- 'Sup, you beautiful bastards.
Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show.
I got a fantastic Wednesday show for you today
and you know what, we're gonna switch it up,
like that hit button and let's just scooch into it.
You know the first thing that we have to talk about today,
is this virtual mental health treatment company
that is coming under fire.
And it's not BetterHelp. What?
What also quick aside, do some of y'all remember
when the internet tried to end my career
'cause I worked with BetterHelp?
And I didn't personally find that they did anything wrong,
but I still ended the relationship.
How is it that still to this day
people were like, remember BetterHelp?
But they literally just fucking sponsored Mr. Beast,
and I didn't see anyone make a fucking peep.
And I'm not saying go after Jimmy.
I think Jimmy is a very, very good guy
but what the fuck, internet?
Anyway, I still don't work with that company,
even though they offered me a ton of money.
But they are not in the spotlight today,
instead it is Cerebral.
They connect people to talk therapy and medication,
for conditions like depression, anxiety and ADHD.
They're a very new company. They were founded in 2020.
They brought in 462 million dollars in funding.
They grew very, very popular.
You might have seen any number of a billion ads
of theirs on TikTok,
which also makes sense always like
during the height of the pandemic
everyone was at home struggling with their mental health,
but reportedly behind this rosy upbeat brand
is a reckless company delivering sensitive healthcare
in flagrant disregard of medical standards.
And I say "reportedly" because
at least that's what's being suggested
by a cache of leak documents obtained by Insider,
as well as interviews with over 30 current
and former employees, which paint a damning picture
from behind the scenes.
With over 2000 incident reports filed by employees
over seven months in 2021, with many of them
flagging serious concerns about patient care.
Showing that the company took on patients
with complex conditions like bipolar disorder
then assigning them to clinicians and other staff members
with insufficient training, oversight, and support
to treat such cases.
With it also putting dozens of patients
on questionable treatment plans,
allegedly misdiagnosing others and company medical providers
prescribing potentially lethal combinations of drugs
or addictive drugs to patients with histories of addiction.
But reportedly the problems go even further
because you also have technology issues
and a failure to retain clinicians,
leaving many patients stranded without care.
Then leading them to be shuffled
from one provider to the next,
or even seeing their prescriptions bungled,
which sometimes cause them to suffer drug withdrawal
or take the wrong medication,
with one specific patient reportedly being left
two weeks waiting for a referral
and later saying she spent eight days in a psychiatric ward.
For this woman, who told CBS
she got a prescription for her anxiety, but then
- Every time I needed her help, she was never available.
- And when she couldn't get instructions on how to
safely switch to her new drug, she started taking it anyway,
causing her to break out in a rash.
- I messaged back,
letting them know it was spreading and getting worse.
And they said that they were
still trying to get ahold of that prescriber.
They make it seem like they wanna help
and then they get you and they're gone.
- And so with all this, you had a Cerebral spokesperson
telling Insider, "Any incident reports you obtained
show Cerebral's dedication to quality.
You can't take a relatively small group of incident reports
and draw conclusions about our care."
But on that note,
there's two former senior employees
who are countering that,
saying the incident reports were monitored
by just a couple of people who had other responsibilities
and adding that leadership repeatedly pushed off
dealing with the issues,
with another employee saying she never heard back
about her reports.
So she just quit filing them.
And so now what we're seeing is Cerebral facing
possible legal consequences.
You've got the Drug Enforcement Administration,
the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission,
all investigating its practices.
We're also seeing major health insurers
and pharmacies cutting ties with the company.
But ultimately that is where we are with this story
and we're gonna have to wait to see what happens.
Does more information come out?
Is anyone held accountable?
Is any of the information out there wrong?
And I know that a lot of people are talking
about like monetary reparations and stuff like that.
But think of like the psychological harm
that some of these people might have gone through.
It's also part of the reason
I don't think I could ever publicly talk
about like a telehealth mental service
because I do think that it is helpful for some people.
I think more people need to go to a therapist and you know
telehealth services is very interesting,
but I could never promote it because unlike let's say,
with the sponsor today, you might love it.
You might hate it, but it'll never be connected
to like failing you during a mental health crisis.
The stakes are just too fucking high
for the level of anxiety that I live with.
The, for a lack of a better term,
the PTSD from that moment in time with BetterHelp.
But the way that I actually wanna end this story
is by passing the question off to you
because I'd love to know your thoughts,
specifically with what we're talking about with Cerebral,
as well as what are your thoughts about the promotion
of mental health services, both in general
as well as creator focused or anything?
Because maybe your opinion has changed
over the last four or five years,
because I mentioned one creator at the top,
but there's really a lot of them now.
