesticides and these dry cleaning chemicals. But I think there are lots of things that we can modify these effects. And one of the big ways that we can modify that is exercise. Studies have shown that vigorous exercise in your 40s, 50s and 60s is associated with a 20% decreased risk of developing Parkinson's disease. We know that people who exercise more stuff for days associated with
greater longevity. We know that for people with Parkinson's disease, increasing number of studies demonstrate that exercise is beneficial and appears to be almost independent of exercise. It can be Tai Chi, it can be yoga, it can be biking, it can be swimming, it can be rock steady boxing, it can be tango and ballroom dancing. All of those things have been studied or are widely adopted. It turns out that exercise might be really good for the energy producing parts of yourselves called the mitochondria.
Air pollution these dry cleaning chemicals and certain pesticides like paraquat all damage the energy producing parts of cells Called mitochondria and your neurons are which are huge gas guzzling energy demanding a nurse Cells have huge numbers of mitochondria which might explain why These things are causing neurological Disorders it also turns out that it seems like to be vigorous exercise enough to make you sweat is really beneficial
for people with the disease and that exercise releases growth factors, trophic factors in the brain that can be protective of the nerve cells that you have. So there are lots and lots of reasons to exercise, whether you have Parkinson's disease or whether you don't ever want to get Parkinson's disease. You know, before coming on your show, I did my swim because I knew you were going to keep me up a little bit later. I had to get my swim in early.
tyson (01:02:02.946)
Hehehehe
Ray Dorsey (01:02:06.771)
But I think there are tons of things that we can do to reduce our risk of ever developing these debilitating conditions. Again, Parkinson's disease is not a natural consequence of aging. Alzheimer's disease is not a natural consequence of aging. These lung cancer is not a natural consequence of aging. These are artificial consequences of aging. If we modify our behaviors and more importantly, if we as a society take actions to reduce our exposure to these toxins, we'll all live longer, healthier lives, less money being spent on health care expenditures.
more time to enjoy our friends, our family, and the gift of life.
tyson (01:02:40.922)
Yeah, and relatively light exercises, okay. I know you said breaking a sweat would be ideal, but in terms of intensity, do you have a focus on how hard you go each day when you exercise, or for how long as well?
Ray Dorsey (01:02:52.095)
So that, you know, Peter T and others have written these great book on outlive and stuff like that. So there are people who know way, way more than I do. The study that showed a decreased risk was three and a half to four hours of vigorous exercise, something akin to running and swimming to do it. I tried to do 30 to 60 minutes of, you know, reasonable exercise. I bike to work, uh, soon weather permitting. Um, so there's lots and lots of things that people can do, even if it's walking a mile a day.
That's a great place to start. I routinely recommend that people with Parkinson's disease exercise at least an hour a day if they can But you know people are at all different stages and you can start out with the you know Walking to the mailbox and walking back and that's where you are. That's where you are. There's chair yoga There's tons and tons of things that can be done and we should be supporting people at all different levels wherever they are on their journey
tyson (01:03:44.694)
Ray, really good catching up with you. I really appreciate you making the time to come on. And I'm cheering for you, man. I love your passion for the message. I love the hope in your message. And I know so many people out there are being inspired either on behalf of themselves or their loved ones around them. So, hey, keep doing what you do, man. I appreciate your work.
Ray Dorsey (01:04:01.071)
So can I just conclude with, you know, we're coming into the Christmas season here in just five days and we've received gifts from previous generations. As we alluded to earlier, we inherited a world that's largely free of polio. We've inherited a world where drinking and driving is socially unacceptable. We've inherited a world where HIV is preventable and treatable. And those are all based on the actions of ordinary people in Australia, ordinary people in New York City, ordinary people in San Francisco.
A woman, Candice Leitner in California, whose 12-year-old daughter was struck by a drunk driver and four days after her daughter dies from a drunk driver, she forms what becomes Mad Mothers Against Drunk Driving. And eight years later, drinking and driving is illegal in every state in the United States. Drinking ages raise to 21. Flood alcohol levels drop to 0.08. And 10,000 people per year in the United States alone, 10,000 people per year in the United States alone.
don't die in drinking and driving accidents because of Candice Leitner. So these are gifts that we've inherited from previous generations. Just like you have an obligation to receive a gift, you have an obligation to reciprocate. And we can't pay back Candice Leitner, we can't pay back Larry Kramer, we can't pay back Jonas Salk, but we can pay forward. And we can create a world where Parkinson's is increasingly rare, where people like you don't have to see their grandmother, your grandmother doesn't need to suffer from a disease that might be largely preventable.
And if we take actions today to decrease the amount of pesticides that we use to get rid of toxic pesticides that we know are linked to Parkinson's disease, if we stop using chemicals for try cleaning that are associated with a 500% increase risk of Parkinson's disease and are known to cause cancer, if we breathe cleaner air, we'll all live longer healthier lives and we'll give a world back where Parkinson's disease is extraordinarily rare. Maybe we're six people in Australia get it per year instead of 6 million people in the world having it.
at any one point in time.
tyson (01:05:59.402)
Yeah, well said, man. Thanks again for coming on. Awesome, I'll cut that off there, Ray. Ray, that was an awesome conversation, man. I really appreciate your time. Thanks so much. It was really fun. I was pumped to talk to you.
Ray Dorsey (01:06:02.735)
Thank you, Tyson.