Then in absolutely horrifying or exciting news,
depending on which side of the knife you're on,
nearly half of US murders go unsolved,
with the CBS news investigation finding that,
according to FBI statistics,
the murder clearance rate has fallen to its lowest point
in more than half a century.
But as it turns out, not all murders are created equal.
For example, in 2020, if the victim was white,
they were 30% more likely to solve that case
than if the victim was Hispanic
and 50% more likely if the victim was Black.
But also, the situation gets a little more muddy
when you look at places like Chicago.
But if you look at the Chicago Police Department,
it looks like they have a 44% clearance rate, but they have
cases that are called "exceptionally cleared cases".
And those can be considered closed,
even though a suspect is not prosecuted.
And even though exceptionally cleared cases
are supposed to be rare, in Chicago in 2020,
they made up 50% of closed cases.
Meaning without those,
they would only have a 24% clearance rate.
You have a 75% chance of getting away
with murder in Chicago and no it's 76%.
I'm trying to bump it up
so it's less scary.
So I guess, good luck out there.
Then, we had Epstein's number two, Ghislaine Maxwell
receiving a 20 year prison sentence yesterday,
which yes, is a decent chunk of time
but is notably a much more lenient sentence
than the DeFranco recommended
Everyone gets to throw rocks at her
until she stops moving sentence,
which yes, some would say is cruel and unusual.
But my argument is that what she did
was cruel and unusual
and that she helped Epstein recruit, groom, and abuse
underage girls.
Also speaking about people
that don't deserve to see the light a day,
let alone breathe the air we breathe,
R Kelly was just sentenced and will likely be in prison
for the rest of his life.
He, of course, was charged with racketeering
and violating an anti-sex trafficking law,
known as the Mann Act.
Back in September, he was convicted on all nine counts
and prosecutors were seeking a sentence
in excess of over 25 years.
And that's exactly what they got because just today,
he was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
And my recommendation to R Kelly is keep that chin up.
Don't think of this as you being locked in prison
for the rest of your life because you're 55.
Think of it as like the sequel to Trapped in the Closet.
Then after long, last NATO has formally invited
Sweden and Finland to join the Alliance,
with that notably happening
after Turkey dropped their objections.
Which is obviously a giant middle finger to Russia
but also as kind of a side story to this,
NATO's new strategic concept mentions China
for the first time.
Meaning that while it's always been a global Alliance
it's now also looking ahead
at what it may think will be its major rival,
rather than Russia,
with them having just released the full concept today.
But notably Europe is still incredibly important.
There is a growing US presence there.
As of today, the US has a permanent presence in Poland.
NATO is also expanding rapid response troops
to 300,000 from 45,000.
So, you know, fun times.
And actually on the note of Russia,
you had prime minister Boris Johnson today
saying that Putin would not have invaded Ukraine
if he were a woman.
- If Putin was a woman, which he obviously isn't.
But if he were, I really don't think he would've embarked
on a crazy macho war
of invasion and violence
in the way that he has.
If you want a perfect example of toxic masculinity,
it's what he's doing in Ukraine.
- Which many, whether they agree or disagree,
see is his very bold statement
about how men historically have made the world worse.
And we need to give women a chance
to ruin the world as well.
Or Boris Johnson just kind of let it slip
that he's been thinking about some
of that Putin-ussy. Oh my God.
I regretted it the moment it came outta my mouth.
The joke, not the Putin-ussy.
He just went from demented war criminal
with Ukrainian blood on his hands
to just a girl boss trying to slay democracy.
Oh, I'm gonna regret today's show,
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Then it turns out that the internet has been taking jabs
at Chris Pratt for things that aren't even accurate,
according to a new poll of Chris Pratts.
As you might have seen on social media
over the past few years,
people kind of love dunking on Chris Pratt.
Among other things joking that he is the worst Chris
among the Evanses, Hemsworths, and Pines.
A trend that turned into such a big thing,
we saw a number of celebrities speaking out
and defending Chris,
with many of them saying that the people making fun
have him wrong, they don't know
what he actually truly believes in his heart
or who he is as a person.
Like he's been hit for things like people
speculating and guessing that he's a Trump supporter.
People have also been critical of his alleged relationship
with Hillsong Church, as it has anti LGBTQ ties,
which is something I'll touch on in a minute.
So recently Chris told Men's Health
that he thinks some of the backlash against him
started when he gave a speech
at the MTV Movie Awards saying,
"God is real. God loves you.
God wants the best for you."
And explaining that he gets why this might have
rubbed people the wrong way.
But adding that, even though he said that
and has a relationship with God,
he doesn't consider himself religious,
saying, "maybe it was hubris for me
to stand up on the stage and say the things that I said.
I'm not sure I touched anybody.
Religion has been oppressive as fuck for a long time.
I didn't know that I would kind of become
the face of religion when really,
I'm not a religious person."
And adding that he thinks there's a difference
between adhering to certain customs and believing in God
and using God to control and harm people and justify hatred.
Also regarding Hillsong,
he is previously denied being tied to it.
And he, again, doubled down on this
in the Men's Health Interview,
saying, "I never went to Hillsong.
I've never actually been to Hillsong.
I don't know anyone from that church."
And saying he goes to Zoe Church, though not exclusively
but even that church is not without its issues.
As Men's Health explained,
it was founded by a pastor who produced a film
that equated sexual brokenness to same sex attraction.
And on top of that, other outlets have referred
to Zoe Church as a Hillsong affiliate.
But also notably in this interview,
it wasn't the only controversy that Pratt touched on.
Last year, he faced a ton of backlash
after writing a gushing Instagram post about his wife,
where he praised her for giving him
a gorgeous, healthy daughter,
with many feeling that was a slight
against his ex-wife, Anna Faris,
as a son that he shares with her
was born prematurely and experienced health issues
after his birth,
which is something that Pratt said upset him,
saying, "I'm like, that's fucked up.
My son's gonna read that one day.
He's nine and it's etched in digital stone.
It really fucking bothered me, dude.
I cried about it.
I was like, I hate that these blessings in my life
are, to people close to me, a real burden."
And so with this, I'd love to know your thoughts
because the reactions online, very split.
You look one place, you see comments like,
"The people defending Chris Pratt here completely wiped away
the context and timing of when he posted
that healthy daughter spiel.
It was purposely spiting Anna Faris.
and why people ate him up.
Not everything is a random cancel culture attack,
justified draggings happen."
But at the same time you have people saying things like,
"I've never seen any celebrity get more mindless hate
than Chris Pratt."
As well as, "I'm sorry.
But if your mind automatically went to
Chris Pratt saying his son was unhealthy,
then I hate to break it to you. You're the fucking problem."
Yeah. Main thing with this story,
which camp you landed in and why?
And then I wanna talk about our BAMF of the day
and it's unfortunate because a lot of the times,
we see people stand up and do an amazing thing,
it's in the face of something horrible.
And the story that we have today is
about that train derailment on Monday.
It was in rural Missouri.
The train was barreling at 90 miles per hour,
going through a passive crossing.
That's a section track that vehicles on a gravel road
can drive over.
But on Monday, according to investigators,
there were railroad crossing signs,
but there were no arms down, bells, or warning lights.
So a dump truck attempted to make the crossing
and the train collided with it,
derailing and killing four people
and injuring over a hundred more,
with a surviving passenger later recalling,
- [Passenger] It just seemed like a normal jolt,
but then I could definitely feel it come off the tracks
and then
it just kept going.
And then it started to tip.
- But amid this chaos, the train just so happened
to have Appleton Boy Scout Troops 73 on board.
They just spent 10 days trekking through the back country
in New Mexico,
There were on their way to Wisconsin.
And while there was 14 of them to be exact,
there was one boy scout standing out in particular.
And that was 15 year old Eli Skrypczak.
The smell of diesel hitting his nostrils,
the train car flipping onto its side,
sending Eli tumbling out of his seat,
onto the Boy Scouts across from him,
everything around them, becoming a projectile,
phones, AirPods, shoes, you have people panicking.
But Eli and his troop just fucking leap into action.
The reportedly first secure passengers,
who look like they might have spinal cord injuries.
Then they begin popping out emergency windows.
And for the ones that get stuck, break the glass
using their shirts for protection.
Then they start evacuating people,
carrying them out the window to safety with Eli recalling,
"I had to carry a couple kids in my arms, two at a time."
He then runs to the front of the train
to check for more injured people
but instead finds the driver of the truck.
He's hurt bad, bleeding.
He's gurgling, but still breathing.
Eli gives him water.
He tries to stop the bleeding, holding the man's hand,
telling him that help is on the way.
But by the time emergency crews arrive, the man's died.
But Eli doesn't see that as an end point.
He does not stop.
He rushes back to the crash site.
He begins pinballing between the fire trucks
and the train to resupply paramedics.
According to his father,
probably making around a hundred trips.
Also, he had other BAMF boy Scouts,
performing first aid on their own
seriously injured scout masters,
some hauling passengers on backboards to ambulances.
And while obviously this is a horrifying story,
it's a sad story,
it's in moments like these
where we see people stand up and stand out.
And that's exactly what we saw these young men do,
which is why they are
Badass Motherfuckers of the Day.
But y'all, ultimately, that is where that story
and today's show ends.
My name's Philip DeFranco.
You've just been filled in.
I need to go to sleep
and I'll see you tomorrow.